“This is Ground Control to Major Tom,” David Bowie sings to you through your earbuds. As you peer through the tinted window of an RTS bus, the twinkling lights floating around campus buildings seem a thousand miles away. The constellation of lamps hovering above Turlington Plaza shine like lighthouses welcoming early morning visitors like yourself. Campus feels as if it were Mars, desolate and complete with the red brick terrain. You are the only passenger in the large tin can of a bus rolling slowly up Newell Drive. You can barely see anything in the dark, but the bus calls out the stops autonomously and seems to know which way to go. The air is cool and inviting as the bus slows to a stop and the doors part to let you out. Standing in the silence, you see UF in a new light, quarantined from the usual activity and bustle — in a cosmic bubble without distraction or noise. Soon campus will wake, but for now, the stars still twinkle in the soft daylight peeking over the horizon. The obelisk of Century Tower looms like a dark monument from another world.
The sun returns and the sky brightens. The lonely, tranquil scene is gone but replaced with familiar faces. Brightness illuminates the first organization to stake out a table in Turlington. They unfurl a welcoming banner that reads:
Darts and Laurels
We don’t really know what to make of Kanye West. If you saw his last TMZ interview on Tuesday, you also know he is a strange guy. He channels the “energy” of people sitting near him. In a style typical of Kanye, he tweeted something as puzzling as his personality the other day: “Reaching out to Colin Kaepernick. I would like you to speak with the president to tell him your experience directly. Let’s have a dialogue not a diatribe.”
We are faced now with the great dilemma of whether we should award Kanye darts or laurels. On the one hand, Kanye’s tweet sounded diplomatic. If you give Kanye the benefit of the doubt, the tweet can be read as the beginnings of a compromise — stimulating productive conversation between Kaepernick and President Donald Trump, who seems to hate him. But on the other hand, the tweet is phrased such that it makes Kaepernick out to be the bad guy, insinuating that it is Kaepernick who is unwilling to have a dialogue.
Kanye got it wrong. Trump is the one throwing around the venom and invective. Of kneeling NFL players like Kaepernick, Trump did not have nice words to offer. “Get that son of a b---- off the field! You’re fired!” he yelled at a rally.
So we award a confused dart to Kanye and squint suspiciously while we do it. Why, Kanye? Why would you do something so controversial yet not very brave? Take the MAGA hat off. Trust us, we are doing you a favor. The Trump presidency is imploding and we do not want you going down with the ship.
A New York Times investigation revealed that the president received millions through shady business practices from his parents. Why is every new scandal not surprising? Trump gets a permanent, standing dart from us. We have a feeling there are more financial skeletons hidden in his closet.
In more serious news this week, Thursday was National Taco Day. What was supposed to be a celebration took a dark turn as hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of tacos were murdered in cold blood. A laurel to tacos everywhere for their sacrifice. A laurel to corn tortillas. You are vastly superior to flour, and we all know it deep down. A laurel to refried beans, the most underrated side dish.
A dart to the hot sauce that was much spicier than expected. The smiley-face spice indicator was grinning, but we were crying, sweating and confused.
