Opinion - The Daily Lobo

Opinion

Column: The rocky relationship between press and government is a necessary one

Nichole Harwood | April 5

“Anybody (especially Fake News media) who thinks that Repeal & Replace of ObamaCare is dead does not know the love and strength in R Party!” tweeted President Donald Trump on April 2, 2017. This tweet is one of dozens sent by Trump that help form a picture of the current presidential administration's relationship with the media — a rocky one at best. But how different is this administration's relationship with the media, and how important is this relationship as the foundation of the principles and purpose that define the role of a reporter?

Opinion

Letter: UNM is exploiting vulnerable faculty to pay unnecessary expenses

Daily Lobo Readers | April 5

Editor, It is difficult for me to believe what just took place over the last week. On Tuesday, March 28th, (acting) President Abdallah held a town hall where he informed us that furloughs are on the table.

Opinion

Letter: The University should prioritize education, not athletics

Daily Lobo Readers | April 5

Editor, As the University loses another sport coach, talk has started about who to hire to replace him. I find this disgraceful. The sports department has been losing money and cannot support themselves, so it should have to make the same sacrifices that the rest of the University is (being) asked to make.

Opinion

Letter: Universities are now about profit, not education

Daily Lobo Readers | April 2

Editor, In all my years at UNM, acting President Abdallah is the only head of the school that I have seen who openly encourages community debate and discussion on controversial issues. This is the kind of openness and thinking that UNM and our state needs if we are to solve some of our social and economic crisis that seem to come rolling in like waves of low pressure weather off the Pacific coast. On the issue of the UNM budget problem, we have to face the unspeakable fact that the modern university is a business corporation with education as a side product and not a main mission.

Opinion

Guest Column: Roadblocks to reentry

Barry Ore | April 2

It is 7:15 a.m., and I am standing 20-people back in a line outside the Midtown Public Health Office, where folks needing a birth certificate start congregating around 6:00 a.m. every weekday to claim one of the limited number of documents given out by the Vital Records department. One of my clients stares down at a phone without service, playing a game and lightheartedly fighting off a second client, who encroaches on the screen with a plastic ballpoint pen and says, “it’s a Stylus.” They both giggle, uncharacteristically joyful for the circumstances.

Opinion

Letter: Trump's abortion policies resemble Nazi Germany

Daily Lobo Readers | March 29

Editor, The Republicans' failed American Health Care Act would have effectively dismantled all insurance coverage for abortion; eliminated requirements of essential services to be covered under Medicaid; and defunded Planned Parenthood, a move opposed by 75 percent of Americans. It was reported in January that the U.S. abortion rate is now at the lowest level it’s been Since Roe v. Wade. That is probably due to both expanding contraception coverage, and also the GOP's War on Women. In Israel, abortions are both legal and free? They are covered under insurance. So, why make it harder here especially since we're buddies with Israel and give them tons of money?

Opinion

Letter: Medical residents are overworked and understaffed

Daily Lobo Readers | March 29

Editor, Your report “UNMH residents face 24-hour shifts” (Daily Lobo, 3/27/17) does not mention a big reason for resident stress: the shortage of residents at any given hour in a hospital. This makes many residents overloaded, and likely to cause medical errors. One way hospitals are trying to increase the number of residents on hand is by extending the shift length. This is going to result in greater fatigue, and therefore more medical errors.

Opinion

Editorial: The Daily Lobo endorses Gabe Gallegos for ASUNM President

The Daily Lobo Editorial Board | March 27

In recent years, a diverse group of UNM students have campaigned to become ASUNM president, a title that brings with it a responsibility of representing the University’s 20,000 plus undergraduate students. Those candidates have prioritized and ran on platforms encompassing a myriad of issues: student safety, accessibility of resources, relieving financial burdens, improving campus facilities.

Opinion

Letter: Christians should re-examine their religion

Daily Lobo Readers | March 26

Editor, Any faith worth having is worth examining deeply. Many people fear if they knew more they would believe less. Did Jesus of Nazareth actually live in human history? If he did, did the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible accurately tell Jesus' teachings and actions? In centuries since, did those people who copied and translated the original writings do a good job and make no important mistakes? Huge questions! Who knows the answers for sure?

Opinion

Letter: Student Fee Review Board should provide funding for student journalists

Daily Lobo Readers | March 22

Editor, Recently, a working group within the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) has been reviewing portions of our Bylaws which relate to our annual budget. As a member of that working group, as well as the current vice chair of GPSA's Finance Committee, I am writing to suggest the Student Fee Review Board (SFRB) consider providing funding to the UNM Student Publications Board. According to the GPSA's Bylaws, we must take some of the money we collect from graduate students (the "GPSA Student Fee") and allocate between 1 and 1.5 percent of it to the Board, amounting to roughly $3,000 per year.

Opinion

Column: Women who sought and spoke truth

Cathy Cook | March 21

Ida B. Wells, Nellie Bly, Katharine Graham, Zakia Zaki. A sociologist, an inventor, America’s first fortune 500 CEO and a headmistress. All women who kept people informed and held governments accountable through their work in the world of journalism. In case you didn’t realize yet, March is Women’s History Month. It’s a good time to reflect on the women who have held their ground, brokered peace, built bridges (metaphorical and otherwise) and were all around badasses.

Opinion

Column: Write for the passion, not the paycheck

Cathy Cook | March 20

How many people do you know who are writing a novel? And have been for 10 years (yes, they’re only 21, so this masterwork has been in the works since they were 11)? I know a lot. 10 would be on the low end. There’s the 13-year-old I met on a weeklong camping trip who was almost done with her first novel and had plans to start her second (since when did 13-year-olds start writing novels instead of watching cartoons? Have they always done that? Did I just do being 13 wrong?).

Opinion

Letter: White people are disproportionately targeted for crime

Daily Lobo Readers | March 19

Editor, President Trump's second travel ban is on the back-burner and students are returning from Spring Break festivities. With the campus refreshed and political climate cooled for the moment, I feel now is a good time to broach an uncomfortable-but-important topic amid our racialized political atmosphere: Whites as disproportionate targets in interracial crime. I was hesitant to report the shocking facts on interracial crime and white victimization when I first learned about them from a Department of Justice report two years ago. Reporting anything that challenges the conspiracy of white privilege could implicate me as a hater - or worse.

Opinion

Letter: Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are hurting New Mexico

Daily Lobo Readers | March 16

On Saturday night, March 11, 2017, I started a long overdue conversation on the floor of the House. For the past 14 years, New Mexico tried an experiment – we cut personal and corporate income taxes to see if jobs would flow into the state. The experiment failed. Jobs and people left the state. Revenues tumbled. Schools, public safety and infrastructure were decimated. And the tax burden rose sharply on lower and middle class wage earners.

Opinion

Spring Break Dictionary: Your guide to puking at parties, blacking out and all the other fun experiences you can expect from spending an entire week intoxicated

Cathy Cook | March 10

Spring Break — (n.), an academic tradition that began in the 1930s as a way to offer a midterm break or time off for Easter. Contemporary spring break practices still have much in common with Easter: The concept of rebirth (when your roommate seemed dead after three shots of tequila, but came back to life at the smell of bacon pancakes), the importance of large stones (or being stoned), the centrality of eggs (a pivotal hangover food), and the sacrifice of one man (the sober sitter/DD/Jesus take the wheel) for the lives of the collective. PAAARTAY! — (n.), the homing beacon of drunk spring breakers. This loud inebriated shout, frequently accompanied by a drunken selfie and incoherent hashtags (#pooturnt #durnkselfie), helps spring breakers find one another when they’ve lost their brethren.

Opinion

Column: Where are you when we need you the most, Joe Biden memes?

Cathy Cook | March 10

It’s probably not healthy to get nostalgic about things only a few months past. But the joy, the optimism, the humor! How could I not miss Joe Biden memes? Biden was first sworn in as a U.S. senator at 30, making him the sixth youngest U.S. senator. (The youngest was John Henry Eaton, who was sworn in at age 28 in 1818. You’re supposed to be 30 to serve in the Senate, but no one bothered to ask Eaton how old he was, and I guess he didn’t worry about the age requirements). Biden was a senator from the time he was first elected in 1972 to when he became vice president in 2009, having been re-elected six times.

Opinion

Letter: Craving more money is the most harmful addiction

Daily Lobo Readers | March 8

Editor, Booze, junk food, cocaine, meth, sugar, heroine, sodas, cigarettes are all awful addictions, but no addiction is more harmful than craving much more money, more stuff than we need. I enjoy having enough -- healthy food, one sunny room to live in, a garden for food and flowers. I lived well all of 2016 on $4,946.00 for my total expenses -- rent, food, etc. -- less than half the U.S. poverty level for me as a single person.

Opinion

Letter: Republicans are repeating dark history through mass deportations

Daily Lobo Readers | March 8

Editor, The Republicans' 30-year lock on the Supreme Court has made them extremely reactionary and unwilling to legislate. “Ethnic cleansing” has been defined as the attempt to get rid of (through deportation, displacement or even mass killing) members of an unwanted ethnic group in order to establish an ethnically homogenous geographic area.

Opinion

Letter: Regardless of political differences, students should support each other

Daily Lobo Readers | March 5

Editor, It’s been a long year of transition and change for many groups of people, specifically students. It seems hard to believe that political differences can cause so much hate and violence against one another. As I read this article ("Column: The importance of kindness in times of political tension") I thought to myself, 'What do the red gloves mean to me?'

Opinion

Letter: Americans have a right to deny illegal immigrants a home in their country

Daily Lobo Readers | March 5

Editor, There is an old legal maxim: "Hard cases make bad law." The implicit knowledge behind this statement - of how society is affected by the legal institutions of this country - has universal application. More directly, it has application to undocumented immigrants in New Mexico. To invoke an adjacent topic seen often in the local community, the Native American plight that occurred in the U.S. through colonial times, in sum, fits the definition of genocide.