Browsing: Opinion

I think almost every reader will agree with me when they say they hated reading Facebook after the election results. Gloating, name-calling, and absurd statements about “moving to Canada” seemed to take over everyone’s mind for a few days.

There has been a lot of grumbling as of late.

Grumbling from a lot of people about Baylor football. From fans and commentators, from students and alumni even, nobody seems too pleased with the performance of our football team.

And why should they be?

The Breast Milk Baby has hit U.S. shelves.

One of the newest innovations in the baby-doll world, the Breast Milk Baby was released Friday by the Spanish toy company Berjuan Toys.

The doll cries and burps like any other doll, but there’s one feature that sets it apart.

I have noticed several stories in the Lariat lately about people with autism.

While I am thrilled that you are raising awareness for this disorder, I think it’s important that you find out how to talk about it in a sensitive way.

The title of one story in today’s issue, for example, began with the phrase “autistic families.” This is not at all the correct way to talk about autism and can be considered offensive.

Families are not autistic…one individual in the family is (or several may be).

Thank goodness that’s over.

The presidential campaign of 2012 did not in fact last long enough to be measured in geologic time, but poll-scarred and ad-weary voters can, perhaps, be forgiven for feeling as if it did.

Barack Obama and his supporters will be, understandably, jubilant that his lease on that Pennsylvania Avenue mansion has been extended for four more years. But Tuesday night’s vote is also noteworthy for a reason only tangentially related to the fortunes of the incumbent president.

If someone doesn’t like a particular circumstance, he is told, “It is what it is,” and that’s the end of it.

In sports, “it is what it is” describes the numbers on the scoreboard after the game. You win or you lose and afterward. It is what it is.

In the world of journalism, that black and white statement begins to gray beyond wins and losses.

In response to the editorial of Nov. 7, “For America’s sake let’s all support President Obama,” it behooves me to explain that when I think of the phrase “I support you,” it is associated with feelings and abstract solidarity that I might offer to friends in time of need.

The night of Oct. 29, students received a text from the university.

It said that an armed man was being sought by police near campus. Later reports from the police said that shots were fired in the incident.

Dear Baylor student at the homecoming pep rally:

First of all, I applaud you for wearing your Baylor Line jersey and for showing Baylor spirit.

I feel it important that, despite our losing record, the fans still exhibit pride for the university. However, there were two things that I did not approve of and, frankly, found inappropriate for a pep rally.

Well, I sure got that one wrong.

Four years ago, on the eve of the last presidential election, I wrote in this space of how the country has spent much of the last three decades “re-litigating” the 1960s, arguing over the changes wrought in that decade.

On Nov. 4, 2008, the United States elected its first African -American president, Barack Obama.

Tuesday, after a tight race against Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, Obama was reelected to a second term as commander in chief.

With the 2012 presidential election around the corner, campaign ads and propaganda published by special interest groups have made national appearances on popular networks like CNN, FOX and even Animal Planet.

One particular ad has stirred up controversy throughout the Web.

Late last week, I contacted the “Political Science Young Guns,” a self-described nickname for three young professors in the political science department at Baylor.

There’s nothing like the sound of a good drum line to get you in the spirit of homecoming.

Even the most jaded of seniors and alumni find themselves drawn to the sound of the referee’s echoing shouts in the stadium, to the smell of funnel cake and corn dogs, to the sound of an unknown cover band singing in the night and to the giant pile of wood reeking of gasoline in the middle of Fountain Mall.

We were there. We all saw it. The colossal pillar of fire that is the long-lived symbol of Baylor homecoming.

Like many of you I am a frequent visitor to the beach.

I fell in love with Texas beaches in 1955. I was 6 years old when I built my first sand castle on Stewart Beach. I built my last one with Tori, my 6 year-old granddaughter, just a few weeks ago. Public beach access is very important to me. I want Tori to be able to enjoy our coast as much as I have. Every visitor to the coast should have that same opportunity.

“And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” — Richard Mourdock, GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Life is sacred.

It’s hard to believe that anyone in this day and age would say something like “let’s lynch the scientists.”

Unfortunately, the sentiments once reserved for medieval peasants’ feelings towards the local “wizard” when he told a bad fortune are resurfacing in the modern world.

Let us imagine, for a moment, a hypothetical situation.

Many labs at Baylor began as courses of serious study, giving students hands-on experience to complement their class work. Now, however, many labs need serious restructuring.

Why? Well, from our research, many students say that lab degradation can be blamed on a combination of things.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are stepping up their rhetoric as Election Day grows nearer, and so are their supporters.

As a close follower of current events and politics, I have seen and heard many different viewpoints of President Obama and Governor Romney.

I am writing in response James Herd’s Oct. 24 article, “PETA Video Games Detract From Others’ Fight for Animal Rights.”

The game’s main message is that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment or abuse in any other way.

There are a lot of similarities between how Pokémon are used in the game series and how animals are abused in real life. The difference between real life and this fictional world full of organized animal fighting is that Pokémon games paint a rosy picture of things that are actually cruel.

Both Republican challenger Mitt Romney and incumbent president Barack Obama agree the deficit needs to be addressed, but it is Romney and not Obama who has repeatedly failed to prove himself as someone who is serious about tackling the issue.

Some facets of Romney’s tax reformation plan include cutting taxes by 20 percent across the board, considerably reducing marginal tax rates, repealing the inheritance tax, and reaffirming the low tax rates on capital gains.

According to the Tax Policy Center, Romney’s plan would cost $4.8 trillion over ten years.

There are plenty of places in the world where people are oppressed and don’t get any say in their own government. To a much lesser extent, one of these places is the United States of America. In America each person gets one vote for each political position in their district. That means that the people they vote for should reflect the will of the majority, but that vote gets watered down by a system of electors, representatives and gerrymandering and eventually dumped in a big tub with all the other votes. This means that each individual vote means a lot less than the aggregate.

Everyone wants to be right.

As Election Day draws nearer, political campaigns and commentators begin talking more and more about recent poll data, attempting to interpret the results to indicate their candidate is winning. As a result, favorable poll numbers are often exaggerated and unfavorable results are “explained away”.

On average, a person spends up to eight hours a month on Facebook, whether it’s connecting with old friends, feeding your chickens on Farmville or — let’s be real — Facebook stalking.

If you haven’t already noticed, your timelines on Facebook are beginning to appear like MySpace back in the day or the silly emails that were forwarded to your Hotmail account with lEtTeRs ThAt LoOkEd LiKe ThIs.

The “Freshman 15” is the least of our worries, fellow classmates.

Sure, we may pack on some extra weight our freshman year. But that’s not the main problem at hand — that’s easily reversible.

The real problem is thinking we’re invincible to all the health implications that arise from eating whatever we want, when we want. And here’s the truth: We’re not. I hate to say it, but four years of not taking care of our bodies can’t possibly end well.

This election cycle has been a rough one.

Voters have been subjected to such a barrage of hateful rhetoric and misinformation that it’s a wonder that we can still remember what party each candidate is running for.

College is expensive; we all know this.

For many of us, our parents strive to do all that they can to make our scholastic dreams come true by taking out loans. A recent investigative report published by ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education found that a government loan called the Parent PLUS loan has seemed to harm more than it helped — not only the students’ financial stability but that of the parents’ as well.

PETA, known for its outlandish protests in an effort to protect animals from abuse, have returned to attack video games over the past year and a half, and it’s growing to an uncontrollable level.

Around this time last semester, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a smear campaign against Nintendo and its trademark franchise, Mario Bros. With the release of “Super Mario 3D Land,” the animal rights group erected a website in response to the release, with a game of its own: “Mario Kills Tanooki” is a flash game that PETA created where you play as a skinned Tanooki (racoon-dog) chasing after a carnivorous Mario flying with the help of the Tanooki tail.

That, of course, is the infelicitous phrase Mitt Romney used in last week’s second presidential debate when he was asked how he would address paycheck inequity between the sexes. Romney responded with a homily about how, as the newly elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he became concerned that the only job applications that crossed his desk seemed to be from men.

Affirmative action has always been a controversial issue since it’s inception in 1961 by John Kennedy. The goal was to counter the effects of a history of discrimination by eliminating the discrimination of minorities in college admissions on the grounds of gender, religion, ethnicity, handicap and yes — race. This not only applies to college campuses, but to the workplace as well.