In the early hours of Monday, March 21, deputies and police in Gainesville were forced to shoot 16-year old Robert Dentmond after he refused to drop what was later found to be a replica assault rifle.
Hello, Gators!
The European “explorers” who stumbled upon the Western Cape of South Africa and proceeded to murder the region’s indigenous knew they had found their promised land. After all, why should a land and its resources belong to its native inhabitants?
It was only a matter of time until Trump and Cruz’s wives were dragged into this bizarre, machismo-fueled Republican primary race. In an election campaign seemingly more concerned with how big Trump’s “hands” are than with actual political discourse, no one’s shocked these potential first ladies have been reduced to nothing more than weapons — but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling.
Yes, I am alive. Despite my hilariously controversial column last week, I emerged from the backlash unscathed. I don’t take the criticism personally — I find it hard to take offense from peasants. Despite this, the folks who responded negatively were aggressive. I don’t feel comfortable walking through campus anymore; I’m afraid I’ll be assaulted by a radical follower of the #StopMichael movement. So, I’ve shaved my beard and placed a paper bag over my head to hide from potential assassins.
College is already hard enough as it is. Why would you even think about something like a student credit card to add to the number of things you have to be responsible for? Well, just like your degree will be a part of you long after you graduate, so will your credit score. A student credit card can be your ticket to graduating with an excellent credit score, which will leave you with plenty of handy financial options.
It’s not enough to have representation — LGBTQ+ characters need to be alive and acknowledged, too. This seems logical, but it’s clearly not practiced in the media, which regularly practices tokenism: including a character of a certain identity but then not going anywhere with it. For example, in the recent Deadpool movie, Deadpool’s bisexual identity was not explicitly acknowledged. While it’s great those who follow the comics know he’s bisexual, most people had no idea, so it’s difficult to say this “counts” in terms of representation. It’s similar to how any movie Thor is in does not count as representation of women, even though Marvel Entertainment writer Jason Aaron made the new comic-book Thor a woman as of fall 2014. Representation in the media still leaves much to be desired.
A French girl studying to become a translator told me, “It’s easier to do some things in a foreign language, and it’s harder to do other things. It’s harder to be intimate, and it’s easier to get men.” In German and English, she didn’t have a pre-constructed barrier against men; she was less inhibited because she didn’t have the habit of inhibition. “I’ve always had to break up in English,” I told her, “but I sure do get pretty when I stop speaking it.” We laughed and clinked our beers.
This month marks the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Since its passage in 2010, more than 20 million people have signed up for affordable health care through healthcare.gov.
Obesity in the U.S. is a problem. At a whopping 35 percent of U.S adults, it may even be an epidemic. While the severity of this phenomenon is undeniable, there’s a certain attitude commonly adopted toward obese people that bothers me. “Why don’t they just EAT less?” a friend once asked me, “or, like, not eat garbage? Try a salad!” She said this while pushing a grocery cart full of $3 strawberries and $5 organic lettuce.
"Aw Jesus, here too?” — was essentially my reaction to news that, Sunday night, nine officers opened fire on Robert Dentmond, a 16-year-old holding a replica rifle. Dentmond died shortly thereafter — after all, nine people shot at him.
Dear President Fuchs,
With the men’s NCAA basketball tournament underway and March Madness in full swing, I thought I’d remind you if your bracket isn’t ruined by now, it will be. You know that one guy you’re friends with on Facebook who feels like he has to mention how his bracket is in the 95th percentile on ESPN.com? Yeah, his bracket is screwed as well. All of ours are.
West University Avenue provides us UF students with an outlet from being constantly contained on campus. Restaurants serve as alternatives to what many call “on-campus dining.” Some students make their ways to University Avenue on the weekends to relieve the stress the everyday weekday grind brings. More than anything, University Avenue is significant because it’s a walking distance escape from school, opportune for fleeting moments. But it could use some improvements, and some only require reprogramming and little bit of paint.
In 1854, U.S. diplomats wrote to Secretary of State William Marcy in the Ostend Manifesto that the U.S. should try to either purchase Cuba from Spain or declare war on Spain and seize Cuba. Beginning with the tenure of Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, the U.S. tried to take possession of Cuba to extend economic control over the region and expand U.S. slave territory. As Adams declared, the acquisition of Cuba was “an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union.”
The Obama administration’s foreign policy struggle with the Middle East — concerning a chaotic Libya, Saudi airstrikes and the blowback of incessant drone strikes (not you, Iran nuclear deal; keep on keeping on) — took a back seat this week to the so-far successful and front-page detente with Castro. So much so, in fact, the president’s daughters will be spending their Spring Break in Cuba.
To many, the thought of a school yearbook connotes images of mediocre Photoshop skills, pubescent faces on a blue background and sensationalized editorials about irrelevant varsity teams. For me, simply looking at one brings up long suppressed anxieties about collecting scrawled signatures and maintaining subjective relevancy. Yet regardless of whether those old middle and high school yearbooks instill angst or nostalgia, we can’t deny their ability to reflect the past in shocking (and often uncomfortable) clarity.
I’m in a state of emotional distress. Let’s see how this goes.
"There is no sexual relation.”
According to its website, Accent Speakers Bureau, the Student Government group that brings speakers to campus, “strives to bring controversial and influential speakers to the university, with the intent of further educating the student body, outside of the classroom, on current hot topics and controversies.” If this is the group’s mission statement, Accent is clearly not doing its job.
Solutions by The State News
