With 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.
I 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.
I 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.
If 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.
My colleagues at the Alligator, Amelia Harnish and Jared Misner, wrote a defense — or at least a justification — of infidelity in their Jan. 14 Avenue column at www.bit.ly/secretscrewing.
UF student David Feinstein did a little more than work out Saturday night when he went to the gym.
An ABC News investigation, which discovered a supplier of high-powered rifles to the U.S. military has been printing coded Bible verses on the weapons, has the Editorial Board wondering what’s up with secret evangelism.
People of UF: In my first official column as the Friday columnist for the largest student-run newspaper in the country, I want to touch on a very important issue on campus — the provoking and condemning preachers. This isn’t a blanket statement for all preachers on campus, but only those who are hatefully insulting for the purpose of garnering attention.
As classes start to heat up and that first test of the semester is looming on the horizon, the Department of Darts & Laurels is thankful Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday is the worst to shake the country in 200 years, claiming the lives of up to 50,000 people and affecting more than 3 million people world wide, according to the American Red Cross. The disaster has left a country already stricken with political instability, poverty and humanitarian conflict in an even more devastating state. So, in the wake of the tragedy, it’s important for us to ask ourselves: What can we do to help?
Much has been made of the fall of the Roman Empire in the media over the last few years, especially as our own American empire has come under deservedly intense scrutiny.
It’s the beginning of the semester, which means spending an inordinate amount of time consulting ISIS, deciphering syllabi and griping about Rec Sports’ intramural department.
The Editorial Board would like to respectfully tell Charlie Crist he can keep his tax-free holiday.
There are a good number of people who believe in the hypothetical situation that torture is justified in the ticking time bomb scenario. That is, a nuclear or biological weapon is about to detonate and kill thousands, maybe millions of people.
When I saw a link for the spanking new “race and ethnicity” guidelines from the U.S. Census Bureau plastered across the ISIS homepage, I had to check it out.
The Editorial Board would like to encourage Student Government senators to do the right thing. Just this one time. Please.
Google announced Monday that it will stop censoring Web content on its Chinese site after the Gmail accounts of human rights activists were hacked, and the Editorial Board thinks it’s about time.
When Time Magazine declared the age of irony dead following the Sept. 11 attacks, its conclusion was right, even if it was working from faulty premises.
As the song from the musical “Avenue Q” states, “Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes. Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes...Maybe it’s a fact we all should face: everyone makes judgments based on race.” I don’t care whether you’re black, white, Hispanic, Asian, biracial or multiracial. At some point in your life, I’m sure you’ve had racist thoughts. If you’ve read this far, you probably agree (though wish you didn’t) or shaking you’re head in outrage because you’re a P.C., apologist liberal who’s a closeted racist. For a while now, we’ve allowed liberal Democrats to define racism. When it benefits them politically, they’ll throw the label at someone, but what happens when it’s one of their own? They quickly excuse to save the squeaky-clean facade they perpetuate.
Will Penman’s Monday column on same-sex marriage was a peculiar addition to an Alligator issue that included articles on the Dove World Outreach Center, gay adoption in Utah and commemorations of the civil rights movement. Although self-labeled as a man who “can’t figure out what to think about gay marriage,” his mocking ramblings about “not hearing much from the cousin-marriage people,” which also snipe that “it’s very impolite at UF to oppose gay marriage, you know,” show a trivializing ignorance toward the struggle of homosexuals to gain acceptance in contemporary society. Our Student Body’s support of LGBTQ students should not be mocked but cherished in a world where some nations put those convicted of homosexuality to death.
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