OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Obama needs to fight back after loss
Jan. 24, 2010Well, it’s official — the presidency of Barack Obama is over.
Opinion
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Haiti cartoon wasn’t meant to offend
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 24, 2010A picture is worth a thousand words.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Supreme Court decision has grim implications for Americans
By JAMES CHAPIN | Jan. 21, 2010Some people believe that Tuesday’s Republican victory in Massachusetts, which may have cut the throat of health care reform, was big news. I beg to differ. The big news came out of a large room holding nine small people and a few witnesses on Thursday afternoon. It was doomsday for the individual in American politics. The Supreme Court decided on Thursday that corporations and unions are no longer beholden to the rules that had limited their spending on federal elections. Remember that date. Because the gargantuan coffers of those corporations and unions are now open very, very wide, and the words “shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech” have led to some very murky consequences. Justice John Paul Stevens read a long, lonely dissent from the bench. He called the decision “a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have ... fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the time of Theodore Roosevelt.”
OPINION
|
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Sex column misses mark
By SAM LEWIS | Jan. 21, 2010Editor’s note: This letter was written in response to Thursday’s sex column. To read the column, visit alligator.org/the_avenue
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Darts and Laurels
By Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 21, 2010We’re not sure about you, but the Editorial Board is certainly glad to see it’s almost the weekend. We’re already annoyed, pissed off and just plain exhausted. So why don’t we skip the formalities and go right to Darts & Laurels
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
America should rid itself of gun use
By PAUL MURTY | Jan. 21, 201030,364 vs. 210. Obviously, 30,364 is a much greater number than 210. Sadly, the former amount represents the number of gun-related deaths, including homicides, suicides and accidental deaths, in the United States in 2005. According to a blog post from the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, 210 is an extrapolated figure that represents the number of gun-related deaths in the United Kingdom if its population was equal to the United States. In reality, there are only 42 gun-related deaths per year in the U.K., according to the blog.
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Democrats shouldn’t give up after loss
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 20, 2010One of the bluest states in the country spat on Ted Kennedy’s grave Tuesday when Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown, and the Editorial Board can’t help but feel that Massachusetts voters delivered a sucker punch to the U.S. as a whole.
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Stayin’ Alive
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 20, 2010The New York Times announced Wednesday afternoon that in 2011 it will offer online readers only a limited number of articles for free each month. In this “metered system,” once users reach their limit, they will be charged or denied access.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
‘Avatar’ parallels Republican Party
Jan. 20, 2010Read as a straightforward attack on capitalism in a blue-green hue, many conservatives have angrily vented across all media platforms belittling “Avatar” as yet another Hollywood-leftist-socialist-homosexual-pantheistic-anthrophobic diatribe.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
TV lessons lessen with time
By Eric Tegethoff | Jan. 20, 2010No offense to my parents, but I was raised by television.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Student’s arrest brings to light America’s flawed priorities
By Will Penman | Jan. 20, 2010About two weeks ago, Haisong Jiang, a graduate student from China studying biosciences at Rutgers, saw his girlfriend off at the Newark Liberty International Airport.
OPINION
|
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Response to sex column is spot-on
By Amanda Eilers | Jan. 19, 2010Joe Dellosa, thank you for writing your column, “Infidelity should not be normalized,” in Tuesday’s Alligator. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
France is misrepresented as having ‘clean’nuclear programs
By Linda Gunter | Jan. 19, 2010It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word, “renaissance,” to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is “clean,” “safe” and even “renewable.” And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry’s propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the “successful” example of the French nuclear program.
OPINION
|
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Ignoring local church is the only solution
By Nora F. Zaki | Jan. 19, 2010In response to Paul Murty’s column: Thank you for your intelligent column on Friday about ignoring the Dove World Outreach Center members when they preach intolerantly on campus.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
UF should not require health insurance
By CYNTHIA DESPRES | Jan. 19, 2010After my father lost his job in November 2008, my family’s health insurance coverage lapsed. Although he found work — and, consequently, coverage for himself — in April, the rest of the family can’t join until March 2010. So, for the only year my mother and I have ever been without insurance, we have tiptoed through our lives, avoiding what health risks we could.
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Blonde Moment: ‘Gossip Girl’ star too self-involved
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 19, 2010It’s been one week since the earthquake hit Haiti, and people across the campus, country and world are joining together to provide relief for those affected.
OPINION
|
EDITORIALS
Winter Warning
By The Alligator Editorial Board | Jan. 19, 2010With winter setting in and word of the FDA cracking down on barely visible tanning bed warnings, the Editorial Board is urging students to forgo sun-kissed bronze in favor of pasty white — or even Gators-themed fake orange.
OPINION
|
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Alligator should take domestic violence more seriously
By Mary D. | Jan. 18, 2010I was flipping through some of last week’s articles and took issue with some of the articles you chose to run. First off, in “Chris Brown deserves a second chance,” Michelle Profis talks about still listening to Chris Brown’s music. How is this news? Obviously you noticed that this article would leave some people questioning the writer’s real attitude toward domestic violence because you put a disclaimer on it. Why not just pull the whole article? The author denies condoning domestic violence vehemently but then backtracks by saying just because he’s young and “talented” we should throw more money at him. The writer shows she doesn’t understand the seriousness of the crime by starting the article off by calling it “classic celebrity catastrophe,” as if it were just a wardrobe malfunction. It’s bad enough that celebrities routinely get off lightly for what would be heinous crimes if committed by you or me, but when you publish these kinds of opinions as mainstream thought, you only further the mentality that we accept this kind of behavior.
OPINION
|
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Article that diminished those who refrain from drugs, alcohol is shameful
By Gunner Japp | Jan. 18, 2010I was reading Thursday’s Alligator when I came across an article about revenge cheating. As I was reading the article, I read a sentence that claimed most people will be cheated on unless they are all-knowing or “one of those weirdos” who’s sober all the time. I find it ridiculous and irresponsible that a college newspaper, read by thousands of binge-drinking and drug-abusing students, would go as far as to label people who refrain from drugs and alcohol as “weirdos.” You are doing a disservice to our community and school by advocating the use of drugs through the condemnation of people choosing to remain abstinent. The Alligator has a moral and social responsibility to try and encourage a safe and healthy environment, not to reinforce the idea that everyone uses drugs and alcohol and those who don’t are “weirdos.” I am afraid that comments like this provide the acceptance and social proof necessary to foster unhealthy behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse. As a school and community, we should try to avoid the negative stigma associated with being one of the top five party schools in the country each year. We should start by looking at our attitudes and beliefs toward drugs and alcohol, and, at the very least, we shouldn’t promote drug use and abuse by condemning those who choose not to use drugs. I’m ashamed this statement was written, approved by the editors and printed for the entire community and Student Body to read. Hopefully, you will be more careful in the future.
OPINION
|
COLUMNS
Robertson’s words hurt the cause
By Paul Runnestrand | Jan. 18, 2010If you listen to geologists, they will tell you the reason the massive earthquake occurred in Haiti last week had to do with seismic activity, fault lines and tectonic plates. At first glance, it’s a believable explanation. But the Rev. Pat Robertson proposes another answer that deserves consideration. Not consideration of its validity but rather consideration as to why in the world he would say such a thing.
