Opinion

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Opinion

Editorial: Pro-life is pro-inconsistency

Mar. 8, 2016

If you step foot on UF’s campus today, there’s probably a 110-percent chance you’ll run into Created Equal, the pro-life organization that comes to Turlington Plaza and Plaza of the Americas every Spring with posters and grand screenings of graphic imagery. Thankfully, they couldn’t afford the giant screen this semester. We at the Alligator boiled down their message to one sentence: Human life begins at conception; therefore, abortion should be considered the illegal murder of innocent human beings.

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Sports

Column: Separation of church and state championships — when religion and sports collide

By Ethan Bauer | Mar. 7, 2016

Sports and religion rarely come into direct conflict.

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Opinion

Column: How hard is it to recycle a bottle?

Mar. 7, 2016

Sometime in elementary school or one summer day while visiting a zoo and being shown a cute and cuddly endangered animal, children have been taught how they can do their part to save the environment for the past two decades. All they have to do is throw trash in the correct containers. Unfortunately, it seems many forget this important lesson somewhere down the road.

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Opinion

Column: Spring Break trips can offer so much more

Mar. 7, 2016

When I first mentioned my trip to El Salvador to friends, family and acquaintances, the overwhelming majority of responses followed a certain pattern. First came the raised eyebrows, then the inevitable question: “Is it a mission trip?” After my subsequent response that, no, I wasn’t about to build a church or spread the “good word,” came the warnings. I’ll catch the Zika virus. I’ll be kidnapped and held for ransom. I’ll get food poisoning. They ranged in degree of severity and types of consequences, but they all stemmed from a pervasive fear of “less-developed” countries despite supposed good intentions.

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Opinion

Editorial: Our brothers' keepers - terrorism in Iraq and the media

Mar. 7, 2016

From Feb. 28 to Feb. 29, during UF’s first weekend of Spring Break, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre of 118 Iraqis through targeted suicide bombings in Baghdad. In fact, this past February alone, the Islamic State left 410 Iraqi civilians dead and 1,050 injured. While the attacks in Baghdad should remind us all of the tragedy in Paris last November, they are receiving substantially less attention.

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Opinion

Column: Faux-personalism breeds a new populism

Mar. 6, 2016

"This perfect recycling tended to present itself, in the narcosis of the event, as a model for the rest: like American political life itself, and like the printed and transmitted images on which that life depended, this was a world with no half-life.” —Joan Didion, “Political Fictions”

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Opinion

Editorial: Delegates, superdelegates have you like, 'huh?'

Mar. 6, 2016

The 2016 election is everywhere and spreading fast — faster than Zika or even Kendrick Lamar’s new, surprise album “Untitled Unmastered.” It’s there on your news feed when you go to bed and is provided to you by your local newspaper — hey, what’s up? — when you wake up. From every which way, it’s an adrenaline shot of nothing but primaries, caucuses, debates and He Who Must Not Be Named.

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Opinion

Column: Internet piracy has consequences

Feb. 25, 2016

Pirates have been around for more than 2,000 years. From the olive coasts of ancient Greece to the years of Viking dominance from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1050 and far beyond the classic bearded fellows of the Caribbean in the 18th century, the act of piracy is not new. Items of significant value will always have a market; it’s just that not everyone in the market will want to pay.

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Opinion

Darts & Laurels: 02/26/2016

Feb. 25, 2016

Bear with us, fellow Gators: one more day. One more long, uncomfortably-balmy-considering-it’s-almost-March Friday afternoon, and we’ll all be free — at least for the next week. 

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Opinion

Column: The opportunity to catch up over Spring Break

Feb. 25, 2016

I remember a conversation I had with a friend at the beginning of this semester. “I feel like before we know it, it’ll be time for midterms, and I’ll be behind,” she told me. I’ve always been suspicious and terrified of secretly being an optimist, but now, I’m almost certain I am. After she said that, I immediately thought to myself, “Nah, no way.”

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Sports

Column: It’s time to stop comparing golf’s young stars to Tiger Woods

By GRAHAM HACK | Feb. 24, 2016

In an interview with Golf.com, five-time major champion Phil Mickelson made headlines by saying the present group of golf’s young stars is not close to the level Tiger Woods reached during his prime, adding that we are "decades away" from someone matching Woods’ feats.

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Opinion

Editorial: Don't get a pet unless you can care for it

Feb. 24, 2016

As college students, we deprive ourselves of a long list of things. Typically this list includes sleep, food and money, but there’s that one thing that especially seems to be missing, especially when we’re still getting accustomed to being away from home: a pet. 

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Opinion

Column: The 2016 presidential election is bad reality TV

Feb. 24, 2016

Tonight, the next Republican debate will be held in Texas, marking the first time semi-rational candidates will be outnumbered by their knuckle-dragging counterparts. Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and an ever more ideologically unrecognizable Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will be on the stage with a real estate mogul, an unhinged brain surgeon and a Canadian constitutional lawyer. While this may sound like the setup to a bad joke, it is actually the alarming state of American politics.  

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Opinion

Column: Dunk a basketball - every boy's dream

Feb. 23, 2016

Grown men can say it has always been their dream to end up with the jobs they have today, but they would be lying. For anyone who has ever picked up a basketball growing up, they can attest to the fact that they eagerly waited for the day they’d be able to slam a rubber ball into a metal hoop situated 10 feet off the ground professionally. Unfortunately, for many of us, that day never comes.

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Opinion

Column: Remembering author Harper Lee

Feb. 23, 2016

On Feb. 19, beloved American author Nelle Harper Lee passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 89.

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Opinion

Column: Spelling black liberation with a capital 'B'

Feb. 23, 2016

I am not black, and I will never grasp the depth of the suffering, past and present, of the members of the African diaspora. 

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Opinion

Editorial: Common sense, not partisanship, can prevail

Feb. 23, 2016

When we talk about Florida politics, we usually do so in language expressing exasperation and disbelief. There is, after all, plenty to be angry about these days: Statewide, the ongoing battle over whether to allow fracking in Florida has intensified in recent days, and here in Gainesville, we’re contending with how to best correct overbilling and mismanagement on the part of Gainesville Regional Utilities and the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center.

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Opinion

Column: Faith out, separate church and state

Feb. 22, 2016

While barbarity and violence are hard for the human race to shake (after all, why stop what you’re good at?), there are some outdated habits we can nip in the bud in the spirit of progress. True, the long and arduous fight to abandon nose-picking is one that requires society’s undivided attention, but I’m referring to the reaffirmation of the U.S. Constitution’s most important tenant: the separation of church and state. It’s time we ignore faith when taking part in the selection of the leader of the free world.

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Opinion

Column: Not so 'free' speech after all, BDS movement

Feb. 22, 2016

There is a growing trend in Israel and the West at large to criminalize and enact opposition against protest activity, such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeted at the practices of the Israeli government. Prejudices regarding BDS aside, we must focus on the issue at hand: the chipping away of free speech for the purposes of “security” or allegiance to the Israeli government.

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Opinion

Editorial: Traveling during the school year is a must

Feb. 21, 2016

As college students, it’s easy to become myopic in our priorities: When we’re contending with 15-credit-hour semesters, involvement in various extracurricular endeavors and looming exams while trying to maintain our sanity and questionably healthy bodies, it can become easy to forget that we need to LIVE from time to time. When operating in this fashion, “no” can become a very easy word to throw around. “No,” as in, “No, as much as I love you and value your friendship, I can’t make it out to that conference where you’ll be delivering a speech, as I have to schedule the next two weeks worth of Facebook posts for *insert student organization of choice here.*” Or “no,” as in, “I know it’s your birthday weekend and you’ll be throwing a decadent ‘Broad City’-themed party in your own honor, but no, I can’t make it to Orlando on account of, well, my accounting exam five days afterward.”