December 3, 2015

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXX, NUMBER 55

Thursday, December 3, 2015

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Tufts Recycles! to bring composting to all on-campus apartments

by Hannah Uebele Staff Writer

Tufts Recycles! will launch a new initiative to bring composting to all on-campus apartments at a composting education event this Friday at the Mayer Campus Center.

The event, which will be held in collaboration with the Tufts Sustainability Collective, will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 112 of the center, according to Savannah Christiansen, a Tufts Recycles! intern and special interest housing supervisor for Tufts Eco-Reps.

“Tufts Recycles! and the Tufts Sustainability Collective are collaborating to have a compost education event…to talk about compost to people,” Christiansen, a senior, said. “[The event will cover] how to keep [compost containers] clean and how to maintain [them], and that will include the kickstart to the on-campus apartment composting [effects].”

Christiansen said the push for composting at on-campus apartments such as Hillsides Apartments, Latin Way Dormitory and Sophia Gordon Hall this semester will expand existing composting spots in on-campus housing, which currently include Carmichael Hall, Haskell Hall, Houston Hall, Hodgdon Hall, Metcalf Hall, Miller Hall, South Hall, Wilson House and Wren Hall.

“Right now, the Eco-Reps maintain compost bins for all the dorms, and what we were thinking is that it makes more sense to have compost bins in places where there are kitchens, so our hope is that we get bins in apartments like in Latin Way, Sophia Gordon and…Hillsides,” she said.

Christiansen explained that the benefit of having composting at these new sites will be a decrease in campus food waste, since fewer kitchen food scraps will end up in landfills as waste.

According to Liora Silkes, another Tufts Recycles! intern, the Tufts dining halls compost all food waste, but many upperclassmen are creating separate food waste of their own.

“A lot of upperclassmen aren’t eating in the dining halls as much,” Silkes, a firstyear, said. “They have their own kitchen right there, so they’re creating a lot of food waste.

If you’re not eating in the dining halls, your food [probably] isn’t getting composted, so see TUFTS RECYCLES, page 2

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ResLife seeks to counter lottery fraud with housing policy changes

by Liam Knox Staff Writer

The Office of Residential Life and Learning (ResLife) is considering new strategies to address problems with the housing lottery system in light of cases of housing lottery fraud this past spring.

According to Director of ResLife Yolanda King, last semester, some students last spring applied for housing in groups with upperclassmen, who have higher lottery numbers, in order to boost their lottery number averages and place into more popular on-campus housing. These upperclassmen, who actually intended to live off campus, would then drop out of the on-campus housing group, leaving the other members of the group with the housing option they wanted.

“During last year’s group apartment lottery, it was brought to my attention that rising sophomores were applying to the six-person apartments with one rising junior in order to

Belinda Xian / the Tufts Daily

boost their group average to increase their chances for getting an appointment time to select,” King told the Daily in an email. “This did create an unfair and stressful situation for many students.”

This year’s “Housing Lottery Selection General Information” booklet, compiled by ResLife, states that students may not “buy, sell or trade [their] lottery number.”

Students living on campus are required to secure their housing with a $750 commitment fee — a payment that is only refund-

able for students planning to travel abroad or transfer the following semester, according to the general information booklet. In 2010, this commitment fee was raised from $500 to its current amount in response to concerns that students were increasingly abusing the housing system, the Daily reported.

King said she is considering various strategies to prevent housing fraud in the future, including mandating that all apartsee HOUSING, page 2

Three School of Medicine faculty members awarded Dean’s Medals for research

by Isha Fahad Staff Writer

Three faculty members at the School of Medicine were awarded Dean’s Medals — given to individuals who have made extraordinary accomplishments in the medical field — on Nov. 5.

The recipients of the awards were Te-Wen Chang, a former associate professor of public health and community medicine; Sherwood Gorbach, a former professor of public health and community medicine and Stuart Levy, a current a professor of molecular biology and the director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance. The three were recognized at a reception for area alumni at the Wellesley Country Club, which over 200 people attended, according to Dr. Harris Berman, the dean of the School of Medicine.

Berman said the medals — rarely awarded at Tufts — were presented to the three individuals for their contributions to the field of infectious disease research.

The research conducted by the three award recipients on Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) bacteria, which causes diarrhea and colon inflammation and is linked to around 29,000 deaths in the U.S. annually, has led to further related research at the School of Medicine, he said.

“Each of these researchers has made

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Matthew Healey for Tufts University

From left, Te-Wen Chang, Sherwood Gorbach and Stuart Levy of the School of Medicine receive Dean’s Medals awards during a Nov. 5 reception at the Wellesley Country Club. seminal discoveries in infectious diseases, which not only have been a great credit to Tufts, but also a major contribution to improve the health of people all over the world,” Berman said.

Berman said the last time a Dean’s Medal was awarded was four years ago, when it was given to Dr. Vivian Pinn, a former faculty member in the department of pathology.

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Gorbach said that before receiving the Dean’s Medal, he had no idea that such an award existed at Tufts. The Dean’s Medal represents recognition of his whole life’s work, not merely of one achievement, he said.

Gorbach explained that most of his research is about infections in the intes-

News............................................1 Features.................................4 Comics.......................................6

see DEAN'S MEDALS, page 2

WEEKENDER.......................... 7 OPINION...................................10 Sports............................ Back

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Tufts Recycles! to hold event to kick off composting initiative TUFTS RECYCLES

continued from page 1 we’re trying to step in and get more of that composted.”

Silkes explained how Tufts Recycles! has reached out to students currently living in on-campus apartments to gauge their interest in the new composting initiative.

“We’re going to give everyone who’s interested a little container to put their compost in,” she said. “We’ll teach them everything they need to know, and they’ll be able to collect it on their own and then dump it outside in composting bins nearby all three of the apartments.”

Silkes explained that anyone can use the composting sites around campus, even if they didn’t sign up to have their own compost bin.

“The bins are there, anyone can dump compost if you see the yellow bins around,” she said. “Or if you wanted to start your own compost in your room, you can dump it in [the campus bins] and it will get picked up.”

In addition to composting, Tufts Recycles! is also in charge of maintaining and enhancing the recycling system on campus, and also organizing collections of old battery and ink cartridges, according to Silkes. The group also does outreach to help events on campus become zero-waste events, she said.

Christiansen said another goal that Tufts Recycles! has for the semester is to start up their website and maintain a social media presence. She said she hopes people will check the group’s website and ask them any questions they may have about recycling and composting.

Silkes said Tufts Recycles! hopes their Friday launch event will garner more support for their composting initiative by making people more knowledgeable and excited about composting, and ready to implement it in their apartments.

“Everyone should compost,” Silkes said.

“It’s great and it’s easy.”

Housing lottery fraud cases could impact housing shortage, compound class divisions among students

HOUSING

continued from page 1 ment group members belong to a single graduating class. This would prevent underclassmen from enlisting upperclassmen with higher lottery numbers to sign up for on-campus housing with the intention of dropping out of the system, she explained.

King said she is also thinking of punishing all members of any group suspected of attempting lottery fraud, and only allowing housing groups to verify their housing plans one time.

“If students select an apartment, and a member with a high lottery number cancels for reasons other than studying abroad, all remaining members would lose the apartment and be re-assigned based on what is available later,” she said.

Sophomore Vivian Zhong said that lottery-rigging has been common practice among students throughout her time at Tufts. “[Lottery fraud] was pretty prevalent last year,” Zhong said. “I was a freshman and there was such a scramble to find sophomore housing, especially in Hillsides or Latin Way. Almost half of the people I talked to about housing at least considered [fraud] at one point.”

Judicial Affairs Administrator Mickey Toogood said that, though lottery fraud cases have been brought to his attention, no

cases have come before the judiciary committee since he became the judicial affairs administrator last year. Cases that do come before the Judicial Affairs office may lead to probation, he said.

“Fraudulence, or misrepresentation, is a violation of…university [policy] and that’s because we [at Tufts] value honesty, and a violation like this might warrant probation,” he said. “While context might be important, I think we would take any sort of fraud seriously.”

Toogood explained that lottery-rigging impacts other students trying to secure housing, and feared that abuse of the housing system could exacerbate the shortage of campus housing.

“If five students agree to go in together on a room and one of them is never really intending to live in that room, it could have a real impact on someone else’s ability to live on campus in a place where they want to be, or even on campus at all,” he said. “So its a very concrete problem.”

Zhong expressed concerns about ResLife possibly increasing its involvement in student housing.

“I’m sure some people legitimately want to live with their upperclassmen friends and it may be overstepping some privacy boundaries to have ResLife investigate and ques-

tion everyone’s relationships within housing groups,” she said.

On the other hand, Zhong also noted that the housing fraud process can alienate students in lower-class communities. She explained that underclassmen who attempt to game the lottery system often agree to split the cost of the upperclassman’s $750 drop-out fee in exchange for better-quality housing. This practice can exacerbate class divides, since students who can afford the fee have more access to better housing, she said.

“Not all students are easily able to shell out extra money to cover the dropout fee,” Zhong said. “Many students are on financial aid, and some of these conversations can make students uncomfortable. It seems like those who don’t have to worry about finances are able to buy their way into more desirable housing.”

Toogood added that, disregarding the fact that lottery fraud violates university code, students should consider the impact that their actions have on their peers.

“We’re all part of the same community, so I would hope that they’d want to respect that and not want to disadvantage anyone just because five members of a certain group wanted to live together or something like that,” he said. “It could have a real impact on someone’s experience.”

School of Medicine faculty recognized for research on Clostridium difficile DEAN'S MEDALS

continued from page 1 tinal tract, which he started studying as a young researcher back in 1964. He cited his experience as a student at the Medical School from 1958 to 1962 as a motivating factor behind his research.

“During those days I was inspired by my teacher, Dr. Louis Weinstein, who taught at Tufts from 1957 till 1975,” he said. “It was Dr. Weinstein who made me realize how interesting and challenging this field was.”

Throughout his career, Gorbach travelled to various places to conduct research, including Calcutta, India, where he stayed for a year and a half to research diarrhea.

“In 1978, the research in my lab led to the discovery of Australian Clostridium Difficile, a form of diarrhea caused by antibiotics,” he said.

Chang, who is now 95, was awarded the Dean’s Medal for his contributions to the field of infectious disease research, particularly for his work in understanding C. difficile. He discovered in 1978, working in a Tufts lab under Gorbach’s direction, that clostridia, a toxin-producing bacteria, is the cause of antibiotic-associated pseudo-membranous colitis — inflammation of the colon

that sometimes occurs after antibiotic treatment — according to a Nov. 13 Tufts Now article. In addition to this discovery, Chang conducted over 200 studies on the C. difficile pathogen and other related infectious diseases.

Levy, a researcher, health policy advocate and co-founder of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics — an international nonprofit organization that aims to fortify defense against infectious diseases on a local scale by promoting appropriate and effective use of antibiotics — joined the Tufts faculty in 1971 and continues his research on infectious diseases to this day.

“My research is studying antibiotic resistance at the molecular, genetic and biochemical level … as they impact public health nationally and internationally,” Levy said.

He explained that his research has led to two major discoveries. His team was the first to demonstrate how efflux mechanisms, or cell pumps, expel antibiotics out of a cell to prevent them from interfering with cell growth — research that shed light on drug resistance in bacteria. His other major discovery, which resulted from his work in multiple drug resistance, concerns

a regulatory locus in the bacterial chromosome called mar, which influences drug resistance and organism virulence.

“Multiple drug resistance, by whatever mechanism, leads to the overproduction of the pump and other resistance mechanisms,” Levy said. “The region of the cell which bears the multiple drug resistance gene allows the cell to circumvent the antibiotic activity by various mechanisms for resistance in the bacterial cell.”

In another study, Levy and his team investigated whether or not feeding farm animals low doses of antibiotics could lead to the appearance of drug-resistant bacteria in the animals and farm workers.

“Before our studies, people thought that the farm animals had different kinds of bacteria and resistance genes that they carry,” Levy said. “However, we showed that as the animals move from farms to retail markets, they carry with them bacteria, which are selected for antibiotic resistance during the use of antibiotics and raising of the animals.”

According to Levy, his team’s studies were the first to show transfer of drug resistance genes from animals to humans and vice-versa. He said it was this research that ultimately won him the Dean’s Medal.

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Features

Miranda Willson Ecofeminism for All

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Janitorial Restructuring

Jobs for whom?

T

his summer, I wrote an article for a small newspaper about natural gas extraction and production in Chautauqua County, N.Y., interviewing at least half a dozen people from local industries, governments and activist organizations.

Natural gas is an influential yet contentious industry in this rural, economically depressed area. Though high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been banned in New York state, there are plenty of individuals trying to frack around that ban or overturn it completely.

While writing the article, I was so busy researching, interviewing and putting together quotes and concepts that I didn’t put time into reflecting on the actual people with whom I spoke. Looking back on it, I realize now that all of the climate change activists and anti-fractivists I talked to for this article were women.

The representatives from local industry and government, on the other hand, were all men.

While natural gas may have brought revenue into the county, most of that money was concentrated in the hands of a few men in the industry who weren’t even from the area.

While my sample size was small, I think these details are telling. What does it mean when the politicians running a local community are men, when local business owners are men and the activists fighting for environmental justice, silenced in town hall meetings and pushed out of the decision-making process, are women?

What does it mean when worldwide, women are disproportionately hurt by climate change and other environmental issues, particularly women of color in the developing world, yet they often aren’t represented in their governments? What does it mean when environmental degradation is justified in the name of “economic growth” and “job creation” but the vast majority of those jobs aren’t helping the women in the communities in which extraction takes place, and sometimes don’t even serve the men in those communities either?

We’ve created an economic system that exploits the earth in the same way that it exploits certain people. When more Americans started to embrace environmentalism in the 1960s, this connection was not made explicit, at least not among mainstream environmentalists. But today, with climate change killing more people worldwide than terrorists, and with most of these victims already burdened by other economic and social injustices, no environmentalist can ignore these deep connections any longer.

The fights for gender equality (and against racism and colonialism) are intrinsically linked to the fight for climate justice. The economic systems in place today — capitalism, neoliberal and neocolonial attitudes about development and trade — have given rise to great injustices to people and to the planet. The concept of environmental justice often focuses on who is hurt most by environmental degradation, but a sometimes-forgotten element is who benefits most from environmental degradation.

The answer is almost always the white, male, Western ruling class.

There was never a more misleading concept than the so-called trade-off between environmental protection and “job creation.” When only some people get the jobs, and only some deal with the environmental destruction, the questions we should ask are “jobs for which people?” and “environmental destruction for which people?”

Miranda Willson is an assistant news editor and features columnist at the Tufts Daily. She is a junior majoring in environmental studies and urban policy & development and can be reached at miranda.willson@tufts.edu.

Nicholas Pfosi / Tufts Daily archive

DTZ employees protest feared cuts to janitorial staff outside of Ballou Hall on Feb. 26.

Outsourcing in Higher Education

by Nicholas Pfosi Staff Writer

The company from which Tufts contracts its custodial services, DTZ, formerly UGL Unicco, has had a business relationship with Tufts since 2011. “[The Tufts administration] asked [DTZ] to put more resources into cleaning busier areas of campus with high student activity, such as dorms, athletics facilities and libraries, and fewer resources into cleaning administrative offices,” Executive Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler told the Daily in an email. “However, it was up to DTZ to come up with a detailed plan and specific recommendations.”

In the second part of this series, the Daily charted the periodic shifts in custodial labor at Tufts, and the ensuing student and worker demonstrations, since Tufts first outsourced its janitorial staff in 1994. In this installment, we examine the financial contexts for such decisions at Tufts and at universities nationwide.

in 2011, had increased the number of full-time administrators by roughly 29% and full-time professional staff by roughly 119 percent since 1987, during which time student enrollment increased by 51 percent. However, at the end of 2012, Tufts launched its Tufts Effectiveness in Administrative Management (TEAM) initiative, a project intended to streamline some administrative practices so that annual expenses would be reduced by about $15 million, according to the TEAM website.

“The basic rationale for a college or university to outsource to a vendor could be summed up this way: I can’t do this, others can, I think I’ll let them.”

Rising University Costs

A story in the September/October 2011 Washington Monthly cited rising administrative costs as a major factor in increased university expenditure across American colleges between 1998 and 2008. The article pointed to a 36 percent increase in administrative spending by America’s private colleges.

A follow-up report by Rita Kirshstein, director of the Delta Cost Project, whose data was included in the Washington Monthly article, found that “administrative bloat” occurred mostly in mid-level professional positions. “[M]any of these administrators are performing services that both faculty and students have come to expect,” Kirschstein said in the report, citing responsibilities related to tutoring, financial aid and information technology (IT).

The New England Center for Investigative Reporting found that Tufts,

“Expense growth has exceeded revenue growth most years since 2008, which, combined with one-time investments in systems and TEAM implementation, resulted in a projected deficit in [Fiscal Year 2015],” the TEAM website says.

The projected deficit for Fiscal Year 2015, which lasted from July 2014 to June 2015, was $9.7 million, but the university ended the term with a $1.1 million surplus, according to a September announcement by University President Anthony Monaco.

The implementation of TEAM is slated for completion in July 2016, according to a message on the TEAM website.

Its projects have included the integration of Tufts’ IT services into Tufts Technology Services, the consolidation of budget management responsibilities, the implementation of new purchas-

ing strategies and optimized research administration services.

“More than 600 people were involved in the budget process, which was time-consuming and inefficient,” the TEAM website says.

The decision to reorganize custodial labor was a part of this cost-saving measure. While effects of streamlining on administrative staff were achieved “mostly through managed attrition, the process of not filling voluntarily vacated positions that are no longer needed,” according to the TEAM website, the change in the university’s contract with DTZ ultimately displaced 18 custodians, as was reported in Part One of this series.

Decision to Outsource

Tufts President emeritus John DiBiaggio said outsourcing to the university’s contractor saved the school nearly $1 million annually, according to a 2001 Daily article. According to a study by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, 65 percent of institutions had made similar decisions by the same time, outsourcing between two and five of their services. Over a two-year period (2000–2002), outsourcing increased by eight percent nation-wide.

“The basic rationale for a college or university to outsource to a vendor could be summed up this way: I can’t do this, others can, I think I’ll let them,” a February 2005 University Business Magazine said.

University of Wisconsin-Superior decided to outsource their custodial staff in 2014, resulting in a projected $500,000 in annual savings, according to a Nov. 19, 2014 Wisconsin Public Radio story, and a Feb. 21, 2013 report from the Daily Texan stated that The University of Texas (UT) Committee on Business Productivity estimates a savings of over $92 million over 10 years due to outsourcing services related to on-campus food, parking and housing services. The latter decision followed a 2005 cost-saving effort by the univer-

Thursday, December 3, 2015 | Features | THE TUFTS DAILY

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F e at u r e s

5

F e at u r e s

sity, in which it outsourced its Central Receiving and Delivery division to a company called MagRabbit.

“The measure is expected to save the university about $200,000 annually for services that include receiving products from vendors and transportation companies, inspecting them for quantity and damage, delivering to departments on campus and providing other shipment and delivery services,” a University of Texas news article said.

Opposition to Outsourcing

Tufts’ 1994 decision to outsource its custodial staff was one of several such financial choices by Boston-area universities that drew community backlash.

On April 29, 2008, the Daily Free Press, Boston University’s independent student newspaper, published a story about a protest demanding higher payer for janitors at Northeastern University. In the article, Roxana Rivera —the current Vice President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 32BJ, which represents custodians who work on Tufts’ campuses—attributed unsatisfactory pay to outsourcing practices.

“One of the protesters, Roxana Rivera, said Boston University janitors receive far better treatment [than Northeastern University janitors], partially because BU does not outsource its hiring, resulting in more ‘livable’ wages,” the article said.

The University of WisconsinSuper ior (UW-Super ior) also announced a plan to outsource its custodial and ground services in 2014 despite community protests, according to a Nov. 19, 2014 Wisconsin Public Radio story.

Nicholas Pfosi / Tufts Daily archive

Mark Niedergang, Somerville alderman for Ward 5, voices his opposition to the university’s proposed layoffs during the open forum event on the administration’s plan for the janitorial staff in Braker Hall on March 27.

“There is nothing fair or right about eliminating these hard-working employees who made decent but hardly excessive wages and replace them with employees who will receive low wages and few benefits paid for by an out-of-state corporation which will profit from the downsizing of our

workforce,” three Wisconsin lawmakers wrote in a statement quoted in the story.

In 2006, at the University of Miami, over 200 outsourced janitors— employed by UGL Unicco, which was affiliated with DTZ until late 2014— participated in a seven-week-long

walkout, and 10 entered into a several-week-long hunger strike along with five students, according to an April 18, 2006 New York Times article. The non-unionized, majority Cuban and Haitian immigrant workforce protested earning roughly $6.40 per hour without health care benefits.

THE TUFTS DAILY | Comics | Thursday, December 3, 2015

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Comics

Late Night at the Daily Abby: “You’re not invited 3, to2015 my Bat Mitzvah!”

FOR RELEASE DECEMBER

Comics

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis Crossword

ACROSS 1 Game piece associated with 71-Across 8 “C’mon, Let’s Play” store 15 Estate planner’s suggestion 16 Chess grandmaster Karpov 17 Cancún’s peninsula 18 Copied 19 “Nurse Jackie” network, briefly 20 Attempt 22 Org. concerned with the AQI 23 VW hatchback 24 Way out 26 Selective socializer, perhaps 29 Geologic periods 31 Soulful Franklin 33 Catch 34 Swallow up 36 Asks for more 38 Fish used as bait in bass fishing 40 Dagger of yore 41 Apple music player 45 Chess ploy 49 __ Mahal 50 Much of Oceania 52 Cut with teeth 53 Pass over 55 Recital numbers 56 Cool one 57 Tampa NFLer 59 Polynesian beverage 61 Spam holder 62 Like some skinny jeans 65 The United States, to Mexicans 68 Carrier to Tehran 69 Critical 70 Training units 71 Word that can precede the word in each set of puzzle circles

DOWN 1 Sound from a crib 2 Fourth-most populous U.S. city 3 Dürer work 4 Former Labor secretary Elaine

12/3/15

By Don Gagliardo & C.C. Burnikel

Wednesday’s Solution Wednesday’s Puzzle Solved

5 Word with press or mess 6 Historic stretches 7 Many a talk show caller 8 Wage earners’ concerns 9 Person 10 Easily maneuvered, at sea 11 Bus schedule listings 12 1987 film loosely based on “Cyrano de Bergerac” 13 Suffix with glob 14 Australian airport, in itineraries 21 “Timber!” yeller 23 Awe-full expression?

25 Revealing beachwear 27 Wake maker 28 Small shot 30 Sought damages 31 Repeated notes in Chopin’s “Raindrop” prelude 32 Square measure 35 Dunham who created and stars in the HBO series “Girls”

SUDOKU

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

37 Reps. counterparts 39 Hoodwinks 41 Jurist Lance 42 Spray on a pan 43 Lake Huron natives 44 Earthenware pot 46 Martini & Rossi parent company 47 “Include me” 48 Demolition stuff 51 Dance music provider

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

JUMBLE

Unscramble these four Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form four ordinary words.

GEDWE ©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

NITUP WHYROT

HORYNT

Difficulty Level: Making it to the gym on a regular basis after Thanksgiving.

Wednesday’s Solution

Yesterday’s

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

(Answers tomorrow) Jumbles: RELIC STYLE USEFUL TOWARD Answer: The doctor was puzzled by the woman’s illness.

He’d find a remedy. He was very — “CURE-IOUS”

Non Sequitur

By Wiley Miller

12/3/15

54 Chances to play 58 Trendy hi 60 Six-time All-Star Moises 61 Firm: Abbr.

62 Rap name adjective 63 Mine output 64 Committed thing 66 __ de plume 67 Neurologist’s tool, briefly

Check out the new, free JUST JUMBLE app

6

weekender 12.03.15

Creating and changing

the game

Independent game development in 2015: A conversation with Arnold Rauers of Tinytouchtales

By John Gallagher

Assistant Arts Editor

Independently developed or “indie” video games — games created by small teams or individuals without the financial support of a publisher — have become an integral part of the gaming landscape over the past decade. The rise of digital distribution on the traditional PC and console markets, as well as the proliferation of smartphones and their accompanying app stores, have allowed smaller developers to sell directly to consumers and have largely negated the need to produce a physical product.

As a consequence of these market changes, indie titles now compete with big publisher backed releases for gamers’ dollars — and often succeed.

“Minecraft”(2009) for instance, an independently developed title originally created by Swedish game developer Markus “Notch” Persson, is one of the bestselling video games of all time and was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014. On mobile platforms, “Flappy Bird” (2013), a mechanically simple game by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, became a sensation in early 2014 and was reportedly generating $50,000 per day at the peak of its popularity before it was abruptly removed from Apple’s App Store.

For every story of outrageous indie success however, there are thousands of independent developers who toil in obscurity but still produce interesting, innovative titles. One such developer who has managed to carve out a niche for himself is Berlin-based game designer Arnold Rauers of Tinytouchtales — the company behind “Card Crawl” (2015), a solitaire-inspired dungeon crawler.

“I started working [generally] in games in 2011, but as of 2014, I’m independent,” he said.

Before becoming an independent developer, Rauers worked at larger game companies as an interface designer for mobile games, most notably on the free-to-play title “Pearl’s Peril” (2013 – present). After getting started in the industry, Rauers soon realized that it was feasible for him to make his own games after he discovered the game creation tool Stencyl, which, according to its website, allows developers with no coding knowledge to create games.

Rauers said that Stencyl’s accessibility appealed to him.

“I discovered the tool in 2012, I think, and from then on, it totally took over my mind,” he said. “I always had the desire to create my own stuff, but I was blocked by

my inability to program. Once I discovered [Stencyl], it was pretty clear to me that I had to start [creating] my own [games], and since then, I have worked to save up money to pursue this goal.”

Rauers said that before beginning to develop “Card Crawl” in August 2014, he released eight independently developed titles that never quite took off.

Rauers used savings he accumulated during his three years of working for large game companies to support himself during the seven-month-long development of “Card Crawl,” as he had quit his job to work on the project. He also enlisted the help of artist (and Rauers’ former university professor) Max Fiedler and sound designer Oliver Salkic. Initially, both Fiedler and Salkic worked for free in exchange for a share of the eventual revenues from “Card Crawl.” Because “Card Crawl” was a hit, this arrangement turned out to be, in Rauers’ words, “a very good deal” for both Fiedler and Salkic, but was not without risks. As Rauers pointed out, “if the game had bombed it would have been a very bad deal for them”.

“Card Crawl” was first released in March of 2015 on Apple’s App Store, which Rauers described as a challenging marketplace to break into. Many players are only interested in offerings by large companies with the promotional muscle to publicize their games, he said.

“The mobile market is super skewed towards the top, [toward games produced by these big companies],” Rauers said. “A lot of reports [say there are] about 10 to 15 games that make about 60 to 70 percent of all the money that is generated … There are a few games like “Clash of Clans” [2012] that make millions a day, and on the other hand, there are millions of games that make nothing a day.”

In this hyper-competitive environment, where even a high-quality game like “Card Crawl” may go unnoticed, “Card Crawl” has managed to succeed; Rauers estimates that “Card Crawl” has made roughly $75,000 to date across both the App Store and Google Play.

Rauers attributes a good deal of the success of “Card Crawl” to his promotional strategy, which was comprised of maintaining a development blog and regularly posting about the game on social media. He also stressed the importance of having a contact at Apple who helped him get “Card Crawl” featured on the App Store during its first week on sale. “[A contact at Apple] is the biggest thing you have to have,” he said. “These days on the App Store, [it] is so

crowded, and you have no chance of self-promoting a paid game in any kind of substantial way.”

“Card Crawl” also received a great deal of support from an unlikely demographic: board game fans, who were attracted to the game’s aesthetic and discussed it avidly online.

Beyond a solid promotional strategy, Rauers believes that his game’s success is also rooted in its niche appeal.

He said that the so-called “goldmine” period of mobile gaming — when all potential players were up for grabs — is over and that it is now very difficult to compete with large gaming companies.

Despite these challenges, Rauers has found an alternative way to court the mass of prospective players.

“What you…should do is make a very niche game, where you try and innovate on something and target a really small niche of a niche,” he said.

Tinytouchtales, a small video game company Rauers founded, has followed this strategy closely in producing “Card Crawl.” The game combines a relatively complex card game with a dungeon crawler, a medley of genres that appeals to a very small, but very passionate, subset of the mobile games market.

The success of “Card Crawl” has enabled Rauers to continue working as an independent game developer, which he describes as his dream job. Tinytouchtales is currently working on a follow-up — though not a sequel — to “Card Crawl.” Rauers hopes that the new game will appeal to the same players who loved the original and that he will be able to innovate the established single-player/card game base. A more detailed announcement of the new game’s theme and mechanics is expected in early 2016.

8

THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Thursday, December 3, 2015

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A&L

ARTS&LIVING

Lara LoBrutto Sinoscope

My encounters with ‘face’

W

hile I was in Beijing this summer, I reached out to a friend of a friend who I was hoping would give me some insight into her industry. When my friend sent an email introducing the two of us, she responded immediately with an invitation to her office. When I arrived in Beijing, I sent her a follow-up email. Five weeks and two emails later, I finally got a reply. She was so glad to hear from me, but unfortunately, she was flying to the United States in two days and could probably squeeze me in tomorrow.

I was confused and frustrated. Why would she immediately extend an invitation and then not respond until five weeks later, when she had only one day to spare? I shared the situation with a friend, who was also puzzled, until she came to a conclusion: it was about face.

I had heard about the concept of “mianzi,” or face, plenty of times in my study of Chinese politics and culture, but I did not truly understand it until this moment. To gain face is to gain respect and honor, and to lose face is to experience shame beyond what most Westerners can imagine. Face manifests as a strong sensitivity to the opinions of friends, co-workers, family and the general public.

It seems to me that “mianzi” is connected to a community-based view of the self. Whereas Western ideology is all about individualism and the self-made man, Chinese ideology is more about examining oneself through the eyes of others. Success is not standing out, but rather shaping oneself to the mold of expectations. This means that maintaining face, and not diverging from the expected path, is all part of what it means to live an accomplished life. The closest Western equivalent, I would say, is the concept of popularity, because Westerners place a similar premium on this. Even popularity, though, is not associated with such high stakes.

Of course, Americans are not entirely impervious to caring about face. As I pondered whether or not I would have encountered a similar situation in the United States, though, I realized that this was unlikely. The fact is, American culture is less likely than Chinese culture to make one care about what a stranger thinks of them. In my case, the woman might have responded by saying that she has a packed schedule, but that I should reach out later to see if she could squeeze me in. She had, on the other hand, gone out of her way to extend an invitation even though she was clearly too busy to make the time for my visit. Face seemed to be the best explanation.

So does “mianzi” tell us that many in China go around saying what they don’t really mean? That may be how a Westerner would see it. But those living in that context understand their words as custom, just as Americans might say, “what’s up?” to a friend in passing without anticipating a rundown on their life.

Clearly, cultural context is key.

Lara LoBrutto is a junior majoring in international relations and minoring in Chinese. She may be reached at lara. lobrutto@tufts.edu.

Artsy Nugget

Panic! At the Disco releases spirited new single ‘LA Devotee’ from forthcoming album

by Anjali Nair Arts Editor

Earlier this year, Panic! At The Disco drummer Spencer Smith wrote a long, heartfelt letter announcing his departure from the band, leaving frontman Brendon Urie as the band’s sole remaining original member. While a lesser musician may have struggled to keep the band’s aura and music intact, Urie has had no such trouble. The multi-instrumentalist is something of a powerhouse and fronts the band with aplomb. Yes, Panic! At the Disco has definitely turned into the Brendon Urie project, but his decision to channel his talent into the band rather than a solo album is a sound one. Panic! At the Disco has been moving at full speed since Smith’s departure, and its new music retains much of the theatrical brilliance of the its debut “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out” (2005), while evolving a catchy, pop backbone that fans of heavier rock n’ roll can appreciate as well.

In anticipation of the band’s forthcoming album, “Death of a Bachelor,” which is set for release in January 2016, five singles have already been released: “Hallelujah” in April, “Victorious” in September, “Emperor’s New Clothes” in October and the titular track in November. Now, the band has released “LA Devotee,” a dizzying ode to the City of Angels.

StormOfGenius via Flickr

Panic! At the Disco’s newly released single “LA Devotee” is a dizzying ode to the City of Angels.

“LA Devotee” starts out with upbeat drums and an unremarkable pop vocal line, both of which set expectations low.

Not even 30 seconds later, however, layers of harmonies and horns join in, creating a sweeping effect, which blasts the song into its infectious chorus. Urie sings, “The black magic of Mulholland Drive / Swimming pools under desert skies / Drinking white wine in the blushing light / Just another LA Devotee” — he is clearly enamored with the city. The rest of the track continues with trumpet–tinged verses, Queen-like vocal overdubs and an

energetic beat that does not relent. Most interesting is its dark interlude, during which the instruments quiet down and take on a tense vibe as eerie vocals coo “LA Devotee” and crescendo. Climaxing with an on-point falsetto note, the song then slams into the final chorus, which makes quite an impact.

Clearly, Urie knows what he’s doing when it comes to songwriting, and the singles released thus far bode very well for “Death of a Bachelor” as a whole, which makes the album an especially exciting one to look forward to in the new year.

Top 10

Top 10 dos and don’ts for surviving finals

by Merilla Michael Assistant Arts Editor

As much as we’d all like to pretend they aren’t happening, finals are coming. Finals start in less than two weeks, right after the incredibly generous single reading day that Tufts has given us. Some of us will not come out of finals week the same, but here are some tips for surviving the week we’ve been dreading all semester, most of which come from bitter experience.

1. Don’t take a “nap” at 10 p.m. and expect yourself to be up early the next morning. Naps after 4 p.m. are no longer naps — that’s just called “going to bed early.”

2. Do give yourself a few personal hours throughout the day. Your brain can only take in so much information before facts and formulas start to go right over your head. An episode of “How to Get Away with Murder” (2014 – present) will simultaneously provide you with some study relief and help you study for your Constitutional Law class.

3. Don’t be indecisive when it comes to going to the library. If you plan on going, get there when it opens or don’t go at all.

Otherwise, you’ll spend an hour and a half roaming around campus just to discover that Tisch, Ginn, Eaton, Lilly — as well as all the empty classrooms — are already in use.

4. Do organize your study schedule before finals week so that you know what you have to accomplish each day. If you don’t have any goals for the day, chances are you will get much less done than you need to.

5. Don’t pull all-nighters. This goes hand-in-hand with the previous tip: if you plan your study schedule ahead of time and balance everything out, you presumably won’t need to stay up all night. If you absolutely have to, make sure you don’t pull one close to an exam! That way, you’ll have time to get your sleeping schedule back to what it used to be.

6. Do — especially if you’re on a low meal plan and can handle studying with noise — take advantage of the dining halls. You could have all three meals for the price of one swipe and, though spending 10 hours a day for a week in Dewick may be sad to some, the most important part of surviving finals is keeping your energy and motivation levels up. What better way to do this than with various forms of potatoes and an endless stream of coffee?

7. Don’t lose hope. If Frodo, the most annoying “Lord of the Rings” character ever (seriously, he couldn’t do anything and was always falling), can take the ring to Mordor, you can also make a valiant effort to get through finals week.

Via tourange.us

Coffee may drag you through your all-nighters during finals week. under your pillow will somehow magically transmit this information into your brain. That’s not how life works. Flipping through pages of your genetics textbook without blinking doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly understand how DNA replication works — it just means that your eyes will get very dry and start to water. If you want to really review (or learn in case you dozed off during that particular lecture), you actually have to read the material.

8. Do ingest things other than caffeine. You might be so hopped up on caffeine that by the time it’s 7 p.m. you realize the only thing you’ve consumed that day has been three cups of black coffee. If you tend to be sensitive to caffeine, take it easy with some black tea instead.

10. Finally, do, in the immortal words of Donna (Rhetta) and Tom (Aziz Ansari) from “Parks and Recreation” (2009 – 2015), “treat yo self” when your last final is over. Order that celebratory Blue Zone, have a party with your close friends, watch the entirety of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (2001 – 2003) by yourself and cry profusely during Sam’s monologue at the end of “The Two Towers” (2002) — whatever floats your boat. And just remember, winter break is only a few days away!

9. Don’t trust that little voice in your head telling you that just looking at your notes, smelling them or putting them

Good luck to all, and may the finals odds be ever in your favor (but not all of you — we still need that curve).

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Opinion

10 tuftsdaily.com

Off the Hill

The Orange County Register

Climate conference at odds with reality President Barack Obama, on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris earlier this week, said the event was "a turning point ... the moment we finally determined we would save our planet."

French President Francois Hollande was more apocalyptic, warning the world was at a "breaking point" on climate change.

Also jetting in to attend the conference are former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which has greatly increased energy costs, and current Gov. Jerry Brown, who, before leaving California, blasted Republican governors and members of Congress for denying climate change.

Although some sort of agreement likely will be hammered out in Paris, the only real turning point at hand is that Obama soon will be gone from office.

Then there's the difficulty of getting an agreement with developing nations, who need fossil fuels to lift their peoples out of poverty. Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry branded India and its 1.25 billion people a "challenge" on climate change because they keep building carbon-spewing power plants. Arvind Subramanian, the Indian government's chief economic adviser, replied that such an attitude was "carbon imperialism" that would "spell disaster for India and other developing countries." In California, residents have seen that carbon taxes have funded

the high-speed rail boondoggle. And Schwarzenegger's landmark legislation and other laws have increased energy costs so high that 15 percent of people in the central county of Tulare and other counties suffer "energy poverty," meaning 10 percent or more of their incomes go to energy, according to a recent Manhattan Institute report.

That's a major reason California now has the nation's highest poverty rate.

Such is the reality beyond the greenhouse-gas emitting conference in Paris.

This piece was originally published as an editorial in the Orange County Register on Dec. 2.

Copyright 2015, Chicago Tribune.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency

Editorial Cartoon

by Allie Merola

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

Editorials 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.

Op-Eds 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 and submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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Thursday, December 3, 2015

Kevin Lawson The Tufts Daily Show

Trump feels terrorism in his gut; turns out to be gas

F

our days after the Paris attacks, Donald Trump explained to a crowd in Tennessee that he has an uncanny ability to see terrorism coming. He pointed to the fact that in his 2000 book, he described Osama Bin Laden as a “shadowy figure.” His unique ability to identify villains is the reason no one likes to go to movies with him — only a few murders into “Friday the 13th” (1980), he had already divined that the guy in the mask was the bad guy (ironically, though, he took until the end of “Zero Dark Thirty” (2009) to figure that one out).

He explained to the screaming crowd of extreme conservatives and alternative students looking to be ironic, “I predicted terrorism because I can feel it. I can feel it like a good location.” That gut feeling Trump referred to turned out to be indigestion, but his prediction of terror was actualized when he soon after released a deadly gas attack.

Elaborating on his prediction, Trump continued, “No sensible analyst rejects this possibility.” How bold Trump once was, having the chops to come out and publicly say something that no sensible analyst rejected.

Since that strategy failed in the 2000 elections, he’s trying something new this time around: saying exclusively things that every sensible analyst rejects.

For example, sensible people gasped last week when he crudely impersonated the physical disability of a New York Times reporter. The same people have also been taken aback by his campaign-long impersonation of a candidate with severe mental issues. Bigots, egomaniacs and people who are just generally huge dicks are offended that Trump has carried out such a caricature of them.

But Trump isn’t backing down. When the New York Times called his impression “outrageous,” he responded by assailing them in a Twitter rant, saying, “The failing @nytimes published…yesterday three boring articles, today two!” Shocking, I know — Donald Trump read five articles!

Among the stories that bored Trump was probably the one showing him to have installed a plaque at his golf club, inscribed with a 100 percent fabricated story commemorating Civil War soldiers dying at that location. He’s right to be bored by it– stories about him making things up have become mundane. He’d prefer something more unexpected, like “Sun Rises in East, Sets in West,” or less elitist — “Liberal News Media Too High, Mighty to Use Word ‘And.’” Trump explained to the Tennessee crowd: “It’s about vision, folks. It’s about vision,” and he’s the only presidential candidate with 20/20 hindsight foresight — the unique ability to look back in time and predict things that have already happened.

A word from our sponsors: Support Trump today! All contributions show up on your credit card statement as “1-800-PORNHUB,” so you’ll have an easier time explaining to your spouse that you actually paid for this. Help us Make America Great Again!

Kevin Lawson is a junior majoring in political science. He can be reached at kevin. lawson@tufts.edu.

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Opportunities for Pre-Health Students

December 4 and 5, 2015

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy 160 Packard Ave. Medford, MA

Concepts such as “Gender Mainstreaming” and “Gender Analysis” have risen on the agenda of international and nongovernmental organizations. There is a growing recognition that gender perspectives are essential: not only for moving towards greater gender equality, but for realizing effective change across issues as diverse as microfinance, health policy and peacebuilding.

This conference aims to bring together students, faculty, and professionals in the Greater Boston Area to examine what these potential ‘avenues for change’ entail for policy, research and practice.

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For more information and to register​:​ ​https://sites.tufts.edu/genderconference2015/

Co­sponsors: The Institute for Global Leadership; Fletcher International Security Studies Program; The Fares Center; Hitachi Center; Fletcher Office of the Executive Associate Dean; Fletcher Office of Student Affairs; ​Diplomacy Club; Fletcher LGBTQA; Global Health Group; Human Rights Project; Humanitarian Action Society; International Migration Group; Praxis, the Fletcher Journal of Human Security; Ralph Bunche Society for Diversity in International Relations; Tech @ Fletcher

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12 tuftsdaily.com

Sports ICE HOCKEY

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Eddie Samuels Horribly, Terribly Wrong

Week 12

W

Ray Bernoff / Tufts Daily Archive

Tufts senior defender Brian Oullette clears the puck during Tufts’ 7-2 victory over Trinity at the Malden Forum hockey rink on Nov. 16, 2014.

First-year hockey players make college transition on, off ice

by Isabel Banta Staff Writer

A cursory glance at any of the firstyear hockey players reveals a physical and mental maturity that surpasses that of most other first-years — undoubtedly a benefit of their being one to three years older than their peers. This maturity is a plus when playing a competitive contact sport such as hockey. This trend of recruiting older players owes much to junior ice hockey, or “juniors” — an opportunity to play for either the Tier I United States Hockey League (USHL) or Tier II North American Hockey League (NAHL) before matriculating to college.

Rather than transition directly from high school to college, many players with aspirations to play college hockey spend a year or two on a junior team. Playing for a junior team has nearly become a prerequisite to college recruitment.

“Many players don’t get a lot of exposure in high school,” coach Patrick Norton said. “Junior programs do an excellent job by allowing the players to be seen by coaches and recruiters. This year, we have [first-years] coming from both juniors and prep schools.”

Many players hoping to join a Div. I team use the extra playing time during juniors to up their game and hone their skills.

“Colleges are looking for more experienced and developed players,” firstyear defenseman Jefferson Martin said.

Martin played for the Odessa Jackalopes in the NAHL and later the Sault Ste. Marie Michigan Soo Eagles in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League before coming to Tufts this fall.

According to Martin, playing junior hockey, much like the college experience, comes with many new freedoms.

“You’re away from home learning a lot on and off the ice,” he said. “I lived with two different host families [one in Odessa, Texas and the other in Michigan] and had

to figure out how to be without my family while living with new people.”

First-year defenseman Nicholas Abbene also looks at his years in junior hockey as a growing experience.

“I learned how to live on my own, cook for myself, other small things,” he said. “I learned how to develop relationships with people and grew up in a way that I never could have just coming straight into college. Being on your own is such a different experience.”

To say playing for juniors is a “different experience” may even be an understatement; junior players essentially play hockey all day, every day. While being able to play around-the-clock hockey might seem like a dream for some young players, this description fails to mention one important aspect: schoolwork. After players are recruited to college, their biggest transitional challenge happens off the ice.

“You’re focusing just on your hockey with no other distractions,” Martin said.“It’s definitely been hard getting back into the rhythm [of school because] I didn’t do any real schoolwork for two years.”

Although the players assert that they received a different kind of education playing junior hockey — one of personal growth — they admit that the lack of schoolwork made it difficult to start classes at Tufts.

Still, Norton finds that the year or two playing juniors can also add to a player’s academic experience.

“Those extra years of maturity can really benefit a freshman on and off the ice,” he said. “They are usually a bit more focused and sure of what they want to do [academically].”

Some of the players, however, wish they had integrated learning into their time in the juniors to lessen the gravity of the adjustment to college academics.

“I [wish I] could go back and give myself advice,” Abbene said. “I realize now that I should have taken a few classes on the

side on top of hockey. Coming to Tufts was definitely an adjustment. In hockey, you are just working a different part of your brain. It’s not like solving problems in school. [It’s] more about learning how to communicate with people.”

These communication skills learned during juniors will prove beneficial as the first-years begin working with the rest of the team. According to Norton, senior co-captains forward Stewart Bell and defensemen Brian Ouellette have worked with their new teammates to help them find their place on the team.

“They are doing a great job bringing the new players in and helping them adjust, whether the player came right from high school or spent time in the juniors,” Norton said. “This is a very strong [firstyear] class, and since it is my first season too, I look forward to seeing them develop as players and contribute more to games as the season goes on.”

For many of the first-years, this could be the last stop of their athletic careers.

“The players are focused more on getting their degree and a good education now, rather than playing professional hockey,” Norton said. “They are getting ready to move into the professional job world in whichever field they choose after school. It’s just an added bonus that they get to play hockey during college. Playing at Tufts is definitely where they want to be.”

Tufts provides student athletes with the opportunity to combine competitive athletics with strong academics, and this, in many ways, feels like a more well-rounded experience for those who have spent time in the juniors.

“I felt kind of unproductive when I was playing in juniors,” Berger said. “Days were monotonous and school feels more productive.”

The players who spent time in juniors are ready to embark on this next, daunting chapter of college — practice, schoolwork and all.

ith the playoffs fast approaching, there is no shortage of teams looking to make big plays and earn a spot in the postseason, and with that push comes plenty of opportunities for complete and utter failure. This week demonstrated exactly how desperate some teams on the bubble are to salvage their seasons.

Browns fans: I’m usually all for piling on the already self-loathing fans of historically terrible football teams, but I honestly cannot in good conscience say anything mean about Browns fans.

However, if you, dear reader, would care for a laugh, I recommend you go searching for videos of Browns fans following their last-minute loss to the almost equally terrible Ravens. To see your already failed season fall even further into obscurity with a brutal loss to a division rival is just heartbreaking.

Walt Coleman: While this criticism is specific to the performance of the longtime referee’s crew on Sunday, it is really directed at the NFL offices, where there is a continued failure to ensure consistent officiating. As a fan, I should not have to listen to commentators go back and forth on an obvious call for five minutes while the referees deliberate, and then — most astoundingly — still get the call wrong. There was much rejoicing when the NFL’s referees in-house would consult with on-site referees when a play was under review, but there are still numerous blown calls every week that, for whatever reason, coaches cannot challenge. Make everything reviewable and the game will be much better off.

The Patriots: While your dreams of a perfect season are over, you’re still the presumptive Super Bowl favorites. Please, Patriots fans, stop complaining that the refs screwed you out of the win. That is all.

The Steelers: This has been quite the season for special teams to make some memorable plays. First was the Colts’ horrendous fake punt, then the Dolphins’ run back a kickoff to their own 1-yard line and this Sunday, the Steelers ran what must have been the most obvious fake field-goal of all time and got picked off.

Heads up, Mike Tomlin: when you have the backup quarterback take over holding duties from the punter for a particular play, the other team will notice.

The Falcons: As a Rams fan born and raised in the city of Atlanta, nothing is more tiresome than the litany of fair-weather Falcons fans that appear every three years when the Falcons start the season strong, while my team remains mediocre. Funnily enough, those fans had plenty of team pride when the team was 5-1, but very little in the 1-4 stretch since then.

As we reach the home stretch of the NFL season, I look forward to an in-depth discussion of the head coaches who will almost certainly be canned this offseason, as well as the Carolina Panthers, who at 11-0, remain the worst undefeated team I’ve ever seen.

Eddie Samuels is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at edward.samuels@tufts.edu.