Opinion
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Vinyl made heroic comeback last year
Jan. 13, 2015Vinyl was the laughingstock of the music industry ever since sales of compact discs — CDs — took off in the late 1990s. The digital music format seemed to sound as good, if not better, than its analog counterparts. Tapes sounded terrible, and vinyl records just took up too much damn space. There was no way you were going to fit those things in your car or your Walkman.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
College football: not so happily ever after
Jan. 13, 2015On Jan. 6, 2013, I nearly hit a naked man with my car.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Time to rethink your dream job
Jan. 13, 2015I don’t care if you identify primarily as an engineer, artist, janitor, fireman, exotic dancer, librarian, lawyer, CIA agent or whatever your secret dream job may be. I’m going to convince you to start your own company this semester.
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Response to previous letter urging UF to cut ties with anti-Palestinian groups
Jan. 13, 2015On the very day that political cartoonists in France were murdered by Islamic radicals simply for exercising their right to freedom of speech, Students for Justice in Palestine member Amanda Nelson wrote an opinion piece urging the boycott of the only free country, according to Freedom House’s rankings, in the Middle East: Israel. Aside from her absolute lack of empirical evidence for any of the allegations she hurls at Israel, she provides no proof whatsoever that boycotting companies such as Elbit Systems or Caterpillar will have any sort of tangible, positive effect on even one Palestinian-Arab.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Don’t pick that Venus flytrap
Jan. 12, 2015The nature-walk mantra “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints” has not only ecological implications but political and legal ones as well.
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Keep Amendment 1 focused on conservation
Jan. 12, 2015Many of us may have been disappointed by the results of last fall’s gubernatorial election, but few could complain about the passage of Amendment 1 by an overwhelming 74 percent of voters.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Social progress shown through Golden Globes
Jan. 12, 2015Happy New Year! I hope everyone had an awesome holiday season. It’s great to be back and great to be writing again, although 2015 somehow already feels stressful. The first week of classes was a blur of expensive textbooks and schedule shuffling, but an event this past weekend helped to start my new year off with a bang: the 2015 Golden Globes.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
The state of the union and security breaches
Jan. 12, 2015It’s the week leading up to President Barack Obama’s next-to-last State of the Union Address, so he’ll be revealing his policies for the coming year. It also means there will be a lot of rather sassy reactions to his stated plans, so get ready for a week full of some salty political news. See, for example, the president’s announcement this weekend of the plan to make community college tuition free, and the gleeful takedowns that followed.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Even offensive speech must be defended
Jan. 12, 2015By now, you’ve probably heard of the devastating terror attacks that shocked and horrified the nation of France. The terror began last Wednesday when masked gunmen murdered 12 people at the Paris office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, a publication known for deliberately mocking various religions and politicians. Two days later, the violence continued as the attackers killed a French policewoman then held 16 hostages in a kosher supermarket, killing four.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Community college plan step in right direction
Jan. 11, 2015Good morning, Gators, and welcome back from what we hope was a good weekend. Between the first days of a new semester and the awful things that happened around the world this week, we all needed a break. Now that we’re all back in the groove, let’s start the new week with a controversial yet much less dismal piece of national news: President Barack Obama’s proposal regarding tuition in community colleges.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
NAACP bombing receives disappointing coverage
Jan. 11, 2015You know all about the bombing that occurred outside of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP last Tuesday, right? No? Well, the FBI is investigating the act of potential domestic terrorism after a homemade pipe bomb exploded but failed to ignite a 5-gallon gas container to which it was rigged.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
US media has clear selection bias
Jan. 11, 2015As an avid consumer of news, I am noticing that the American media is not exactly as objective in their coverage as they should be. Actually, that is an understatement; The mainstream news media seems geared toward a viewpoint that engages in speculation rather than the day’s news.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Obama’s proposed ‘free’ community college has its faults
Jan. 11, 2015Last week, President Barack Obama unveiled a proposal to make the first two years of community college tuition free for students who uphold certain standards.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Why Oregon Ducks are America’s team
Jan. 8, 2015I’ll start off this column with an apology.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Elected officials need to actually do their jobs
Jan. 8, 2015Earlier this week, The Associated Press reported that Republican Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, spent almost $53,000 on attorneys in an attempt to exorcise thousands of young people from Medicaid. The attempt failed. What’s even more frustrating about Gov. LePage’s actions is that Maine’s attorney general informed the governor’s office that the lawsuit would likely fail. [1]
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Sexolutions: Becoming a sexpert in 2015
Jan. 8, 2015Welcome back, Gators. I missed everyone dearly during the break and can’t wait for this next year, along with its new eye candy, new late-night adventures and new resolutions.
OPINION
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DARTS LAURELS
Darts & Laurels: bombings, same-sex marriage and pub subs
Jan. 8, 2015Good morning, Gators, and happy Friday. If you’re reading this, congratulations! You’ve survived Thursday’s unnaturally frigid weather and lived to fight another day. Presumably, you made it through syllabus week as well. For that, give yourself a pat on the back and take a gander at this last-day-of-the-first-week-of-school edition of...
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Florida needs to take control of its future
Jan. 7, 2015At the turn of the New Year, Florida’s population surpassed that of New York state, making this the third-most populous state in the country. In recent years, migrants have been flocking to the Sunshine State from the North as part of the expansion of the Sun Belt.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Attack on French magazine an attack on free speech
Jan. 7, 2015It’s safe to guess that by now you’ve heard the news of the mass shooting yesterday in France. To say the attack was horrific, reprehensible, abhorrent and brutal is true, but those words still fail to capture how this feels for us — not to mention what it means to the people of France. In any case, it feels like a rehearsal in the litany of words we use when trying to describe events like this that leave us utterly dejected.
