Opinion - The Daily Lobo

Opinion

Ask Dr. Peg: Things to consider before your next Brazilian wax

Dr. Peggy Spencer | March 19

Question: Is it dirty if I don’t shave my private parts? Will I get sick if I don’t? To answer your question, it is not dirty to have hair on your pubes any more than it is dirty to have hair on your head. Hair is natural, as normal as fingernails or eyelashes. You will not get sick from keeping your pubic hair, although you could get sick or injured if you remove it. More on that in a minute

Opinion

Letter: ASUNM aims for transparency with posting of resolution

March 17

Editor, ASUNM Joint Resolution 6S, as passed by the Associated Students of UNM on March 4, is inherently designed as a statement against hate crimes such as Islamophobia.

Opinion

Methane gas regulation to impact New Mexico

Will Brewer | March 17

New Mexico will likely be among the states most impacted by President Barack Obama's renewed effort mitigate climate change through the regulation and reduction methane gas emissions. New Mexico is an outsized methane polluter.

Opinion

Antisemitism is as important an issue as Islamophobia

March 16

With the ASUNM unanimously passing a cautionary resolution urging UNM administration to state their opposition to Islamophobia,

Opinion

'Islamophobia' resolution is attack on free expression

March 16

Editor, I am writing as a concerned citizen who pays taxes that are used to help fund grants and scholarships to the University.

Opinion

Islam is Islam: 'Peaceful' Muslims are not real Muslims

March 16

Editor, The recent passage of Resolution 6S is an infringement on American civil rights. Not only was the definition of "Islamophobia" misrepresented, the claims that there are no contradictions between American values and Islamic values are baseless.

Opinion

Column: It's high time New Mexico legalized pot

Jason Darensburg | March 6

New Mexico should be next in line to legalize marijuana for recreational use. We can’t afford not to do it: Full legalization would provide tens of millions of dollars in economic benefits for the state at a time when the dwindling local economy needs a major boost. Colorado and Washington State legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2012. Oregon voters approved legalization in July 2014, and in February Alaska became the fourth U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Opinion

Letter: People must address addiction issues before legalizing cannabis

March 5

Your cartoon on March 4 exemplifies how complicated the issue of cannabis legalization has become. To unravel the resulting confusion among users of this drug, there must first be broad agreement among all levels of government that cannabis is physically addictive, with serious consequences such as loss of working memory, cognitive impairment, even schizophrenia, and dangerous withdrawal symptoms like physical aggression.

Opinion

Do not erase Christopher Columbus' legacy, importance to history

March 4

Editor, It has come to my attention that some history revisionist types are once again trying to stir up trouble where there should be none.

Opinion

Women's center should not be misued

March 4

Editor, I was disappointed on Monday when I found that the lactation center was being used for student testing in one of the departments.

Opinion

New Mexico panders to religion yet again by nixing Darwin Day

March 3

Editor, By cancelling Darwin Day at our state-run Museum of Natural History, the New Mexico government has capitulated one more time to its base of religionists, this time running interference in the guise of Intelligent Design. But what did you expect?

Opinion

Snow delay, cancellation decisions poorly handled

March 3

Editor, I received an email from the University at 5:15 a.m. on Friday alerting me that campus was to have a two-hour weather delay and that classes would start at 10 a.m.

Opinion

Recycle bins need more, better labeling

Katie Orndorff | March 3

Groups of students throughout the UNM campus have decided that they want to promote recycling and reduce the amount of recyclable items that end up in the trash. Every day, trash cans on campus are filled with things such as plastic water bottles or soda cups that could instead be recycled. An increasingly large issue is that many people want to throw their trash into the first bin available, regardless of whether the item is trash or a recyclable.

Opinion

GOP has no room to talk when attacking the president

February 27

Editor, Inflation has absolutely devoured American wages for the last three decades. If Obama was really a socialist, wouldn’t the ACA include a single payer public option? Republicans seem to have forgotten that we live in a republic.

Opinion

Letter: Shine light on the secrets keeping us in the dark

February 26

Secrecy is largely about shame, fear and guilt. I refuse to live that way. My beloved longtime friend told me in our deep, last conversation two days before his sudden death that he wanted to have first-time sex with me, but not a relationship. He said if I told anyone, he would kill me and maybe kill himself. I did not have sex with him. I want to celebrate sex with a friend, not hide it as a poisonous secret to keep him from killing me or himself. As he left my home that day, he told me “I love you” – maybe the only time since he and I met 39 years earlier. Several days later, I was devastated to hear that he was dead. This was my most heart-wrenching experience of 2011.

Opinion

Letter: Motorcyclists should use helmets, no exceptions

February 26

Editor, There are two helmet laws under consideration in the Legislature. One mandates motorcycle helmets for all.

Opinion

Letter: Music isn't necessarily bad just because it's new

February 26

Jason Darensburg, you recently claimed in your column “Today’s youth are bombarded with bad music” that music today is an implicative mess. I wish to address you on these matters and hopefully change your mind. Your claim falsely implies that because today’s youth has bad music, yesterday’s youth must have had good music. Is it truly honest to think that, for reasons you had not pointed out, music today must be automatically worse than music in the past? Why is it that the use of auto-tune automatically implies that one isn’t fit to sing? What you’re essentially saying is that music in the past is the only means of music, and that if music today does not emulate such archaic music, then it must be implicitly bad. This is stupendously ridiculous.

Opinion

Letter: U.S. does not stand for freedom, justice or democracy

February 23

The United States strongly supports many bloody regimes now: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Pakistan and Mexico. The United States strongly supported many bloody past regimes: El Salvador, Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Iran, South Africa, Argentina and Indonesia. The main goal — worldwide — of the U.S. government is grabbing more wealth, resources and cheap labor by any means necessary, regardless of how many millions are robbed, tortured, starved, imprisoned and murdered.

Opinion

Letter: Employment precarious for University staff

February 23

Although the administration is perpetually exhorting the UNM community to buy more corn dogs at the ball game, or to buy them a new gym that will photograph better in brochures, I would like to direct the reader’s attention toward another matter. UNM (or is it WisePies? Or, as former President David Schmidly maintained, Wal-Mart?) is most properly understood as a tax-exempt corporation operating a sports franchise and an academic theme park. Accordingly, the actual management of UNM employees is by the Wal-Mart corporate model: every employee is seen as a black mark against departmental management. At the Center for High Technology Materials, staff was laid off with just four weeks’ notice after decades of documented excellent service.

Opinion

Column: as 1 percent is coddled, time for new tea party

Jason Darensburg | February 20

“No taxation without representation!” That was the motto of the original Tea Partiers in pre-Revolutionary War Boston. The phrase encapsulated one of the primary grievances the American colonists had with King George’s government: Parliament kept imposing new taxes and tariffs without their knowledge or consent, and the revenue was being used for purposes at odds with the immediate needs of the settlers in the 13 colonies. The colonists argued that they had no representatives in Parliament and therefore their concerns weren’t being addressed. The British claimed they were being “virtually” represented. Tensions rose. In 1773, colonists violently rejected a proposed tax on tea imports at the so-called Boston Tea Party. What exactly transpired that night is under dispute, but the end result was that Britain retaliated in an escalating chain of events that ultimately led to the American Revolution.