2012-02-27

THE TUFTS DAILY

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TUFTSDAILY.COM

Monday, february 27, 2012

VOLUME LXIII, NUMBER 21

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

A Taste of Tufts: Edith Balbach

by Victoria

Rathsmill

Daily Editorial Board

At last Friday’s installment of the Experimental Collegesponsored “A Taste of Tufts: A Sampling of Faculty Research” lecture series, Edith Balbach, senior lecturer and director of the community health program, spoke about her research on the marketing and political behaviors of the tobacco industry.

Balbach began by admitting that she originally had no intention of pursuing a career in tobacco research. She was completing her doctoral work in public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and planning to write her dissertation on interagency collaboration when California passed Proposition 99.

Proposition 99, or the Tobacco Tax Health Protection Act of 1988, raised the tax on tobacco by 25 cents per pack, and mandated the extra profit be used toward tobacco education, prevention programs and tobacco-related research.

“My advisor called me in and asked if I was interested in smoking research, Balbach said. “By the time my dissertation was done, I could care less about interagency collaboration, but I was really fascinated by the tobacco industry … and how it behaves in public areas. It has sculpted my career ever since.”

According to Balbach, the threat

that tobacco poses to public health is growing, both in the United States and around the globe.

“Currently, almost six million people [globally die each year from] tobacco related diseases. If things don’t change, it will be eight million people by 2030,” she said.

But Balbach noted that tobacco use is often not high on lists of the most pressing public health issues. She explained three main reasons for this: 1) Tobacco is a slow-motion killer, 2) the diseases caused by tobacco use are not considered communicable and 3) these diseases are often labeled as resultant of personal failure.

According to Balbach, this perception is reflective of the tobacco industry’s marketing strategies.

“The framing of tobacco is a direct result of systematic efforts of the tobacco industry to normalize and underestimate tobacco use,” she said. “The tobacco industry’s behavior is what drives a lot of what I do and think about.”

For Balbach, a milestone for public health research on tobacco was the litigation against the tobacco industry that resulted in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998, which required that millions of pages of internal documents from tobacco companies be made public. At first, the pages were only available in a warehouse in Minneapolis, Minn., see TASTE OF TUFTS, page 4

MCT

Octavia Spencer took home the award for Best Actress In a Supporting Role for her portrayal of Minny Jackson in “The Help” at the 84th annual Academy Awards last night. “The Artist” won Best Picture, while its star, Jean Dujardin, earned the prize for Best Actor In a Leading Role.

Courtesy Justin McCallum

Tufts Garba Team performed this weekend at the Guzaarish Culture Show presented by the Tufts Association of South Asians (TASA). Sales of mango lasi, monos and samosas in between traditional songs and dance pieces benefited Nyaya Health. In association with GlobeMed, TASA was able to raise more than $3,000 for the Nepali health care organization.

Strong talent, family culture define Amalgamates a cappella group Nathaniel Bailey

Founded in 1984 by former Tufts students Joanne Cohen (LA ‘87), Craig Everett (LA ‘89) and David Wiley (LA ‘89), the Tufts Amalgamates were the university’s first co-ed a cappella group.

Although many a cappella groups on campus are often overshadowed by the Beelzebubs’ success and popularity, the Amalgamates have been able to establish themselves as not only a premier a cappella group at Tufts, but also around the country.

When the group was formed, the founders chose the name “Amalgamates,” which means, “combine or unite to form one organization or structure,” to represent the group’s co-ed nature.

Since their founding, the Amalgamates have recorded 12 albums. Their most recent, “Hands Off the Mannequin!” (2011), has been nominated for two Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards for Best Mixed Collegiate Album and Best Mixed Collegiate Song for “Boy Lilikoi.”

They are now recording their unnamed 13th studio album, working with Plaid Productions, an a cappella recording studio founded by two Tufts alums, Alexander Green (LA ’10), formerly of the Amalgamates, and Alexander Koutzoukis (LA ’10) formerly of the Beelzebubs.

The Amalgamates have also traveled around the world to perform, going to places such as Spain, England, France, Jamaica, Germany, Florida and California.

Despite their success and their singing prowess, the Amalgamates are made up of more than just mellifluous voices; the people behind the songs make up the family that is the group.

Junior Foster Lockwood, president of the Amalgamates, was hooked on music early in life. He started singing in elementary school, although he said he “was never really any more talented than the average kid.” He first became interested in singing when he heard the Acoustix, a famous a cappella group, and his interest was furthered by the groups

Inside this issue

by

Contributing Writer

Rockapella and Straight No Chaser. Lockwood finally began to sing a cappella in high school, and he said that he’s known since then that he wanted to do the same once he got to college.

In contrast, sophomore Ryan Johnson, business manager for the Amalgamates, didn’t start singing until high school.

“I personally began singing my sophomore year in high school in the Pomfret School Chorus,” Johnson said. “After a few weeks I really began to enjoy singing and the versatility of the human voice, so in the following year, I decided to audition for the school’s a cappella ensemble, the Griff Tones, and was accepted.”

Many people aren’t aware of how much of a commitment a group like the ‘Mates requires.

According to Lockwood, they have a strict minimum time commitment of seven hours of rehearsal per week, with at least one gig every two weeks. While it can be stressful, many members think the opportunity is worth the investment.

“At times the commitment can be a bit strenuous, especially when you have many passions, but the commitment you make is well worth it when you finally hear a song that has ‘clicked’ and all the members are on the same wavelength,” Johnson said.

He went on to say that with the large commitment comes a large reward.

“We as a group are 28 years old, which is older than most co-ed a cappella groups, and with that there have been a number of ‘traditions’ that we have developed, and stood the test of time,” Johnson said. “While from the outside looking in it may seem like we only sing together, but in all actuality, we are all friends and we love hanging out with each other.”

Lockwood added that his favorite part of being in the Amalgamates is watching new members develop within the group.

“Taking in ‘babies,’ as we call them, is a tremendously important step we take once or see AMALGAMATES, page 4

Today’s sections

The Daily reviews all of the presentations from this weekend’s EPIIC Symposium.

Tupelo finds success by offering gourmet twists on some classic southern dishes.

see NEWS, page 2

see ARTS, page 5

Features News Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

1 2 5 10

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

11 12 13 Back

The Tufts Daily

2

EPIIC

News & features

Monday, February 27, 2012

Last Wednesday kicked off the 27th Annual Norris and Margery Bendetson Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) International Symposium. This year’s program -- which is sponsored by the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) -- focused on the theme of “Conflict in the 21st Century.”

The five-day-long event brought a series of student-moderated panels to the Hill featuring international experts debating issues like drone warfare and last year’s controversial “Mr. Y” article. Read the highlights below.

Thursday: ‘The Present and Future Battlefield: Cyberwarfare, Neuroscience and Robotics’ Expert panelists on Thursday evening discussed the role of cuttingedge technologies in the future of warfare at a standing-room-only event titled “The Present and Future Battlefield: Cyberwarfare, Neuroscience and Robotics.”

The panel began with the presentation of a Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award to Jonathan Moreno, the author of the book “Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century” and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The panel was moderated by Joshua Youner, a sophomore member of the EPIIC Colloquium.

Moreno discussed the most recent advances in neuroscience and technology and their positive and negative ethical consequences, both in military and civilian environments.

“Is this an acceptable moral tradeoff?” Moreno asked of technologies with ambiguous moral ramifications.

Braden Allenby, the Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics and a professor of Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering and Law at Arizona State University, gave a presentation focused on the complex, dynamic and unpredictable nature of the modern world of warfare.

According to Allenby, international factors are constantly interacting

and changing simultaneously, making it risky and uncertain to rely on our predictions of future warfare environments.

“Every dimension of the world that you think is stable is in fact changing,” Allenby said.

Regents’ Professor and Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology Ronald Arkin examined the appropriate role of robotics technology in the future of warfare, especially autonomous lethal robots, and the changes in battlefield ethics as a result of these technologies.

“The debate here is not about whether or not we should have wars,” Arkin said. “Rather, the question is: assuming that wars will continue, what is the appropriate role of robotics technology?”

Captain Wayne Porter of the U.S. Navy and co-author of the paper “A National Strategic Narrative” under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” focused on how institutional values define how we set and interpret strategy and the growing role of non-state actors in a multi-polar international system.

“Values are what have to underpin any strategy that we have as a nation,” Porter said.

International relations experts kicked off the symposium Wednesday in a panel discussion titled “Power Transitions in the 21st Century.”

The first event of the five-day conference was led by individuals who helped organize this year’s EPIIC symposium, including interim Provost and Senior Vice President Peggy Newell, who explained the history of the symposium to the students, faculty, staff and international guests who attended the talk.

“I hope as you go through this you will engage and think,” Newell said. “I hope you leave tonight a little bit different.”

EPIIC Colloquium Member Cody Valdes, a senior, moderated the five-person panel, which featured Founder and Director of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies Sami al-Faraj, Boston University Professor of International Relations and History Andrew Bacevich, nonresident senior associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment Ariel Levite, political scientist at the RAND Corporation Lowell Schwartz and Peking University Professor of Diplomacy Zhang Qingmin.

“If there were ever an American century, the American century is over, done, gone,” Bacevich said.

“The people who are our leaders are in denial.”

Although the power of the United States may be changing, its relationship with China continues to be one of the most important international relations dilemmas to date, Qingmin said.

While some of the speakers discussed the effects of power transitions in particular countries, others talked about how the 21st Century in general has had an effect on how leaders pass on their authority.

Schwartz examined the impact

Scott tingley / THE TUFTS DAILY

of the evolution of the international economic sphere on the modern geopolitical world.

“Today, the competition of ideologies is less sharp than during the Cold War,” Schwartz said. “It’s still there, just different.”

“There are many surprises coming down the pike,” Bacevich added.

“No one knows what’s going to happen. The future is opaque.”

—by Stephanie Haven

—by Leah Lazer

Thursday: ‘Mr. Y’: US National Strategic Policy Directions’ A four-person panel on Friday discussed the strategic ramifications of the “Mr. Y” article, a report published under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” that argued the United States overspends on its military and underspends on its youth.

Col. Mark Mykleby and Capt.

Wayne Porter authored the report, which was officially titled “A National Strategic Narrative.” They chose their pseudonym after George Kennan’s famous 1946 “Mr. X” Long Telegram, which outlined the United States’ Cold War policy of containment.

The panel consisted of Mykleby and Porter themselves, as well as Lt. General Dirk Jameson and visiting Professor of Practice in International Politics and Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Antonia Chayes The panel, moderated by EPIIC colloquium member Aparna Ramanan, a junior, began with an evaluation of current United States foreign policy, which Mykleby and Porter argued remains consistent with Kennan’s containment policy and is untenable.

“When you try to impose a closed system on an open system, you end up with entropy,” Porter said. “We figured that basically a strategy that we would come up with had to be about our sustainability underpinned by the values that define us as Americans.”

Mykleby and Porter said civic engagement is a key part of their new strategy for America, and encouraging discussion is a central component of that.

“What we’re advocating is really a dialogue,” Porter said. “If we can’t have an open and honest dialogue

Wednesday: ‘Power Transitions in the 21st Century’

about ourselves, about where we’re going in the future, then we’re in trouble. This country was founded on hope and the belief that with innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, we will go wherever we want to go.”

Jameson, who was presented with a Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, discussed the importance of focusing on a more robust and comprehensive energy policy.

“I think what we need is a timeline that goes with an element of what they have described: energy.

On a global basis, we are far and away the bigger users,” Jameson said. “Our national strategy really must deal with this.”

Chayes remained unconvinced that the strategy outlined in the “Mr. Y” article would fundamentally change the basic notions underpinning U.S. national security. She argued that the current political structure of the United States combined with a weary older generation undermines the possibility of real change at a national level.

“I suppose the politics in the United States really prevents that dialogue at the present time,” Chayes said. “It’s very self-destructive and I don’t know how we’d change that.”

“We’re not going to have a new grand strategy unless we have a political dialogue that looks at the interconnectedness of the subject and begins to talk in a sensitive way,” Chayes said. “So, I remain very skeptical as to whether the notion of the grand strategy is going to happen.”

—by Mahpari Sotoudeh

Jodi BosiN / THE TUFTS DAILY

Friday: ‘Eye to Eye, Drone to Drone: The (De)Personalization of Warfare’ At “Eye to Eye, Drone to Drone: The (De)Personalization of Warfare” last Friday, six experts addressed the implications of new remotely-controlled tools for waging war in the 21st Century.

Panelist Admiral Ami Ayalon, former commander in the Israeli Navy and co-founder of The People’s Voice, an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, was presented the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award during the event. Avalon started off in the Israeli Navy with just an AK-47 and a knife, he said, but by the end of his career he’d learned to operate far more sophisticated technology.

“I was launching missiles over the horizon … killing people I never saw,” he said.

The panel was moderated by Ellie Caple, a junior and a member of the EPIIC Colloquium.

Ronald Arkin, regents’ professor and director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology, discussed how unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, allow countries to fight remotely. He contrasted the advantages of drones — precise

strikes, more time to make decisions and political tolerance — with disadvantages — lack of transparency, exhausted operators and poorly designed interfaces.

“This is the future of the military,” he said. “The really old school.

Braveheart encounters are few and far between.”

Lt. General Dirk Jameson, the former deputy commander-in-chief and former chief of staff of U.S. Strategic Command felt similarly.

“The chain of command is failsafe [when using drones],” Jameson said.

“Mistakes can be made, but they should be very rare, if ever.”

Ayalon, however, disagreed with Arkin and Jameson about the role of drones in the future of warfare.

“I think that the role of technology is diminishing,” he said. “The only technology that I think is relevant is the media.”

Ayalon believes that modern war has little to do with physical conflict.

“Victory will be achieved by the one that controls the narrative, and technology will have nothing to do with it,” he said. “The war that we’re fighting is a war of ideas.”

Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, agreed that new technology was not significant to modern warfare but for different reasons from the ones Ayalon listed. Through her work in Sudan and Rwanda, Sirkin said she witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of older weaponry like landmines and AK47s.

“Thousands of villages in Darfur have been destroyed in a pretty lowtech way,” she said. “Indeed there is a face to face, eye to eye … warfare that has gone on in Afghanistan.”

The panel’s discussant, Wendell Wallach, chair of the Working Research Group in Technology and Ethics at Yale University, said it is certain that other nations will eventually catch up with United States’ sophisticated drone technology.

“Right now, we’re the only country in the world using drones in any significant way,” Wallach said. “We have a strategic advantage. That’s not going to last. Once the technology has been developed, it’s not that hard to backward-engineer it.”

—by Nina Goldman

Friday: ‘Responsibility to Protect, Right to Prosecute?’

The EPIIC symposium on Friday night hosted a five-person panel discussion that explored the applicability and repercussions of the 2005 United Nations initiative Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The initiative aimed to create a structure for determining the legitimacy of international intervention in the prevention of mass atrocity crimes.

The initiative posits that a sovereign state must protect its population from mass atrocity crimes — defined as genocides, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing — and that the international community is obligated to help a state if it is unable to do so.

The panel was moderated by EPIIC Colloquium member Amy Calfas, a junior.

Acting Senior Vice President of the Center for Conflict Management at the U.S. Institute of Peace Abiodun

Williams focused on the ethical rationale that led to the initiative and the connection between sovereignty and responsibility, as well as debates surrounding cause to mediate abroad.

“The responsibility to protect was a response to the problems we had in the 1990’s,” Williams said. “The important thing about the R2P was that conceptually it recast the old sterile debate about who has the right to intervene.”

Research Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation Alex de Waal — who received a Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Public Citizenship — added that the community-based framework provided by R2P precludes nations from being held accountable for failure to intervene.

“I would say, let’s be a little more skeptical. It does raise the global

moral bar … it creates a global responsibility, but that is a rather diffuse responsibility,” De Waal said.

“We are in danger of creating an obligation that can’t be enforced.”

The panelists discussed the tension between national and international interests within the context of the recent Chinese and Russian veto of the proposal for intervention in Syria.

“We never really become global citizens. We always think we’re attached to some country. Until we believe that there is something beyond that, we are never going to have a true United Nations,” Kishore Mandhyan, the Deputy Political Director and former Deputy Director of Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs at the Executive Office of the UN, said.

—by Mahpari Sotoudeh

The Tufts Daily

Monday, February 27, 2012

3

News & features

Friday: ‘Resource Wars and the Changing Climate of Conflict’ Speakers discussed the impact of environmental challenges on global conflict at Saturday’s 2 p.m. panel, titled “Resource Wars and the Changing Climate of Conflict.”

The program explored how the depletion of natural resources, along with manmade climate change, has transformed the nature of political conflict across the globe.

Panelists analyzed these emerging conflict trends and proposed solutions towards the amelioration of these disputes.

Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy William Moomaw kicked off the discussion by commenting on recent resource wars in nations such as Brazil and Sudan.

“These conflicts are intense and deadly,” he said. “They’re growing worse because of an additional factor that we really haven’t confronted before: climate change.

Particularly in Africa, climate change is greatly reducing access to water and exacerbating the conflicts among these people.”

Moomaw emphasized that the conflict has multiple dimensions and that no war, local or international, can be attributed exclusively to climate change.

“Climate change is often not the cause of these problems but an instability multiplier,” he said. “Whatever the problem is, climate

change makes it more severe and intensifies the tension between groups going after an ever-shrinking resource.”

In his presentation on oil and mining corporations, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law at Columbia Law School Peter Rosenblum explained the efforts of campaign groups to curb the environmental damage these companies have inflicted on areas such as the eastern Congo and Nigeria.

“You have to keep in mind how much the world is changing in terms of the economics of natural resources,” he said.

Former EPIIC student Sami al-Faraj (F ‘87), founder and director of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies, was presented with the EPIIC Alumni Recognition Award for his excellent statesmanship and service to the Persian Gulf region.

He later spoke about the probability of bloodshed in the Gulf region countries over limited sources of water, commenting that Kuwait is currently the most prepared state for such a resource war. “[Water] is the most important element in any national security policy,” al-Faraj said.

“I believe that water will start one major war, and really soon.”

—by Jenna Buckle

Kyra SturgilL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Saturday: ‘The Media and Warfare’ Saturday night’s panel “The Media and Warfare,” as well as the entire EPIIC International Symposium this year, was dedicated to photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, who was killed on Apr. 20, 2011 while reporting on the Libyan civil war.

U.S. Marine Brendan O’Byrne, who was heavily featured in Hetherington’s work, including his Academy Award-nominated film “Restrepo,” a collaboration with Sebastian Junger, discussed his relationship with Hetherington and thanked him for his work. “[With the film], it finally became real to people in America what we were going through in Afghanistan,” O’Byrne said.

O’Byrne also awarded recent Tufts graduate Elizabeth Herman (LA ‘10) with the first-ever Tim Hetherington Award. Herman received a $2500 grant for her photography of women during and post-conflict, ranging from those who had served in the Vietnam and Bangladesh wars decades ago to the recent Egyptian conflict.

The panel was moderated by Michael Fishman, a junior member of the EPIIC Colloquium.

New York Times Senior Reporter Carlotta Gall discussed her career, including covering the First Chechen War and reporting from Afghanistan for the past ten years.

Northeastern University Assistant Professor Jeff Howe, an author, talked about the changing role of a journalist in the 21st century, a time in which journalists often become targets

themselves and are killed for doing their job of delivering news to the world.

Author and blogger Daniel Bennett offered his opinion on the impact of blogging and social media on the BBC’s coverage of war, which was the focus of his Ph.D. from Kings College London.

“We would verify, and then we would publish,” Bennett said regarding the BBC’s standard reporting procedure. “Today, the online news environment means that journalists have to engage with news and information that is potentially inaccurate … If you want to remain relevant in a news organization, then you need to be publishing and verifying at the same time as well.”

Chief of Public Information at the United Nations Political Office for Somalia Nick Birnback (LA ‘92), a former EPIIC student, gave the audience another perspective on media in warfare. He described the process of making a press release as not conducive to real time, since anyone can immediately post information on the internet while the United Nations must go through several rounds of editing before releasing a statement.

The last speaker was photojournalist and Founding Director of the Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice at the Institute for Global Leadership Gary Knight, who showed some of his photography work, most recently of the Iraq war.

—by Melissa Wang

Scott tingley / THE TUFTS DAILY

Scott tingley / THE TUFTS DAILY

Friday: Steven Pinker Keynote Address Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University Steven Pinker, a renowned language and cognition researcher and prolific author, presented the Dr. Jean Mayer Award Keynote Address Friday evening.

Pinker is one of nine recipients of this year’s Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, an honor that is traditionally presented at the EPIIC symposium to individuals who have demonstrated the values of scholarship, research and teaching in order to solve global issues.

Pinker spoke about the findings on which his newest book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” is based.

“I hope to persuade you that [the decline of violence] is a persistent historical development,” he said.

He listed the psychological mechanisms and historical changes that have contributed to this decline.

Pinker explained that the world has simply become a more peaceful and civilized place due to what he called the pacification and civilizing processes. Rates of death from war have fallen from 50 percent in prehistoric societies to several tenths of one percent worldwide in 2005.

Another contributor is what Pinker called the humanitarian revolution, which includes waning use of the death penalty and the abolition of capital punishment by most major countries.

Also important are what Pinker calls the Long Peace and New Peace, which are declining trends in length and frequency of wars as well as rates of death from war.

“We used to have things like the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War,” he said. “More recently we’ve had the Six-Day War.” Finally, Pinker described what he calls the Rights Revolution, which is the disappearance of violence on a smaller scale against racial minorities, women, children and animals.

“Why has violence declined on so many scales of time and magnitude?” he said.

“Human nature is extraordinarily complex.”

Pinker listed four motivators possibly responsible for this drop.

First, he referenced Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan,” explaining the theory that a state with a monopoly on violence can neutralize the incentive to attack itself or its neighbors.

Second, he explained the gentle commerce theory, stating that increased global trade incentivizes peace because trading is more advantageous than invading.

Third, he talked about the expanding circle theory, and that due to literacy, travel and cosmopolitanism, people are generally empathetic to wider circles of people than they used to be.

Fourth, he mentioned the escalator of reason, meaning that due to literacy, education and public discourse, people think more abstractly and universally, and therefore recognize the futility of cycles of violence.

“How do we put the psychology and history together?” Pinker asked. “Ultimately, violence is a social dilemma. All parties are better off if all parties agree to abjure violence.”

The speech was followed by an interview with renowned journalist Christopher Lydon, former host of National Public Radio’s “The Connection,” as well as a question-and-answer session with the audience.

In an interview with the Daily, Lydon explained that while Pinker’s hypothesis is rooted in quantitative research, the aggregate numbers do not account for the fear and emotions engendered by violent acts.

“He says flat out that you can’t understand history without a quantitative approach, counting all sorts of things — his case especially war and death,” he said. “But what if the quantitative measures are not the best ones? People who remember World War II are kind of baffled by [Pinker’s] book — how, so soon after World War II, can you imagine a less violent world?”

—by Shana Friedman and Mahpari Sotoudeh

Sunday: ‘Post-Conflict Challenges and Building Peaceful Societies’ The symposium concluded on Sunday afternoon with a final discussion panel, “Post-Conflict Challenges and Building Peaceful Societies.”

UNICEF’s Chief of Child Protection Susan Bissell was presented with a Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award and opened the panel by outlining the difficulties faced by children in zones of conflict.

“These are the best and worst of times for UNICEF,” Bissell said. “The rates of violence may be declining, but the effects of that decline are inequitably distributed.”

EPIIC Colloquium Member Rachael Alldian, a senior, moderated the panel.

Foreign nations have an obligation to investigate conflicts related to child abuse, punish those responsible for abusing children during times of war and follow through with a series of community reconciliation efforts, Bissell said.

“A strengthening in the international framework and jurisdiction system is what we need to create a real and lasting difference in these regions,” she said.

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, commented on how often the end of war is falsely interpreted as the end to violence.

De Waal argued that people in postwar regions can be harmed by enduring political tensions and fraudulent election systems even after the physical conflict has ended.

“We often underestimate the time it takes to transition to a stable political institution after the trauma of an armed conflict, as well as the enormous resources it takes for peoples’ lives to be normalized and for them to be gainfully employed,” de Waal said.

Sahana Dharmapuri, a fellow at Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, discussed the need to achieve gender equality in order to successfully restore war-torn areas.

“Women are disproportionately affected by conflicts, due to sexual and gender-based violence, which is used as a tactic of war to destabilize communities and economies and claim territory,” Dharmapuri said.

Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Ervin Staub said violence and hostility often endure in areas that have just experienced war because the different sides rarely make a significant effort to reconcile or to understand each others’ motives, he said. He emphasized the need to achieve contact with all groups of survivors from recent conflicts and to provide them with necessary resources and job opportunities.

“When a society helps all of its members fulfill its basic needs constructively, it is likely to be pacifist,” Staub said.

President of Women for Women International Zainab Salbi, another recipient of this year’s Dr. Jean Mayer Award, also believes in the need to interact with the people of a postwar region in order to bring them peace.

Like previous speakers, Salbi agreed that civilians are now increasingly at risk during the outbreak of a war and that women have been especially poorly impacted.

“With men out on the front line, it is women who are responsible for carrying on life during a time of war,” she said. “Yet only 2.2 percent of postwar peace agreements have ever included a woman.”

—by Josh Weiner

The Tufts Daily

4 Alyson Yee | Odd Jobs

It’s a gas, gas, gas

M

aybe I’m six years old, but the words “banana” and “gasser” make me giggle. Put them together, though, and that could be your job description! What exactly is a banana gasser? You may well ask. As the name implies, you flood bananas with gas — specifically ethylene — to control the ripening process.

Besides being delicious, and a good source of potassium, bananas are one of the most popular fruits in the world and a leader in the international fruit trade.

However, bananas are rather sensitive beings. They’re picky about their habitat, favoring tropical climates and warm temperatures. (Sounds like me, until I forgot where Tufts was located when I applied.)

Growing bananas is labor intensive, not least because they’re so sensitive to wind, birds and pests.

Bananas are harvested while they’re still hard, green and generally not tasty.

Actually, at this stage they’re inedible, with really high starch content. They get transported on refrigerated ships before they even mature. They’re picky about temperature even once they’re picked, only staying fresh in a narrow window of a few degrees. (If you’ve ever smuggled a banana out of Dewick in your backpack and opened it up in the library later that day, you know how fast they can turn brown and get mushy).

When they reach their destination, bananas go into a special room for ripening before they hit supermarket shelves. In the ripening rooms, humidity, temperature and ventilation are carefully monitored and the bananas are exposed to ethylene gas.

Allow me to geek out here for a moment: ethylene is a byproduct of respiration reactions, which continue to take place even after the banana has been harvested and is no longer growing. Although bananas don’t produce that much ethylene themselves, if they’re transported with apples or pears or other high ethylene producing fruit, they ripen that much faster.

As a banana gasser, your job is to move shipments of bananas into the hermetically sealed banana ripening rooms and spray ethylene into the air to catalyze ripening. In addition, you’re responsible for a lot of banana quality control. There are scientific scales rating how ripe bananas are based on “finger” angles (how bananas are grouped in a bunch) and skin color. You measure the bananas with calipers, and you take the temperature of the bananas with a pulp thermometer.

The field of banana gassing has come a long way. Recent innovations in technology make it possible to use computer algorithms to determine the optimal ventilation parameters. You’re in charge of determining how much gas should be applied to a batch and for how long. It’s a huge responsibility — mess up, and entire shipments of bananas go to waste.

That’s why banana gassers get paid pretty decently (up to $80,000 annually in some cities according to Glassdoor.com), and employers seek banana gassers with a minimum of 3-5 years of experience.

One major drawback of the job, though, is the title. Both “banana” and “gasser” just sound absurd, so you know someone in Human Resources has a sense of humor. Also, you spend most of your time in the cooler and the dock, which are significantly colder than most humans (and bananas) can tolerate on a daily basis.

If you want to keep a straight face during introductions at cocktail parties, you could forgo the “banana gasser” spiel and opt for the more serious position, “citrus dyer.” Sometimes the oranges you buy at the supermarket didn’t start out that orange. There’s a whole career path for people who inject artificial coloring into lemons, limes and grapefruits (which is slightly disconcerting no matter how you slice it). By becoming a tropical fruit specialist, you’d get to travel the world — and at the very least, you’d know exactly what went into your food.

Alyson Yee is a senior majoring in biology and French. She can be reached at Alyson.

Yee@tufts.edu.

Balbach unearths cigarette makers’ marketing tactics TASTE OF TUFTS

continued from page 1

where Balbach, among other researchers, combed through the documents.

“In an effort to thwart a lawsuit, you can either narrowly comply and send as little information as possible, or you can paper them to death. The tobacco industry opted to go with papering them to death,” she said.

The tobacco companies sent semitrailer trucks full of documents to Minnesota, and Balbach compared the organization of the documents to having librarians deliberately making information difficult to find and as confusing as possible.

“Industry research has gotten fascinating, if you have the patience to do it,” she said.

The information has since gone online, due to a huge donation of settlement money to the University of California, San Francisco, which scanned millions of pages of documents.

Despite the difficulty of finding relevant information, Balbach was able to glean a wealth of knowledge about the tobacco industry by virtue of having access to written documents from tobacco companies themselves.

Balbach focused on researching the marketing strategies of the tobacco industry, and she also looked at specific groups targeted by the tobacco industry, specifically women, people of low socioeconomic status, African-Americans and unions.

In order to sell cigarettes, Balbach said, tobacco companies have to overcome the inherent challenges of peddling a product that common knowledge dictates is deadly.

“To convince people to pick up a rod of burning leaves and suck it into their lungs is not something people are going to start doing naturally,” Balbach said. “You have to make it addictive, but you also have to make it aspirational — cool and desirable.

Making it acceptable, socially and culturally, is really important, as well as to make it widely available and as cheap as possible.”

During the lecture, Balbach displayed cigarette ads dating back to the 1920s, to illustrate these tactics, as well as the tobacco companies’ efforts to market to specific populations.

For example, cigarette companies have been targeting women by advertising that cigarettes will suppress the appetite for almost a century. She showed a Lucky Strike ad from the 1920s with the slogan, “To keep a slender figure, no one can deny, reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

This strategy was increasingly used in the 1960s with the introduction of Virginia Slims in 1968, a brand that was marketed directly toward women.

Additionally, Virginia Slim’s slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” was a tactic used to make smoking cigarettes something to aspire to, she said.

Balbach also displayed documents that outlined the tobacco industry’s analysis of particular target populations.

One statement read, “Less educated, working class smokers are becoming more important. This may lead to a greater want of self-esteem, success, control and savings.” Additionally, the documents included plans for targeting women, young adults, AfricanAmericans and Hispanics.

Another project that Balbach worked on, which she completed last summer, was exploring the strategy of tobacco companies collaborating with organized labor. She studied the relationship — in the mid-1980s, focusing on two major policy areas: excise tax increases and smoke-free worksites.

According to Balbach, tobacco and labor unions ended up having a successful relationship that she referred to as “symbiotic.”

Unlike many fields, Balbach said, public health research on tobacco aims to make substantive changes.

“We are a normative field,” she said.

“If we get a result from research, we have to do something with it.”

News & features

Monday, February 27, 2012

Co-ed Amalgamates enjoy range advantage over single-sex groups JUMPWORD

continued from page 1

twice a year at most, and they come in wide-eyed and mostly clueless,” he said. “Then over their first semester they start forming the bonds that I treasure so dearly … our ‘babies’ are definitely my favorite and arguably the most important part of the group.”

The key difference that sets the Amalgamates apart from other a cappella groups at Tufts, such as the Jackson Jills and the Beelzebubs, is that they’re co-ed.

“Our members appreciate the implicit chemistry that comes out of the combination, which some single sex groups may lack,” Lockwood said.

Being co-ed also gives the Amalgamates an advantage: They are are able to harmonize in ways that

other groups can’t, further distinguishing them within the a cappella community.

Despite their talent and originality, Lockwood stressed that the most important characteristic of the Amalgamates is how much of a family they are.

“So much more is between us as members of this group than the shared respect for music … The current members, the alumni, and all future members share a bond that is akin to the way you might feel about your best friends you meet freshman year,” Lockwood said. “A lot of group members have their social groups outside of the ‘Mates, but in the end we can all rely on each other and trust that if one of us needs some extra support, the group will be there for them.”

Courtesy Angus Finlay

The Tufts Amalgamates have traveled across the world to perform.

Public Meeting tomorrow night about MBTA Changes In response to the service cuts & fare increases proposed by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), members of the Tufts community will be able to give their input at a public hearing scheduled for:

February 28 at 6:00pm at Somerville High School, 81 Highland Avenue, Somerville Proposed Fare Hikes and Service Cuts:  Fare increase from $1.25 to $1.75 for a bus ride and from $1.70 to $2.40 for a subway trip.  Elimination of two of the three bus routes that service the Medford/Somerville campus: Х #80 (Arlington-Center to Lechmere Station via the Medford Hillside) Х #96 (Davis to Harvard Square that serves Tufts along Boston & College Avenues) For more information about the proposed changes, visit: http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/?id=23567

Arts & Living

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tuftsdaily.com

Restaurant Review

Inman Square’s Tupelo strikes perfect balance between comfort, sophistication by

Anna Majeski

Daily Editorial Board

Winter may still cling to the Tufts campus, but Tupelo is serving up delicious food with a Southern flare just ten-minutes outside of Central Square.

Located in Inman Square, Tupelo prides itself on serving Southern comfort food and adds nuance by pairing its main dishes with sides that bring out a more complex take on these classics.

Tupelo packs customers in on a Saturday night, but the friendly service and lighthearted food and drink make squishing into a seat more than worth it. The interior’s warm decor is a fun mix of kitschy odes to classic, genteel Americana: a bust of Elvis sits like a mascot on the bar counter and mason jars humbly replace the typical glassware.

The menu is small but packed with Southern classics: ribs, fried seafood, chicken and waffles, as well as some spins on old dishes like beer battered crepes. The appetizers on the menu are tempting — including fried oysters, Cajun gumbo and mussels served with a massive pile of French Fries — but it is worth waiting to hear the specials before you latch on to an appetizer, as Tupelo excels in this area. After our waitress proposed a gourmet corn dog as a starter, we quickly reneged on our decision to go with a boring salad.

As soon as the corn dog came out of the kitchen, it was apparent that this was not your run-of-the-mill ver-

Chris Poldoian / THE Tufts Daily

Owner Renee “Petsi” McLeod teams up with Toscanini for its delicious desserts. sion of a Coney Island staple. It was a pork belly corn dog, covered in slightly sweet, deep fried dough. The pork belly was much smokier than a normal hot dog, and its flavor didn’t get lost in all the greasy goodness covering it.

Although the deep-fried masterpiece would have been more than enough on its own, the spicy pickled onions and honey mustard sauce helped balance

the heaviness of the dog.

The main entrees were just as stellar as the appetizers. We went with two dishes that incorporated the southern classic grits: shrimp and grits and blackened catfish. Both dishes were expertly balanced — the grits were amazingly creamy, while the shrimp on top was see TUPELO, page 6

Gallery Review

Book Review

Tufts exhibit fills sculpture court with diverse artworks by

William Owen

Daily Staff Writer

which are hardly an expected place for a lost orphan, the couple begin to suspect that she may have been produced by a snowgirl they created in their backyard the night before the orphan’s appearance. Jumping off from this event, the author commences a haunting tale of this strange new family.

Eowyn Ivey, who was named after the shield maiden of Rohan in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series, uses a realistic and non-fantastical setting as the platform for new depictions of magic and other staples of the fantasy genre. In fact, the harshness of the Alaskan winter demands pragmatism to such a degree that the pseudo-magical elements of the story feel like a welcome break from the lives of the protagonists: it is as if their experience with the mysterious young girl is a story meant to distract them from their tragic, anxious life in the cold.

Ivey makes apt use of this ambiguous juxtaposition of the fantastic and the mundane, wherein the mystical is intertwined so tightly into reality that we, as readers, are left just as perplexed by the girl’s

The Tufts Art Gallery is hosting “Perspective: A Selection of Projects in Print and Handmade Paper from the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions” at the Remis Sculpture Court until May 20.

The artists featured are world-renowned and come from diverse backgrounds, with 12 works that demonstrate the prestige of the Brodsky Center at Rutgers University.

The pieces in the exhibition at Tufts confront a wide range of international social issues and are well worth seeing for their creativity and craftsmanship.

William Kentridge is a South African artist with six photogravures displayed at the exhibit. Each is 13.5 by 22.5 inches, developed using stereopticon to add a cinematic quality. Kentridge’s works draw from the oppressiveness of Apartheid and the post-Apartheid climate in his home country, indirectly revealing the shattering effects of colonialism and imperialism on the nation.

“Etant Donne” is one of Kentridge’s featured photogravures and is an unsettling, creepy image in a windowless space. A large female figure occupies much of the room, adding to the claustrophobia of the piece. Newspaper clippings are scattered around her, and her body and face are distorted like a Picasso painting. One of the clippings says “HOSTAGE,” which evokes a feeling of hopelessness and despair. All six of Kentridge’s photogravures are highly innovative and thoughtprovoking, with a unique style that is not at all overdone.

Mona Hatoum is a Lebanese artist of Palestinian descent with a piece in the exhibition. She was forced to leave Lebanon as a young girl because of escalating violence, and immigrated to Great Britain.

see SNOW, page 6

see GALLERY, page 6

Eowynivey via Flickr Creative Commons

“The Snow Child” is a fascinating but slowly paced new fantasy novel.

‘The Snow Child’ re-imagines fairy tale in Alaskan cold by

Walker Bristol

Contributing Writer

Fantasy’s role is often not to entirely dismay the reader with the unknown, but rather to comment on our own world by drawing upon the unreal.

With 2012’s faintly mystical “The Snow Child” by Eowyn Ivey, the reader follows the utterly realistic plight of Mabel and Jack, a wrinkled couple who live in a 1920s home in the frozen Alaskan wilderness, struggling to survive on subsistence hunting and farming (and pie-making), like the bulk of their peers in a nearby town.

The story itself is a retelling of a Russian folk tale that has since made its way across cultures, and now finally into American literature. Having ventured north from a collegiate lifestyle in Pennsylvania, Mabel is beginning to feel the distance and hollowness associated with the solitary life in the cold when she and her husband encounter a young girl, one of the first issues that arise in the plot.

Dismayed by the child’s appearance in the horrific icy woodlands of Seward’s Folly,

Jacob Passy and Alex Kaufman | Sassy Cinema

And the snub goes to…

L

ast night the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences feted the supposed best of best in film as they celebrated the 84th annual Academy Awards. And with each Oscar season there are nominations that we expect, those that make us happy and those that disappoint us. Worse, there are individuals that go unnoticed for amazing work, getting a snub rather than a nomination. So this week, we at Sassy Cinema will choose our nominees for “Worst Snubs” to give these people their chance in the spotlight: Alex’s Picks for Worst Snubs “Drive” (2011) — Seriously, Academy Awards? Why didn’t “Drive” fit into your image of Best Picture when “Moneyball” (2011) and the snore-a-palooza “War Horse” (2011) did?

And to snub Ryan Gosling of an Oscar nomination in a year filled with Ryan Gosling movies — one might even call it the Year of Ryan Gosling — is unforgivable.

Brad Pitt, “Tree of Life” (2011) — Brad Pitt snubbed himself this Oscar season for being nominated for “Moneyball” instead of “Tree of Life.” The latter movie provided Pitt with a role that was more demanding, more varied than his norm and much more multi-faceted.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2” (2011) — I have to say it. Best Picture? Best Director? If “Harry Potter” had been nominated for either one of those, it would have made me happy to see the series go out with a bang. Instead, it just received the typical summer action film nominations for art direction, makeup and visual effects. It better win at least one of those.

Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants” (2011) — To be honest, I don’t think she had a shot at winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, but I certainly believe that she enlivened “The Descendants.” Her spark and her youth forced veteran actor George Clooney to share the spotlight, which is not an easy feat.

Jacob’s Picks for Worst Snubs Viola Davis and Sandra Bullock, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (2011) — Bullock’s work here was far stronger than what she did in “The Blind Side” (2009), but it seems one Oscar nomination was enough for her.

While Davis’ work in “The Help” (2011) is remarkable, her supporting performance in “Extremely Loud” was breathtaking and a tearjerker — pretty much perfect.

“Super 8” (2011) — In a year that celebrated the history of film with movies like “Hugo” (2011) and “The Artist” (2011), it is a shame that this film was passed over completely. It did so many things well, from the brilliant visual effects that created its riveting explosions to its beautifully rendered 1970s style.

Not to mention, the performances by the children rival those of many of their much older counterparts.

Andy Serkis, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011) — Serkis, known for his CGI performances, is never recognized by major film awards, but it is hard to imagine his films without him. For instance, what would the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy have been without his tour-de-force performance as Gollum? It’s about time he received some Oscar love.

“Bridesmaids” (2011) — Contemporary films rarely get nominations for costume design. However, Leesa Evans’ work provided many of the film’s most comedic moments, such as the fight in the bridal shop over bridesmaids’ dresses. Moreover, she truly captured each character’s personality through their garb, a hallmark of effective and brilliant costume design.

And the worst snub goes to...

Out of all the work snubbed this year, we feel that the snub for “Drive” was the most egregious. This film displayed such vision and so much force that the Academy’s cold shoulder is particularly offensive. Never fear though, this film will always receive sassy love from us.

Jacob Passy is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at Jacob.Passy@tufts.edu. Alex Kaufman is a sophomore majoring in sociology. He can be reached at Alexander.Kaufman@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

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Arts & Living

Monday, February 27, 2012

‘Perspective’ brings foreign artists, diverse topics to Tufts

Wintry setting cannot redeem plodding storyline

GALLERY

continued from page 5

Her art explores her experiences revolving around displacement, otherness, gender and body image. Hatoum’s pieces are enigmatic, encouraging a multitude of interpretations.

“Projection Cabaca” (2006) is Hatoum’s work in “Perspective.” It is a world map composed of crinkled, white, handmade paper. The map has no borders, thus challenging how we classify, divide and label the societies of our world. “Projection Cabaca” is a beautifully simplistic piece, leaving an impression without being overwrought or heavy-handed.

Rick Bartow is an American artist whose pieces draw on the traumatic experiences of his past and his American-Indian heritage. His father’s premature death sparked his interest in his Native American background and, after serving in the Vietnam War, he found art to be an effective healing method for his trauma. His art draws on mythological and archetypal symbols.

Bartow has two pieces in the exhibition, using lithograph with Gold Leaf printed on Rives BFK paper. They are titled “Rutgers Raven bundle, Red” (2001) and “Rutgers Raven Bundle, Blue” (2001), with complementary images of powerful birds enveloped in gold leaf. Both pieces are fantastic, with defined brush strokes and paint splat-

SNOW

continued from page 5

Oregon Convention Center via Flickr Creative Commons

Rick Bartow’s work is a commentary on his Native American heritage. ters to provide a fashionable edge. Bartow beautifully mixes American-Indian symbolism with contemporary art techniques.

“Mississippi Bucket” (2009) is another standout work featured in the exhibit by Cuban artist Alexandre Arrechea, who primarily uses woodcut and lithograph techniques. Arrechea investigates the notions of power and control in his art, and even the limits of art itself. He infuses subtle humor and jarring notes in his pieces, undermining current power structures within society. He created “Mississippi Bucket” in conjunction

with a sculpture he made of the same name.

The piece is awesome, maze-like and complex. Arrechea’s precise shading makes the drawing intimate and vivid.

The Brodsky Center provides excellent artwork for the Tufts Gallery. All of the artists featured boast superb technical skills and emotional depth in their pieces. The exhibit is very cohesive despite its varied content, and is well displayed by the Tufts Gallery staff in the Sculpture Court. It is definitely worth a visit if you need a study break during midterms.

Delicious side dishes complement Tupelo’s main offerings TUPELO

continued from page 5

covered with a mildly spicy sauce, better than any store-bought BBQ. It had more tomato and just as much smokiness as your standard sauce without being overwhelming. These flavors complemented each other elegantly, producing a dish that balanced many different elements in a wonderful variation on this southern classic.

Although I am not a fish lover, the blackened catfish was the star of the night. Draped over another bed of creamy grits, the fish was perfectly

crisp on the outside and drizzled with a green tobacco aioli. The collard greens that come on the side were full of flavor; ginger and lemon were somewhere in the mix and provided a nice contrast to the main dish.

For those over 21, Tupelo has some creative and refreshing drinks to wash down your food. The ‘Mama Roux’ is basically a Dwight Schrute Sangria, made with beet syrup, brut rosé, creole bitters and grapefruit zest. If you don’t love beets, watch out — the beet-yness can get a little intense. For those who aren’t allowed to drink in public,

Tupelo’s homemade nonalcoholic ginger beer looked pretty tempting.

Dessert was a daunting prospect after a meal that began with a corndog, but Tupelo’s dessert menu included a host of homemade cakes and pies — red velvet and brown butter pecan pie looked particularly good — almost capable of tempting a person out of their comfort-food stupor. Ultimately, getting dessert was a choice between buying a new, more forgiving wardrobe or admitting defeat. Besides, skipping the dessert is just another excuse to go back.

appearance as the protagonists. The reader wanders through the story listening for the whisper of the child’s voice, wondering what about her is true and what may be a mirage brought on by the couple’s seclusion in the all-but-deserted forest.

The icy backdrop of the Alaskan back woods spills over into the prose: sentences are stunted and condensed, but descriptive, with passages dedicated entirely to assembling the jigsaws of the setting. Ivey’s own experience growing up in Alaska partially explains her concise depiction of the novel’s setting, and this rapt attention to detail helps the story flourish.

Despite Ivey’s gorgeous use of language to paint the world of the novel, the environment itself seems to be where the “The Snow Child” falters. There is only so much the Alaskan wilderness can do to move the plot along and make it eventful. As the reader is taken along by Ivey’s tale, he or she finds that the most mundane incidents take the forefront of the story.

There does not seem to be quite enough content to substantively fill the almost four hundred pages of the book. Rather, Ivey relies upon her descriptions of the Alaskan experience to submerge the narrative regarding the young girl. The story takes its time to tell, and Ivey finds herself waiting until too late to introduce the child and all the complications that result.

This ploy felt more like an attempt to build suspense than enrich the story. “The Snow Child” is paced at the speed of novels like Stephen King’s “The Stand” (1978) or “It” (1986), but is hundreds of pages shorter.

Ultimately, the novel’s dullest points serve primarily to engulf the reader in the wintry setting, and help to inject even stronger and purer emotion into Ivey’s most impassioned moments. “The Snow Child” guides the reader down a blurry path through the Alaskan forest, stopping every so often to appreciate the arctic quiet and its unsettling effects.

Internship FAIR Wednesday, February 29, 12 – 3:30 pm 51 Winthrop Street Learn, Experience, and Practice

communications, business the arts, media, non-profits education, and government

List of employers

Tufts Career Services | careers.tufts.edu | 617.627.3299

Monday, February 27, 2012

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Looking for a little

Romance?

The Department of Romance Languages invites you to

MAJORS’ DAY! Monday, Feb. 27 12:00-1:30 pm Olin, 2nd floor •

Come meet the Department Faculty

•

Learn more about majors and minors in Spanish, French, & Italian

•

Preview next Fall’s courses

•

Get information on Tufts-in-Paris, Madrid, Chile and Talloires programs

Pizza and light refreshments will be served

Are you interested in a major or minor in Geology???

Come to the Geology Open House Monday, Feb. 27 Open Block (noon) Room 7, Lane Hall Noon: Lunch available or bring your own Tufts Geology students at Canyonlands, 2010

12:30: Presentation Major programs Geology and Geoscience minors Careers in Geology

N at

ural Res ources ural Wond ers N at

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Monday, February 27, 2012

Help Welcome the New Jumbos from the Class of 2016!

Apply to Be Part of Orientation 2012!

Executive Orientation Leader and Orientation Leader Applications Available NOW! Due March 9, 2012

For Information and applications go to WWW.ASE.TUFTS.EDU/ORIENTATION

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Tufts Daily

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TAKE YOUR PROFESSOR TO LUNCH DURING MAJORS WEEK

February 27-MARCH 2—11 2012

Ask your favorite or soon to be favorite teacher to lunch at Carmichael or Dewick-MacPhie Halls and SPIRIT will foot the bill. More information will be provided in an email to all undergraduates.

MAJORS WEEK OPEN HOUSES

Monday, February 27 Department of Art History 11:30-­‐1:00pm—Art History 12:30-­‐1:00—Architectural Studies 11 Talbot Avenue Meet the faculty and current majors Learn more about Art History & Architectural Studies Department of Religion 12:00 noon Eaton Hall, Room 302 Please join the faculty and staff for lunch and meet current students in the program Department of Romance Languages 12:00-­‐1:30pm Olin, 2nd Floor Come learn about majors and minors in French, Spanish and Italian Studies MaJORly Confused?

12-­‐1:30pm German House 21 Whitfield Rd Students will get a chance to mingle with faculty and other German majors, talk to German exchange students and enjoy authentic German food.

Department of Geology Open House Open Block Lane Hall, Room 7 Prof Anne Gardulski will give a presentation about the various major and minor programs offered in the department. She will also describe opportunities for field work and research, as well as career options. Lunch will be provided.

Tuesday, February 28 Not sure what a major means post-­‐graduation?

5:00-­‐6:00pm Pearson 104 Unsure of how to get your chosen major and advisor to show up on SIS? Wondering how best to get back in touch with that professor you met at a Majors Week event?

Learn more about the logistics of major declaration and how it may (and may not) impact your future.

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THE TUFTS DAILY

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Monday, February 27, 2012

The MBTA on life support

Winter this year, for all intents and purposes, never came. Massachusetts has seen minimal snowfall this year — including only 7.8 inches in Boston, a record-setting low — and, as a result, $40 million of the $50 million in state funds earmarked for snow removal remains unspent. Rather than adding the surplus onto next year’s snow removal budget, Governor Deval Patrick has suggested that the extra money be given to the MBTA to help offset their $161 million deficit.

Though the prospect of avoiding dreaded fare hikes and inconvenient service cuts is appealing, critics argue that giving the money to the MBTA would be a shortsighted and inefficient investment and instead believe that the money should be put into the snow budget for next year in case there is an overflow. We at the Daily think that giving the money to the MBTA is a wise investment, and not just because we have learned what living without the subway is like thanks to Red Line

shutdowns in recent months.

It’s impossible to predict how much it’s going to snow in a given winter.

Like we’ve seen this year, sometimes snowfall can be surprisingly low.

Sometimes, like last year, we find ourselves buried up to the neck in pounds of slush. The point is that you can never tell how costly a winter will be, and, for the most part, the current budget Massachusetts has for snow removal works just fine.

It’s true that this was not the case last year, when Boston saw over six feet of snow, and the State House had to combat one storm after another throughout the Commonwealth. But years like 2011 are the exception, not the rule. And even then, the snow removal budget lasted for two thirds of the winter, and the State House was able to make up the deficit. The MBTA shortfall, on the other hand, is real and dire, and it makes little sense to tie up $40 million for an unlikely, hypothetical scenario when there is a crucial

agency that desperately needs to be bailed out.

Nearly a million Boston-area residents use the T daily. About a third of these are workers traveling to their jobs. If the MBTA implements either of its proposed deficit reduction plans, everyday tasks will become a lot more difficult for a lot of people. $40 million can’t undo the years of poor management and fiscal ineptitude on the part of MBTA officials that lead to the current shortfall, but it can likely keep afloat several bus routes and allow thousands of local residents to continue commuting into Boston.

Still, this is only a temporary solution. Without serious changes, the MBTA budget gap will only grow in the coming years, and the government will have to consider more permanent fixes, such as a gas tax, higher tolls and budget reapportionment. In the long run, reallocating the snow removal surplus would only be a small help, but even that would make it worthwhile.

tive. And thanks to the Tufts student body’s woeful indifference, we very rarely have to campaign for our seats — we just walk on!

If the Daily starts writing about what we do, the public will see the farcical circus we have become. We spend money “because we have it,” which is a terrible way to run a piggy bank, let alone handle the Activities Fees of thousands of students. $30,000 for an unnamed celebrity chef? Hey, we have the money. The administration won’t completely fund your statue? Have some of our Student Activities Fund.

We spend our time overstepping our bounds and debating semantics. Just last week, we argued over the definition of the word “nerdy” for an hour. Clearly, this is not how a Senate is supposed to behave. If the Daily starts telling people about it, they’ll notice and start caring.

Why would you want to take their blissful ignorance away from them?

If voters start caring, we’ll have to fight for our seats! Gone will be the days of uncontested “elections.” Gone will be the days of free résumé padding. Gone will be the days of wanton spending.

The Senate would be subjected to the democratic process! Can you imagine?!

The horror!!!

I beg of you, please, please don’t tell them what we’re doing. I actually like being a Senator. If my constituents knew what I was up to, I would never get re-elected. I promised them a moon base, for crying out loud! On the moon!

Leave us alone; the public is perfectly happy with their heads in the sand.

Louie Zong

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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor,

Esteemed colleague and TCU Senator Ben Richards wrote a letter to the editor on Wednesday, Feb. 22, in which he chastised the Daily for a lack of coverage on Senate workings. His contention was that the paper should provide more coverage of resolutions and budget allocations so that the Tufts student body is more aware of their representatives’ dealings. I must humbly request that you continue to ignore what we do.

We on the Senate have a relatively easy job. We get to emphasize our “proudest achievements” as “leaders” to the inquiring public. We regale them with tales of funding the Little Club That Could, or when we told off the big, bad admissions office for using a prompt that was too norma-

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

R’amen, Ian Donovan TCU Senator, Class of 2012

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 2 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com.

All letters must be word processed and include the writer’s name and telephone number. There is a 450-word limit and letters must be verified.

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Monday, February 27, 2012

The Tufts Daily

11

Op-Ed

On Israeli Apartheid Week by

Eve Lifson

Israel: Apartheid week. The name begs the question: Is Israel actually an apartheid state? Apartheid, as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, is racial segregation and discrimination with the intent “of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons.” I am familiar with many of the crimes that the Israeli government commits against Palestinians living in the occupied territories, such as house demolitions and denied access to much needed resources. I am also familiar with many of the forms of institutionalized racism that discriminate against Arabs within Israel proper. I have read “Is Israel an Apartheid State?” a publication by the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions. This publication summarizes the findings of a study conducted by the Human Sciences Research Center of South Africa. The study examines Israeli laws and practices, listing the plethora of crimes that have been committed against the Palestinians, to determine whether Israel is in fact an apartheid state.

Spoiler alert: Their conclusion is yes.

No reasonable person would argue that Israeli society does not discriminate against Palestinians. But are these oppressive acts committed with the intent of “establishing and maintaining domination” of the Jewish population of Israel? Perhaps. I believe there is some truth to this statement, but this view also oversimplifies the conflict, presenting it solely as a racial one. Israel’s victimization complex plays a strong hand in many policies that demean and oppress Palestinians.

Whether real or imagined, many Israelis believe that their nation still faces an existential threat. Israel feels threatened by the Arab world and the Palestinians suffer from this fear. So is Israel an apartheid state? I don’t think it’s that simple, but what’s in a name? Would systematic oppression by any other name smell as putrid?

By creating the first annual Tufts Israeli ApartheidWeek, the Tufts chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) aligns itself with many other SJP chapters. The aims of Israeli Apartheid Week are “to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.” Showing solidarity with an international movement that condemns Israel’s discriminatory practices is a crucial aspect of bringing voice to the Palestinian struggle for justice and

human rights. I understand the importance of this event. I am not condemning SJP for using Israeli Apartheid Week as a means for spreading awareness of Palestinian oppression. However, I think it is also important to consider how this event affects the dialogue surrounding the conflict at Tufts.

Creating an Israeli Apartheid Week alienates a large segment of the Tufts Jewish community. Some of us are ignorant of the injustices committed against Palestinians.

Some of us don’t want to hear an ill word uttered about our beloved Israel. And there are also those of us who feel heartbreak every time we read about the conflict in Haaretz, because the Jewish state should not exist at the expense of Palestinian rights. Many of these same people who support both the right of Palestinian self-determination as well as just and equal treatment for all Israeli citizens immediately disengage from a conversation upon hearing the words “Israel” and “apartheid” in the same sentence. I am not justifying this reaction. The Tufts Jewish community needs to engage critically with Israel, even when it pains us. One way for us to challenge our beliefs about Israel is through participating in SJP events and discussions. I believe that many more of us would want to work with SJP if we did not feel alienated by the language SJP uses.

SJP has no obligation to have a productive relationship with the Jewish community. Being a part of an international BDS movement may very well be a more important goal than engaging with supporters of Israel at Tufts. However, I am of the opinion that discussion and dialogue amongst SJP and the Jewish community is very important to the future of Israel and Palestine. The United States’ influence in Israeli affairs is immense, and American Jews have a large voice in shaping that influence.

We, the Tufts Jewish community, are part of that voice. Being educated about the Palestinian struggle is the first, vital step in changing the Jewish American discourse about Israel. For those of us who are ignorant of the many injustices that Palestinians face, interacting with SJP through attending events and participating in discussions, could have a formative role in how we conceptualize Israel, and more importantly, what we want Israel to be. But we may not show up because we feel alienated. For those of us who already are committed to human rights and justice for Jews and Arabs living in Israel and Palestine, participating in SJP events and activism would bring more voices to the cause. But we may not show up because we feel alienated. There is a huge

Courtesy justin mccallum

potential for partnership amongst Israel supporters and JSP in fighting for justice for Palestinians, and by using alienating language, SJP is missing out on the opportunity to work with numerous potential partners.

Does SJP need to abandon Israeli Apartheid Week to engage in meaningful dialogue with the pro-Israel community at Tufts? Well, that would help, but this is not a fair request.

SJP, like many other pro-Palestinian groups, believes that Israel is an apartheid state and uses this rhetoric to bring attention to the cause. They are calling it how they see it, and

I will not ask SJP to compromise who they are and what they believe. However, if Israeli Apartheid Week is here to stay, we need to start thinking of other ways to bridge the gap between the pro-Israel crowd and SJP. We need speakers, events and discussions that are accessible to all Tufts students who are committed to justice and human rights and to bringing about change in Israel.

Eve Lifson is a junior majoring in peace and justice studies.

Tufts Dining Services should cut prices when it cuts services

by Jonathan

Danzig

Dining trays. Plastic bags. Water bottles.

Freshmen at Tufts may not be familiar with seeing these items on Walnut Hill, but they were once ubiquitous. They provided a useful service enjoyed by students, but they also cost money, were of questionable utility and produced waste. Over the course of many years, each has been removed from normal use following a simple pattern. First, a group of students touts the benefits of removing said item, citing its wastefulness and high cost. Second, the university reacts favorably and commends the students. Third, said item is removed and the price of a meal stays the same or rises. These are the stories: In the 2009-2010 school year, and in every year before, there had been trays in the dining halls to allow students to hold more than two items at once. In the spring of 2010, the ExCollege had a class called “Environmental Action: Shifting from Saying to Doing.” For their for-credit project, some students proposed removing trays from the Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie dining halls. They worked with Tufts University Dining Services (TUDS) to conduct a “trial period” in which trays would be removed from the dining hall. During this trial period, the class would analyze energy use and food waste, and students would be permitted to leave their comments. Though members of the class asked for the support of the TCU Senate, the Senate instead protested by passing a resolution stating “The

TCU Senate supports exploring alternatives to trayless dining” in a 14-13 vote. (Full disclosure: I was a member of Senate who supported this resolution.)

The results of the trial period were predictable. Electricity use and food waste went marginally down, but student comments were overwhelmingly against the removal of trays. However, the ultimate outcome of the “trial period” was never in doubt: Patti Klos, director of dining and business services, was featured in FoodService Director magazine as “[knowing] she had to wait for the right time to attempt creating behavioral changes for her students.” Tufts Dining Services and the student group ran a public relations campaign to emphasize how many resources trayless dining had saved, and Dining Services permanently removed trays from dining halls starting in the 20102011 academic year. In a Sep. 29, 2010 Daily article entitled “Despite price hikes, meal plans enroll high numbers,” Patti Klos estimated that the removal of trays could save about $52,000 per year in electricity use and food waste, not even including the cost of the trays themselves. Despite the purported savings, the price of nearly every meal plan went up from spring 2011 to fall 2011. I emailed Patti Klos about this issue. Klos never returned the email.

In the 2010-2011 school year, and in every year before, there had been plastic bags in Hodgdon Good-to-Go, a campus eatery where students can pay with their meal plan. In spring 2011, students dealt with this issue in a class hosted by the English

department called “Environmental Justice and US Literature.” One of their projects was to choose an environmental cause and advocate for it. They chose the removal of plastic bags in Hodgdon. To accomplish this goal, the class staked out the Tisch Library Steps, Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie for a few hours on an April afternoon, standing with petitions to ban plastic bags. They asked every passerby for their signature, and ended the day with a few hundred.

From my point of view, any discussion of the matter was fruitless — the students were set on removing plastic bags from Hodgdon, and they were receiving class credit for it.

Though one member of the class had told the Daily that they were working to pass a resolution through the TCU Senate, it was ultimately not necessary. Dining Services saw their petition, and Hodgdon no longer offers plastic bags. One would assume that removing plastic bags would remove a significant expense from a Tufts meal plan.

But, as with the previous year, prices for students rose.

Next, water bottles. For years, various activists have been trying to remove bottled water from Tufts. Though bottled water is of roughly equal quality to tap water, and plastic bottles are often improperly disposed, it was very popular among Hodgdon-goers, and with many Americans nationwide. Last semester, Dining Services listened to the activists. Aside from a few posters around campus, there was very little public relations effort that went into the move; in Patti Klos’s judgment, “We had gone trayless last

year and it seemed that students were more open to behavioral changes.” Hodgdon now provides one fewer item, but the cost remains the same.

As of this writing, trays are removed from the dining halls, but they remain in the Commons, where students must pay for each individual item. Plastic bags are removed from Hodgdon and Jumbo Express, but remain in the bookstore. Hodgdon now does, however, sell reusable canvas tote bags.

Water bottles are no longer sold in Hodgdon but are still sold in the Jumbo Express convenience store, where students must pay for each individual item. And, as has long been the case, there are no paper towels in dormitory bathrooms, but there are paper towels in every publicly-accessible area at Tufts.

Tufts University Dining Services is not a charity. It must stay afloat, and that means it must sometimes cut unnecessary costs.

If removing trays from the dining hall really keeps Dining Services out of the red, then students can live with that. The simple fact remains that Dining Services once provided goods that made the lives of students easier and more convenient, at no extra charge, and now they no longer do. The students deserve an explanation of how many dollars and resources are being saved, and how their money is being spent. Moreover, Dining Services management owes such information to their paying customers.

Jonathan Danzig is a senior majoring in international relations and spanish.

Op-ed Policy The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length. Op-Ed cartoons are also welcomed for the Campus Canvas feature. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. All material should be submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com no later than noon on the day prior to the desired day of publication; authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. Submissions may not be published elsewhere prior to their appearance in the Daily, including but not limited to other on- and off-campus newspapers, magazines, blogs and online news websites, as well as Facebook. Republishing of the same piece in a different source is permissible as long as the Daily is credited with originally running the article.

The Tufts Daily

12

Comics

Monday, February 27, 2012

SUDOKU Level: Dunking over Kevin Hart

Friday’s Solution

Late Night at the Daily

Craig: “All babies conceived in the Daily office are property of the Daily.”

Want more late-night laughs?

Follow us on Twitter at @LateNiteAtDaily

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Sports

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All classifieds submitted by mail must be accompanied by a check. Classifieds are $15 per week or $4 per day with Tufts ID or $30 per week or $8 per day without. The Tufts Daily is not liable for any damages due to typographical errors or misprintings except the cost of the insertion, which is fully refundable. We reserve the right to refuse to print any classifieds which contain obscenity, are of an overly sexual nature or are used expressly to denigrate a person or group. Questions? Email business@tuftsdaily.com.

Women’s Track & Field

Theiss vaults to schoolrecord heights at BU

by Jake Indursky

Contributing Writer

The women’s track team produced several excellent individual performances at the Open New England Championship at Boston University this past weekend, continuing to improve with two weeks left before nationals. The Jumbos placed 16th in a competitive field comprised of teams from all three athletic divisions, though they were more focused on hitting individual marks and working toward qualifying for the national meet.

The star of the day was senior pole vaulter Heather Theiss, who tied the school record with a jump of 12-0 1/2, good for fourth in the competition and 10th nationally.

“I got 12 feet for the second week in a row, and I feel that 12-6 is now a possibility,” said Theiss, who has already qualified for nationals. “It was a surprise to be honest — I wasn’t feeling that good, but once the bar got set at 12 feet, my head got into it and turned everything around.”

Senior Nakeisha Jones also placed fourth with a leap of 39-1 1/3 in the triple jump. That placed Jones seventh nationally, and left her in good shape heading into the final two weeks of the season.

The throwing team had a characteristically solid performance, led by junior Kelly Allen and senior Ronke Oyekunle. Allen finished sixth in the weight throw with a toss

of 53-3 3/4, and she and Oyekunle came in 13th and 17th, respectively, in the shot put.

But the strongest performances of the weekend came from the two relay squads: the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) and the 4x400-meter teams. Both foursomes eclipsed their season bests and are on the cusp of qualifying for nationals.

The DMR team of senior tri-captain Anya Price, junior Sam Bissonnette and sophomores Jana Heiber and Laura Peterson shattered its season record by 20 seconds, good for fifth place at the meet.

The 4x400-meter group — which consists of Heiber and Bissonnette along with junior Alyssa Corrigan and senior Dayorsha Collins — logged a time of 3:56.57, good for 10th at the meet. The time was two seconds faster than the squad’s previous season best.

“We improved by two seconds, putting us on the brink of nationals,” Corrigan said. “Next week will be huge for DMR and [4x400]. Everything comes down to next week for us.”

The Jumbos will make one last push to reach their individual goals next week when they travel to New York City for the ECAC Championships.

“People have already qualified for nationals, need to qualify for nationals or are just trying to run a good last meet,” Corrigan said. “While we always try to have a team focus, next week certainly has an individual feel to it.”

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Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

Senior co-captain attackman Sean Kirwan, who led the Jumbos with 66 goals last season, will guide a young Tufts offense in 2012.

Team has work to do before opener men’s lacrosse continued from Back

graduating class. At this early point in the year, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

“It’s definitely been a work in progress … but that is to be expected,” Kirwan said. “We are lucky to have a lot of guys who seem to be stepping up and looking to contribute. We just need to continue to take steps forward and work on building that chemistry. The more people we can get to be at a level where they can be serious contributors, the better off we will be once the regular season starts.”

The Jumbos now have two weeks to work out the kinks before their official season opener. Their annual “Judgment

Day” will take place next weekend — a valuable step in perfecting the team’s communication.

“Since day one our focus has been on Hamilton,” McCormick said. “This twoweek period will be great for our preparation. We’ve learned a lot from our scrimmages and practices so we know what we have to improve on.”

“Coach [Mike] Daly stresses the importance of fundamentals,” added freshman Tim LaBeau, one young standout on Saturday. “These past two scrimmages gave a great opportunity to examine our fundamentals. Everyone got the opportunity to play, but it’s in a game-like intensity where we are looking to win and take steps forward towards Hamilton.”

Despite loss, Jumbos hopeful about future after remarkable season ICE HOCKEY

continued from Back

Williams, and they cashed in on the opportunity with a tally from freshman Peter Mistretta at the 6:00 mark.

Later in the period, sophomore Matt Doyle struck again to pull Williams even at the 14:56 mark, and the Ephs capped off a three-score period with yet another power-play strike, this one from junior Evan Dugdale, at 18:13 to take a 3-2 lead with just two minutes remaining in the middle frame.

In the third period, Gallegos equalized for the Jumbos on a power play. For the remainder of regulation, Jumbos senior tri-captain keeper Scott Barchard and Williams’ Ryan Purdy held their own.

“It’s always frustrating having so many opportunities and not being able to capitalize on as many as we could have,” freshman defenseman Blake Edwards said. “Williams has a good goaltender and he made some great saves that led to some frustration.”

In extra time, the Jumbos had countless opportunities to advance, but Purdy — who had 41 saves on the evening — made some excellent stops, and several other Tufts shots sailed off the mark.

When the Jumbos finally thought they had found the net, they were set to storm the ice, until the officials made it clear that the goal would not stand.

“That was a weird play,” Gallegos said.

“I think Story dumped the puck in and it bounced off of the boards right towards the net. Their goalie was scrambling to get back and knocked the puck in and the net off at the same time. We were obviously upset that we didn’t get the call, but I think we immediately put it behind us.”

Minutes after the Jumbos’ goal was called back, the Ephs thought they had scored a game-winner with seven minutes remaining.

But their goal was also nullified, this time due to a ruling that the puck was kicked in.

“It was definitely a game of momentum, and it kept going back and forth,” Edwards said. “Things are tense in overtime especially when each team is getting chances, but you

try and just play your regular game. Emotions were high and everyone knew what was on the line, which helps bring out that extra gear when guys are so exhausted toward the end of the game.”

Riding a roller coaster of close calls, physical play and emotions, Williams continued to press, and although Tufts dominated the beginning of extra time, junior John Wickman capitalized on a disorganized Jumbos defense just a minute later for the official game-winner, sending the Ephs to the conference semifinals next Saturday.

“They were able to outwork us and get a few quick chances,” Edwards said. “Williams is a good enough team where if you give them that many chances they will eventually make you pay for it. Both goalies played great and were able to weather the storm from each team. There were a lot of chances for both teams and they took advantage of theirs more than us.”

The loss marked the last Tufts appearance for five seniors: Story, tri-captain forward Matt Amico, defenseman Matt Milley and goaltenders Evin Koleini and Barchard. Barchard is the program’s all-time saves leader and finished his senior season with 817 stops, including 47 on Saturday evening.

While the Jumbos certainly did not go out as planned, head coach Brian Murphy’s squad did finish with one of the most successful seasons in recent program history. This winter, Tufts went 12-11-2 and grabbed nine NESCAC wins in one of the sport’s premier Div. III conferences, earning the right to host a playoff game for the first time. Last season, the Jumbos suffered a 12-game losing streak and went 5-14 in the NESCAC. While the team has yet to earn a NESCAC playoff win in its six tries, this season was undoubtedly a step forward for the program and a ride the Jumbos won’t soon forget.

“We are definitely happy with the way the season went, especially considering our lack of success last year,” Gallegos said. “We really want to build off of this season and continue to get better in hopes of having even more success [in the future].”

14

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Monday, February 27, 2012

Center for the Humanities at Tufts Distinguished Writers Series

Martin Amis

Martin Amis is the author of more than twenty books including the novels Money (1984), London Fields (1989), The Information (1995) and, most recently, The Pregnant Widow (2010), an autobiography Experience (2000), three collections of short stories, three books of essays and a meditation on Stalin Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million (2002). His writing has been translated into more than thirty languages. He is one of the most admired, influential, and significant writers of his generation.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012 5:30pm Coolidge Room, Ballou Hall Q&A and Reception to follow

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Tufts Daily

15

Sports

Men’s Track & Field

Jumbos hit qualifying times at New Englands by

Lauren Flament

Daily Editorial Board

The men’s indoor track and field team continued its recent surge at the Open New England Championships at Boston University this weekend, posting several stellar performances, including two school records and many national caliber marks. Overall, the Jumbos combined for a 15th place finish among the region’s Div. I, II and III schools.

Junior Jeff Marvel began the meet on a high note for the Jumbos, breaking his own 800-meter record of 1:52.12 set last year with a time of 1:51.43, good for fifth nationally this season. With just one weekend remaining to qualify for the Div. III NCAA Championships, Marvel’s personal-best time is likely to be good enough to qualify in the 800-meter at the national level indoors for a second year.

“It’s hard not to be happy with a personal best and national qualifier, so in that respect it was a very good day,” Marvel said. “[The race] went out kind of slow … I was trying to put myself in good position and being in the top two [in my heat] to get an automatic qualifier for Saturday, and I was really pleased when I finished and saw 1:51 on the clock, but I was really going more for place than time.”

The time also qualified Marvel for the finals on Saturday, where he finished fifth with another solid time of 1:51.7.

A second school record was set in the last event on Saturday, the 4x400-meter relay.

The foursome of junior Vinnie Lee, freshman Francis Goins, senior Ben Crastnopol and sophomore Graham Beutler combined for a time of 3:17.36.

“All season we’ve known that we had the talent and the right group of guys to run some fast races, and it was a big relief and really rewarding to able to run with it those guys because of all the workouts we put in this year,” Lee said. “Everyone felt really good, but there are definitely a few more tenths of a second that we can get out of us.”

The team is currently tied for 10th nationally, and the foursome will try to pare down its time next weekend to secure an NCAA bid.

Senior tri-captain Connor Rose also added a national qualifier in the mile on Saturday, running a 4:08.65. The personal record for Rose — who is also an Assistant Sports Editor

justin mccallum / The Tufts Daily]

Senior Ben Crastnopol was part of the 4x400 relay team that set a school record this past weekend at the Open New Englands at Boston University. for the Daily — was good for ninth in the meet and seventh nationally in Div. III. The mark also ranks as the second-fastest in Tufts history, just over a second off the nearly forty year old school record of 4:07.24.

The Jumbos also notched impressive finishes in the jumps. With a triple jump of 47-5 3/4, junior Gbola Ajayi added another personal best and national-caliber mark on Saturday, placing him 11th in the country. In the vault, junior Brad Nakanishi cleared 15-7 to earn fifth and made solid attempts at the 16-1 bar, the current school-record height.

Senior Jeff Prescott added another impressive performance for the Jumbos. On Friday, Prescott ran a personal best of 2:31.84 in the preliminaries of the 1,000-meter run, qualifying for the finals with the fifth-best time.

On Saturday, Prescott returned to the track

and recorded his second personal record of the weekend, clocking 2:30.68 and earning sixth place.

“It was a very good weekend,” Marvel said.

“We had strong performances all around, and it looks like we’re getting in shape at the right time and getting ready for nationals.”

The squad will travel to New York City to compete at the ECAC Championships at the Armory this Friday and Saturday. With two weeks left in the indoor season, the Jumbos will look for strong final marks to cap off their seasons and to solidify spots at the National Championships on March 9-10.

“We’ve been talking all season about leaving it all on the table,” Lee said. “We finally have lots of great athletes who have run lots of great workouts, so there’s no looking forward to next year; we want to run great now.”

Tufts to learn NCAA Tournament fate today WOMEN’S BASKETBALL continued from page 16

Following the intermission,Tufts outscored Bowdoin by 18 points, relying on defense and dominant rebounding. The Jumbos forced 21 turnovers while outscoring the Polar Bears by an 18-point margin in the paint.

Sophomore guard Liz Moynihan put together one of her finest performances of the season with 14 points and five rebounds, making five of her seven field goal attempts.

Although the Jumbos failed to win the NESCAC championship, they are nearly a lock to receive an at-large bid to the upcoming Div. III NCAA Tournament, and may even earn the right to host a firstround game. The selection show will be streamed live on NCAA.com today at 2:30 p.m and the tournament will begin this coming weekend.

This season, the Jumbos reached the conference finals for the first time since

2008 and they have already won an impressive 21 games.

“We are upset about the loss, but we had a great season with 20-plus wins and that puts us in a great position,” Barnosky said. “We are excited and confident in hopefully getting the at-large bid.”

“We did a lot of work during this season, and I think we should end up with a bid and do some damage in this tourney,” Dufault said.

Games of the Week looking back (FEB. 25) | ice hockey suffers heartbreaking playoff defeat After taking a 2-0 lead at the start of the second period, the fourth-seeded men’s hockey team looked well on its way to its first-ever NESCAC playoff victory on Saturday. But visiting fifth-seeded Williams had other plans, scoring three times in 12 minutes to take a 3-2 lead heading into the third. Sophomore Kyle Gallegos buried his second goal of the game to tie it at 3-3 and force sudden-death overtime, but with 6:13 remaining in the extra session Ephs junior John Wickman delivered the dagger, flipping a rebound past senior goalie Scott Barchard to seal the 4-3 quarterfinal win.

The Jumbos earned a power play early in the OT period, and for a fleeting moment they believed they had scored the game-winner. But the goal was waved off because the net was dislodged, and Tufts did not protest the call. Then, with 7:20 left the Ephs who appeared to win it, but this time the referees ruled that the puck had been illegaly kicked in. It didn’t matter; just over a minute later, Williams had won and was moving on to the conference semifinals.

Senior Evan Story scored the middle goal between Gallegos’s two tallies, and Barchard made 47 saves to finish a phenomenal Tufts career. The loss ended the Jumbos’ best season of the NESCAC era with a record of 12-11-2 overall and 9-8-1 in the league.

alex dennett / The tufts daily

looking ahead (mar. 3) | north carolina seeks revenge in durham

Mct

Archrivals No. 4 Duke and No. 7 North Carolina will meet for the second time this season on Saturday in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Earlier this month, the Blue Devils stole an 85-84 victory in Raleigh on a buzzerbeater from freshman Austin Rivers, who tallied a career-high 29 points, 16 of which came in the second half. The Tar Heels let a double-digit second-half lead slip away, and reclaimed the lead with under a minute left only to see Rivers sink a three-pointer as time expired.

The Feb. 8 matchup highlighted both teams’ strengths and weaknesses. North Carolina won the battle in the paint decisively, scoring 42 points to Duke’s 12. But the Blue Devils won the perimeter matchup, scoring 42 points on threes compared to only three points from distance for the Tar Heels. The Tar Heels were a dismal 1-for-6 from long range for the game, and they will need another strong performace down low if they hope to come away with a win on Saturday.

The Blue Devils are 20-4 overall this season and 7-2 in the ACC, while the Tar Heels are 25-4 overall and 12-2 in conference play. Duke has won five of the last six meetings between them. Saturday’s contest will mark the last regular season game for both teams before the ACC Tournament, which begins on March 8.

Zach Drucker | The Loser

Braun’s Brawn

T

he former chosen son of Milwaukee has taken his first steps towards rebuilding his legacy. Upon the conclusion of the 2011 MLB season, Ryan Braun was perched comfortably on cloud nine. Though his Milwaukee Brewers squad lost to the eventual champion St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship series, Braun had completed his best season as a pro. His .332 batting average, 33 home runs, 33 steals and 111 RBIs earned him the NL MVP Award. Furthermore, in April 2011, he signed a mammoth five-year, $105 million contract extension, cementing his place in a Brewers uniform.

Braun was the anti-LeBron James. Rather than suckle at the power teat, shamelessly promoting his own image while encouraging a bidding war for his skills amongst owners, Braun treated each performance like a Game 7 and flaunted his loyalty to a small-market, consistent loser. He was an intelligent and gifted player who did not mind the limelight, but did not crave it either. Minor leaguers aspired to be him, fans strove to watch him and little girls in Wisconsin wanted to marry him. That is, until December 10, 2011.

On that day, an ESPN report leaked MLB information positing that Braun had tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone, indicating performance-enhancing drug (PED) use. Braun’s newlytarnished reputation took immediate hits: the MLB suspended him for the first 50 games of the 2012 season, slanderous articles lambasted him and some conjectured that his MVP would transfer to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Matt Kemp.

In the ensuing melee, Braun maintained his innocence. Yet, for most fans, his innocent claims evoked an image of Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at a congressional board only to fail his drug test several months later. In baseball, players who test positive for PEDs are deemed guilty until proven otherwise, and for good reason.

Test results conducted by the esteemed World Anti-Doping Agency facilities in Montreal are infinitesimally precise.

Last week, however, Braun successfully appealed his suspension — the first successful appeal in MLB history — allowing him to take the field on Opening Day and retain his MVP trophy. In a press conference, Braun seemed visibly shaken and emotional, as he explained how MLB personnel mishandled his sample.

Obviously, Braun is not the first professional athlete to have his seemingly pristine legacy sullied. And, if he is able to get back in America’s good graces, he would not be the first athlete to achieve redemption. Kobe Bryant, for example, is a fan favorite once again after prosecutors dropped a notorious sexual assault case against him in 2004.

Yet Braun’s case raises an important question in sports psychology: Where do we draw the line when choosing whether or not to forgive professional athletes for their transgressions?

The MLB has proven that drugs will not be tolerated in baseball. As players like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Palmeiro have discovered, no amount of accolades can outweigh even a hint of steroid use. None of the aforementioned players will ever make the Hall of Fame, although their career statistics suggest they each would have been voted through in their first years of eligibility.

Should steroid users be held to a higher standard than, say, players like Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback who has seen multiple sexual harassment incidences? Steroid use gets forever seared into memory, whereas Americans too often belittle and forget the more serious criminal offenses of their idols. If Braun is confirmed as a steroid user in future tests, his name will be synonymous with “cheater.” But, for now, fans should abstain from speculation.

They should view Braun as the player who once ran out a triple so hard he crashed into the dirt yards before reaching home, and the player who has always stood by Milwaukee.

Zach Drucker is a senior majoring in international relations and Spanish. He can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu.

Sports

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INSIDE Women’s Track & Field 13 Men’s Track & Field 15

tuftsdaily.com

Women’s Basketball

Lord forbid: Amherst cracks down in second half to earn title by

Alex Baudoin

Daily Editorial Board

An upset appeared on the horizon at halftime. Minutes later, the opportunity vanished.

Coming off back-to-back dominant efforts WOMEN’S BASKETBALL (21-6, 8-2 NESCAC) NESCAC Championship at Amherst, Mass., Sunday Tufts Amherst

24 15 24 41

— 39 — 65

NESCAC Semifinals at Amherst, Mass., Saturday Bowdoin Tufts

23 17 — 20 35 —

40 55

in its first two playoff games, the women’s basketball team lost to No. 1 Amherst in the finals of the NESCAC tournament yesterday afternoon. Despite a great first-half performance, in which the Jumbos kept pace with the undefeated Lord Jeffs, the visitors collapsed in the second period, ultimately losing 65-39. The Jumbos had not allowed that many points since their second game of the season on Nov. 20.

Tufts came out strong at Amherst’s LeFrak Gymnasium, trading baskets with the Lord Jeffs for much of the period. It was a far different start from the last time these two teams squared off on Feb. 4, when Amherst jumped out to a 22-2 lead, effectively ending the game 10 minutes into the first half.

This time around, Tufts did a remarkable job setting the tone defensively while sharing the ball and establishing its inside-out attack.

Senior co-captain forward Kate Barnosky had a strong first half with seven points and

four rebounds. What kept the Jumbos close, though, was their ability to defend the post.

They fronted their bigger opponents down low, forcing Amherst into turnovers and poor shot attempts. As a result, the Jumbos entered halftime tied 24-24.

“We just attacked them from the start and put them on their heels,” Barnosky said. “We did exactly what we wanted to do. We played confidently and took it right to them.”

“I think the team came into the first half really focused and confident that this was a team we could handle,” junior co-captain Bre Dufault said. “We knew it was a possibility that we had a shot in this thing and we wanted to come out and attack.”

The second half, however, was a completely different game. Three Jumbo turnovers in the first two minutes of the period sparked a 16-2 Lord Jeffs run that stretched over the first 6:52 of the half.

It was all Amherst from there. Tufts scored 15 points on 19.2 percent shooting in the final 20 minutes, while Amherst seemingly couldn’t miss, scoring 41 second-half points with a 60.7 percent field goal clip.

“I think Amherst just picked up defensively a lot more, and that kind of shook us a bit,” Barnosky said. “To their credit, they picked it up in the second half.”

The key to Amherst’s late-game dominance was the play of senior guard Kim Fiorentino.

While she struggled shooting the ball all game, her performance on the defensive end changed the course of the contest.

After spending much of the first half matched up with freshman point guard Kelsey Morehead, Fiorentino switched to cover senior guard Tiffany Kornegay in the second period. Against the speedy slasher, Fiorentino sagged into the paint, daring Kornegay to beat her with outside shooting.

As a result, Fiorentino was in prime position

Scott Tingley / The Tufts Daily

Sophomore guard Liz Moynihan had a game-high 14 points for the Jumbos in their 55-40 NESCAC semifinal victory on Saturday. to play help defense, and she effectively shut Barnosky paced the Jumbos with nine points down Kornegay — normally one of Tufts’ and nine rebounds. key contributors on offense — and forced On Saturday in the semifinals, the Jumbos defeated Bowdoin 55-40. After the Polar Bears her into five second-half turnovers.

Senior guard Caroline Stedman led the way started the game on an 11-0 run, the Jumbos for the defending national champions, fin- clawed back to within three at halftime. ishing with 17 points. Junior guard Marcia Voigt also performed well, notching 13 points. see WOMEN’S BASKETBALL, page 15

Ice Hockey

Men’s Lacrosse

Jumbos work out kinks in early scrimmages by

Claire Kemp

Daily Editorial Board

Alex Dennett / THE Tufts Daily

Sophomore forward Kyle Gallegos scored the first and last of Tufts’ three goals on Saturday, when the Jumbos lost a 4-3 heartbreaker to Williams in the NESCAC quarterfinals.

Season ends in overtime thriller by

Kate Klots

Daily Editorial Board

The Jumbos thought that they had won.

Moments into the 20-minute ICE HOCKEY (12-11-2, 9-8-1 NESCAC) NESCAC Quarterfinals Malden Forum, Saturday Williams Tufts

0 3 0 1 1 1 1 0

— 4 — 3

overtime period of Saturday’s NESCAC quarterfinal game at Malden Forum, Tufts briefly celebrated what looked to be the gamewinning goal against Williams. But as the players prepared to clear the

bench, the officials waved off the goal because the net had come out of place in the scuffle. Just minutes later, the visiting Ephs walked away victorious, besting the Jumbos 4-3.

For much of the game, luck did not favor the Jumbos, whose fourth place finish marked their best-ever regular season placement. Tufts let a 2-0 lead slip away and was unable to capitalize on a number of opportunities to go ahead in the third period.

“Sometimes things just don’t go your way out on the ice,” sophomore forward Kyle Gallegos said. “A puck can bounce the wrong way or a ref can miss a call. It’s frustrating but I think that we kept battling. It’s always a bit of a shock when things end the way they did. It was unfor-

tunate that we didn’t get some of the calls down the stretch, but overall I think we kept an even keel.”

With just over a minute remaining in the opening period, the Jumbos took a 1-0 lead when Gallegos netted his team-leading 17th goal of the season with assists from freshman Tyler Voigt and junior Dylan Plimmer.

Following the first intermission, it took Tufts just over a minute to double its advantage on a goal from senior forward Evan Story. With a 2-0 second-period lead, the Jumbos appeared to be in cruise control.

Then, a tripping call on Tufts freshman defender Shawn Power set the wheels in motion for see ICE HOCKEY, page 13

The graduation of the heart of the men’s lacrosse team’s offense left more than a few question marks around the team’s chances at a third consecutive appearance in the national championship game.

After receiving a controversial No. 3 preseason ranking — a spot shared with Dickinson — Tufts will have to be stellar from day one of the season to stay atop the standings.

In order to prepare for their March 10 season opener against a virtually unknown Hamilton squad on the road, the Jumbos scheduled a pair of Div. I scrimmages just three days into the official practice season and two more this past weekend.

Following their first full week of practice, the Jumbos welcomed Div. II Merrimack and Div. III Keene State to Bello Field on Saturday and looked to improve on their performance against Yale and Quinnipiac the previous weekend.

“We wanted to iron out some of the kinks that were exposed last weekend against QU and Yale,” senior co-captain attackman Sean Kirwan said of Saturday’s games. “There weren’t too many major concerns, just little things like stick skills and communication … The wind made it very difficult to hear one another, but I felt our team did a great job of attacking this obstacle and effectively communicating.”

Tufts’ projected starters defeated Merrimack despite surrendering nine man-up opportunities and falling behind early. Later in the afternoon, the reserves lost a narrow battle against Keene State. The games provided valuable experience for the young offense and helped build confidence for the solid returning defensive unit.

“The ‘D’ has been playing very well and making some great plays,” senior co-captain midfielder Kevin McCormick said.

“But there are still things we need to improve on, as is the case for every position at this point in the season.”

The previous weekend, the Jumbos traveled to New Haven, Conn., to take on Quinnipiac and Yale with a unique opportunity to let the entire roster play against top-notch teams.

Though no official scores were posted, Tufts was pleased with its first competition of 2012. The Jumbos were bested by Yale, but against Quinnipiac the starters took the first half, 8-5, before the board was reset for the reserves.

“It was a great opportunity to get to play teams at that level,” senior co-captain attackman Sean Kirwan said. “It was a solid first scrimmage and we did some good things out there, but we definitely have some work to do before March 10.”

The Jumbos are bolstered by a talented group of underclassmen eager to step into new roles left vacant by last year’s see MEN’S LACROSSE, page 13