As you drown in stress and scramble to finish a paper you should have started a month ago, you become eternally grateful for the large sum of Easter candy your mom sent you in a care package earlier this week. It’s chocolate bunnies and jelly beans galore: It’s absolutely everything your stressed out self is craving.
About five Reese’s Eggs later, you start cracking open the plastic eggs she put in the package. Most of them are filled with more sugary goodness — Starburst, Hershey’s chocolate, Skittles.
One egg, however, is unique. It instead has a note hidden inside. You unfold the paper, expecting a sappy letter about how much your family misses you. Much to your surprise, the paper reads ...
Darts & Laurels
Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, attacked David Hogg, a survivor of the high school shooting in Parkland and a March For Our Lives organizer, in a tweet Wednesday. Sharing a The Daily Wire article about Hogg getting rejected from four colleges, Ingraham accused Hogg of whining about it.
Shortly after, four companies — TripAdvisor, Wayfair, Nestle and Nutrish — said they would pull their advertising from Ingraham’s show. The scandal caused Ingraham to publicly apologize “for any upset or hurt my tweet caused (Hogg) or any of the brave victims of Parkland.” She also invited the 17-year-old to appear on her show, according to The New York Times.
Although we appreciate her apology, we are disappointed it only came after she was under fire. As a TripAdvisor spokesperson put it, Americans should be able to disagree on and exchange ideas in a peaceful manner. For this, we award our first laurel of the week to the four companies that forced Ingraham to backtrack on her rude comments. More corporations should recognize the economic power they hold and use it to make our society kinder.
On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said as tensions rise between the U.S. and Russia, the world is approaching a situation similar to that of the Cold War. He told the Associated Press reporters Thursday he is “very concerned.”
The statement, which is one many have dreaded over for the past several years as they watched pressures intensify, comes after the United Kingdom accused Russia of using a nerve agent to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter March 4. As a result, Russia expelled more than 150 diplomats, including 60 Americans, in retaliation to the Western action. U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert called Russia’s actions “regrettable” and “unwarranted.”
Whether Guterres’ warning will materialize is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, we award our first dart of the week to world leaders, especially our own, for allowing their disagreements to reach tensions of such a threatening level again. Have we learned nothing from the past?
Last week, we ran a letter to the editor submitted by UF basketball player Chris Chiozza’s grandmother. Mary “Bunny” Chiozza wrote a short piece thanking the UF community for the “excellent education” her grandson received. It was perhaps one of the most heartwarming letters The Alligator has received, and for that, we would like to give a laurel to Mary Chiozza, for sharing your kind words with our readers and the Gainesville community.
Last Friday night, President Donald Trump released two documents outlining the administration’s plans to ban transgender troops in the military. The administration has touted this new plan as more open than the previous proposed ban, which would have disallowed any transgender person from serving.
NBC reported the new report states “nothing in this policy precludes service by transgender persons who do not have a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and are willing and able to meet all standards that apply to their biological sex.”
This new plan, however, is just as bigoted and closed minded as the first. As such, we award our last dart to Trump.
