Opinion | Columns - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Reflecting on the Iran nuclear deal as a young Marine veteran

Aug. 30, 2015

In the summer of 2015, following my first year of law school at IU-Bloomington, I was fortunate enough to be selected for an internship in Israel with Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center. As a Marine Corps veteran, my unit confronted terrorists in Afghanistan, and when I returned home, I learned about groups that fight terrorism in different ways. Shurat HaDin is a nongovernmental Israeli organization with the stated mission of bankrupting terror — one lawsuit at a time.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Don’t reduce tragedy to a Facebook post

Aug. 27, 2015

Last week, I logged onto Facebook after a summer of neglect. I was greeted with a familiar but troubling sight: Someone had posted an article about a scorned boyfriend throwing acid in his girlfriend’s face. While that was the first I had heard of that particular story, I have seen similar stories posted on Facebook many times before. The Texas mother who drowned her children in a pool; the Massachusetts teacher who was murdered by a student; the Tennessee couple who were raped and beaten; all were equally tragic stories that had found their way into my life because of a shared Facebook post.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Educational entitlement: dumb, lazy and problematic

Aug. 27, 2015

College can be a pretty weird place. Jam any number of young adults with raging libidos into a high-stress environment, and all kinds of crazy stuff will go down. But hand those same high-strung and impassioned people a whopping sense of entitlement and unshakable certainty in their own morals? Things will get surreal.

OPINION | COLUMNS

College: Time to discover your sexual identity

Aug. 27, 2015

Welcome back for the Fall semester, Gators! I hope that everyone had a good first week back and is re-acclimating to the humidity, the homework and The Gator Nation.

OPINION | COLUMNS

How to fall off the face of the Earth and like it

Aug. 25, 2015

I can recall my social media ‘firsts’ as easily as I could my major life events: first cryptically spelled Facebook status, first grotesquely filtered Instagram, first angsty song lyric quoted on Twitter. It becomes almost nostalgic, recalling a time when social media was new and each post brought me one step closer to perfecting my skillfully crafted online persona. Yet my most profound ‘first’ was when I gave it all up.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Start of school year means new resolutions, new introductions

Aug. 25, 2015

Happy Hump Day fellow Gators!

OPINION | COLUMNS

Mediocre Advice: Finding love in college

Aug. 24, 2015

Happy Tuesday to all my Random Randys and Anonymous Amys, and welcome to Mediocre Advice. This article is a reboot of Ariel Barnes’ own Mediocre Advice column, which was last published during my freshman year back in the salad days of 2012. Like the triumphant phoenix rising from its own ashes, your weekly inquiries will once again be answered with extremely average and somewhat distorted advice; you might even say the advice offered here could be considered prosaic, middling or any other acceptable synonym for mediocre.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The media’s coverage of Trump is detrimental

Aug. 23, 2015

Thus far, the 2016 presidential election has been the most opulent and luxurious race for the White House in recent memory. The primary reason for this has been the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. The billionaire’s no-holds-barred sound bites and — oddly enough — every-man attitude have rallied many in both the middle and the right to his cause.

OPINION | COLUMNS

A Farewell to Summer and Some Last Pieces of Advice

Aug. 5, 2015

So we’ve hit a lot of topics here. This was a new endeavor for me and I am glad to have had some of you along for the ride. Since this is my last column I thought I would do a little recap of some of the highlights from this summer. It was my intention with this column to provide automotive advice for college students. I may have missed the mark at some points, but I would like to leave you with a few nuggets that may at least get you through the rest of your college career.

OPINION | COLUMNS

A final goodbye, thank you to my Alligator family

By Melissa Mihm | Aug. 5, 2015

When I first got to UF, I struggled to find a group of friends. I had friends speckled throughout Gainesville, but I always felt like I was lacking that family away from family. I guess you could say, I eventually gave up.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Paynes Prairie: A breathtaking site that should remain state property

Aug. 5, 2015

In storytelling, it is a common occurrence for the protagonist to gain insight or make a personal breakthrough by retreating to nature.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Conservatives taking on a war against abortion

Aug. 3, 2015

Taking the war on women to the next step, conservatives are pushing for low-income women to be denied healthcare.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Donald Trump’s the worst, yet he’s the favorite?

July 29, 2015

Dear readers, we can all agree that Donald Trump is the worst, right? I don’t ask that question as if it’s a matter of relativity, or in a “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” type of way: Is it not universally accepted that Donald Trump makes Kim Jong-un look like a reasonable human being in comparison? At least Kim acts within the established parameters for how a statesman ought to behave in North Korea (that is to say, like a petulant child). No such boundaries exist for the Trump.

OPINION | COLUMNS

How to detail your car and tips for keeping it clean so it lasts longer

July 29, 2015

Just like with anything else you own, if you take care of your car it will look newer longer and its aesthetics will last longer. Here is a simple list of ways to detail your car and tips for keeping it looking fresh.

OPINION | COLUMNS

MTV Documentary addresses white privilege

July 27, 2015

When I first heard about MTV’s documentary about being white in America, I was skeptical of how well the issue would be handled. But Jose Antonio Vargas’ “White People” pleasantly surprised me, spurring conversations that need to happen more often.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Guest Column: Access Party working to give students the change they voted for in Spring elections

July 27, 2015

The Student Body demanded change in the Spring election.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Ambiguity as foreign policy can result in trouble

July 22, 2015

In the early 2000s, the refrain “We will not negotiate with terrorists” proved popular among conservatives. With the nation still reeling from the pain of the Sept. 11 attacks — and our military then deeply embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan — this oft-repeated mantra served no purpose other than to undermine the multitude of criticisms lobbied against President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.”

OPINION | COLUMNS

Who wants to hack your car? I don’t know, but I’d rather not give them the option

July 22, 2015

I’ve always feared a "Minority Report" situation. You know, when Tom Cruise tries to make a run for it, but the bad guys are in the government so they take control of his car? They lock him inside his own car, lock all the controls and set the car to return to police headquarters. Tom is forced to kick out a window and huff it on foot in traffic.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The sad state of the Democratic primary race

July 20, 2015

In the Democratic primary race, as of today, there’s Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and everyone else. While the coverage of Sanders’ campaign is exciting, what he doesn’t have is the idolization that a lot of people have for Clinton. Her supporters are willing to look past her flaws and assume good intentions. No amount of argument will convince them there’s a possibility the emails that we should be most concerned about were not released to the State Department.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Dealerships are cool, but I'd rather spend an afternoon in a junkyard

July 15, 2015

Some enjoy the occasional browsing of a dealership filled with straight, organized lines of shiny new cars with no more than 10 miles on the odometer, and I have to say I enjoy it as well.