Opinion - The Daily Lobo

News

Column: It's about more than cake

Kyle Land | June 10

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m gay and I don’t like cake. This simple pastry, though, has come to symbolize the fight for full and complete LGBTQ equality in recent years. Just a few days ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado in 2012, with an incredibly vague opinion that does little to help defenders of LGBTQ rights or religious liberties.

News

Column: Reconciling faith with LGBTQ identity

Gabby Rivera | June 10

In early December of last year, I kissed a girl for the first time. It felt, among all the usual things associated with a kiss, as wholly natural as my first kiss with a guy years ago. I had been dimly aware that I was not straight, but attracted to both sexes since my years in Catholic high school — it wasn’t until college that I consciously acknowledged it. By this time, I felt ready to tell my family, and from there, others. I remember thinking Christmas might be a good time.

Opinion

Letter: Missing children — the Pottery Barn rule revisited

June 3

Editor, If one in five American parents couldn't figure out where their kids were, most people would rightly see the phenomenon as a crisis and a national scandal. Grandstanding prosecutors with visions of gubernatorial campaigns dancing in their heads would conduct mass parental perp walks. Legislators would boost their presidential aspirations by co-sponsoring legislation requiring universal implantation of GPS trackers at birth. However, when the same U.S. government that postures as a better parent than real parents, crows over "extreme vetting" of immigrants and announces separation of undocumented families as policy loses track of 19 percent of unaccompanied refugee children placed in homes by the Office of Refugee resettlement, ORR is "not legally responsible," according to Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families.

Photo courtesy of Capt. Timothy Spratto.

Opinion

An open letter to my mom

Madison Spratto | May 13

There have been 21 years of hugs, tears, laughter and love. 12 years of soccer practices. Three years of care packages and phone calls to make up for the missed Thanksgiving’s and birthdays. It’s been four years since the last time I had the chance to wish you a happy Mother’s Day in person.

Opinion

Letter: Opiates are a trap

Daily Lobo Readers | May 7

Dear Editor, I don’t like traps. I don’t appreciate an ambush. Right now millions of Americans, some say up to 5 million, are trapped and being ambushed by the Opioid Crisis.

Opinion

Letter: For Whom The Nobel Tolls?

Daily Lobo Readers | May 7

Editor, Sure, things don't exist in international relations, but we seem to be witnessing an impending settlement of the nearly 70-year-old Korean War. Kim Jong-un recently became the first ruler of North Korea to officially visit the South, where he conferred with president Moon Jae-in. Denuclearization and a peace treaty look like real possibilities. Kim is also working out plans for a summit with US president Donald Trump.

Opinion

Letter: California Secession — A Good Start

Daily Lobo Readers | May 2

Editor, On April 23, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla approved language for a 2020 ballot proposal submitted by the Yes California Independence Campaign. The proposal will -- assuming the campaign can collect and submit signatures from 365,880 registered voters by October -- kick off a process already widely known as "Calexit" (after the United Kingdom's "Brexit" from the European Union). That process entails three parts: Asking Californians (in 2020) if they want to "discuss" secession; if yes, asking Californians (in 2021) if they want to secede; and if again yes, asking 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment allowing California to leave the United States.

Opinion

Letter: No human being is illegal

Daily Lobo Readers | April 25

I strongly support full human rights for all immigrants. Many immigrants flee here from war, persecution and severe poverty caused largely by the United States. Since 1950 the U.S. government under both Republican and Democratic presidents has overthrown multiple governments — many of them democracies, has bombed about 30 countries and has murdered millions of people. The U.S. government routinely and deliberately sides with the filthy rich to rob and oppress the poor. Many immigrants would prefer to stay in their native countries if living conditions there greatly improved.

Opinion

Letter: Just when you thought 'Russiagate' couldn't get any sillier

Daily Lobo Readers | April 25

Editor, April 20 is cannabis culture's high holiday, and the Democratic National Committee celebrated it with fervor this year: blaze up, get silly, file a bizarre lawsuit accusing the Russian government, Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and transparency activist group WikiLeaks of conspiring to steal an election. The suit confirms that after more than a year, special counsel Robert Mueller still hasn't amassed the evidence required for a successful criminal prosecution, requiring proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." A civil suit lowers that bar to "a preponderance of the evidence."

Opinion

Letter/Poem: Unspoken Thoughts

Daily Lobo Readers | April 25

A moment frozen which melts away

Opinion

Guest Column: BioBlog — Can ant robots help humans go to space?

Maria Oroyan | April 25

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published online in the UNM BioBlog on March 16, 2018, written by Maria Oroyan.

Collage of characters Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory and Mark Zuckerberg from SNL.

Opinion

Column: Autism is no laughing matter

Kyle Land | April 25

There’s been no shortage of jokes directed toward Facebook’s CEO and co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in the wake of the Facebook scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. While most jokes are tame enough, some jokes are far more pointed and lacking in taste, especially regarding Zuckerberg himself. A frustrating example of this appears in a recent sketch in Saturday Night Live. On SNL’s Weekend Update, a mock interview between Zuckerberg (played by Alex Moffat) and Colin Jost first portrays the CEO exhibiting some strange behaviors. For example, Zuckerberg starts the conversation by telling himself aloud to make eye contact and then saying, “2...3...look away.”

Opinion

Guest Column: BioBlog — Curing birth defects before birth

Karina Dow | April 22

The natural human desire to bring new life into this world is not always so simple. When a fetus has serious medical conditions, it can be more risky to wait for after birth. Undergraduate Karina Dow discusses medical advances in a relatively new field of medicine, fetal surgery, in a recent UNM BioBlog.

Opinion

Letter: Multilingualism in media is incredibly important

Daily Lobo Readers | April 22

Editor, I want to applaud the Daily Lobo for its International Issue — what a wonderful glimpse of the diversity that we are! It was a joy to see Tasawar Shah, one of my linguistically gifted doctoral students, featured along with other international students. By publishing this multilingual issue, the Daily Lobo put itself far ahead of all mainstream newspapers, even those with massive circulations and ahead of most online media as well. Bravo!

Opinion

Letter: When Barbara Bush said damn

Daily Lobo Readers | April 22

Editor, I've always admired Barbara Bush. Like millions of others, I was saddened to hear about her declining health and then recent death. Many television tributes and well-deserved accolades have been verbalized in recent days. Her beautiful funeral service and all that was said from their Houston Episcopal Church was a tribute to one of America's finest ladies. I had the opportunity to have my picture taken with the first lady many years ago.

Sacred Garden Dispensary Manager Cecilia Gutierrez rearranges different cannabis strains.

Opinion

Green Issue — Column: The case for cannabis

Anthony Jackson | April 19

Cannabis can go by many names — marijuana, ganja, weed, grass, sticky-icky or dank. Regardless of the name, cannabis has been used and cultivated for thousands of years. With more than 1,000 different types of strains, it’s hard to believe that an ancient plant has made it to the top of the United States’ scheduled list of controlled substances, alongside heroin, all while cannabis’ medical properties continue to be overlooked by politicians with the help of pro-pharmaceutical lobbyists.

Cacti begin to bloom in Castetter Hall's green house on April 18, 2018.

Opinion

Green Issue — Column: Plant ownership can have many benefits

Madison Spratto | April 19

I don’t have the famous green thumb that usually coincides with being a good plant owner — in fact it’s fair to say I have quite the opposite. Despite my terrible track record of killing plant after plant, a friend gave me the final push to try one more time, but this time, with plants I can actually keep alive. Although owning cacti and succulents is a fairly new hobby of mine, it’s in step with a wide-spread trend. Owning plants is definitely “in” right now, but so is plant-themed decor. I can’t put my finger on why this trend has emerged, but I’m certainly not complaining.

A Buffalo Exchange employee picks through clothes that were dropped off and decides whether or not to buy them for resale on April, 18, 2018.

Opinion

Green Issue — Column: Five ways to make cash on the side

Catherine Stringam | April 19

In today’s world, finding a job can be difficult. As a college student, balancing the demands of a job and school can be complicated, but necessary to pay for college, which is why students are always trying to find extra ways to earn money. When you think of side hustling, you often think of bugging all your Facebook friends trying to sell them cosmetics or something they don’t really need. But there are other options for students to make a little extra money on the side — here are five.

Opinion

Letter: If you quit

April 19

Editor, This column is about something I've thought about doing before and that's just saying the heck with it.

Opinion

Letter: Freedom is winning in the Encryption Arms Race

Daily Lobo Readers | April 18

Editor, At tax time in the U.S., as Gaurav Sangwani of India's Financial Express reports, many American cryptocurrency users weren't interested in discussing that aspect of their lives with the Internal Revenue Service. In an early April TeamBlind survey of 2,600 people who earned money from crypto, 46 percent said they wouldn't be reporting those earnings to Uncle Sam. Meanwhile, per Investopedia's Nathan Reiff, fewer than 100 of Credit Karma Tax's 250,000 most recent filers had reported cryptocurrency transactions as of April 13.