OPINION
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COLUMNS
What ever happened to Michael Sam?
Feb. 8, 2015I was watching the NFL Draft in May when history was made.
Opinion | Columns
OPINION
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COLUMNS
New single-sex restroom bill in Florida House is discriminatory
Feb. 8, 2015In the Florida House last week, a bill was manufactured by Republican Frank Artiles that gives a whole new meaning to discrimination. HB 583, entitled “Single-Sex Public Facilities,” would make it so a person must use a public facility that aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
How much difference will advances in science make?
Feb. 8, 2015Life is full of unexpected happenings, and many people have been quoted at the end of their lives about the things they regret not doing. Wouldn’t you love to know how much life we have left? It’s amazing — or terrifying, depending on where you stand — that science is actually getting close to being able to determine how long each of us will live.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Don’t kick out those semi-welcome guests
Feb. 5, 2015On “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” comedian J.B. Smoove plays Leon Black, the brother of Loretta Black, a woman who ends up moving in with Larry David in Los Angeles after being displaced from New Orleans by a hurricane. Despite already having a home in L.A. — not to mention not even being formally invited into Larry’s house — Leon moves in, and quickly becomes a key player in Larry’s antics. When Loretta finally moves out, Larry gestures to Leon, “I guess this means you’ll be…” obviously meaning to ask him to leave as well. When Leon quickly replies that he’ll be “Going upstairs to eat this f****** Chinese food,” pausing to take a sip of soda, “in my f****** room,” Larry can’t even muster the energy to debate the point.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Bruce Jenner’s gender isn't our business
Feb. 5, 2015I was at the grocery store on Tuesday waiting to pay for my buy-one-get-one Cheez-Its when some magazine headlines caught my eye. The cash register line was a little long, so I had some time to look around at the multiple magazines covering the same subject: Bruce Jenner.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
The growing problem of male body image
Feb. 5, 2015Last year, I overheard a conversation between two men at the gym. “Yeah, if I didn’t have class I’d lift for two hours in the morning, do cardio at lunch and then do two hours of core at night.” I turned around, curious to see what kind of person would ever want to do that. What I saw didn’t seem to be a person at all, so much as a rippling ball of hypervascularized muscle. His arms were so huge that they hung limply like a T. rex’s, and his legs seemed to buckle under his frame. If I didn’t have my glasses on, I probably would have mistaken him for The Thing.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
In education debate, Catholic schools win
Feb. 4, 2015Debates revolving around education are always contentious. This issue, unlike other high-profile issues of our time, induces strong emotional responses. For some reason, parents’ choices are solely limited to either pro-school choice, pro-teacher, pro-public schools or pro-charter schools. What this narrow and emotional debate leaves out is the role that religious schools, Catholic schools in particular, play in our society.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Meninism: a movement of misogyny and contradiction that sets back women’s rights
Feb. 3, 2015As issues concerning feminism become increasingly popular and hotly debated, a faction of its opponents attempt to match that growth and diminish feminism’s lasting effect. The men’s rights movement — or meninists, as they so cutely call themselves — represents the loudest organized voices against feminism, bemoaning a neglect of men they believe remains unaddressed. At best, this movement is a redundant protest of issues that feminism already seeks to address. At worst, meninists are making a misogynistic mockery of true activism and misguidedly placing blame.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Experimenting with the effectiveness of dreamcatchers
Feb. 3, 2015I ate some salad, double-checked my alarm — set for every three hours — closed my eyes and tried to worry about upcoming exams. I wasn’t asking for a next-day headache; I wanted to prove dream catchers couldn’t stop bad dreams.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Hip-Hop: the Grammy’s black sheep
Feb. 2, 2015As the Staples Center sets up to host the 57th Grammy Awards, the public continues to tear down the show for its nominations in the rap categories. The criticism primarily stems from the decision to include Iggy Azalea’s “The New Classic” as a nominee for Best Rap Album. Iggy Azalea has been accused of profiting off the gentrification of hip-hop culture by a number of hip-hop-based media outlets. She has replied to most accusations hurled her way with social media.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Bears shouldn’t be punished for problems with Fla. development
Feb. 2, 2015In the midst of public safety concerns and complaints, Florida’s ban on black bear hunting might be lifted for the first time in two decades. Several reported bear attacks and an increase in bear sightings have prompted the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission to introduce the possibility of a bear-hunting season. The commission will begin discussing the issue Wednesday.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Collaboration between arts and sciences essential for new persectives, expressions
Feb. 2, 2015This Saturday, I attended the 2015 Creativity in the Arts and Sciences Event. Created by the UF Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science for Life program and the UF College of the Arts, CASE was a daylong exploration of projects created out of collaboration between UF’s best science geeks and artsy types. It was wonderful.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Headscarf or not, media focus misplaced
Feb. 1, 2015Last week President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama made a stop in Saudi Arabia to pay their respects to the late king and meet the country’s new ruler.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Famous athletes should respect media, not shun it
Feb. 1, 2015“I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Making the first time more comfortable
Jan. 29, 2015It’s Friday night and you’re at Midtown. A few drinks already in your system, you lock eyes with someone across the bar. Talking leads to dancing, which leads to making out, which leads to inviting them back to your place.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Google Fiber is the Internet provider of the future
Jan. 29, 2015Generally, the announcement that a new Internet service and cable provider is moving into your hometown isn’t big news, but when that provider is Google, people get excited. Why would anyone do a happy dance over the tech giant creating a new Internet service in your city?
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Republican Presidential Hopefuls are Worrying
Jan. 28, 2015Last weekend, Republican Party presidential hopefuls flocked to Rep. Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit — if there’s “freedom” in the name, it has to be right, good and conservative — to court the first-in-the-nation caucus state. I found many aspects of this forum, as well as some positions of the GOP hopefuls in general, worrying.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Abstraction: Explaining science layer by layer
Jan. 27, 2015I was eating lunch last week and heard, “It weighs 8 grams.” My eardrum sent a text to the memory library, forcing an intern to check Catalog Random. The intern hunted the shelves, returning to the master librarian red-faced and wheezing. “Weight is 8 grams times 9.8 m/s2,” the intern gasped, “but how do we explain?” To illuminate complex ideas, I look to a computer science concept called abstraction.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Undocumented immigrants deserve licenses
Jan. 27, 2015Any time I hear news regarding immigration policy in Arizona, I hold my breath. First, they passed a bill allowing police officers to demand documentation from people who prompt “reasonable suspicion” of being in the country illegally. Then, they banned Latino literature and ethnic studies from the classroom because it supposedly fosters racial resentment — as if banning an entire culture from the classroom doesn’t kindle any resentment. Thursday, however, I exhaled a sigh of relief while reading about Arizona in The New York Times. U.S. District Judge David Campbell issued a permanent injunction requiring the state to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants who have been deferred from deportation under President Obama’s DREAM Act.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
For-profit colleges need to be held accountable
Jan. 26, 2015If you’ve ever watched daytime television, you would probably recognize this annoying commercial: A young man standing in a parking lot yells at you for sitting on the couch and wasting your life. After a few minutes of making you feel ashamed of your situation, he gives you hope by telling you it isn’t too late to finish your degree and land your dream career. All you have to do is make a simple phone call.
