Another productive week has gone by, filled with reasonable bedtimes, completed homework assignments and lots of salad. Just kidding! Everyone’s too busy having a panic attack over the fact that Monday marks the last full week of classes to be responsible. This weekend, shirk your responsibilities and do fun things. Anything’s better than studying, and that’s what reading days are for.
So here it is: Your too-busy-preparing-for-the-Friends-of-the-Library-book-sale-to-do-my-taxes edition of...
Darts & Laurels
As part of a presidential proclamation on Monday for National Equal Pay Day, President Barack Obama said, “On National Equal Pay Day, we mark how far into the new year women would have to work to earn the same as men did in the previous year, and we recommit to making equal pay a reality.”
You best recommit, Obama. In Florida, the wage gap is insane: Women are paid on average $0.84 to every dollar a man makes — and that’s just white women. Black women take home just $0.62 for every dollar a non-Hispanic white man makes, and Latina women make just $0.58 on the dollar. This week, we’re throwing a DART to Florida’s wage-gap problem. It’s 2014, y’all; we have 3-D printing and Hot Pockets. Equal pay for men and women is the next logical step.
In better state news, yesterday South Florida ranked No. 3 in a list of the country’s metropolitan areas with the most entrepreneurial activity. We attribute it to the booming Cuban coffee/neon-thong-bikini markets in Miami. A taking-care-of-business LAUREL goes to SoFla entrepreneurs this week.
Hey, you know what goes really well with riots and natural disasters where people tend to act erratically and irrationally? Guns. More specifically, people without concealed-carry licenses carrying guns. At least, that’s what went through the National Rifle Association’s collective mind this week when it introduced a bill into the Florida House that would allow non-permit-carrying firearm owners to carry guns on their person during emergencies, according to the Miami Herald.
“To allow people to go into a riot while concealing a gun without a permit is the definition of insanity,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told the Herald. “The bill is crazy. It’s absurd.”
Um, yeah. We’re throwing a sit-the-eff-down-NRA DART to HB 209, and we’re calling on Florida House members to slap that noise down.
While you’re out this weekend and not sure whether to pound that extra Jagerbomb or buy those 12 books from the FOL sale, emulate the naked McDonald’s-destroying Florida woman: Give no f**ks. On Monday, a woman entered a St. Petersburg McDonald’s and, once an employee refused her offer for oral sex, she handled rejection the way any of us would — by throwing a tantrum, stripping down to a thong and guzzling soft serve straight out of the dispenser. This week, we’re giving a you-took-YOLO-a-little-too-seriously-but-we-admire-your-commitment LAUREL to this week’s Florida woman.
Stay golden, UF.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 4/11/2014 under the headline "Darts & Laurels"]
