Opinions - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Good Life students shouldn't visit Harn

Apr. 5, 2016

In many ways, art could be considered the most important subject. Art expresses ideas and thoughts where words cannot, which is why it transcends any language and stands as its own form of communication. Children learn to draw and use Play-Doh before they can write because art stands at the center of creativity. So it is important UF have an art museum where students can find a source of inspiration when words simply don’t suffice. It’s called the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: A problem with the NBA and media

Apr. 5, 2016

It is rare to find topics regarding morality and societal values in the news.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Teddy bears, gift baskets - state of the Palin

Apr. 5, 2016

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, life takes it all up a notch. Everyone knows this election season has not been unlike mint-flavored Oreos: an endless cycle of frustration and disappointment. Yet, last week we may have finally witnessed the craziest accusation of 2016.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Boys gone wild - white male privilege and Greek life

Apr. 5, 2016

Many want to write off Donald Trump as an aberration, a joke — what America isn’t. But I think The Donald’s success thus far within our "free market" and absurd election process,is a testimony to America’s values: deep-seated racism and misogyny. His popular support and misplaced recognition by erstwhile serious media outlets also evidences there are, indeed, many Americans who are little Donalds themselves.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: An overthinking epidemic in show business

Apr. 4, 2016

So, the season six finale of “The Walking Dead” happened Sunday night. Wasn’t it crazy? Wasn’t it intense? There’s so much to discuss about this series, in fact, that AMC Networks created a talk show centered around it called “Talking Dead.” You all probably know this, because the talk show has come on just after the most recent episode of “The Walking Dead” since the premiere of season two in 2011. AMC has copy-pasted this formula a few times: “Talking Saul” parallels “Better Call Saul” and “Talking Bad” paralleled “Breaking Bad.” The network’s got a knack for creating whole subcultures around these shows, which is really a double-edged sword.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Reread an old book, learn something about yourself

Apr. 4, 2016

In the season-one finale of “Master of None,” Aziz Ansari’s character, Dev, stands in the middle of a bookstore clutching a copy of “The Bell Jar.” Faced with a seemingly unending variety of life choices, each taking him on a drastically different path, Dev has exhausted every source of advice and looks to the Sylvia Plath novel as a last-ditch effort. Ansari’s voice can be heard reading some of Plath’s most painfully poignant lines: “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America.”

OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters to the Editor: Israel isn't an "apartheid state"

Apr. 4, 2016

I am deeply disturbed by Jordan MacKenzie’s column from Wednesday, “The meaning of the word ‘apartheid.’” First, I am always amazed when a Floridian criticizes Israel, given how Floridians live and work on land stolen by force from Native Americans who were “ethnically cleansed.”

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: How cheap are inexpensive jokes?

Apr. 4, 2016

Readers, I’d like you to know I was followed just yesterday by members of the #StopMichael movement. I could feel them lurking behind me for 10 minutes before I turned back to see the entirety of The Really Independent Florida Crocodile editorial staff. They satirized the daylights out of me. No dead horse went unbeaten that day.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Guest Column: Meatless Mondays - one small step

Apr. 4, 2016

Over the last decade, phrases like “go green” and “reduce your carbon footprint” have become firmly embedded in our lexicon, just as Earth Day has become an annual celebration. As an environmental advocate, this couldn’t make me happier. I’ve been inspired to see people switch to efficient light bulbs, recycle and use canvas shopping bags instead of paper or plastic. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they recycle on a regular basis compared to a quarter of Americans in the 1990s.

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: Summer class requirements need to be revisited

Apr. 3, 2016

With less than three weeks left of classes for the semester, some of you are getting ready to head home, backpack through Europe or earn some cash with a summer job. But there is an unfortunate group of Gators stuck in Gainesville (or attending another state university as a transient student) to fulfill the state requirement of Summer semester classes. A moment of silence, please.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: France's invisible protests, defending paradise

Apr. 3, 2016

They shut down the school Thursday. They shut it down the Thursday before, too, and the Thursday before that. They stack desks and chairs in front of the doors — canary yellow paint and pine, legs rounded like children’s handwriting. They scrawl signs in green and red and blue, in jaunty all-caps of acrylic. They tape a sign that says “Life’s an apple, the labor law’s a worm.” I think, “Life’s an apple,” and nudge the chairs from the handle.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Guest column: 'Shared Opportunity in Every Community'" April is National Fair Housing Month

Apr. 3, 2016

Forty-eight years ago this month, on April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the federal Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, handicap and family status. This important act also made it unlawful for a housing provider to make, print or publish any statement or advertisement that states a preference based on these classes.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Senate Republicans in best position

Apr. 3, 2016

If you’re like me, you enjoy seeing political “strategy” being played out.

OPINION | DARTS LAURELS

Darts & Laurels: 04/01/2016

Mar. 31, 2016

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, or so it seems, we students returned from Spring Break and told ourselves “we have plenty of time” until the end of the semester.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: The most unhealthy love triangle of 2016

Mar. 31, 2016

When asked on “Meet the Press“ if he would consider being another candidate’s running mate, Ohio governor and presidential hopeful John Kasich answered, “No! Under no circumstances…You pundits got to get out of Washington. You don’t understand me.”

OPINION | EDITORIALS

Editorial: All aboard (Trevor) Noah's ark

Mar. 30, 2016

Hello, world: This is your Alligator opinions editor, David, chiming in on Trevor Noah’s set. Now, some of you might be wondering why this editorial’s being written in the first-person rather than from the perspective of the entire staff. Well, most of us stayed put at the office to turn out this paper for you, so it’d be a little strange for me to represent an opinion we don’t all necessarily have. And secondly, as with any relationship, be it boyfriend and girlfriend, spouse and spouse, newspaper and audience — you know, the truest of romances — a little spontaneity and new energy can be revitalizing. So, without further ado: How about that Trevor Noah set?

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Will the superhero craze ever go away?

Mar. 30, 2016

"Iron Man” was a great film. Robert Downey Jr. gave us a new, strangely lovable superhero to devour popcorn to. Tony Stark was refreshing, the story was intriguing, the explosions were bigger and better and it reminded us just how awesome superhero movies can be.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Column: Iran's historic March 2016 elections

Mar. 30, 2016

Even after the successful nuclear deal, the U.S. relationship with Iran is still contentious. The leader of Iran still often leans on nationalistic and religious extremes in order to keep his control of the country. Meanwhile, the Western media focuses much of its coverage on controversial issues, such as the chants of “death to America,” the capture and eventual return of U.S. Navy officers after their boat broke down in Iranian waters and Iran’s continued missile testing. But the one thing Western media has been hesitant, or unwilling, to discuss is the set of elections that occurred in early March.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Guest Column: A look into tightening gun laws

Mar. 30, 2016

In the early hours of Monday, March 21, deputies and police in Gainesville were forced to shoot 16-year old Robert Dentmond after he refused to drop what was later found to be a replica assault rifle.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Guest Column: Updates from the Student Body president

Mar. 29, 2016

Hello, Gators!