Columns

Opinion

Column: Student-parents face unique challenges

Nichole Harwood | October 15

Choosing the path of a student is one that is often filled with chaos as one strives to fill every role they are expected to fill as adults. In many instances, the student finds they bit off more than they can chew, and these different roles will often suffer for it as a student works hard to complete their education. But what if one role cannot suffer? No matter the assignments that pile up or the test that must be studied for, one role that certain students cannot let suffer is that of a parent.

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Opinion

Column: A closer look at Marvel's representation of women on screen

Nichole Harwood | October 8

Representation of women in the media in both film and television has always been rather skewed. These representations almost always consist of women bending to the stereotypes that society deems acceptable to be considered beautiful. However, beyond just the superficial representation of women in film and television, these portrayals also do damage in the character department. According to an overview of a series of studies conducted by Dr. Stacy Smith of the University of Southern California and her research team titled Gender Stereotypes: An Analysis of Popular Films and TV, “females take up half the space in society, yet, especially in films aimed at children, they appear much less frequently than do males. Nevertheless, when they do make it onto the silver or small screen, their portrayals can undermine their presence by being ‘hyper-attractive’ or ‘hypersexual’ and/or passive.”

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Opinion

Column: In face of shooting, prayers are not enough

Kyle Land | October 4

Three years after his son, Daniel, was murdered in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Mark Barden said to “Entertainment Weekly,” “Thoughts and prayers and moments of silence are not enough.” This is the mindset America should have when tackling the epidemic of gun violence. Thoughts and prayers do not prevent gun violence. Legislation does. On the night of Oct. 1, a lone gunman ascended to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas and proceeded to open fire into a crowd of thousands of concertgoers below. In total, 59 people were killed with hundreds more injured. It was the worst mass shooting in modern United States history.

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Opinion

Column: President's attack on NFL players is blatant hypocrisy

Jonathan Baca | September 27

Despite Hell-on-Earth conditions in Puerto Rico (a territory of the United States) after the ravages of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, despite the very possible nuclear holocaust between the U.S. and North Korea, despite the possible destruction of healthcare benefits for tens of millions of Americans — our President is tweeting about...the National Football League. And what is his beef with the much beloved NFL? That some players, and now many owners and coaches, are standing — and kneeling — with one Colin Kaepernick, a 49ers quarterback, who decided over a year ago to take a knee during the National Anthem. Kaepernick did this in protest of widespread police brutality against unarmed, innocent black men who were (and are) being gunned down in the streets by the men and women sworn to protect their communities.

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Opinion

Column: Homecoming might be more than a hastle

Nichole Harwood | September 24

Homecoming was not made for me. I don’t mean that in an outwardly negative way either. I’m not saying the tradition of Homecoming celebrated by high schools and colleges doesn’t mean something to others, or that it doesn’t reach out to a large amount of people. It’s simply that these traditions were clearly not made with someone like me in mind. While I have never loathed the concept of others celebrating Homecoming, it has never particularly excited me either, or ever caught my attention.

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Opinion

Guest Column — BioBlog: Is Hurricane Irma the result of climate change?

Felisa Smith | September 22

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published online in the UNM BioBlog on Sept. 8, written by Felisa Smith. This is part of our new project to help connect the Daily Lobo audience to more members of our community. In the last month, two catastrophic hurricanes have threatened the U.S., causing widespread destruction. Is global warming to blame for the frequency and strength of these hurricanes? UNM Biology Professor Felisa Smith discusses how climate change influences extreme weather patterns in the UNM BioBlog. The full article can also be accessed in the print version of the Sept. 21 version of the Daily Lobo. Felisa Smith is a guest columnist at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at fasmith@unm.edu or on Twitter @UNMpaleoecology.

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Opinion

Guest Column: BioBlog — Feathered Dinosaurs

Guest Columnsits | September 15

Did Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs, have feathers? Though feathers are inherently thought of as a trait that only birds posses, there is more than ample evidence to suggest that this apex predator could have had more than just scales. Jenna McCullogh discusses the evolution of birds, their feathers and what scientists think T. rex looked like in the UNM BioBlog.

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Opinion

Column: Trump faces a sensitive topic with immigration

Ryan Margraf | September 14

President Trump must call upon Congress to build a big, beautiful, humane border wall with Mexico, a state whose government has gone so far as to publish pamphlets on how their ever-so-economically valuable citizens can infiltrate the U.S. without detection. In the same breath, he must also call upon Congress to grant Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients a path to citizenship. When President Trump announced the end of DACA, there were local protests abound. University administrators nationwide came right on cue, stating their unconditional support of undocumented students.

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Culture

Column: College Anxiety: Understanding its triggers

Nichole Harwood | June 18

Anxiety can be unpredictable and creeps into the mind beginning as a feeling of worry being presented in situations that an individual feels they have no control of. As the unease in these situations increases, anxiety can begin affecting everyday life preventing a person's ability to complete tasks they once found simple. For many college students, anxiety is simply another part of the college experience you purchase – along with your textbooks.

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Sports

Column: The NCAA — A nonprofit that sees plenty of green

Robert Maler | April 19

Most people have heard the phrase “do as I say...not as I do” at some point in their life. That message is on full display when the NCAA makes rules against players benefitting financially from their athletic ability. The NCAA, a nonprofit entity, has the primary task of ensuring fair competition between its member schools in collegiate sporting events. But being a “nonprofit” certainly doesn’t mean the NCAA doesn’t generate any revenue — far from it. It has a disclosed a reported revenue of nearly $1 billion in each of the last several years, according to ncaa.org. In nearly all circumstances, it is a violation of NCAA rules for student-athletes to receive compensation for their athletic talent outside of their athletic scholarship. But it appears to be okay for others to do so.

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Opinion

Column: UNM skiing should be prioritized, not discontinued

Gabriella Rivera | April 16

Two days separated the announcement of Paul Weir as the new head men’s basketball coach and the discontinuation of both the men’s and women’s ski teams. This jarring sequence reflects the wider — and questionable — priorities of UNM Athletics under the leadership of Paul Krebs. Weir’s contract is to be 2.5 times that of his previous salary at NMSU. The base salary for his first year at UNM will be $625,000, escalating to $825,000 by his sixth year. Buyouts for basketball and football coaches have been costly for UNM in recent years, from Locksley to Neal.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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?).

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Culture

Column: Cartoons for adults are having a renaissance

Fin Martinez | March 5

Millennials grew up in an interesting era for cartoons. Many of us remember the “What a Cartoon!” show and “Nicktoons,” which produced the most iconic cartoons of the 90’s and early 2000s. With shows like “Rugrats,” “The Ren and Stimpy Show,” “Spongebob Squarepants,” “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and “Ed, Edd n Eddy,” it was considered a golden age for TV animation. But like many good things in life, nothing lasts forever. Around 2008 the quality of cartoons began to deteriorate. They weren’t as funny or original as they once were, and whether it was due to executives cancelling a series in favor of a new series or because cartoons were beginning to be created for a kids-only audience, the quality of cartoons took a nosedive.

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Opinion

Column: The importance of kindness in times of political tension

Nichole Harwood | February 28

Few things in life can radically impact how an individual treats another more than politics. Friends, family and coworkers will seemingly transform into strangers when they passionately defend their own political views, spewing harsh and cold words to those who oppose them. This is one of the reasons many households and workplaces do not allow politics to be discussed at all. These rules, however, do not hold true in social media or in public outside of homes among family and strangers alike.

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Opinion

Column: Milo's downfall shows even the alt-right limit speech

Jonathan Baca | February 26

After all the riots and battles he caused on campuses in the name of free speech, alt-right activist and former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos’ career has completely imploded — ironically because of something “unacceptable” he said. Yiannopoulos — a gay, Catholic British alt-right firebrand — raided and pillaged across U.S. liberal college campuses as part of his “Dangerous Faggot Tour,” essentially a hate-filled series of live trolling events. There were riots at UC Berkeley when he was scheduled to attend, and because of the huge car fires and mayhem that violent anti-Milo protesters had created, campus police decided it was too dangerous for him to appear.

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Opinion

Column: What to wear in the face of fascism

Cathy Cook | February 15

There’s been a lot of talk about fighting fascism in my Facebook feed lately, but are you really prepared to resist an Orwellian police state? And when I say prepared, I mean do you have the right outfit? Of course not! The 2000s were a fashion nightmare from which we are only just awaking, which is why I’m here to tell you what looks will be hot in the picket line this fall.

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Opinion

Column: An eco-friendly, and cheaper, way to celebrate Valentine's Day

Celia Raney | February 14

Once a year we are assaulted with pink and red heart-shaped boxes, giant stuffed bears and overpriced chocolates. But at what cost? As stated in a report by the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend over $18.2 billion on Valentine’s Day this year. Of that money, at least $4.4 billion will be spent on jewelry.