opinion

“I don’t usually drink Coke,” one student said to another. “Walking around BYU with a Coke makes me feel rebellious.”

When I was in third grade, it was the greatest desire of my heart to win the 100-yard dash in my school’s annual field day. I worked hard for that race. I was so happy when I crossed the finish line in first place. After finishing, I noticed that my principal was handing out “everybody is a winner” ribbons to every participant. You can imagine my anger as I realized that I was not being recognized for all of my hard work. In reality, not everybody is a winner, and it is time that children were taught such.

Guys, if you want to get the girl, try bringing flowers — to her mother.

The Opinion Outpost features opinions and commentary on the latest hot topics from national news sources. As much as you love hearing from The Universe, we thought you might like to hear from journalists around the nation.

The iPhone can be labeled as one of the easiest smartphones to use. Is the world choosing this device over thousands of other phones because they truly love its capabilities and functions? Or are they choosing the iPhone because it’s the iPhone?

It was my first semester at BYU. I didn’t have the traditional freshman experience. Coming from BYU—Idaho, I found the BYU campus was daunting, and I was nervous about asking people for help. At BYU—Idaho, I knew the campus, I had a good group of friends, and I had a great GPA. But I felt that I needed to transfer to BYU Provo.

The Opinion Outpost features opinions and commentary on the latest hot topics from national news sources. As much as you love hearing from The Universe, we thought you might like to hear from journalists around the nation.

When I think about my time at BYU, I think about a whirlwind of incredible experiences: capstone research, movies at the dollar theater and football games. But as I prepared to graduate early last summer, there was always that gnawing question: What in the world am I going to do after I leave here?

The Online Opinion Outpost features opinions and commentary on the latest hot topics from national news sources. As much as you love hearing from The Universe, we thought you might like to hear from journalists around the nation.

As a health professional I have mixed emotions this time of year. On one hand it’s great to see people recommit themselves to healthier living. But on the other hand it’s incredibly sad to see people fall for fads, diets, pills, drinks, juices, cleanses and quick fixes time and time again. They pour their money into these products and false promises (sadly, many of the companies come from Utah) but ultimately end up back where they started and, more often than not even worse.

I appreciated the front-page article on decreasing attendance at LaVell Edwards Stadium published in the Universe last week. The article does a good job outlining some of the reasons for the drop in fan attendance at the games, but it misses one important reason. Prior to 2014, my family and I had been season ticket holders for more than a dozen years. In theory, because we had purchased tickets for consecutive years, our seats should have been a little better each year, but that was definitely not the case. When the ticket office implemented their new ticket policy for faculty tickets two years ago our seats went 10 rows higher than they had been the year before. I called and asked why that had happened and was politely informed that if I wanted better seats I could always make a donation to the Cougar Club. When it was my turn to buy seats for the 2014 season I discovered that my seats had moved again, another eight rows up (and the price had increased). I told my teenage son, a huge Cougar fan, that we could either buy season tickets again or use that money to help pay for cable. We reluctantly made the decision not to get tickets.

The Online Opinion Outpost features opinions and commentary on the latest hot topics from national news sources. As much as you love hearing from The Universe, we thought you might like to hear from journalists around the nation.

While in high school I was a member of a service-oriented club called Key Club International. As a yearly holiday tradition we’d organize a project like the donation trees you see in shopping malls. While working on the project, I made the 'mistake' of saying “Merry Christmas” on the forms. I was asked to start the entire project again, this time saying “Happy Holidays” so as to avoid being offensive. I was annoyed. How could a cheerful greeting possibly offend anyone?

Did your #BYU or #BYUprobs tweet make it into this week’s Tweet beat?

Are you, or someone you know, chained down by controller cords and heavy consoles inside a make-believe world? Video games allow anyone to use their imagination and become someone stronger, faster, more intelligent, more attractive and more courageous on a screen. Such alluring options subtly persuade people of all ages to get lost inside gaming addictions that have the potential of destroying sociality, physical health, mental health and ultimately, life.

Many who once marched against the war on Iraq and detest U.S. domination have made a change in their attitude on American airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Why? The Islamic State. Americans have been appalled by the awful killings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff, two American hostages held by the Islamic State. The justness of vengeance against their killers is something everyone agrees on. The terror-engulfing methods of ISIS make it easy to arbitrarily approach the vaporization of the Islamic extremist group; airstrikes can destroy bodies, but they can’t destroy political antagonisms. Nor would a renewed occupation solve the problem.

Recent events have caused me to ponder deeply the beard ban at this great university. Oddly enough, I found answers to this universal enigma from the hit movie 'Batman Begins.'