The air is cool and spirits are high: UF’s Homecoming celebration is upon us.
Without further ado, your it’s-Homecoming-weekend-time-to-get-weird edition of Darts & Laurels.
A sports scandal close to home has been making headlines all week: Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito has been suspended after a series of bullying allegations came out against him.
Jonathan Martin, a Dolphins second-year offensive lineman from Stanford, left the team last week. Incognito reportedly left racist and threatening texts and voicemails to Martin. Incognito also worked actively to alienate Martin from the team. According to Business Insider, “a cafeteria prank where a bunch of teammates stood up and moved to another table when Martin tried to eat with them was the final straw for the player.”
Incognito is basically a testosterone-fueled, beefy, racist Regina George. Although some have jumped to Incognito’s defense, we’re throwing a grow-up-and-learn-how-to-act-like-a-human-being DART at Richie Incognito.
Starbucks gets a pretty bad rap sometimes as a haven for overpriced drinks and a pretentious sizing scheme (“Congratulations, you’re stupid in three languages”). However, we’re handing a LAUREL to the coffee conglomerate Starbucks this week after it announced plans to hire at least 10,000 military veterans and active-duty spouses over the next five years.
According to the Seattle Times, “‘This is, in my view, not charity or philanthropy. But in fact, this is good business,’ (Howard) Schultz (Starbucks’ chief executive) said Monday in an interview at the company’s Sodo offices. ‘These are highly skilled, highly trained people who have significant leadership capabilities, who will add value to Starbucks.’”
All eyes have been on Gov. Chris Christie and his gubernatorial win this week in New Jersey — a significant achievement that will set the stage for a possible Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential elections.
However, the newly elected governor attracted negative attention when he screamed at a public school teacher at a campaign rally this week. When the woman, an elementary school teacher named Melissa Tomlinson, asked Christie, “Why do you spread the myth that our schools and teachers are failing?” he responded by shaking a finger and yelling, “Because they are! I am tired of you people. What do you want?”
Harsh.
According to The Washington Post, “Tomlinson’s question seems like a fair one, given that New Jersey public schools overall have long done extremely well on the metric that school reformers like Christie believe are the most telling about academic achievement: standardized test scores.”
Today, we throw a cool-your-jets DART at Chris Christie for his unpresidential behavior when confronted with a question he didn’t particularly like.
Finally, we’re handing off an honorary Homecoming-week LAUREL to all of the UF students, faculty, staff and alumni here in Gainesville for the parade, Gator Growl and the football game against Vanderbilt.
Let the Gator grrrrrrrrowl!
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 11/8/2013 under the headline "Darts & Laurels"
