OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Weighty Issue
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 22, 2011You hit below the belt, Rush. Well, actually right at the waistline.
Opinion
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Social network gains staying power
By Laura Ellermeyer | Feb. 21, 2011In high school, our designated picture taker was Katie. Pictures were a must, and somebody had to take on the burden of snapping all the photos we’d instantly upload to Facebook and comment on for weeks. Katie never complained; in fact, she enjoyed it to a point it could get annoying.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
American Lit 3-D: Film gimmick has no place in some films
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 21, 2011We’ve already established that we’re a little old-school with our love for physical books. While we learn to slowly embrace the digital reading revolution, we’ve overlooked another change. The influx of 3-D movies has been well-documented and discussed, but for the most part we haven’t worried about the reasoning behind the fad. If filmmakers want us to feel like those action-movie explosions are happening in our faces, so be it.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Cheeseheads United
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 21, 2011The Wisconsin union crisis took us by surprise.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Quiet de-funding presidential elections
By Zack Smith | Feb. 20, 2011With Big Bird facing extinction, the federal government on the verge of a shutdown and protests rocking the Middle East as well as our own state capitols, a hallmark of our electoral system for the past quarter of a century was quietly slated for the death chamber.
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Racial profiling a necessary evil
By Ryan Scheb | Feb. 17, 2011In a letter to the editor published Thursday, the concept of racial profiling is mentioned in conjunction with the evilness of the Republican Party and its opposition to affirmative action. While I realize I won’t make many friends with this argument, I have no problem with racial profiling. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. In an ideal world, every single person would be treated the same in every situation. However, that is simply unrealistic; thus, I believe racial profiling to be a necessary evil.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Darts and Laurels
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 17, 2011Forgive us if we’re not as chipper as usual.
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Columnist overlooks recycling benefits
By Italo Lenta | Feb. 17, 2011I was both disappointed and appalled to read Laura Ellermeyer’s column in Tuesday’s edition entitled, “Recycling proves wasteful in long term.” Leaving aside for the moment the fact that a first-year finance student such as Laura is entitled to hold whatever opinion she wants concerning recycling, I find it inexcusable that the Alligator would print such a socially and environmentally irresponsible article. First, it is a fact that recycling our cans, bottles, plastics and paper allows us to reuse our planet’s scarce resources over and over, thereby reducing the impact caused by the extraction of mineral, forest or petroleum products. Does Ellermeyer know that recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energy used to produce those cans from scratch? That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can of new material. Energy savings from recycling cans in 1993 alone were enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years. It also takes water — a lot of water — to process raw aluminum into cans. Why should we willfully waste resources when we can easily conserve them?
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Recycling more than a financial matter
By Brian McNab | Feb. 17, 2011In response to Tuesday’s column by Laura Ellermeyer, a student of finance, I think she missed the potential of a further means of reducing the cost of waste management. She — as is appropriate for finance majors and the students of economics — is preoccupied with the ebb and flow of money, not with the conditions of the planet on which we live. She recommends not recycling because it will save money. Unfortunately, she did not go far enough. To further the reduction in cost, she should have advocated that we could save more money by just dumping our garbage into the streets, where the recycling will be done by dogs, raccoons, opossums and the poor. That way we could fire all of the people who cart away our garbage and sell the trucks that are used to other cities that are stupid enough to insist on recycling.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Comparison shows ineffective spending
By Bob Minchin | Feb. 17, 2011“Do it my way, or the government will be shut down!”
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Closed Borders: Digital books can’t replace tangible pages
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 16, 2011If you’re a bibliophile, you’ve probably heard the news that Borders declared bankruptcy. While the story may appear to be just another sign of an ailing economy, it’s also an indicator that we stand on the edge of a new era.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Gleeful Usurpers
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 16, 2011Two decades of musical breakthroughs have been overshadowed by kids shrieking annoying mashups.
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Affirmative Action bake sale ignores history
By Diana Moreno | Feb. 16, 2011The UF College Republicans, the same people who brought you the People Eating Tasty Animals barbecue in 2009 “to raise awareness of the extreme stances of the animal rights organization PETA,” have taken their political activism to the next level with their Affirmative Action bake sale. By charging different prices based on race and gender, they plan to, as their Facebook event page puts it, “denounce the bias of Affirmative Action.”
OPINION
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Reusing items a good alternative to recycling
By Ashley Pennington | Feb. 16, 2011Laura Ellermeyer’s editorial in Tuesday’s paper highlights an important topic: the cost of waste. Perhaps a more appropriate title and discussion could have been “Reduce and Reuse First; Recycling Still Uses Resources.” It is true there are costs associated with recycling — fiscal and environmental. That is why the best action one can take is trying to consume less. This helps reduce the amount of resources used to mine and create the products in the first place, as well as avoids the added resource use associated with the process of recycling.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Gov. Rick Scott cares only for himself
By Chad Mohammed | Feb. 16, 2011Last week, Gov. Rick Scott presented his budget for the 2012 fiscal year, proclaiming, “This was the budget you asked for.” The proposed budget is $5 billion leaner than budgets of years past, as Scott promised. However, the governor cut from areas most critical to the state’s well-being.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Falling on Deaf Ears
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 15, 2011Comic book villains aren’t the only ones who can be two-faced. Actually, politicians could teach them a thing or two.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Walk of Blame: Amblers don’t mean you any harm
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Feb. 15, 2011Apparently, people rage while they walk. And we don’t mean in a fun way.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Why does nobody like the word “like”?
By Wesley Campbell | Feb. 15, 2011There is a word that gets hated on a lot. It’s like, hearing it gets some people upset. They don’t like it, and they don’t like its use.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Fellow motorists deserve drivers’ full attention on the road
By Chris Wood | Feb. 14, 2011As I rode my motorcycle home from class today, the cars in the lane next to me and I approached a red light.
OPINION
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EDITORIALS
Pick Our Poison: Federal budget debate involves financial aid
Feb. 14, 2011As our leaders in Washington know, something’s got to give when it comes to higher education. Both sides of the aisle have marched their preferred program up the steps to the guillotine, and we’re waiting to see which one gets a nice shave.
