The Tufts Daily - Monday, February 28, 2022

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INDEPENDENT

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 21

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Monday, February 28, 2022

Ayanna Pressley addresses challenges to democracy, Russian violence, SCOTUS at Speaker Series event

by Daniel Vos Staff Writer

Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts’ Seventh Congressional District spoke to the Tufts community about the path to building a multiracial democracy on Feb. 24 as part of Tisch College’s Solomont Speaker Series. It was the second time in recent years that Pressley has been featured in a Tisch College event, with the first coming just months after she first assumed office in 2019.

The Africana Center, Tufts CIVIC, the Tufts Democrats and the Department of Political Science co-sponsored the event, which took place over Zoom.

University President Anthony Monaco opened the event by discussing Rep. Pressley’s journey through local and federal government. Pressley was the first Black woman elected to the Boston City Council and the first Black woman elected to Congress in Massachusetts.

Monaco emphasized Rep. Pressley’s background, referencing her work in strengthening the sexual health curriculum in Boston

public schools, addressing gun violence and supporting the economic development of underserved communities.

He also introduced the event’s moderator, Wilnelia Rivera (A’04, AG’14), founder of the political and nonprofit consulting firm Rivera Consulting. Monaco credited Rivera as being “instrumental” in electing Massachusetts’ first Black governor, Deval Patrick, as well as Pressley.

“Our vision here and work at Tisch College is the idea and commitment that we have an opportunity and an obligation to support all young people as we build and sustain a multiracial democracy in our country,” Rivera said in her introductory remarks.

Rivera began the conversation by asking Pressley to explain what a multiracial democracy looks like and what roadblocks stand in the way of achieving it.

“In theory … a multiracial democracy is one in which every voter has equal access to the ballot box, opportunity to run for office and to make their voice heard for themselves and for their broader community,” Pressley said.

The congresswoman mentioned the aftershocks of the Jan. 6 insurrection and numerous “voter suppression laws” that have subsequently arisen in state legislatures as major blows to a multiracial democracy.

“We have seen precise and coordinated efforts to undermine civic participation by putting up roadblocks to voter registration, decreasing opportunities to vote, passing laws to overturn the will of voters,” Pressley said. “Robust levels of participation across demographics and geography are necessary to ensure that the issues that are so often forgotten or swept under the rug are brought to the front burner and addressed in meaningful and substantive ways.”

The discussion then moved to the anticipated Supreme Court vacancy and President Joe Biden’s commitment to nominating a Black woman to fill it.

“I’m excited that we’ll shortly have the nomination of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, after 115 Supreme Court justices,” Pressley said. “I’m also a believer that we should be expanding the courts, but that’s a conversation for another day.”

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KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (top) speaks with Wilnelia Rivera (A’04, AG’14) as part of Tisch College’s Solomont Speaker Series on Feb. 24.

One day after Pressley spoke to the community on Thursday, news broke that President Biden had tapped Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Justice Stephen

Breyer’s seat on the high court. If Jackson is confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first Black see PRESSLEY, page 2

Booster shot requirement goes into effect amid COVID-19 surge

by Madeline Mueller Assistant News Editor

Tufts’ COVID-19 booster shot requirement for students, faculty and staff went into effect on Feb. 15. As announced on Dec. 16, 2021, all community members who were eligible to get a booster shot before Jan. 15 are expected to have uploaded proof of their

additional vaccination, or documentation of a valid medical or religious accommodation, to the online health portal.

Eligible individuals include anyone over the age of 12 who has received their two-dose vaccination series five or more months ago or a single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine two or more months ago.

Compliance with the booster requirement among eligible individuals has not been an issue so far, according to University Infection Control Health Director Michael Jordan.

“The university community has been excellent in meeting its obligations to be vaccinated and boosted. Compliance is very high,” Jordan wrote in an email

ELIN SHIH / THE TUFTS DAILY

PCR test samples collected at the Testing Center are pictured on Feb. 11.

to the Daily. “We have needed to make very few accommodations for those seeking medical or religious exemptions.”

The university offered a series of booster shot clinics to help eligible community members more easily receive their booster shot.

Claire Ammirato got her booster shot through a clinic offered at Tufts before winter break. She initially had some difficulty in learning about when the clinics were offered.

“I had tried myself to … look online to see if they were having booster shot clinics at the testing center and I could not find any information,” Ammirato, a sophomore said. “It wasn’t super clear that [clinics] were happening.

But I got it nonetheless.”

Community members who are eligible but have not received a booster shot or uploaded the appropriate documentation may face consequences now that the deadline has passed.

“Per university policy, students without documentation of having received a booster shot or having a valid medical or religious accommodation will be considered noncompliant with the university’s COVID-19 vaccination policy, and we will be addressing them individually,” Jordan

FEATURES / page 3

ARTS / page 5

SPORTS / back

The stories and service of Tufts’ ROTC members

Critical Role goes Prime in “The Legend of Vox Machina”

Talking tennis, time management with Sophie Wax

wrote. “Staff who do not comply with this policy can be subject to unpaid leave, suspension, or other disciplinary action up to and including termination.”

Ammirato found uploading documentation to the online portal to be straightforward, particularly after receiving a reminder email.

“I happened to see the email that [said], ‘make sure to upload it,’ and then I did,” Ammirato said. “I don’t think it’s that much of a hassle. I think especially when you’re dealing with healthcare and medicine, everything has to be documented. [The portal upload is] just a better way to make sure everyone has documentation on getting a booster no matter where they got it.”

Certain COVID-19 guidelines have evolved during the spring semester, such as the recent decrease in student testing cadence. Jordan noted that the university seeks to prioritize health and safety when policies change.

The deadline for compliance came as the Tufts community experienced a wave of COVID-19 cases, including its largest single-week case numbers so far.

Demand for isolation housing see BOOSTER, page 2 NEWS

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FEATURES

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ARTS & POP CULTURE

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FUN & GAMES

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OPINION

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SPORTS

BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Monday, February 28, 2022

THE TUFTS DAILY Alexander Janoff Editor in Chief

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Pressley hopes to grow Democratic majority in Senate PRESSLEY

continued from page 1 woman to serve on the country’s most powerful judicial body.

Pressley, in her discussion on Thursday, articulated what she believed is necessary to preserve our democracy.

“We should … grow the Democratic majority in the Senate, at least by two, so that we can abolish the filibuster, restore voting rights and advance so many other critical pieces of legislation which had been obstructed by this archaic process,” Pressley said.

On the subject of Russia’s recent military invasion of Ukraine, Pressley, who serves on the House Committee on Financial Services,

said she and her fellow committee members were discussing potential sanctions against Russia.

“I vehemently condemn Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and these aggressive actions over the past 24 hours,” Pressley said. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this is an attack on democracy and also a flagrant violation of international law, and I never want us to lose sight of the fact that we could be on the brink of an extraordinary humanitarian crisis.”

Pressley stressed the importance of a diplomatic response to Russia’s attack.

“It’s critical that we stay at the table and do everything in our power to de-escalate this crisis,

and to pursue a negotiated solution,” she said. “Because what we’re witnessing right now is the rise of authoritarianism around the world before our very eyes.”

Pressley also discussed the racist rhetoric espoused by some of her colleagues in Congress.

“I introduced a resolution, a call for Rep. [Lauren] Boebert to be stripped of her committees,” Pressley said of the Republican congresswoman from Colorado, who has implied that Representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, is a terrorist. “Hate has no place in our society and certainly not in the halls of Congress.

I do think it is about accountability. If there’s no accountability,

then you only see more of this [behavior] emboldened and you see it normalized.”

The discussion ended with a question from an audience member on the strength of the U.S.democracy in 2022.

“Two-hundred and forty-six years in, how would you assess the state of our American experiment?” the attendant asked.

“I think that we are in many ways in the midst of an undoing,” Pressley replied, referencing white supremacy, the pandemic and the climate crisis. “But maybe there’s a value in that and that we will stitch ourselves back in in the most ideal iteration of that experiment.”

Tufts community complies with vaccine and booster requirements BOOSTER

continued from page 1 for students who test positive exceeded the operational capacity of The Mods.

“Occupancy has gone up and down according to fluctuations in the rates of positivity within our community,” Marie Caggiano, medical director of Health Service, wrote in an email to the Daily. “The Mods effectively became full on [Feb.

14], which is when we began using one of our off-site isolation sites, the Homewood Suites in Arlington.”

Considering the current spread of COVID-19 on campus, Caggiano asks that students remain observant of current university protocols.

“We are hopeful that the current surge abates soon,” Caggiano wrote. “To reach that goal, we need our community members to be vigilant about

wearing masks indoors, which is critical to stopping transmission.”

Jordan also emphasized the importance of mask wearing for individuals recently released from isolation housing.

“Mask wearing works and is critically important right now,” Jordan wrote. “If you recently tested positive for COVID and completed your isolation, it is especially imperative that you wear a mask around others.”

The university is still assessing whether to offer additional booster shot clinics for those who were not yet eligible for their booster shot in time for the deadline.

“Individuals who are eligible after January 15, 2022 will have 30 days from their date of eligibility to comply with this policy”, Jordan wrote. “We are currently assessing the needs of the community given that there is a rolling deadline.”

COVID-19 Week in Review: Case numbers go down following Valentine’s Day spike

by Flora Meng

Deputy News Editor

COVID-19 case numbers have shown noticeable signs of improvement after they peaked following Valentine’s Day. The university reported 21 new cases on Thursday and 171 in the week before, which are much lower than the record-breaking spike set in just the last two weeks; a single-day high of 67 new cases were reported on Feb. 15, and the weekly record was broken when 321 cases were reported in the week before Feb. 18.

The average number of positive COVID-19 cases has gone down 24% over the past week with an average of around 19 students testing positive per day in the week before Thursday on the Medford/ Somerville campus.

While cases continue to decline in Massachusetts, Medford saw a rise in COVID19 numbers on Feb. 19, with around a 35% increase in the average number of weekly positive cases in the city. Somerville also saw a slight increase in the average number of positive cases from Feb. 14 to Feb. 19.

A total of 66 people were in isolation on Thursday, with some students completing their isolation at the Homewood Suites Hotel in Arlington. With 134 rooms in the modular buildings and a number of rooms under maintenance, The Mods were at around 80-90% capacity in the week after Valentine’s Day, prompting the university to send students to hotels off campus for isolation. Besides Homewood Suites, Tufts told the Daily that it also has a contract with the AC Hotel in Cambridge and will evaluate whether to renew leases with either hotels depending

on operational capacity in The Mods in the future.

Amid the pandemic’s overwhelming influence on mental health in college campuses, Tufts Counseling and Mental Health Services continues to serve student needs with existing clinicians and the addition of two counselors from outsider provider Mantra Health. CMHS has seen a rise in the demand for services in the past few years, which can be attributed to the long-standing effects of the pandemic and the destigmatization of mental health treatment.

ALEX VIVEROS / THE TUFTS DAILY

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Features

3 Monday, February 28, 2022

The path to service: A look into Tufts’ ROTC program

COURTESY TUFTS UNIVERSITY

A screenshot from the 2020 virtual Veterans Day ceremony hosted by Tufts ROTC is pictured.

by Isabelle Kaminsky Contributing Writer

Who are the students we see on campus in military uniforms? What do they do, and where are they going?

These students are part of ROTC, which stands for Reserves Officer Training Corps, and they will be commissioned as officers into the United States Military upon graduation from Tufts.

There are three branches of the ROTC: Army, Navy and Air Force. In many cases, ROTC provides students with an academic scholarship, in exchange for service in active duty for at least four years post-graduation. Upon graduation, ROTC students are commissioned as second lieutenant officers in the military.

Tufts ROTC conducts its training at MIT with various other Boston schools such as Harvard University, Wellesley College, Salem State University and Endicott College. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Marshall Preston explained why Tufts’ ROTC is centered around MIT. “MIT is a federal land grant college. So, back in the 1860s, Senator Morrill proposed a land grant college act, and part of that arrangement was the federal government gifted land to various universities,” Lieutenant Colonel Preston said. “Part of the agreement for that gift was that those universities would help provide military training that we could tap into in times of national war, so civil military training and rela-

tionship. So that’s in MIT’s history and part of their founding charter. And why there’s always been a military training environment here.”

Across all three branches of ROTC, each student must participate in physical training and leadership labs throughout the week. Aside from that, each branch has its own specific requirements.

Mateo Prieto, an Army ROTC senior majoring in international relations and minoring in Arabic described the main elements of ROTC training. “[Physical training is] just to make sure that we’re staying in shape. But really the main goal of [physical training] is to foster teamwork … to foster discipline [and] to get used to waking up in the morning,” Prieto said.

Prieto continued by explaining what Army ROTC cadets learn during their leadership labs held once a week at MIT. The Army ROTC program involves physical training, leadership labs and military science classes.

“Basically, what we focus on is leadership. We do it through means of executing small unit infantry tactics. So we learn how to do things like how to conduct a raid, how to conduct an ambush, how to conduct an attack or reconnaissance, a defensive perimeter, because in the army, there’s the idea that every soldier is first rifleman, and then whatever his or her job is second,” Prieto said. “But also, the reason we do this in ROTC is because it gives us a basic standardized medium for how we can exer-

cise and execute our leadership abilities.”

Julia Graham, an Air Force ROTC senior studying international relations and Arabic stated that she is required to take an aerospace studies class.

Other than these requirements, ROTC cadets are welcome to study any major at Tufts.

However, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Francher described that Navy ROTC shipmen do indeed have certain required classes.

“It’s really just a couple of supplemental classes, there’s some college level calculus, college level physics and then there’s like a smattering of an English class, world history class, a culture class, some things like that. Basically, so that we know regardless of your major, we’re going to get a well-rounded naval officer once you commission,” Lieutenant Francher said.

In addition to receiving military training during the school year, ROTC students participate in training during summer breaks as well. For Air Force cadets, there is a mandatory summer training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. “[Field training is] between your sophomore and junior year and you’ll go spend two weeks [in Montgomery] in sort of the stereotypical Hollywoodtype military training. Uniform inspections, early mornings, lots of drill, lots of marching, some combatives, lots of leadership reaction courses, group leadership problems, some combat care, first aid,” Lieutenant Colonel Preston said.

Tufts ROTC students noted that the experience evolves throughout their four years of college. As first-years, they are taking in information, but as they get older, it is their responsibility to teach underclassmen.

“Junior and senior year [in Air Force ROTC], you’re part of … the professional officer corps. It just means you’re an upperclassman in the program and instead of following and taking in all the information and being evaluated on it all the time, you are teaching the younger cadets,” Graham said.

One of the main features of ROTC is that it is a commitment well beyond the college years, so graduating seniors prepare for their years of service ahead.

“I’ll commission as a Second Lieutenant this May, the day before graduation, and then …

I’m expecting to go head down to Fort Benning, Ga. for infantry training in the coming few months,” Prieto said.

Graham also outlined her postgraduate plans.

“I’m going to be an intelligence officer. So I’ll be going postgrad to Goodfellow Air Force Base, which is in San Angelo, Texas, and I’ll be going to school there to train to be an intel officer as my first assignment, and then I’ll figure out where I go after that,” Graham said.

There are multiple entry points for ROTC. Students can apply for scholarships in high school or college. Recruiting Operations Officer at MIT Army ROTC Sean McDonough explained how he enrolls cadets.

“The application process is pretty simple: you contact me with a bunch of paperwork you fill out, and then you just start attending stuff. We’re pretty open enrollment, all the way through like most of the year, and there’s some ability to do some makeup training,” McDonough said.

For as much military training ROTC students receive, they also gain valuable life skills and personal values.

“You just gain confidence,” Prieto said. “I learned to talk with my chest facing forward.”

“It’s given me … a value system that I like to use in my everyday life, and values like basically to be a good person, a good team member and a good leader,” Graham said. “It’s also taught me to be a good follower, supporting my peers in the best way so that they can succeed and strong discipline … and then certainly attention to detail I would say, as well.”

Jake Caunedo, a Navy ROTC sophomore studying quantitative economics, noted how the ROTC program has expanded his skills in time management.

“Toward the end of the day, when some of my friends feel tired, I know [that] I can do this, I can do that, and I’ve also been up since 4:30 a.m. and I have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. again the next day. I’ve just gotten used to that, and it’s kind of expanded my idea of what you’re capable of,” Caundeo said.

Prieto expressed his gratitude for the ROTC program.

“It’s really made me the person I am today,” Prieto said. “I couldn’t be more grateful for that.”

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Monday, February 28, 2022

Kate Seklir Kate in Paris

Museums

S

tumbling upon a museum in Paris has felt to me almost as common as traipsing in and out of the ‘boulangeries’ which dot seemingly every street corner of the city. Well, maybe not to that same degree — Paris boasts an astonishing 30,000-plus bakeries and almost 300 museums — but it certainly seems that way.

Much of Parisian life and energy is intertwined with its art, literature and fashion. I really do savor the ability to stroll through a museum at my own pace, opening myself up to its knowledge. I have selected a few of my favorite museums and exhibits to share, ones which have each filled me

with unique senses of joy and wonder.

Musée d’Orsay I have found myself in the halls of the train-station-turnedart-museum four times in the past two months, with no plans of stopping anytime soon. My favorite works sit on the museum’s upper level and reflect the impressionist style, composed by painters like Monet, Manet, Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro and Renoir. I love the way each painting’s colors and hues blur and overlap, how a fleeting moment in time is captured in slight, visible brush strokes and how light and movement emanate organically from each tableau through slight bursts of color and texture.

One of my favorites is “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny” by Claude Monet, which depicts rows of

vibrant violet irises arranged beneath trees that glimmer with light, almost like streams of rain down the canvas. You feel like you’ve been there before, or that you have somehow been brought there instantaneously. You are standing in the garden, feeling the sun and smelling the irises.

Musée Carnavalet, “Un Roman Parisien” “Un Roman Parisien,” a temporary exhibit currently running in the Musée Carnavalet, centers Marcel Proust himself as an author and displays his relationship to Paris through a mixture of art, literature, historical synopses and immersive elements. I read Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” last semester in a Tufts English class and enjoyed how this exhibit seamlessly blended both the inner worlds of Proust’s novels

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and the political and social surroundings that influenced it. My favorite elements of the exhibit were the heavily annotated drafts of Proust’s novel and the replica of the bedroom in which the young Marcel sleeps in “In Search of Lost Time.” Together, like the taste of the madeleine dipped in tea which evokes memories of Marcel’s childhood, this exhibit transported me back to that time last semester when I myself began to read his novel.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, “Thierry Mugler, Couturissime” Paris is home to some of the most fashionable, well dressed people in the world. One of those people was, of course, the late fashion designer Thierry Mugler, whose haute couture reflected avant-garde and theatrical styles blended seamlessly to define

his clothing as works of art. This exhibit at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs features work from throughout the designer’s career, combining clothing, perfume, colorful lighting, mirrors and film to create a walk-through gallery that traces the evolution of the designer’s work and collections from the past five decades. My preferred piece was a blue, green and purple gown that billowed out in waves at the waist, mimicking the flow of water or the oozing of some other unknown yet intriguing substance. The exhibit, taken in its entirety, imparts the image of Mugler as a fashion pioneer and icon, titles which he has rightfully earned.

Kate Seklir is a junior studying political science. Kate can be reached at kate.seklir@tufts.edu.

7:30PM MARCH 1ST BIRTHRIGHT GIM & FALAFEL DINNER AT HILLEL

Come learn about a free 10-day Jewish heritage trip to Israel

Arts & POP ARTS Pop CULTURE Culture

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Monday, February 28, 2022

‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ spins a standard, but satisfying tale

by Carl Svahn

Assistant Arts Editor

Dungeons and Dragons campaigns usually aren’t remembered for their stories. In a game so reliant on group charisma and improvisation, there’s usually little room for the intricate storytelling seen in more plot-driven mediums like film or television to shine. But in rare cases, like with the “nerdy-ass voice actors” behind the DnD web series “Critical Role,” there’s enough pure passion put into the characters and plot to make a campaign worth some kind of remembrance. “The Legend of Vox Machina” (2022–), the new Amazon Prime animated show based on Critical Role’s first campaign, has that passion, and though it overcomes most of the hurdles in turning a DnD plot into a competent story, some tone and plot issues remain.

This 12-episode first season covers “The Briarwood Arc” of the original show, with a two-part opening set to introduce unfamiliar viewers to the titular adventuring party of Vox Machina and the world of Exandria.

The Briarwood Arc, while technically the second in the campaign’s full tale, is widely seen by “Critters” (the cute name for fans of the show) as the moment the series really took off beyond its simple DnD roots thanks to a detailed plot and look into some of the main characters’ psyches. For someone who has not seen a full episode of “Critical Role” but does have some familiarity with its story, world and characters, it makes sense why the show would start here, but it’s not without problems.

In order for the show to make up for essentially starting mid-campaign, the first two episodes act as a standard DnD adventure involving the lovable misfits saving a kingdom from a seemingly unstoppable threat. It’s a fine start, but it’s not exactly a great hook to convince someone who isn’t already invested in this world to stick with the show. However, in the place of an interesting story, this two-parter does introduce the best part of the show by far: the main characters.

Each individual member of “The Legend of Vox Machina” comes with an insane amount of backstory courtesy of their respective voice actors and creators. There are the half-elf twins, rogue Vax’ildan and ranger Vex’ahlia (Vax and Vex for short), the sex-driven gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt, the pious-yet-fun-loving gnome cleric Pike Trickfoot, Trickfoot’s best friend and goliath barbarian Grog Strongjaw, the insecure elven druid Keyleth and the main focus of the Briarwood Arc, the human gunslinger and former noble Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. And those are only their basic traits. Each one is given so much personality and presence through their voice actors, all seasoned professionals like Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson and Travis Willingham. It’s so well done that it ends up balancing out the initial blandness of the first two episodes.

When the two-parter is done, the series both solves and ignores its central problem. With a firm plot established in freeing Percy’s former kingdom from the tyrannical Lord and Lady Briarwood, the story has a

more central drive but no less generic offerings. The settings and individual character stories are good, particularly with Percy and Pike’s struggles with their inner darkness and Scanlan’s need to prove himself, but the plot itself is, at times, blandly told and simultaneously overdramatized. This, along with the relatively short episodes at around 20 minutes apiece, doesn’t allow for a truly compelling picture to form. It’s not bad by any means — it’s just a bit dry.

On top of all of this, the show goes back and forth on how serious it wants the viewer to take it. A serious and horrifying story beat will often be followed shortly by graphic sex and poop jokes. The balance between the silly and the horrifying is never really found in this season, and while it does eventually pick the more serious side leading into the final episodes, the humor sprinkled throughout still feels out of place (especially in regards to Grog and his “big dumb guy” style of jokes).

Though it sounds like there is much to complain about in this show, none of these flaws are deal breakers, and they come from a genuine desire on the part of the Critical Role team to make this story work. The show is still in its early stages, and a second season is already on the way. With some more time and passion, these issues can and will be ironed out. It’s a common dream among DnD players to turn your campaign into a real, epic story, and though this season didn’t quite reach that level, the roots are there in this tale for something truly special to come in the future — it just needs a little more time to shine.

COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The logo of Critical Role is pictured.

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Ellie Lester and Sadie Leite The Art of Good Soup

French onion underwater

A

delinquent, an anti-nut guest columnist and a Cabbage Patch Kid walked into Foundry On Elm in Somerville. It was a Thursday evening. The air was frigid and the weather daunting, but they had one goal in mind — French onion soup. And they were prepared to trek in any conditions, be it snow or hail or Sharknado, to fulfill their deepest desires of warming their frosty souls with a steaming bowl of salty, cheesy, gluten-filled goodness (except for the ginger girl … she doesn’t have a soul).

But then they ended up getting a ride: cold weather threat averted.

The atmosphere was dark and ominous except for the bar illuminated in a powdered-egg yellow. Around us were a bunch of old people, which terrified us because there is nothing three English majors fear more than graduating college.

The scene reminded us of a ship, and we were horribly underdressed for a restaurant so expensive you can only attend with parents or sugar daddies.

We took note of the bathroom sign. It was “swaggy,” so we assumed they thrifted it.

The waitress was less swaggy. She lost points for judging our sweatpants and decision to order one soup for three, but she did regain points when she offered us drinks. Shame we couldn’t afford them.

For a restaurant that charged $14 (75% of Ellie’s bank account at the moment) for a bowl of soup, they moved pretty glacially. Fortunately, our French onion appetizer did not disappoint.

It arrived with a beautiful top layer of cheese. We tapped the cheese with our spoons. When we felt it, it was hard. Time for business, we thought.

We dove in, and immediately the smell of steaming onion broth wafted toward our nostrils. The scallions were back. They were showing up for us. It meant they cared — unlike the Tufts men who tell you that they would love to see you again, and then you do not, in fact, see them again.

It was super salty, and we love salt. Ellie loves it so much that she carries around a personal saltshaker. Beneath the cheese, broth-soaked bread and onions worked in perfect harmony.

We were so smitten, we were sure we’d reach bowl-bottom again. We’d never done it with three people before. It was sweet, it was adventurous and at the end we all released a satisfied sigh.

It was a perfect meal. The only thing that had trouble coming was the check.

Sadie even tried a fancy hand movement to try and catch the waitress’s attention. She was brutally ignored. The rejection should’ve crushed her, but she was used to it.

We left with full stomachs and empty pockets. We reentered the chilly streets but it hurt less knowing we would be back outside in a couple hours. “Why?,” one may ask. Wouldn’t you like to know. But you might know. Especially if you, like us, are parched on Thursday nights.

We rate this soup 6.66 spoons. We were feeling sinful. Maybe even a bit devilish.

Blame the ginger.

Ellie Lester is a sophomore studying English. Ellie can be reached at eliana.lester@tufts.edu. Sadie Leite is a sophomore studying English. Sadie can be reached at sadie.leite@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Pop Culture | Monday, February 28, 2022

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tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Peri: “The one good thing [about the Daily]…”

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SUDOKU

PROCRASTINATION

Difficulty Level: Existence.

By Matthew Hixson

Friday’s Solutions

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CROSSWORD

Opinion

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Ethan Jaskowiak Ethics of the Environment

The nuances of vegan morality

A

s the climate crisis worsens and veganism gains momentum, our dietary habits, especially regarding meat and other animal products, have come under scrutiny for their role in aggravating global warming and leading to the inhumane mistreatment of livestock. However, the issue is not as clear-cut as many activists would have you believe.

The role of animal husbandry in climate change has been known for years now: livestock cause around 14% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, with 110 pounds of greenhouse gasses emitted for every 3.5 ounces of beef protein. Additionally, the desperate lives of most livestock in factory farms in the United States are not a secret: the practice of cutting off the end of chickens’ beaks, tail docking in pigs and cows and the extreme confinement are all found in factory farms. In the face of this cruelty, many vegans have stated that the consumption of animal products is universally wrong, yet these claims raise interesting moral questions not only about how we raise meat but also how we view culture.

If, as vegans state, consumption of animals or their products is wrong, then when did it become wrong? The Agricultural Revolution? The Industrial Revolution? If today’s humanity is wrong to eat meat, which parts of humanity are morally jeopardized by doing so? Those living in developed countries? Those who consume factory farmed meat?

The water is a lot murkier than it may seem based on overarching claims about veganism.

For example, the Inuit subsist largely on meat in the winter months, relying on animals like arctic char, seal and caribou to sustain them without viable agricultural land. Does that make the Inuit immoral, or is living in the Arctic immoral? Is it not more environmentally dam-

7 Monday, February 28, 2022

aging to import farmed food at great carbon emission cost rather than hunt wild, stable populations? If cultural practices include the consumption of meat, does that culture become immoral? These are a few of my concerns with a blanket determination that meat consumption is wrong.

Meat aside, other animal products like milk, eggs and wool also face similar criticism from animal rights and climate activists, yet the ethics are equally as cloudy. Feeding livestock an edible resource like grain is undeniably wasteful, yet livestock can survive on food we find inedible like grass, leaves and weeds, turning these resources that otherwise would have been wasted into milk,

eggs, wool or leather. This seems not only morally just but also environmentally prudent, especially as resources get scarcer. If the animals were to be treated well, why should this be frowned upon?

The deciding factors in the morality of animal husbandry lie in the treatment of the animals involved, the resources used in raising the animals and the reliance on animal products for sustenance. If all of those criteria are in balance with our climate goals and animal welfare standards, then we have nothing to fear, morally, from consuming meat in moderation.

Ethan Jaskowiak is a senior studying biology.

Ethan can be reached at ethan.jaskowiak@tufts.edu.

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8 Monday, February 28, 2022

SPORTS

Sophie Wax talks tennis career, transition to college

by Jasmine Chang Contributing Writer

Disclaimer: Sophie Wax writes for The Tufts Daily. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.

Stories of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected athletes seem like old news, but for first-year tennis player Sophie Wax, the consequence of the pandemic remains timely. Wax shares her journey of navigating being a Jumbo athlete amid the pandemic.

For Wax, who is from Newton, Mass., tennis was always a part of life. Her mother ran tennis clinics when she was young, so she was naturally surrounded by people who shared a common love for tennis. Wax would often go and watch her mom play tennis until she was old enough to join her out on the court. Realizing that tennis was something that she, too, loved to play, Wax decided to continue her involvement in the sport by going to summer camps and playing more often throughout the school year.

While tennis was the sport that Wax was most interested in, she also played soccer and basketball, ran cross-country and skied throughout high school.

Despite her wide range of interests in these sports, Wax decided to focus on tennis as she got older because of her connection to the tennis community.

Through a close friend, Wax was able

to join a tennis club, opening her eyes to the welcoming nature of the tennis community.

Wax applied to Tufts through the regular decision round, unsure if she wanted to pursue playing tennis at the collegiate level. However, things started to change when a friend’s parent introduced her to the Tufts tennis coach. “[She] really encouraged me to play college tennis and … my coaches and teammates who I was training with were playing college tennis … and then I wanted to play,” Wax said.

While Wax’s collegiate tennis career seemed secured from that point forward, she ended up taking a gap year due to the pandemic. Although she was able to continue to play during isolation, Wax said it was difficult to return to academics. “[Coming to college] was definitely an adjustment,” Wax said. “Last semester was really challenging for me because it took me so long to complete every assignment.”

Wax said she was used to the long practice hours and rigor of being a student-athlete from her time playing multiple sports during the same season throughout high school.

Wax also enjoys the communal aspects of college athletics.

“I really enjoy being on a team and practicing and lifting with the girls. We are all pretty close and practice is one of

the best parts of my day,” Wax wrote in a follow-up email to the Daily.

When Wax is not on the tennis court, she finds great value in her academics and plans to study biomedical engineering.

“I … want to do something with the relationships between science, math, and medicine,” Wax wrote. “I’m not quite sure what yet, but I’m excited to take engineering courses.”

The Newton native has learned some important time management skills in order to balance her demanding academics and athletic pursuits at Tufts.

“I think it’s important to time manage,” Wax wrote. “There is a lot to juggle with practice, lifts, matches, and classes, so doing a little bit of an assignment every day is helpful rather than letting it pile up.”

Wax also emphasized the importance of utilizing the resources that she has in order to make the most of her student-athlete experience.

“There are just so many great opportunities in college from getting better at your sport, to making relationships with your professors, to meeting new people, to forming study groups with people,” Wax wrote.

The women’s tennis season begins Saturday, March 12 at Middlebury where Wax and her teammates will look to make a deep run into the NESCAC playoffs and beyond.

tuftsdaily.com

Sam Dieringer The Step-Back

The Dunk Contest blues

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ast weekend saw the 71st annual NBA All-Star Weekend come and go. A new and improved teamskills challenge, a 3-point contest that crowned the first center winner since 2012 and an electrifying All-Star Game made for a great overall weekend.

However, one contest stood out clearly from the rest as particularly unexciting, boring and flat-out embarrassing.

In recent years, the Slam Dunk Contest has not been its usual self. Participants look uninspired, are too cautious or are just unable to complete any dunks period.

Even NBA legend Dwyane Wade called this year’s iteration “a solid 6” immediately following the contest. The lackluster performance that wrapped up All-Star Saturday Night was a true eyesore, and signals to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and future All-Star Weekends that it’s time for a change.

Stepping into the Commissioner’s shoes, the first step toward fixing the Slam Dunk Contest is to increase the incentive for players. Other major sports leagues, like the MLB with its Home Run Derby, already have a massive cash prize for the winner.

This switch could automatically draw more high-flying star players like Ja Morant and Zion Williamson into the fold, making for a more watchable event overall.

I love a change proposed by none other than Stephen A. Smith of ESPN. Smith proposes that instead of NBA players’ participation in the contest, the NBA should conduct a national tournament that recruits the best streetball dunkers to play in the contest with NBA players acting as sponsors for each dunker.

An article by Ben Felderstein at Complex Sports suggests truly, and I mean truly, limiting dunk attempts. Last weekend saw Jalen Green attempt what felt like 500 dunks before finally making one.

Green used a loophole in the rules by not actually “hitting the rim” to count some of his ‘attempts’ as true dunk attempts.

By making the rules more strict, there’s an added sense of suspense, more pressure on the player to get it right and an allaround more exciting pace.

My own personal proposal would be to allow for an “in-game” style of choreography for each dunk. Utilizing the full court, getting multiple people involved and simulating an “in-game” pace leading up to the dunk could lead to the best outcomes. The number one thing I notice is that although players get running starts in these contests, their explosiveness is not as natural and fluid as it is off the dribble in an actual NBA game. By allowing for more liberal use of the entire court, and bringing in new elements such as trampolines into the contest, it could lead to a revived, Harlem Globetrotters-esque style of contest.

I wasn’t even alive then, but I miss the days of Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. I miss Dwight Howard taking flight as Superman, Nate Robinson jumping over Spud Webb and Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine battling it out to the bitter end. We all miss the true spirit of the Dunk Contest, and it’s up to Adam Silver and the NBA to bring it back.

Sam Dieringer is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Sam can be reached at samuel.dieringer@tufts.edu.