Be warned, dear reader. This editorial contains many spoilers for Marvel’s latest movie, “Dr. Strange.”
As an educational institution, UF pursues justified, true beliefs. We strive to get as close to the truth as possible. To do this, we employ a healthy dose of rational skepticism; we critically analyze all claims, and every theory must contain an element of falsifiability.
With the election slowly fading back into our national collective memory, we feel it necessary to spur a discussion about our democracy. We wish to remind our readers that democracy is more complex than formal electoral processes. It is a complex and informal grid of unwritten, collective ideologies smashing together, breaking apart and reforming anew. When Donald Trump won, it really symbolized a total breakdown of a political machine — similar to the Brexit vote. We now have the opportunity to rebuild it. We can rebuild it as a total fascist movement or we can rebuild it with a fresh start.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
You’re sitting in the driver’s seat of your ol’ beat-up Chevy, parked at the edge of the hill overlooking the city. He’s looking as gorgeous as ever, illuminated by the twinkling lights of the town. “The city looks beautiful from here,” you whisper to him “but not as beautiful as you.” You lean in for the kiss, and he meets you there. “I’ve never done this before,” he giggles nervously as he crawls into the back seat. “Yeah, me neither,” you whisper to yourself as you turn around and look at him. He’s smiling, waving one finger your way, silently telling you to join him. You’re about to crawl back there, but you spot a copy of the Alligator on your dashboard. “Not tonight,” you say to the guy you love, who’s been waiting a whole year for this moment. “I’ve got to read…
While we do live in an age of nostalgia, dear reader, there are some points of our childhoods that are best left untouched. If you’re a grown man and you bring a glove to a baseball game, we need to talk. If you put ketchup on your eggs, perhaps it would be best not to eat eggs in the first place. Most notably, if you dip your pizza into ranch dressing, please go find a hole somewhere on campus — there are plenty with the construction going on — and sit in it until you are ready to recognize the error of your ways.
On Monday, our editorial covered a very touchy topic. We decided to evaluate how a beloved TV show, “Bob’s Burgers,” was able to create a genuinely funny autistic character. It flirted with notions of comedic permissibility and how to identify that thin line between funny and disrespectful.
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges a humorist must face is making jokes on topics that are extremely personal. In times of heightened sensitivity, this challenge only becomes more difficult. Although jokes about things people can’t change are always dangerous territory for comedians, there’s one show on television right now that confronts autism in a way that is delicate, respectful and downright hilarious.
You can’t believe you’re getting your first tattoo. It’s the one you’ve always thought about getting. The infinity sign with Chinese characters in one loop and barbed wire in the other. “All right, that about does it,” the artist says as he reaches to get a mirror. He holds up the mirror behind you, and you can’t believe what you’re going to have to live with for the rest of your life. It’s not the infinity sign with Chinese characters and barbed wire in it. It’s just two words and an ampersand in between. Every time you take your shirt off and someone’s behind you, they’ll politely pretend to ignore the tattoo big with bold lettering that reads…
There used to be a time when movie rental stores roamed free across this vast land. Blockbuster would graze happily on its nourishing customer base. Rival species Hollywood Video would gladly pick up the scraps.
It’s no secret to those of us in Gainesville that Cox Communications sucks. But elsewhere in the U.S., there are plenty of service options. If you don’t like watching TV while it’s raining outside, you can opt with DirecTV (owned by AT&T). If you have no regard for your bandwidth, Sling TV might be for you. If you’re a masochist who likes being treated like s--- by customer service reps, Dish Network is right up your alley.
What great nation has lasted an eternity? Some empires come to mind when we try to answer this question. The Roman Empire lasted roughly 507 years. While Judaism is roughly 2,500 years old, the Jewish nation has come and gone many times over the course of that history. This year, our democracy in America rejoiced in its 240th birthday.
You’ve been studying all week. Late nights in the library. Early mornings with the study group. You’ve never felt more prepared for an exam in your life. Now, here you are, sitting in the exam room with your blue book in front of you. “I’m ready for this,” you think to yourself as the teaching assistants pass out the exams. Once they’ve all been dispersed, you read the first question on the exam. But it’s not really a question. You raise your hand, and a TA walks over. “Is this a joke?” you ask. The TA shrugs, mutters “good luck,” and walks away. You glance back down at the exam, hoping it’s changed. It isn’t. Staring right back at you are 35 questions, each with four multiple choice answers, each question and each answer reading nothing but…
In history, there have been scientific discoveries responsible for the general well-being of the human race. Moreover, many of those discoveries were found by accident. In 1928, Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming was doing work trying to rid the world of the super inconvenient staph infection. When he left his dirty dishes out over the weekend in his laboratory, an unfamiliar fungus covered them. That fungus, Fleming learned, killed all surrounding bacteria. Thus, penicillin was discovered, or invented, forever changing the world of medicine. If that doesn’t convince you that some of the most amazing scientific projects succeeded by accident, the fact that Viagra was originally created to combat minor chest pains should.
There is a religious private school, somewhere out there in this great big world, that teaches young Muslim women that it is morally permissible for men to strike their wives, to kill gay people and that Jews and Christians upset Allah. If we were to ask you where you think such a school was situated, what would you say? Iraq? Pakistan? Iran?
In Steven Spielberg’s classic “Minority Report,” three mutants predict murders before they happen. In a futuristic Washington, D.C., a special division of police are responsible for stopping and apprehending murderers before they even commit the act. If you haven’t seen it, and have two hours and 26 minutes to burn sometime in the very near future, do yourself a favor and watch it.
You’re sitting in lecture, listening to your professor drone on about some topic you won’t even be tested on. You feel your eyelids getting heavier and heavier. Your head drops down. Reflexively, your body jerks back and your eyelids shoot open. “Everything OK?” your friend next to you whispers. “Barts and Royals,” you deliriously mumble back. “Huh? Whatever, dude,” she says before glancing down at her notes. You lull slowly back to sleep, and as you’re drooling on your desk, you have a dream about…
Do you remember, dear reader, sitting in a Drug Abuse Resistance Education class in elementary school, taking that solemn and sacred vow to never touch drugs? We do. Statistically, most of you have broken that oath. It’s no secret that a sizable portion of the college demographic has experimented with cannabis in one of its many forms.
Four ape-like creatures sat at the base of a tree in their rainforest habitat. They ate bananas, scratched their hindquarters, picked bugs out of one another’s hair and worried very little about the pressures of survival. Life was simple.
Solutions by The State News
