Opinion - The Daily Lobo

Opinion

Letter: Although Urdu no longer forced on Bangladeshi, English still is

February 18

The recent celebration at UNM of International Mother Language Day by the Bangladesh Student Association focused, as usual, on the formation of a sovereign Bangladesh out of East Pakistan, seeded by protesting college students there demanding the right to continue having their mother tongue Bangla as their official language and not have Urdu imposed upon them from the domineering West Pakistan. The police killed a few, but the protest succeeded.

Opinion

Letter: The Catholic church's repressive attitude towards sex leads to priests' deviance

February 18

I have known gay priests as my friends. Many priests entered seminary as youth and never experienced much natural sexual exploration. Their sexual development was frozen! They were castrated, without knives, by strict sexual prohibitions. Years later they emerged into the world as parish priests – horny and lonely for intimacy but not prepared for mature romance. They related sexually largely to kids about the age the priests were when their sexual development was frozen. We can understand behavior without necessarily approving.

Opinion

Column: ASUNM prioritizing parking lot safety

Jenna Hagengruber | February 15

Safety. A big word, carrying a lot of weight and meaning for each student, staff, and faculty member at the University of New Mexico. How do we promote a safe yet open campus? Over the course of the past year, ASUNM has taken a special interest in the safety of each student on campus. We want to make sure that YOU feel both comfortable and at home at UNM, and we have taken some big steps towards creating a safer environment for YOU. Each year, ASUNM is able to ask for capital outlay money from the Legislature. We focus on areas throughout campus that may need renovation, remodeling or revamping explicitly in the interest of students.

Opinion

Letter: Pregnant and parenting students should be encouraged to finish school

February 15

Students for Life UNM was able to hand out 30 Valentines Day bags and over 40 roses to women at our pregnant and parenting support table today! Each bag contained a rose, a pregnancy test, a referral to both the nearest pregnancy recourse center and Care Net’s STD Mobile Unit, information on our outreach, Pregnant on Campus and an invite to our next meeting. Why did we give away pregnancy tests, you may ask? Are we telling students to get pregnant? According to recent polls, nearly 26 percent of undergraduate students (4.8 million) are parents of a dependent child, many of whom are single mothers. This is a high number, and is not always recognized on campuses.

Opinion

Sports Column: Stop the hate against Cullen Neal

J.R. Oppenheim | February 11

The vitriol against Cullen Neal needs to stop. Believe me, I didn’t want to embroil myself in this back-and-forth debate over Cullen Neal, whether he plays too much, whether his dad favors his son.

Opinion

Letter: Beating kids creates pain, cycle of abuse

February 11

A man beaten horribly as a kid by his alcoholic father learned to endure the beatings with not even a whimper in order not to give his father the satisfaction of seeing his pain. As a grown man he is totally incapable of showing any signs of pain or sorrow. Many people think he is a cold fish, but he says they have no idea what goes on inside him.

Opinion

Letter: SUB restaurants can't survive time with competition

February 11

Many have noticed the recent changes in restaurant selection in the SUB since the fall semester. Now during the winter semester, we lost Garcias to Twisters.

Opinion

Letter: ISIS is different from other terrorist organizations

February 11

Throughout the last year we have been constantly bombarded by the media talking about ISIS, but how many people actually understand why ISIS is different?

Opinion

Column: Bullies make for poor allies

Jyllian Roach | February 8

Facebook friend posted a message on Thursday about Roosh V. and the ill-fated Return of Kings meet-up event. In it, he said that, while the event was canceled, men who had planned to participate were instead going to ”...’pick up’ (read: coerce and rape) women at nearby bars.” I asked the poster, who thinks of himself as an ally for women, for his source on the information, and instead of supplying a link or a name, he became defensive and ultimately he deleted my comments. Later that same day, the U.K. tabloid website Daily Mail published an article with the headline “Not so cool now! Pro-rape pick-up artist pictured in a sweat-stained T-shirt at the door of his mother’s home (where he lives in the BASEMENT!).” The included photo shows the self-identified men’s rights activist speaking to police at his door wearing – gasp – a T-shirt and shorts. No mention was made of how they had determined he lived in his mother’s basement.

Opinion

Letter: 'Evangelicals' attempting to bring down the wall between church and state

February 4

What with the top-tier Republican Presidential hopefuls falling over each other to pronounce how Christian they are, the enormous base of “Evangelicals” (what a pretty name for bigoted proselytizers) that they pander to is being emboldened even further into shattering the wall separating Church and State in places not just like Iowa.

Opinion

Why Iowa and New Hampshire?

February 4

And now the question that’s been dancing on the lips of politically concerned citizens for decades: who’s the genius that chose Iowa and New Hampshire to be the first and most influential states in determining who becomes the next president? It was probably the same guy who figured out how to bundle subprime mortgages. Or related to the brewer who invented Cold Turkey Breakfast Beer. The idiot behind pay toilets on airplanes.

Opinion

Letter: Reactionary Republicans' position not supported by evidence

February 1

The best thing about being a know-nothing reactionary Republican is, since they don’t actually ‘read’ the news or comprehend current events, they never have to weigh their fallacious beliefs and propaganda against the reality based community! UNM Student Justin Davis “reached his limit” by having to read the “fluffy” 1/21/16 Daily Lobo story, ‘UNM program pairs volunteers with refugees to aid in their transition.’ The Lobo’s Elizabeth Sanchez reported on a program that, “Partners with refugees from around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Many have experienced war, displacement, the loss of loved ones and other painful events.” Davis states that “our economy is in the worst state it has been since the great depression, our labor participation rate is the lowest since the 1970’s and our middle class is being crushed by socialistic agendas.”

Opinion

Letter: The University's new brand doesn't capture the spirit of UNM

February 1

The University has recently decided to try developing a brand. Their stated goal in doing so wasn’t to change the face of the University, but to boil down the culture of our beautiful campus and community to the essentials of what makes UNM such a unique and special place. So they hired a branding company called 160over90. A branding company “headquartered in Philadelphia.” Cue scratched record sound. UNM was said in the University’s announcement to be “the heartbeat of New Mexico,” So why are we hiring out to a company that isn’t local? That’s the first big mistake made in the mission to “brand” UNM. They forgot that we are local. That we pride ourselves on being local and having local vendors. Or maybe they just don’t care, because in the announcement it talks about how intricately connected UNM is to our local community, yet they go straight for an east coast branding company.

Opinion

Letter: The Daily Lobo should be challenging its readers, not pandering to them

February 1

Perhaps the only thing Justin Davis got right in his opinion piece is that the Daily Lobo seems to be rather preoccupied with vapid stories while ignoring discussion of meaningful sociopolitical, scientific and technological matters. I will not devote space to excoriating Justin Davis’ opinion piece, as the errors there can be reasonably identified by anyone with a knack for sorting empirical evidence out of the jungle of opinion, belief and myth. It is unfortunate that the Daily Lobo has become a forum for tirelessly pandering to the sports and entertainment culture while carefully avoiding coverage of controversial subjects that may make some readers uncomfortable (challenges to one’s worldview, after all, have a tendency to create a level of discomfort.)

Opinion

Column: ASUNM working to protect the scholarship, budgeting for student organization

Alexandra Cervantes | February 1

A new semester is underway and with it ASUNM is determined to finish our academic year strong. Within just the first two weeks, we have been up to Santa Fe many times regarding our Capital Outlay Project and the Lottery Scholarship, held our first rounds of budget workshops, and begun working on our new outreach efforts for this semester. We have a lot on the docket for this semester, but we can’t do any of it without YOUR help. Here are the major ways you can help us get started:

Opinion

Letter: Gun ownership more dangerous to the wielder than any criminal

February 1

In New York two brothers, both of them police officers, had 10 years of spotless records as cops. They got into an awful argument. One brother shot and killed his drunk brother. If anyone, weeks before, could have told these two brothers when they were arresting other people that one would shoot and kill the other, how would they have believed it? If anyone, weeks earlier, could have told Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius that he would shoot and kill his girlfriend, how would he have believed it?

Opinion

Editorial: Oscars are only one part of the minority exclusion problem

The Daily Lobo Editorial Board | January 28

The recent unveiling of the 2016 Academy Award nominations – which, for the second consecutive year, resulted in zero minorities being represented among the 20 acting spots across four categories – has revived the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag and outcry.

Opinion

Letter: Journalists report on fluff rather than substance

January 25

I, like many of the students at UNM, have read the Daily Lobo on a fairly regular basis over the past several years of my education. I am increasingly frustrated with the articles and spin that emanates from our future journalists. I have finally reached my limit with the articles that were published on the 21st of January, 2016.

Opinion

Letter: Campus should give notice to students before removing school property

January 21

I am writing this letter to complain about UNM’s practices when it comes to construction or repair of school property, in particular with regard to outdoor public furniture such as picnic tables or benches. I was surprised to see this morning when taking a walk across campus that my favorite lunch bench, the brown one located on the northwest side of Mitchell Hall, had been removed. I have eaten lunch there almost every day at two for the past three years. If you have ever walked by you’ve probably noticed me, baseball cap, Bills jacket, rocking out to Husker Du or something similar.

Opinion

Letter: President Frank disrespects staff by disregarding their contribution to the University

January 21

Disrespect for staff just keeps on coming. The Daily Lobo, printed issue, dated January 29, 2016 printed an article on page two in relation to the budget.