Web documentation desensitizes us
Mar. 1, 2010Are we fostering a “culture of personal documentation” — that is, a culture in which we must record, document and publicize the events in our lives instead of merely experiencing them?
Are we fostering a “culture of personal documentation” — that is, a culture in which we must record, document and publicize the events in our lives instead of merely experiencing them?
The “Islam is of the Devil” people found themselves on Turlington Plaza Monday, and they got just what they wanted – attention. Some people come to Turlingon wanting to have conversations, others just want to inflame and hear the sound of their own voices.
It’s more widespread than Olympic fever. It’s more of a heath risk than H1N1.
Despite 56 percent opposition to a new fee, Student Body President Jordan Johnson and Alex Cornillie, the Renew Your Reitz campaign spokesman, say that the issue of a fee to pay for Reitz Union expansion is not off the table.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama enumerated ongoing problems requiring his attention: health care, the economy, job creation, environmental issues and lack of renewable fuels. In doing so, he suggested that increasing agricultural exports would help solve some of these problems.
Last Thursday, just when I was about to align myself with the Editorial Board’s defense against elder generations’ grumblings about the lay of the 21st century land, I stumbled upon a preview of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5, or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Now, I’m standing with our Golden Folks on their side of the issue, although their stance in this matter has less to do with our generation’s intelligence and more to do with society’s ever-flaccidifying grit.
Student Body President Jordan Johnson shows contempt for democracy. On Thursday morning, the lame-duck president asked the UF Board of Trustees to move forward with creating a new tuition fee to fund an unnecessary expansion of the Reitz Union, ignoring the will of the majority of students who voted against such a fee in last week’s election.
I am shocked and saddened that a publication that claims to be as progressive and tolerant as the Alligator would publish Paul Murty’s vile and hate-filled rant Friday about a group of Americans exercising their constitutional right of assembly, the Conservative Political Action Conference.
We know Student Government likes to think of itself as a real government, and with its $14.4 million budget we can see the argument. But now it’s time for SG to remember the No. 1 lesson of democracy: When the voters speak, you listen.
Over the past several weeks and the next few weeks, students have and will continue to be trolled hard. For those unaware of what trolling is (we’ve all been trolled), trolling is when someone purposely antagonizes others by posting inflammatory content, thereby causing others to rage. It’s like the Hatfield-McCoy feud. One party makes a claim; the other counters. It never ends. This back-and-forth also reminds me of a “Girls Gone Wild” tug-of-war: Everyone pulls for his or her own side, but in the end both sides end up dirty and in some awful video. So, to all of UF, do whatever you can do to end this repetitive and boring back-and-forth. Or do nothing. I suppose you’re getting trolled if you do something because you’d be raging – bummer. Oh well, you now know you’re being trolled every day, and in writing this I’m even trolling myself. Damn. Whatever it be, don’t feed the troll. And don’t rage hard when you get trolled hard.
As many of you may know, the Conservative Political Action Conference occurred in Washington, D.C., this past weekend. A variety of conservative-leaning Americans attended the conference, such as anti-homosexual rights advocates and anti-liberal media activists, setting up booths to promote a plethora of causes.
Forgive us if we slur a little. We’re still nursing our Student Government hangovers and are a little disoriented. But we don’t have that much to complain about — unlike our SG reporter, who is still in her exhaustion-induced coma.
I want to give a sincere thank you to all the students who voted in elections Tuesday and Wednesday. Especially those who helped the Student Alliance party gain a historic 20 seats in the Student Senate. Over the course of the campaign, the Student Alliance candidates and supporters demonstrated incredible character, integrity and devotion.
As one of the most important battles in the war on terror rages in the Taliban stronghold of Marja, Afghanistan, another battle is being fought on American soil over the fate of suspected terrorists.
Once again, a captive animal has killed its trainer, and this time, it’s close to home.
We‘ve all heard an older family member at some get-together telling us about how stupid and ungrateful our generation is and how, in his day, everything was much better. But imagine if he sat down and wrote a book about it.
I find it interesting that there is no limit to how many stacks of pancakes IHOP can give away, and yet the city imposes a 130-meal limit when St. Francis House feeds the homeless.
Double voting has been a concern in Student Government elections for years, and there have always been allegations directed at the Greek houses. If Supervisor of Elections Ariana Alfonso is worried about double voting, she should advocate for a switch to online voting tied to UF IDs. The centralized list of who has voted would prevent any double voting and save the Student Body tens of thousands of dollars each election.
In response to David Hanan’s letter likening UF’s tolerance of the Dove World Outreach Center on campus to tolerance of genocide, I’d like to make a few points.
The University of California, San Diego has graced the pages and airwaves of national media outlets quite a bit the past week. The school was in the news last week when members of its Greek community sent out a Facebook invitation to a “Compton Cookout.”