OPINION
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COLUMNS
Five simple ways to be an animal rights advocate and make a difference
Oct. 3, 2016Animal rights advocacy can be for everyone.
Opinion | Columns
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Read the Health Affairs newletter: a message from SG health secretary
Oct. 3, 2016Hey, Gators!
OPINION
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COLUMNS
To my nephew: There will be choices to make
Oct. 2, 2016Nephew, I don’t want you to know a world made up in shades of one color. Blue like sadness, like masculinity, like rigid gender norms and small minds. Really, I do not want you to grow up to be an a------.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Positivity: People receive what they project
Oct. 2, 2016How many times have we been told, “You get out what you put in”? This applies to so many aspects of life, from friendships and romantic relationships to academics and physical fitness. The validity of this statement is widely accepted; it is honestly difficult to dispute. It’s logical, and it continues to prove itself right, time after time.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
As a listener and a performer, give your local music scene a chance
Sep. 29, 2016Since I was 13 or so, I’ve done my best to be as involved as I could with music wherever I am. It started when my two friends and I were contacted via Myspace by a local guitarist’s girlfriend to see if we’d want to come see him play. We became good friends after that, and my friends and I sold his CDs at his gigs at the Daytona Beach Bandshell all summer. Through that, we met a lot of musicians and bands. We took every chance we got to see them play at the Bandshell, at the mall or any of the other venues my hometown had to offer to minors when its music scene was still thriving for the younger crowd. I lost connections with most of the musicians I met because I was so young when I started to get involved. But now that I’m a more appropriate age, I’m pretty immersed in the local music scenes of both Gainesville and the Daytona area, and I’ve never been happier.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Remembering Shimon Peres, a great leader
Sep. 29, 2016On Wednesday morning, the world lost a great man; a man bigger than politics, whose name alone is synonymous with the state of Israel.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
What makes books successful? The ability to relate to different cultures
Sep. 29, 2016Considering how many people in our society experience college, I find it interesting just how few novels are written with collegiate settings. I recently finished the book “Loner” by Teddy Wayne, which offers quite a frightening perspective on certain people and places around us. This novel is not a cute 200-page story that takes place at an elite university, but is instead a disturbing portrait of a notable chunk of our culture. What makes this book successful is its dynamic main character, a Harvard University freshman named David Federman. To call Federman a first-class narcissist, entitled braggart, unreliable narrator and know-it-all would be putting it lightly.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Keep an open mind when someone tells you about different countries
Sep. 28, 2016As someone who was raised by immigrant parents and has traveled abroad multiple times in her life, I am acutely aware of the average American’s geographic and cultural ignorance. This shouldn’t be a surprise to most people; after all, it is a subject of self-deprecating humor on late-night talk shows. We seem to be aware that the Average Joe can’t differentiate Iraq from Iran and thinks all Asian food comes from the same place. We laugh at him and take comfort in the fact that we know our Pad Thai isn’t Chinese, thank you very much. But are we really much better?
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Have a different conversation: America's problems run deeper than guns
Sep. 28, 2016It seems like each time I turn on the news, incidences of gun violence flood the screen. They happen with such frequency that they no longer feel unusual. Sometimes they are not even considered nationally newsworthy. Yet one this week caught my attention.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Where would our society be without discrimination?
Sep. 27, 2016Often, I like to ask people: How would the history of humanity have been different if discrimination never exited?
OPINION
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COLUMNS
After finally turning 21, I realized I wanted to become an adult too quickly
Sep. 27, 2016I was a baby for the first 20 years of my life — or at least it felt that way. There was always something I wasn’t old enough to do: drive, buy cigarettes, join the Army, gamble, drink or enter a bar. You see, I had always wanted to be treated like an adult, ever since I consciously understood there were legal differences based on age.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Stamp your passport, but check your American privilege when you do
Sep. 27, 2016The best thing about studying abroad in China was the food. I ate everything my stomach could fit — and then some. I ate a different kind of ice cream almost every day, and each one cost less than a dollar. Trying street food became a hobby. While I often went to different cafes to study at night, one thing they all had in common was their low prices. I could knock back three cappuccinos topped with cute foam art for the price of a single grande pumpkin spice latte.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Comedy and world-building: ‘Homestar Runner’
Sep. 26, 2016The internet has done weird things for comedy. Good things, but certainly weird things. Video-sharing websites like YouTube, Newgrounds and Vine have paved the way for all sorts of art: mediums like sketches, animations and music. The internet digitized the formerly newspaper-dominated comic strip with works like “Penny Arcade” and “xkcd.” And beyond this, the eldritch phenomenon that is memes has introduced audiences to meta-humor and explored the darker side of the human psyche. Memes are spooky stuff.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Student, sometimes customer: When is education a business transaction?
Sep. 26, 2016Whether it was due to a class discussion on the “student as customer” debate or a fellow columnist’s musings on Rate My Professors or simply my own preoccupation with funding graduate school, my mind keeps coming back to the ways in which higher education and the market economy intersect. Over the past few years, higher education has been increasingly characterized as a business transaction in which the student is the customer “purchasing” a degree and entrance into the job market. It seems innocuous enough, treating college students as valued customers, but despite the increased bargaining power this conceptual shift gives us, it undeniably warps the way we approach our education.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
The only world that exists: Some thoughts on technology, the need to unplug
Sep. 26, 2016Last week, in the middle of my creative writing class, my teacher stepped out to use the bathroom during our 10-minute break. This is usually a good time to crack light jokes with your neighbor or try and make small talk. Instead, every person except me and another guy was on his or her phone. The only reason I wasn’t looking down at mine was because it was plugged into the wall, charging. There was total silence in the room; nobody even glanced up or attempted to connect with another human being. And then our teacher walked back in and we resumed class. Is this just a minute instance of a current phenomenon I plan on stretching out of proportion? Possibly.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Parrott right to show support by urging students to attend demonstration
Sep. 25, 2016On Thursday, David Parrott, the vice president for Student Affairs, sent out an email urging students to go to the Enough is Enough Peaceful Demonstration on Friday. Parrott wrote, “It is incomprehensible that violence against Black people across the nation continues.”
OPINION
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COLUMNS
It’s not about who matters more; it’s about who matters now
Sep. 25, 2016#BlackLivesMatter. #BlueLivesMatter. #AllLivesMatter.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
US media is making the same mistake UK did
Sep. 22, 2016Browsing the various news websites online has become an arduous task in 2016. Watching news stations on TV is even more unpalatable. Trying to stay informed is important, but a very fine line has developed between awareness of current issues and receiving the massive media spin on everything. Has 2016 really been that bad a year for the world? No, but I believe we’re not only becoming far more aware of the terrible things, but also fascinated by them. For the majority of Americans, their news comes through their preferred syndicated source’s filter, as they are simply being spoon-fed whatever that news station decides is important that day.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Controversial or not, UF administration should let Milo Yiannopoulos speak
Sep. 22, 2016A few weeks ago, the conservative UF organization Turning Point announced plans to invite Milo Yiannopoulos to speak later this semester on campus. Yiannopoulos is a Breitbart News contributor, notorious Twitter troll and vocal critic of feminism, Islam and political correctness. Some even consider him to be an emerging spokesman for the “alt-right,” a nationalist, nativist and anti-multicultural alternative to mainstream Republican conservatism.
