Opinions - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: The differences between Sanders and Clinton on incarceration

Mar. 13, 2016

The U.S. has the second-highest prison population rate, according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research and the World Prison Brief. While the U.S. touts itself as the “home of the free,” this seems contradictory to American values. Mass incarceration is a lose-lose problem: Those who are needlessly incarcerated lose the ability to integrate easily into society and the taxpayers are footing the bill for something that ultimately does not make us any safer. According to the University of Chicago Crime Lab, the costs for housing an inmate can be around $30,000 a year, but this does not take into account the social costs of high rates of incarceration.

OPINION | DARTS LAURELS

Darts & Laurels: 03/11/2016

Mar. 10, 2016

Getting back into the swing of things after a week off is usually extremely difficult. It’s hard to wake up for those 7:25 a.m. classes, pull all-nighters and eat Top Ramen after a week of sleeping in until noon, lounging by the pool or beach and eating home-cooked meals — that is, if you went home.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Internalized misogyny: common comments and why they’re bad

Mar. 10, 2016

We’re all guilty of it. Even a diehard feminist like myself has the occasional “ugh, get a load of her” moment when confronted with a scantily clad girl at a party. Internalized misogyny is the act of women elevating the status of men through demeaning the value of other women. At its most overt, internalized misogyny manifests as women openly tearing down other women. However, a far more subtle manifestation exists in the remarks women make day to day. It’s so subtle we may not even realize what we’re doing. In this column, I’m going to identify three very common internally misogynistic remarks I’ve heard — and made! — and explain the damage they do to feminism.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Exit stage right, exit stage left

Mar. 10, 2016

Recent polls indicate the U.K. is leaning closer toward exiting the European Union, and June 23, Britons may decide to do just that via national referendum. The odds seem to be against this. Britons overall have a long history of being supportive toward remaining part of the Union, but with the most recent Telegraph poll, indicating about 49 percent of Britons favor leaving, the U.K.’s status in Europe — and by extension, the world — appears tenuous.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: America's voting age should be raised

Mar. 9, 2016

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” —Winston Churchill

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Political parties aside, let's respect each other

Mar. 9, 2016

The news of presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., coming to UF has spread across the Swamp. Some are singing his praises, already planning on lining up at 5 a.m. for the opportunity to hear Sanders speak. Others, however, are not responding so kindly.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Books to counter anti-abortionists

Mar. 8, 2016

I was going to take time in this column to wow my potential reader with the concept of the “Library Bar”: a holy sanctuary of alcoholic beverages and dog-eared, good-smelling books, which would have been gloriously fun to write about.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Read a damn book and feed your mind

Mar. 8, 2016

Just like the stomach, the human brain needs nourishment.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: English is not the American national language

Mar. 8, 2016

"You want to be in America, A) You’d better be here legally or you’re out of here; B) When you’re here, let’s speak American.” — Sarah Palin

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Pro-life is pro-inconsistency

Mar. 8, 2016

If you step foot on UF’s campus today, there’s probably a 110-percent chance you’ll run into Created Equal, the pro-life organization that comes to Turlington Plaza and Plaza of the Americas every Spring with posters and grand screenings of graphic imagery. Thankfully, they couldn’t afford the giant screen this semester. We at the Alligator boiled down their message to one sentence: Human life begins at conception; therefore, abortion should be considered the illegal murder of innocent human beings.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: How hard is it to recycle a bottle?

Mar. 7, 2016

Sometime in elementary school or one summer day while visiting a zoo and being shown a cute and cuddly endangered animal, children have been taught how they can do their part to save the environment for the past two decades. All they have to do is throw trash in the correct containers. Unfortunately, it seems many forget this important lesson somewhere down the road.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Spring Break trips can offer so much more

Mar. 7, 2016

When I first mentioned my trip to El Salvador to friends, family and acquaintances, the overwhelming majority of responses followed a certain pattern. First came the raised eyebrows, then the inevitable question: “Is it a mission trip?” After my subsequent response that, no, I wasn’t about to build a church or spread the “good word,” came the warnings. I’ll catch the Zika virus. I’ll be kidnapped and held for ransom. I’ll get food poisoning. They ranged in degree of severity and types of consequences, but they all stemmed from a pervasive fear of “less-developed” countries despite supposed good intentions.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Our brothers' keepers - terrorism in Iraq and the media

Mar. 7, 2016

From Feb. 28 to Feb. 29, during UF’s first weekend of Spring Break, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre of 118 Iraqis through targeted suicide bombings in Baghdad. In fact, this past February alone, the Islamic State left 410 Iraqi civilians dead and 1,050 injured. While the attacks in Baghdad should remind us all of the tragedy in Paris last November, they are receiving substantially less attention.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Faux-personalism breeds a new populism

Mar. 6, 2016

"This perfect recycling tended to present itself, in the narcosis of the event, as a model for the rest: like American political life itself, and like the printed and transmitted images on which that life depended, this was a world with no half-life.” —Joan Didion, “Political Fictions”

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Delegates, superdelegates have you like, 'huh?'

Mar. 6, 2016

The 2016 election is everywhere and spreading fast — faster than Zika or even Kendrick Lamar’s new, surprise album “Untitled Unmastered.” It’s there on your news feed when you go to bed and is provided to you by your local newspaper — hey, what’s up? — when you wake up. From every which way, it’s an adrenaline shot of nothing but primaries, caucuses, debates and He Who Must Not Be Named.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Internet piracy has consequences

Feb. 25, 2016

Pirates have been around for more than 2,000 years. From the olive coasts of ancient Greece to the years of Viking dominance from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1050 and far beyond the classic bearded fellows of the Caribbean in the 18th century, the act of piracy is not new. Items of significant value will always have a market; it’s just that not everyone in the market will want to pay.

OPINION | DARTS LAURELS

Darts & Laurels: 02/26/2016

Feb. 25, 2016

Bear with us, fellow Gators: one more day. One more long, uncomfortably-balmy-considering-it’s-almost-March Friday afternoon, and we’ll all be free — at least for the next week.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: The opportunity to catch up over Spring Break

Feb. 25, 2016

I remember a conversation I had with a friend at the beginning of this semester. “I feel like before we know it, it’ll be time for midterms, and I’ll be behind,” she told me. I’ve always been suspicious and terrified of secretly being an optimist, but now, I’m almost certain I am. After she said that, I immediately thought to myself, “Nah, no way.”

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Don't get a pet unless you can care for it

Feb. 24, 2016

As college students, we deprive ourselves of a long list of things. Typically this list includes sleep, food and money, but there’s that one thing that especially seems to be missing, especially when we’re still getting accustomed to being away from home: a pet.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: The 2016 presidential election is bad reality TV

Feb. 24, 2016

Tonight, the next Republican debate will be held in Texas, marking the first time semi-rational candidates will be outnumbered by their knuckle-dragging counterparts. Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and an ever more ideologically unrecognizable Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will be on the stage with a real estate mogul, an unhinged brain surgeon and a Canadian constitutional lawyer. While this may sound like the setup to a bad joke, it is actually the alarming state of American politics.