Opinion | Editorials - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | EDITORIALS

What PBS Kids’ ‘Arthur’ can still teach us

Apr. 5, 2017

If you don’t remember the PBS Kids show “Arthur” from your late ’90s-early ’00s childhood, you might be more familiar with its surge into internet culture around fall 2016, in which the most ubiquitous image was Arthur’s curled fist. To the average person in their 20s, the mention of “Arthur” nowadays offers a chuckle and a flash of nostalgia. But if we take a look back and really think about the adventures of our favorite aardvark and his friends, we find that “Arthur” has a lot more to offer.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Memes and Dada: Making sense out of nonsense

Apr. 4, 2017

The Dada art movement, which began during World War I, was characterized by a rejection of all previous notions of art. Dada artists did not want to create something pretty or pay tribute to rich patrons, religious icons and classic myths. Dada’s goal was to portray nonsense and irrationality, as a commentary on capitalist society, the brewing war and rampant nationalism. One of the most famous works of Dada art is Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” which is a urinal with the name “R.Mutt” signed on the side. Dada was about rejecting past artistic conventions and challenging society, and one of the ways they did that was by purposefully elevating everyday objects into nonsensical art forms.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

OK, now when’s the Lil Wayne protest?

Apr. 3, 2017

On Monday night, a small group of UF students carried signs and yelled into megaphones in protest of Ben Shapiro’s appearance on campus. Remarkably outnumbered by students waiting in a snaking line to see the controversial conservative talking head, the protesters stood in the name of morality, for the sake of letting UF know that they wouldn’t stand for Shapiro’s anti-LGBTQ+ stances.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Privacy versus convenience in the information age

Apr. 2, 2017

In case you haven’t heard, Congress recently voted to allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to sell your browsing history to corporations. Not that they weren’t doing that already to a degree — anyone who has seen a targeted ad on Facebook will know this — but with the repeal of the 2016 Federal Communications Commission broadband privacy regulations, ISPs won’t need our permission to gather and sell sensitive private information. This includes things we kind of figured they were selling, like browsing history and app downloads, but also things we didn’t really want to think about them selling, like location, financial and medical data.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Why we keep falling back on remakes

Mar. 29, 2017

The top three movies in the box office last weekend were “Beauty and the Beast,” “Power Rangers” and “Kong: Skull Island.” What do they all have in common? They’re all reboots, remakes or sequels, capitalizing on the previous fame and success of their predecessors. Perhaps that’s a very cynical way to view it, but the fact is, Hollywood realized people love familiar things and are nostalgic, and that both these things mean very easy money.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

What freedom of speech really means

Mar. 28, 2017

It’s a popular pastime nowadays to rant about how the U.S. is infringing upon freedom of speech. Conservatives specifically will talk about how oppressed their freedom of speech is because they feel like they cannot express their views without people criticizing them. What a lot of people fail to realize is that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to speak without repercussion: It means that the government cannot censor or restrain you. It does not mean people can’t criticize you, that your workplace cannot find your speech or actions inappropriate or that what you say won’t be subject to negative social repercussions. You have the freedom to say what you want, without the government regulating you; other people, press, companies, celebrities and social media, however, have the freedom to react.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

The terrorism Trump doesn’t see

Mar. 27, 2017

Two days before a knife-wielding assailant killed three people and injured 40 in an attack outside the houses of Parliament, a second act of terrorism went largely under the radar — and it happened in the heart of the US.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Let them play golf

Mar. 26, 2017

We’re all familiar with the infamous Marie Antoinette line, “Let them eat cake,” but for those not familiar with the story, it goes something like this: While lounging on cushions in a lavishly decorated French Rococo parlor room, the then-queen of France was approached by an adviser who exclaimed that the common people of France had no bread to eat. To that, Marie Antoinette replied with, “Let them eat cake!”

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Stop trying to turn international attacks into personal ones

Mar. 22, 2017

A gruesome attack happened in London on Wednesday, leaving five dead and dozens more injured. It is a horrible, tragic event that occurred, despite increased security measures throughout Europe in the recent years. There’s a lot to take in. In the past two or three years, Europe has been struck by frequent terror attacks. The strategy behind this one — using a vehicle and then a knife to attack law enforcement officers — is described by the British security service as a “marauding attack,” something they have been preparing for. The British officers were able to stop the attacker, and Scotland Yard is now working on protecting the city as well as investigating the attack as a whole.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

To the perfectionists: it’s okay to take a break

Mar. 21, 2017

It’s that time of the semester that makes or breaks us. Final projects are piling up, midterm grades are in — final exams around the corner. It’s that lull before the storm; just a few weeks from finals, just a few weeks from the ultimate deadlines, just a few weeks before we can’t drop a class, just a few weeks before we register for classes. We were pulled into a sense of false security over Spring Break, but now it’s time to kick ourselves into action.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Spend less on walls, more on education

Mar. 20, 2017

The proposed Trump budget is not new news anymore, it’s been out for about a week now. There’s been plenty of debate — backlash, support, a satire column that was accidentally retweeted by White House Officials. Now, it comes as no surprise that we’re not exactly fans of this budget, but we’re going to address a common criticism that those who do support the budget cuts often bring up: How is the government going to get all this money to support all these programs that were cut?

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Keep PBS funding for the kids

Mar. 19, 2017

If you grew up with the basic cable package while the rest of your kindergarten classmates were watching “SpongeBob SquarePants,” you tuned into shows like “Arthur,” “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on your local PBS station. This was before the days of Netflix and Amazon Prime, and if your parents didn’t have one of those fancy satellite dishes, then you were limited to just a handful of basic channels, and your days of television included Barney the dinosaur and “Dragon Tales.” If you’re one of those people, we hope you’re smiling fondly. Even if you were fortunate to have Playhouse Disney or Nickelodeon, you’ve probably at least seen some of the old PBS Kids shows.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

A message to the Student Body

Mar. 15, 2017

We’ve received some complaints saying we as a newspaper opinions section have been too ambivalent. This was in regards to Wednesday’s editorial, which was intended to view the Smith Meyers situation at a macro-scale. We wanted to highlight the domination

OPINION | EDITORIALS

A campus divided over a sloppy night

Mar. 14, 2017

If there’s anything we have learned from the past few days, it’s that when there’s a hot-button issue on campus, boy oh boy do people get contentious about it. But what’s funny is what we consider a hot-button issue. Nazi on campus? Racial slurs and vandalism of UF buildings? A one-party monopolization of Student Government elections? The occasional defensive comments on a column or editorial, one or two letters to the editor, but nothing close to what we’ve been seeing.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Don’t let the White House control the narrative

Mar. 13, 2017

In case you haven’t heard, there might be cameras in your microwave detecting your every move. That’s a claim made by good old Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, now infamous for using the term “alternative facts” to describe lies. So really, we shouldn’t be that surprised that her most recent stint involves a technology that doesn’t exist to defend a claim that has no basis.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Smith Meyers needs to be held accountable

Mar. 12, 2017

UF student made national news over Spring Break.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Trump’s address to Congress: Are we being cautiously optimistic or too lenient?

Mar. 1, 2017

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gave his first address to Congress. For one of the first times, our president sounded presidential. Reports from all across the media say this was the calmest and most professional our president has been since his inauguration. Some people are praising him for this.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Should we be concerned with cloud computing?

Feb. 28, 2017

On Tuesday afternoon, Canvas was down. We realized this quickly, frantically taking to Facebook to make sure our computers weren’t just acting up and asking others about assignment information. This problem was not localized to e-learning, however, nor was UF’s spotty Wi-Fi to blame. This stemmed from something much more widespread, with websites all over the internet losing functionality, ranging from small features not working to the whole site or app being down.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

The purpose of art

Feb. 27, 2017

We will take a bit of an esoteric approach today, instead of launching into a commentary on the Oscar picks. We’re sure the events of the Oscars are plastered all across social media. There’s a lot we could talk about: the political overtones of the night, the

OPINION | EDITORIALS

We must continue to fight hate crimes

Feb. 26, 2017

Last week in Kansas, three men were shot — one killed — by a shooter who was tossing ethnic slurs at two of the men, who were from India (the third had jumped in to help). Last Friday, near the Tampa area, a prayer-hall in the Islamic Society of New Tampa was intentionally set on fire. That’s just in the last week.