2010-02-10

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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2010

VOLUME LIX, NUMBER 9

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Ben Richards elected to Senate

JAMES CHOCA/TUFTS DAILY DILYS ONG/TUFTS DAILY

Alpha Omicron Pi issued 38 bids during this year’s sorority recruitment.

Record participation in sorority rush raises possibility of new chapter BY

AMELIE HECHT

Daily Editorial Board

Sorority rush, which concluded Jan. 31, saw a record number of participants and

continued the trend of rising interest in sororities and raising the possibility of bringing a new chapter to Tufts.

According to senior Jillian Joseph, president of the

Panhellenic Council, the body which oversees Tufts’ three sororities, 168 women signed up to participate in the rush see SORORITIES, page 2

Sherry Turkle, expert on human-technology relationship, to speak at Snyder Lecture Sherry Turkle, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an expert in the field of people’s relationship to technology, has been announced as the speaker for the April 26 Richard E. Snyder Presidential Lecture, according to Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser.

Glaser said that the talk, titled “CyberIntimacy/ CyberSolitude,” will be about “the importance of technology on children and society and the implications of the Web and all the changes that are happening.”

He expressed his enthusiasm for the upcoming lecture, part of a series that takes place every semester.

“We’re really excited about her,” Glaser said. “She’s very highly regarded in her field, and she has a reputation for giving a really fabulous talk.”

Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. She has done extensive research on human cultural and psychological interaction with technology. She is currently studying robots and digital pets and companions.

Glaser noted that Turkle’s area of expertise is especially

Sophomore Ben Richards is the newest member of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate after emerging victorious in yesterday’s special election.

He beat out lone opponent sophomore Matt Wittman in the race to fill the seat vacated by sophomore Joel Greenberg, who resigned earlier in the semester.

Tufts Election Commission (ECOM) Chair Sharon Chen said that the election, which was open only to the sophomore class, saw a 14.46 percent voter turnout.

She declined to provide the vote breakdown.

Chen, a sophomore, said that although turnout out was low, it was understandable given the

timing of the election. “[The turnout] is very similar to previous elections,” she said. “I did wish it would be higher, but I understand that it’s a special election and also the beginning of the semester, so there’s only so much publicity we could do.”

Richards attributed his win to the fact that he sought to connect with the voters.

“I ran a campaign reaching out to the voters and constituents … I went to the sophomores to talk to them about what they care about … and I think that’s the reason why I won tonight,” he said.

Wittman declined to comment.

—by Ellen Kan

COURTESY JEAN-BAPTISTE LABRUNE, CC

pertinent to students.

“Her work is very cuttingedge; she’s researching a part of our daily lives,” he said. “It should be especially relevant for [the college student] generation … given that [they’ve] grown up with technology.”

Glaser explained that in choosing speakers for the Snyder Lecture series, the university seeks to bring in individuals engaging in groundbreaking research.

“We are really interested in bringing to campus people who take on conventional

wisdom, who challenge conventional wisdom,” he said.

“They are people who are breaking new ground in their fields … and [who we want] to celebrate … in our environment. They are major international figures who our students should know.”

More details about the lecture and ticketing will be made available closer to the event date. Past lecturers have included Michael Pollan, Salman Rushdie and Freeman Dyson.

—by Martha Shanahan

Inside this issue

COURTESY TUFTS EUROPEAN CENTER

The Trek to Talloires challenge encourages participants to take a virtual trip to Talloires, France.

New fitness challenges draws extensive participation BY

MINYOUNG SONG Daily Staff Writer

Trek to Talloires, a university-wide personal fitness challenge, has attracted a large number of student and faculty participants in the less than two months since

its inception.

In the challenge, participants travel on a colorful virtual route from Medford to Talloires, France by keeping a log of their daily physical activities like biking, walking see TALLOIRES, page 2

Today’s Sections

SPIRIT Fund fosters student-faculty interaction.

The fencing team went 3-3 in its final conference slate of the season on Saturday.

see FEATURES, page 3

see SPORTS, back

News Features Classifieds Arts & Living

1 3 4 5

Comics Editorial | Letters Op-Ed Sports

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THE TUFTS DAILY

2

Trek to Talloires appeals to broad segment of the Tufts community TALLOIRES continued from page 1

and swimming. Participants can increase their chances of winning different weekly prizes by logging more hours of activity.

The Trek to Talloires challenge was first issued to the Tufts community in a Jan. 6 e-mail from University President Lawrence Bacow. It has attracted more than 1,000 participants as of the start of this month, according to head crew coach Gary Caldwell. It will continue until April 12.

Caldwell’s experience participating in a similar program, which helped him lose 50 pounds, served as the inspiration for the challenge.

He originally proposed the virtual challenge to Director of Athletics Bill Gehling last year, hoping to use it to reunite rowing alumni and raise funds.

The Department of Human Resources suggested increasing the scale of implementation as part of the Healthy @ Tufts wellness initiative, a campaign that advocates healthy lifestyles throughout campus, and partnered with Caldwell and women’s crew coach Brian Dawe to execute the plan.

Caldwell said that Talloires, a village in eastern France that is host to the Tufts European Center, was chosen as the destination after he mentioned his idea to Gabriella Goldstein, the center’s administrative director.

Goldstein described the satellite campus in France as a “jewel in the crown of Tufts” and said that she has been amazed by the Tufts community’s response to the challenge.

“I have seen a lot of names [of participants in the fitness initiative] who have been to Talloires and I hope that those who signed up have been motivated by their experience at Talloires,” Goldstein said.

Gehling said that Trek to Talloires encourages more people on campus to be part of the university-wide fitness concept, because the President’s Marathon Challenge is an event that incorporates only a small portion of the student and faculty population.

Don Megerle, director of the President’s Marathon Challenge, echoed these sen-

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

NEWS

Tufts researchers discover breast cancer cell origins BY

MARISSA GALLERANI Daily Editorial Board

COURTESY TUFTS EUROPEAN CENTER

The satellite Tufts campus in Talloires serves as the target “destination” in the trek challenge. timents and said that the Trek, which concludes a week before the Boston Marathon, invites “modest athletes, who have not had the chance to participate” to contribute to the wellness initiative. “[The marathon] is a lifechanging event, and I think the people who are involved in Trek to Talloires will have the same experience,” he said.

Gehling hopes to repeat this challenge in the future because of the benefits that it brings to the campus.

“Exercise is important in any community, but certainly in a community where there is a lot of stress,” he said.

“It is obviously important to have an outlet for stress but it’s important to have a well-

rounded sense of health, eating well, sleeping well and getting exercise.”

Caldwell said that this experience showed him how flexible and responsive members of the Tufts community are to suggestions.

“It amazes me how we seize opportunities and make the most of it. This shows how we are different from other institutions of higher education,” Caldwell said.

Tufts University Human Resources Benefits Office, Fallon Community Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan are sponsoring the challenge.

In addition to the weekly prizes, two grand prizes will be awarded at the challenge’s conclusion.

Researchers at the Tufts University School of Medicine ( TUSM), the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts and Tufts Medical Center ( TMC) have recently discovered the cell of origin for a common type of breast cancer.

Co-primary investigators Dr. Charlotte Kuperwasser, associate professor at TUSM, and Dr. Philip Hinds, deputy director of TMC Cancer Center and professor at TMC, authored the study, which was published Jan. 19 in the Cancer Cell journal.

The Tufts research team conducted an in-vivo study that identified specific varieties of breast stem and progenitor cells, something that up until now has been difficult for scientists to do, according to a press release from TUSM and Sackler.

According to the study, the two known types of breast cancer originate from different progenitor cells.

The most common form of breast cancer, luminal-like cancer, is sensitive to hormones and grows relatively slowly. In comparison, the other form, basal-like cancer, lacks sensitivity to hormones and is more aggressive.

Hinds explained that the study found that the former originates from one type of progenitor cell, lobule progenitors, which are the selfrenewing cells required to generate the milk-producing structures in breast tissue during pregnancy and lactation.

“We discovered that this population of progenitor cells depends on the activity of a protein called Cyclin D1 for self-renewal and differentiation,” Hinds said. “Inhibiting Cyclin D1 prevented the formation of breast tumors in mice.”

Kuperwasser said that the experiments performed included mating a tumorprone mouse with a nontumor-prone mouse.

“There was something wrong with the tissues in the first-generation mice, and when we tested the mice with pregnancy and lactation, the

problem became more and more apparent,” Kuperwasser said. “We wondered if it was a problem in development that might be linked to a fixed cell origin that was linked with the origin of cancer.”

Hinds said that although cancer researchers have known for many years that a particular transgenic mouse causes breast cancer, the results of the recent study affirm that the cancer does not necessarily lead to the expansion of tumors.

“What has become increasingly clear is that not every type of epithelial cell is able to develop into a tumor, and that only specific cell types in the mammary gland eventually can become tumors,” he said.

The discovery, according to Hinds, confirms a widely accepted idea that specific origin cells exist. In addition, it has revealed to the researchers that they can target “kinase enzymatic activity,” which is largely effective on certain types of cancer.

Kuperwasser is optimistic that the research will be able to be applied soon, as drugs already targeting the specific enzyme are in clinical trials to treat other diseases.

“It would be useful to expand the trials to breast cancer,” Kuperwasser said. “What is unclear is whether this will be effective or not.”

Hinds indicated that understanding the enzyme is very translatable into the design of a clinical trial in the near future.

“The next step is to either use mouse models with these compounds, or if the drug targeting the enzyme is approved, go into clinical trials and subdivide the patients into groups that would represent that results that we predict,” Hinds said.

Based off of its new findings that inhibition of Cyclin D1 prevents mammary tumor formation, Hinds said his research team would like to next investigate whether that inhibition can also slow or reverse the growth of existing tumors.

“We predict that targeting Cyclin D1 would diminish the progenitor cells that drive luminal-like tumor growth,” Hinds said.

Sororities, Greek life see increased interest from student body SORORITIES continued from page 1

process, and 124 of them received bids.

Joseph said that Chi Omega extended 44 bids, Alpha Phi offered 42 and Alpha Omicron Pi (AOPi) gave out 38. She noted that this marked a significant increase from past years’ numbers.

Last year, the number of rush participants was capped at around 100 women and approximately 75 bids, according to Joseph. Only two of the sororities participated in formal recruitment because Alpha Phi was at the time suspended for hazing and alcohol policy violations.

Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman, who is currently serving as interim director of fraternity and sorority affairs, noted that the percentage of the student body involved in Greek life at Tufts is pushing past its historical numbers.

Joseph said the increase in participation was a sign that Greek life at Tufts is flourishing.

“The Greek community is really thriving at Tufts right now,” Joseph said.

“The large numbers of women we saw in recruitment are a testament to the strength of the Greek community here and should help bring attention to the successes of the individual chapters.”

Senior Becca Weinstein, director of public relations for the Tufts Panhellenic Council, said that in addition to the increased participation in rush, the vast majority of bids extended were accepted.

“I think the high percentage of girls who accepted their bids this year reflects how smoothly recruitment went,” she said.

The continued increase in rush participation this year has raised the possibility of opening a new sorority chapter at Tufts in coming years.

“I think … that we need a new sorority on campus,” Reitman said.

He added that the decision to open a new chapter is largely in the hands of the National Panhellenic Conference.

“The university puts no roadblocks in the way of opening up a new chapter,” Reitman said.

Weinstein agreed that bringing another sorority chapter to Tufts should be considered because of the benefits it would bring.

“I think the opening of a new chapter is definitely something that everyone is open to in the coming years if the numbers of girls interested in Greek life remain the same,” she said. “It’s obvious that a new sorority would be welcome on campus and would be a great way to give girls more options when considering rushing.”

Joseph, however, raised the point that the process of creating a new chapter is complicated and requires that all sororities approach or meet member totals.

The current member total, which is set by the Tufts Panhellenic Council with input from the National Panhellenic Conference, is 60 women. This year all three sororities will each exceed this total after the initiation of their new members, according to Joseph.

Chi Omega President Lizzie Langer echoed Joseph and Weinstein in both expressing her support for bringing

another sorority to Tufts in the future and acknowledging the challenges involved in such a process.

“It is very difficult to open a new chapter, so it is certainly a long-term goal,” she said.

Sorority recruitment at Tufts is conducted through a mutual selection process, in which potential new members rank the sororities, which in turn rank a certain number of women at the end of each round of the recruitment cycle.

According to Reitman, Tufts’ sororities generally have an assured bid system in place, meaning that if a woman completes all rounds of recruitment by attending mandatory events, she is guaranteed to receive a bid, though not necessarily from her top choice.

“The idea is that the girl should get to know the sisters in each chapter and give each house a fair chance,” Weinstein said.

Joseph added that the sororities may within the next few weeks continue to hand out informal, or snap, bids to augment their pledge classes.

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

JESSIE BORKAN | COLLEGE IS AS COLLEGE DOES

When the joke wins

A

DANAI MACRIDI/TUFTS DAILY

The SPIRIT Fund pays for beverages at the Tower Café when students meet with a professor.

SPIRIT Fund provides new ways to interact with professors beyond the classroom BY

LUKE FRASER

Daily Staff Writer

In a crowded collegiate lecture hall, students often split their time between absorbing the course material and staring at the big hand of the clock. When the time comes to escape the auditorium after class is over, they often pay little heed to the man or woman erasing his or her scribbled notes from the blackboard.

While textbooks will be sold and course knowledge may eventually fade, there is an increasing emphasis on not losing the connection with the person at the blackboard: the professor.

Colleges are taking an active role in fostering professor-student interactions. The University of South Carolina has instituted “Out To Lunch” and “Dinner Dialogue” programs in recent years, while the University of Virginia awards grants to professors who pro-

mote such initiatives.

At Tufts, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Education sponsors the SPIRIT (Students and Professors Integrating Recreation, Intellect and Teaching) Fund in an attempt to encourage relationships outside the confines of the classroom.

Managed by Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser, SPIRIT is a program intended to promote both formal and informal interactions between students and professors.

Supported by the university’s budget, the program allows professors to request funding for certain types of activities.

“It’s been here for as long I’ve been here, so it has to be at least 20 years old,” said Glaser, who manages the program and the allocation of its funds. “It consists of about $15,000 a year, and every dime of it is spent.”

According to Glaser, most of the

spending is directed toward professor-student meals, certain kinds of cultural or semester-ending celebrations and even dinner parties at nearby faculty homes. A portion of the fund is also spent on drinks purchased in Tisch Library’s Tower Café, where students can enjoy free coffee with professors.

“All professors have to do is write to me and describe the need,” Glaser explained, emphasizing how accessible the funds are. “There’s been all different uses for the money, including buses to museums and tickets to movies relating to class material.”

Glaser said that his only desired alteration to the program would be to raise the spending limit.

“I wish I had more money,” he said. “But I will always kick in if I can because I think students expect this see SPIRIT, page 4

Tisch Library hopes to stay on the cutting edge with new technology initiatives BY

CARTER ROGERS

Daily Editorial Board

It is no secret that academic research is more focused on the Internet as opposed to books than ever before.

Not wanting to be caught behind the times, the Tisch Library has recently launched several new technology initiatives, including a pilot program to stream video clips to students in five classes over the Tufts network.

The system uses a Web-browser based video-streaming interface that will be familiar to users of popular video-streaming Web sites including Youtube.com, Hulu.com and Netflix. com. Students enrolled in the classes can log onto Blackboard Academic Suite, click on a link and watch the clips rather than make the trek to Tisch Library’s media center.

The pilot program’s five classes are spread out over the subjects of English, Spanish, dance, history and American studies.

“We’re still in the learning stage, and that’s the reason why this is our pilot semester. We’re going to encounter bumps and starts and stops,” Richard Fleischer, media coordinator for the Tisch Library, said.

Tisch had been looking into a streaming

service for years but needed a vendor with a reliable service before moving forward.

Thanks to a large gift by the family of a graduating senior to the Bernstein Media Center, Tisch was able to do just that. “As economic times got bad, we had this wonderful gift there,” Fleischer said.

If the pilot program is successful, the library hopes to extend it to other mediaintensive classes. However, students hoping that the Tisch Library will soon take the place of popular video-streaming sites like Hulu.com and Netflix.com shouldn’t hold their breath — or cancel their accounts — just yet.

Several restrictions have been placed on the service to ensure compliance with copyright laws. Students can only watch videos relevant to classes in which they are enrolled, and the links to those videos will expire at the end of the semester.

Students also cannot watch full films, only clips deemed relevant.

Although the streamed videos can be watched anywhere on campus, students living in off-campus housing will not be able to watch the clips from the comfort of their homes.

“It’s a problem,” Fleischer said. “We felt that the copyright infringement possibility would have been much more problematic [if we allowed] students to watch things outside the

immediate network area.”

Laura Walters, Tisch Library’s associate director for teaching, research and information, believes the system’s benefits outweigh any shortcomings for students living in off-campus apartments. “They at least don’t have to come to the library,” she said. “They can come anywhere on campus if they have their laptop.”

“We have to err a little on the cautious side,” Fleischer added.

Complying with complex copyright laws was a chief focus of those involved with project.

“There’s absolutely no case law for copyright —not either in the print world or in the online world — so you interpret the copyright law and you interpret these fair use guidelines,” Walters said.

“Because there is no case law, you will never get the same answer from any attorney you ask.”

Not only does the library hope to stay at the forefront of technology with its video streaming services, but it also plans to do so through its Twitter.com and Facebook.com pages.

“We’re always keeping in mind how students are looking for information — what tools they’re using and how they are using them — so we started looking see TISCH, page 4

t dinner the other night, my roommates and I started talking about phrases we considered to be very “college.” “I know, right?” was at the top of the list, being used (by me) at that very moment to endorse itself as queen of collegiate discourse.

“I actually started saying it as a joke,” one of us admitted.

We all cocked our heads with the strain of trying to remember life before college and gasped in sudden awareness — it was true. This phrase, used in our circles like a daily affirmation, had actually been born onto each of our tongues as a mockery, ruthlessly caricaturing a type of girl none of us had ever actually met when we started using it, but had seen in “Clueless” (1995) and on “Recess” (1997-2001) (remember the Ashleys?) The tides had certainly turned — I was fairly sure I had utilized an emphatic “I know, right?” earlier in the day while talking to a professor about the pros and cons of psychoanalytic theory in modern Western society. As we sat around the table in silence, cataloguing the times we had “I know right?”-ed with serious intentions and wondering when exactly we forgot what we were making fun of, the realization slowly dawned on all of us: The joke had won.

I might as well have been living in the final scene of a heist film as I sat there stunned and mildly impressed at having been taken for a fool by an abstract concept. Like Frankenstein’s monster, my creation had taken on a life of its own and totally salted my game. The joke and I were 1-0. Or were we?

I started thinking back on the events of the past few years. I saw visions of ugly sweaters going from $3.95 at Goodwill to $39.50 at Urban Outfitters. I saw me joking about how hilarious it would be for some poor fool to run around a house party banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan with underwear on her head, and then my best friend and I doing just that several hours and several margaritas later. I saw reality TV. I saw blogs. I saw Crocs. Turns out, the joke wins all the time.

Ever shopped at American Apparel? The joke won. Do you use the word “obvi?”

The joke won. Ever worn fake Ray-Bans?

Ever paid for real ones? That’s two for the joke. Heard of Paris Hilton? Watch “Jersey Shore?” Oh my God, the joke so won.

This whole campus is full of the joke’s victories. My friend has a shirt that says, “I’m not feet for society.” She got it in Argentina, and it is definitely not meant to be a pun. Everyone seems to have forgotten that “legit” isn’t the whole word.

Thick-framed glasses and plaid Air Force Ones are no longer worn ironically — they now parade around as pragmatic and genuinely attractive accessories. My professor used the words “natch” and “totes” in an e-mail to the class. Enough said. We are all running around with “kick me” signs on our backs, courtesy of the joke itself.

The thing is, being the joke’s fool feels good. Even after this realization, I don’t want to stop using “abbrevs” or doing shots to Miley Cyrus. I don’t want the wannabe hipster boys in my classes to start washing their hair or get some less-tight pants. I don’t want to have to stop texting people “lolsky.” I like the little nuggets of tongue-in-cheek-turned-sincere that have worked their way into my life and slowly took over. So joke, I surrender. I lay my dignity at your feet, because I will never take the Romanian techno song off of my iPod. You win.

Jessie Borkan is a senior majoring in psychology. She can be reached at Jessie.

Borkan@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

4 Around Campus Anyone can be a Host Advisor!

Help new International and American students get adjusted to life at Tufts and in the US at International Orientation (I.O.), August 29-August 31, 2010! You don’t have to be international to participate in I.O. Sign up a mandatory info session. Applications due Monday, February 22nd.

Sponsor: International Center, 20 Sawyer Ave., Medford Campus.

617-627-3458.

Housing 4 Bedroom, 2 Bath Apartment Amazing Location 2 Blocks to Tufts, Newly Renovated, Stunningly Beautiful. Huge Sunny Rooms, 2 New Bathrooms, New Hardwood Floors, New Designer Windows.

New: Heating, Electric, Kitchen.

Parking negotiable. Available 09/01/10. $2,400. No Fees.

Please call (781) 396-4675 two 4BR two four bedroom apts in same two family-can be used as four bedroom or eight bedrooms- very close to school- call Jerry Feldman at 617-448-6233

Housing

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3 and 4 Bedroom Apartments (781) 863-0440 Rents starting at $550/BR. Clean modern Apartment next to Tufts on quiet street.

New On-Site Laundry Facility with New Washer & Dryer. Large modern kitchen with new refrigerator, dishwashers, and 20 feet of oak cabinets. Plenty of kitchen storage space Bathroom newly remodeled.

Hardwood floors resurfaced, New Energy Efficient Windows, New Heating System Front and Back Porches, Garage Parking.

No Fees. Multiple units available to accommodate larger groups Call John (781) 863-0440 NCA. Associates@gmail.com

3 Bedroom Apartment Gorgeous 3 Bed Apartment. Only 2 Blocks to Tufts, Large Sunny Rooms, Cathedral Ceilings, Hardwood, Huge Windows, Sky Light, Glass blocks, French Door, Beautiful!. Off Street Parking available. 09/01/10. This is an Amazing Apartment w/ No Fees. $1,900.

Please Contact @ (781) 396-4675

Fund connects faculty, students SPIRIT continued from page 3

in coming to a place like Tufts; it is a really lovely part of being an undergraduate.”

Funds may not be the only area of the program that needs improvement.

On the most recent Senior Survey of the Class of 2009, 66.6 percent reported never having been a guest in a faculty member’s home and 55.5 percent claimed to never have eaten a meal with a faculty member on campus at a time other than freshmen orientation.

“I only knew of the Tower Café option of getting free drinks,” sophomore Matt Blumenthal said. “I’m definitely going to keep the program in mind with my future professors, though.”

Though some students are unaware of the fund, others have been lucky enough to experience its benefits.

Senior Katherine Sadowski is grateful for a dinner party her sociology professor hosted last semester.

“I took a really challenging course for my major, and on the last day all of the students had to give presentations on their semester’s worth of research,” Sadowski said. “My professor had us all over to her house and made us a huge, delicious dinner, and we sat in her liv-

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

FEATURES

ing room and presented to each other there. It was an incredible way to end the class.”

Sadowski has had additional positive experiences with professors outside of the Tufts campus.

“I went to the American Sociological Association conference with [my sociology advisor] during the summer of 2008,” she noted. “And he and I got lunch together in the spring of 2009 in Paris when I was studying abroad, and he was visiting family. It has been an invaluable relationship throughout my time at Tufts.”

Still, some students have not yet had any experience with the SPIRIT program or noteworthy advisors. For those individuals seeking strong relationships with professors, most of the advice seems to point toward two words that many undergraduates may choose not to understand: office hours.

“Professors have dozens, sometimes hundreds, of students, so they must rely on the student to initiate contact,” Glaser said when asked about student-professor interaction apart from the SPIRIT program. “Remember, professors are here because they like students — if they didn’t, they would be doing something different.”

Housing

3BR for rent three bedroom almost on campus, great shape, free parking. will not last. call Jerry at 6174486233.

House for Rent Somerville, Curtis Ave. 4 BR, eatin kitchen, large living room, 2 porches, parking, laundry system, new windows, new heating system. $2,400 + utilites. Call Russell at 978-663-6370

Housing 3 & 4 Bedroom Apartments Both Beautiful Apartments have been completely refinished. Entire House Rebuilt. Great Location close to Main Campus. Parking option available. Rental available 09/01/10. $1,800 & $2,200. No Fees. Please call (781) 526-8471.

House for Rent Somerville Curtis Ave 3 BR, Eatin Kitchen, Large Living Room, 2 Porches, parking, laundry system, new windows, new heating system. $1,900 + utilites. Call Russell Cook at 978-663-6370

Thanks!!

CLASSIFIEDS POLICY All Tufts students must submit classifieds in person, prepaid with check, money order, or exact cash only. All classifieds submitted by mail must be accompanied by a check. Classifieds are $10 per week with Tufts ID or $20 per week without. The Tufts Daily is not liable for any damages due to typographical errors or misprintings except the cost of the insertion, which is fully refundable. We reserve the right to refuse to print any classifieds which contain obscenity, are of an overly sexual nature, or are used expressly to denigrate a person or group. Questions? Email business@tuftsdaily.com.

Library looks to Facebook, Twitter pages to keep up with changing times TISCH continued from page 3

at Twitter,” Thomas Cox, technical project manager for the Tisch Library, said.

“We put up this page, we didn’t advertise it, and we just started putting things out there, and what was striking was that we were using this to talk about things like author talks, new resources that had become available, and without any advertisement, people started finding it,” Cox said. “We didn’t tell anyone this existed, and within a month we had 60 students following us.”

The library first created a Twitter page last August, but has recently been looking into new ways to use the service, which previously focused on announcing events like author talks.

“We discovered that Twitter could actually function as sort of a window into the human resources of the library and allow students to get [a] great sense of not only what they can do in the building, but in what ways the staff of this library can help them, so we’re very excited about it,” Cox said.

The library also keeps a Facebook page, but its focus is different than the Twitter page.

“The Facebook page is an opt-in

experience, so students become a fan of us, and we do have information about things that are happening in the library, but with the Facebook page, we also have embedded into it direct service routes so you can use the catalogue from the Facebook page,” Cox said.

“What I think is kind of exciting about Twitter is the informality of it: the ‘social’ in ‘social media.’ We’re posting some things that are going on in the world of library science that we think inspire critical thinking, and we’re putting that out there as well,” Cox said. “The Facebook page is more of a service: it’s more of a ‘come and do things’ [service].”

Walters sees the library’s Facebook and Twitter pages as just more options for students who want to get in contact with the library about using its resources. To that end, Tisch is also looking into a text message system to communicate with students, but that project is not yet in fullscale planning stages.

“We’re still happy for students to come into the library and talk to us face-to-face.

That is still our favorite way to interact with students, but we know different people like different ways of contacting the library so we want to … reach all the learning styles,” Walters said.

Hope for Haiti Tufts Hillel and Moral Voices, in partnership with Chabad, will be hosting fundraisers for the Wednesdays in February at a booth in the Campus Center to raise support for Haiti.

Cookie decorating on Feb 10 Suggested donation Challah for Haiti sales on Feb 17 of $3 Hamantashen cookie sales on Feb 24! Our goal is to raise $2000 to

deliver to the Haitian

The funds will be donated to American Jewish World Services, an community! organization working with local, onǦtheǦground NGOs to provide both immediate relief such as medical supplies and water provisions, and sustainable, longǦterm efforts like road reconstruction and farmland rehabilitation.

If you are interested in helping in anyway please contact: Lisa Zingman lisa.zingman@tufts.edu Sara Eisemann sara.eisemann@tufts.edu

Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

GALLERY REVIEW

‘Jewels of Modern Indian Art’ now on display at MFA BY

ZACH DRUCKER AND CHRIS POLDOIAN | BAD SAMARITANS

ANNA MAJESKI

Daily Staff Writer

Space race-ism?

When most people think of Indian art, intricate sculptures and ancient temples come to mind. Indian art for many is part of

L

Bharat Ratna! Jewels of Modern Indian Art At the Indian Paintings Gallery, through Aug. 22 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Avenue of the Arts, 465 Huntington Ave. 617-267-9300 an ancient history — vestiges of a religious past that have somehow petered out and exist only in museums next to medieval paintings and bronze statues. It is precisely this misconception that “Bharat Ratna!

Jewels of Modern Indian Art,” now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), strives to dismantle.

“Jewels of Modern Indian Art” is a selection of 16 paintings from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Rajiv Jahangir Chaudhri.

The show displays works from some of the most important Indian artists who emerged around the time of Indian independence in 1947.

The artwork is a far cry from the elaborate statues of Hindu gods and goddesses associated with ancient Indian art. As much a part of the modern movement as any other art, these pieces explore new realms of contemporary art while holding on to an Indian context.

The result is a beautiful and inquisitive body of work, both of Indian trends and personal battles. The exhibit is a testament to

COURTESY MFA

MFA’s new exhibit highlights postcolonial Indian paintings. the vibrancy of Indian art beyond the Middle Ages and into the modern era.

“Ganesh Darwaza,” one of the most striking images in the exhibit, is an oil painting from 1964 by Maqbool Fida Husain. The painting shows three figures: an elephant at the left, a tiger at the right and a composite form with the body of a man and the head of an elephant that references the Hindu god Ganesha.

The landscape is broken up into blocks of color, abstracted buildings and what looks to be a cave. The colors are rich, each one laid against another in bold, flat swaths that create a sense of emotion and a dreamlike

landscape.

Husain specifically references colors and figures in his painting that are part of an older Indian visual history. By placing these references in a modern context, he testifies to their continued life and importance in contemporary Indian culture. Husain does not abandon the old India in favor of a new modern vocabulary; instead, he seeks through his painting to create a new modern Indian identity for a young nation.

Other paintings hold more haunting imagery. The oil painting by Tyeb Mehta see MFA, page 6

ALBUM REVIEW

The Soft Pack releases beach party soundtrack Surf rock evolves on indie band’s new release

BY JORDAN

ODIAKOSA

Daily Staff Writer

Young indie rock upstart The Soft Pack released its first full-length CD on Feb. 2. The self-titled album demon-

The Soft Pack The Soft Pack Kemado Records strates the group’s keen ear for writing happy-go-lucky garage pop songs that are saturated in equal parts maturation and angst. Vocalist Matt Lamkin writes freewheeling, inspiring lyrics that reflect the psyche of a young man who is sure that he is unsure, yet defiantly set in his ways.

The group, formerly known as The Muslims, chose to change its name due to ignorant and racist comments it received. Regardless, the name change is a perfect reflection of its musical content and upbeat mindset.

The group creates accessible indiepop music that draws influences from ’60s and ’70s rock groups, while skillfully retaining its own unique sound.

The album cover is a photograph of the quartet, ankle deep in the Pacific Ocean, which is fitting. Listeners can literally taste and smell the surf through the speakers. The sun-soaked vibes of the Golden State emanate from the San Diego-based group’s boisterous 10-track album. The guitarists are frenetic and frantic like unpredictable ocean waves. Bassist David Lantzman does a great job of keeping the bass lines groovy and tight in time

AMAZON.COM

The Soft Pack’s self-titled debut album was released last week. with bombastic drummer Brian Hill.

The group works within the paradigm of surf rock — influenced heavily by genre pioneer Dick Dale — but still manages to have a firm grasp on the aesthetics of garage, punk and hard rock. On songs like “Pull Out,” the group creates a punk-infused surf rock anthem that sounds like it was recorded right on the sand. The band also adds a hint of the tropical rhythms and melodies that have been popular in the indie scene in the last two years.

Still, a current of noise, feedback and sloppy playing gives the songs a wholesome and human sound. Some

of the guitar solos in particular try for a level of harsh dissonance that is inappropriate given the context of the group’s pop sound.

Backed by exuberant and youthful instrumentation, Lamkin’s vocals sound as content as any young person’s could while staring down the imminent threat of middle age. His biting lyrics are in equal measure ironic, hopeful and despondent. He is not completely overcome with either sadness or joy, but there is certainly an air of despair behind the lyrics. On “Down on Loving,” Lamkin sees, “the sun and see SOFT PACK, page 6

ike many of you, we spent winter break tweaking our résumés, networking with industry people and interning at our local … aw, heck, who are we kidding? We did absolutely nothing. The most physical exertion we had was playing Wii Fit Plus. Every once in a while, though, we managed to drag ourselves out of the house to see some movies at our local cineplex.

In one of our favorite scenes in “Up in the Air” (2009), George Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham explains how to expedite the process through airport security. His secret: getting in line behind Asians because, “They travel light, pack efficiently and have a thing for slip-on shoes — gotta love ’em.” When confronted about his racist comments, Bingham quips that he, like his mother, stereotypes because it’s faster.

While funny, this scene got us thinking about racial stereotypes that surfaced in film over this winter break. Some theatergoers have complained about the film “Avatar” (2009), citing its depiction of indigenous populations.

“Avatar,” a $300 million space western, is like “Dances with Na’vi,” minus Kevin Costner.

There’s no disputing the success of “Avatar.”

Its worldwide box office gross dwarfs the GDP of some countries, and it has nine Oscar nominations. The movie may be eco-friendly with its Eywa-hugging agenda, but is its antiimperialist message undercut by certain stereotypical overtones?

Here’s the argument: Our human protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), betrays his species by leading an alien revolt against the vilified human colonizers, exemplified by the character Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

There’s no denying that the film condemns mercenary corporatism and abuse of the military, but many argue that the blue-skinned native Na’vi were portrayed as helpless dopes incapable of defending themselves against the humans. These detractors further claim that the Na’vi were gross stereotypes — an amalgamation of every Native American stereotype ever created (minus the ones about firewater and casinos).

We can see the point; however, we respectfully disagree. Plot-wise, “Avatar” needed to fully redeem its protagonist, and what better way to accomplish this than to have him take charge and abandon his race? It is far more dramatic from a plot perspective to have Sully lead the aliens to victory. He may be the white man, but he becomes a blue-skinned Na’vi in mind and spirit. Plus, he gets one of those weird sexual hair tentacles.

As for the stereotypical portrayal of natives in the film, there’s no doubt that the Na’vi are thinly drawn. Even with those RealD glasses on, the depiction of the indigenous Na’vi is one-dimensional. The aliens were given Native American stereotypes perhaps to make them more relatable to us as movie viewers. The Na’vi could’ve been a bit more fleshed out, but the movie’s already bloated running time made such development impossible. As Clooney said, stereotypes can be time-savers, and in this movie’s case, they’re a necessary evil.

At the end of the day, “Avatar” is a summer popcorn movie shoehorned into the holiday timeframe. People shouldn’t look at this film as an allegory for the war in Iraq — much like this season’s awards favorite “The Hurt Locker” (2009) — but should simply enjoy “Avatar” for its entertaining visual effects. After all, no one remembers “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) for its allusions to the gold standard.

Just like “Oz,” “Avatar” works best as a fantasy film. It shouldn’t be thought of as much more than an amped-up version of “Pocahontas” (1995) with groundbreaking special effects.

Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian are sophomores who have not yet declared majors. They can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu and Christopher.Poldoian@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

6

ARTS & LIVING

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

MFA exhibit explores the aftermath of Indian independence MFA continued from page 5

entitled “Falling Figure with Bird” (1988) grapples with the tumultuous fight for Indian independence and the division of the country into India and modern-day Pakistan.

Mehta’s style is more abstract than Husain’s, though forms are still identifiable.

“Falling Figure with Bird” depicts a human whose body is twisted in an agonized fetal position, falling head first through a brown canvas with a small square of blue in the top right corner. Falling with him is a bird, whose beak is open and whose wings are apparently useless as he plummets downward.

Both figures appear to be screaming, and the human’s agony is depicted in his twisted fingers and distorted frame.

Mehta was inspired by the minimalist abstract art of New York during the late ’60s, but the violence in his imagery comes from a trip to the front lines of the 1947 war

with Pakistan. Mehta combines sparse yet powerful imagery with abstraction to reflect the turmoil and emotional pain created by the bloody battle over the border between Pakistan and India.

The artists of “Jewels of Modern Indian Art” all battle with the aftermath of India’s war for independence. Whether coping with the horrors of war or reflecting on the continued importance of ancient culture, artists in the exhibit use their images to create an identity for India in the modern era.

After India broke from the bonds of colonialism, Indians no longer had culture handed to them — they could again create their own. In the art world, this meant exploring what it meant to be Indian and carving out a future for themselves. The goal of the artists in this time period was to establish a new Indian identity, for both themselves and for the new nation slowly emerging from turmoil.

THEYELLOWSTEREO.COM

The Soft Pack: another indie band with a happy sound.

Despite catchy pop sound, Soft Pack’s lyrics reveal despair SOFT PACK continued from page 5

COURTESY MFA

The “Bharat Ratna!” exhibit is on display at the MFA until Aug. 22.

T h e

F a r e s C e n t e r f o r E a s t e r n M e d i t e r r a n e a n S t u d i e s P r e s e n t s

“Israel, the Palestinians, and the One-State Agenda” Hussein Ibish

Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership Hussein Ibish served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest Arab-American membership organization in the United States, from 1998 to 2004. He was Vice-President of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom from 2001 to 2004. Ibish appears regularly on radio and television and has written for many newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. He was also the Washington, DC Correspondent for the Daily Star (Beirut).

Ibish is editor and principal author of three major studies entitled Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans 1998-2000 (ADC, 2001), Sept. 11, 2001-Oct. 11, 2002 (ADC, 2003), and 2003-2007 (ADC, 2008).

He is author of “At the Constitution's Edge: Arab Americans and Civil Liberties in the United States” in States of Confinement (St. Martin's Press, 2000), “Anti-Arab Bias in American Policy and Discourse” in Race in 21st Century America (Michigan State University Press, 2001), “Race and the War on Terror” in Race and Human Rights (Michigan State University Press, 2005), and “Symptoms of Alienation: How Arab and American Media View Each Other” in Arab Media in the Information Age (ECSSR, 2005). He is co-author with Ali Abunimah of “The Palestinian Right of Return” (ADC, 2001) and “The Media and the New Intifada” in The New Intifada (Verso, 2001). Ibish is co-editor, with Saliba Sarsar, of Principles and Pragmatism (ATFP, 2006). His most recent book is What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009).

Ibish has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Co-sponsored with: the Middle Eastern Studies Major and the International Relations Program

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 5:30pm Cabot 7th Floor - Tufts University Open to the Public Cabot Intercultural Center 160 Packard Avenue

http://farescenter.tufts.edu For more information contact:

the sky/ and it looks so good,” but his “mind is getting darker like a young man’s would.”

“C’Mon,” the album’s opening track, is a prime example of Lamkin’s searing hope. Lamkin admonishes the listener to not buy “the look/ Just plant the seed/ Wait ’til it grows into a tree/ Find what it means” The lyrics are poetic but bare, and easily discernible. Though this certainly adds to the song’s catchiness, Lamkin’s obvious

meaning takes away from the depth of his words.

Despite the group’s myriad influences and moody lyrical nature, the group is still unabashedly making pop music. The lyrics are straightforward, and the songs are catchy and fun.

The album clocks in at a little over 30 minutes, but there’s a lot of punch packed into that small time frame.

The Soft Pack makes music that anyone can enjoy and will undoubtedly be rocking gnarly beach parties for years to come.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

DOONESBURY

NON SEQUITUR

THE TUFTS DAILY BY

GARRY TRUDEAU

BY

7

COMICS CROSSWORD

WILEY

TUESDAY’S SOLUTION

MARRIED TO THE SEA

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Buying a gift for your significant other

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Tuesday’s Solution

Ethan: “I always move fast because I have short legs and I need to move fast to keep up with people.”

Please recycle this Daily

THE TUFTS DAILY

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THE TUFTS DAILY KERIANNE M. OKIE Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL Caryn Horowitz Grace Lamb-Atkinson Managing Editors Ellen Kan Executive News Editor Michael Del Moro News Editors Harrison Jacobs Katherine Sawyer Saumya Vaishampayan Marissa Gallerani Assistant News Editors Corinne Segal Martha Shanahan Amelie White Jenny White Brent Yarnell Carter Rogers Executive Features Editor Marissa Carberry Features Editors Robin Carol Emily Maretsky Julia Zinberg Mary Beth Griggs Assistant Features Editors Emilia Luna Alexa Sasanow Derek Schlom Catherine Scott Executive Arts Editor Jessica Bal Arts Editors Adam Kulewicz Charissa Ng Josh Zeidel Michelle Beehler Assistant Arts Editors Zachary Drucker Rebecca Goldberg Niki Krieg Crystal Bui Nina Grossman Laura Moreno Andrew Rohrberger Devon Colmer Erin Marshall Alex Miller Louie Zong Vittoria Elliot Rebekah Liebermann Tori Stevenson Marian Swain

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

EDITORIAL | LETTERS

EDITORIAL

A policy with troubling implications For those who have been following the U.S. government’s War on Terror, or “Overseas Contingency Operation” as it is now called, it should be apparent that President Barack Obama has not thus far initiated the drastic changes that many of his supporters believed he would, based on promises he made during his campaign.

For example, in his first year in office, Obama ordered more drone missile attacks in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region than former President George W. Bush ordered in his last three, and he added 30,000 more troops to the area. In addition, America has continued to abduct foreign suspects and transfer them to prisons in countries that allow torture without charging those suspects of any crime. The Daily understands that it is difficult to implement drastic changes rapidly, yet there are some instances in which it is unacceptable to leave former policies in place that completely contradict the declarations that Obama made during his campaign.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration gave the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and eventually

the U.S. military, the authority to kill without trial U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence suggested that they were guilty of organizing or committing terrorist attacks against the United States. While many of the policies that carried over from the Bush administration do not coincide with Obama’s professed views, it is particularly surprising that a policy that so blatantly violates the rights of U.S. citizens is still being carried out. According to a Jan. 27 Washington Post article, the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command — a counterterrorism branch of the military — each maintain a list of targets for assassination that currently includes at least four American citizens, one of whom has been added to the list within the past few months and survived a missile strike in Yemen on Dec. 24.

This policy clearly violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that no person shall be “deprived of life ... without due process of law.” The presumption of innocence, habeas corpus, the right to a speedy trial and all other aspects of the judicial process that Americans expect

and deserve are completely disregarded by the government in its pursuit of this policy.

Moreover, the statute puts far too much power in the hands of the executive branch and the U.S. military, as it inherently bypasses the authority of the legislative and judicial branches. In a war in which the battlefield has been implicitly defined as the whole world, Obama technically has the ability to order the killing of anybody, anywhere outside the United States, without answering to a higher authority, based only on suspicion. Although it is unlikely that this power will be utilized except in very rare circumstances, no president should have this authority.

Americans, and their representatives in Congress, must demand an end to this policy. For a president who ran on a platform of greater accountability and who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to change America’s foreign policy from the course it had taken under President Bush, maintaining this position is particularly troubling.

Executing American citizens without due process contradicts the laws constructed to support those citizens.

Depression manifests itself with physical and mental symptoms and interferes with relationships and daily life.

Depression is not treated by deciding to have fun or by getting back together with a significant other. Neither is it treated by an individual who decides “what is wrong with you.” Depression is among the most treatable of mental illnesses, but first it has to be recognized — both recognized as a real illness and identified within an individual.

When depression is labeled, the individual can then be empowered to seek help from a professional. People are then armed with the knowledge that they are not alone in their illness and that they can be treated.

Professionals help individuals address their struggles, not tell them that something is wrong with them, and they are effective and helpful in ways that friends’ “two cents” cannot be. As long as depression is viewed as a feeling or a funk that someone can choose to snap out of and not as a real, treatable mental illness, those with depression will continue to suffer in silence.

Like millions of other Americans and college students, I have felt how depres-

sion harms relationships and wreaks havoc and pain upon those who experience it. I have watched and helped as friends and acquaintances have sought treatment for depression, and I have known the unquantifiable pain of losing my best friend to suicide. Lives are not lost to funks and feelings.

I understand that Mr. Wecksell’s article was perhaps only meant to help those with post-graduate or financial stresses gain some perspective and to encourage them to take steps to relieve themselves of their stressors. I support this intention.

However, in trying to accomplish this goal, Mr. Wecksell belittled and dismissed a real illness that seriously impacts members of the Tufts community and the world at large.

To characterize depression as a simple funk and to suggest that treatment is a useless process of judgment is not only ignorant but hurtful and destructive. I hope the Daily will reconsider publishing such harmful misinformation in the future.

ERIN MARSHALL

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor: In response to the Feb. 8 Tufts Daily article by Tufts alumnus Evan Wecksell, “How to beat ‘depression,’” I would like to address his disturbingly uninformed and false remarks about depression and how it can be treated.

I appreciate and agree with his suggestions that communication can be a helpful reliever of stressors and that those who are distressed should seek help. However, in the second half of his article, Mr. Wecksell entirely mischaracterizes depression and belittles not only depression itself but also those who experience it.

His statement that “depression is a feeling, not an illness” is hurtful and wholly false. Depression is a mental illness that affects over 24 million Americans — that’s about ten percent of our population — each year. This illness is real, and one that hurts profoundly. The feeling is not a figment of the imagination of someone merely in a funk; rather, it is the sense of worthlessness, fatigue, hopelessness and overwhelming pain that accompanies this mental illness.

Sincerely, Theresa Sullivan Class of 2012

Correction The Feb. 4 article “In divided vote, Senate decides to partially fund EPIIC Symposium” paraphrased Sherman Teichman as saying that EPIIC brings value to the campus beyond the symposium. Teichman was actually referring to the Institute for Global Leadership and not EPIIC.

EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials that appear on this page are written by the editorialists, and individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 4 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com. All letters must be word processed and include the writer’s name and telephone number. There is a 450-word limit and letters must be verified. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

9

OP-ED

Out of the rubble: Haiti relief at Tufts

BY KATE PERINO In the aftermath of catastrophe, people get absorbed in evaluating the response and forming opinions. A cause is getting too much news coverage, or not enough. Organizations aren’t helping in key areas, or there are logistical and bureaucratic problems with aid distribution. I’ve also heard the point of view that the amount of expressed support for those affected is out of proportion to relief aid. Forget putting your money where your mouth is (we all know that it’s easy to pitch in $20 and feel good) and consider this: What are you actually doing to help?

That has always seemed like a somewhat unfair question, since I don’t think it is plausible to get directly involved in a case like Haiti. It’s just unrealistic for college students, who in general don’t speak Haitian Creole, to put their lives on hold and go there. Just a few hours after the earthquake, though, a group of Tufts graduate students got together with their laptops in an effort to streamline the efforts of crews on the ground by crowdsourcing. That became the first situation room at Tufts for a group called Ushahidi.

Before long, the volunteers were compiling text messages and Twitter feeds directly from Haiti onto a report map.

They began providing aid workers with the locations of people trapped in buildings and reporting urgent medical situations, communicating with the military, U.S. Coast Guard and a number of humanitarian organizations.

Three weeks later, they’re still translating and mapping thousands upon thousands of messages requesting help.

By now, over 200 people have gotten involved, and the situation room has migrated to the basement of the Cabot Intercultural Center.

I’m a volunteer with the mapping team, which means that I find certain GPS coordinates based on translated text messages.

You can see the incredible scope of information at haiti.ushahidi.com. Ushahidi is a great organization, and I recommend at least looking it up. The work they’re doing is innovative, immediately relevant and rewarding. Unfortunately, it’s also largely unknown among the undergraduate population. That’s partly why I’ve begun writing about my experience, which has been really fulfilling in many ways. I still get a rush every time I pinpoint a set of

I am registered as a Democrat in Texas. I will admit that I am not always as die-hard liberal as some of my fellow Tufts students. Some of my political beliefs are inherently conservative or libertarian, but I still consider myself liberal overall.

To me, the fundamental difference between conservatism and liberalism is the nature of the government and of the law. Laws and regulations by design take away freedoms. In a country that calls itself free, why enact laws at all, then? Because laws and regulations are for the hard-to-describe greater good. By writing a law that criminalizes homicide, I can no longer kill you, but you can also no longer kill me. We both survive, and this is for the greater good. In a way, we elect public officials to make our lives better by taking away our freedoms. (I use the broadest possible definition of freedom to also include immoral or illegal acts.)

In the comments section on the Tufts Daily Web site, regarding the Feb. 2 article by Michael Del Moro about Carl Sciortino (D-Mass.) introducing gender identity and expression to the Massachusetts antidiscrimination code, an anonymous commenter said that this was a useless measure that only takes away our freedoms. (Due to technical difficulties, this comment is no longer available on the Daily Web site.) Is antidiscrimination law inher-

Deep freeze

T COURTESY USHAHIDI

coordinates. However, it’s not easy in any sense of the word.

Working to locate report coordinates can be frustrating: Many areas of Haiti, especially the inner-city slums, are largely unmapped, so sometimes it’s impossible to find a given intersection. Some places have multiple names, and sometimes street names and landmarks are misspelled. The other day I was trying to find Rue Dube but ended up unsure if that meant Dubois, Dublin or Dubet. I’ve had to just give up more than once when I didn’t have enough information to even find a general neighborhood.

Beyond that, it’s emotionally draining to read message after message saying things like, “Please, there are children here and we have no place to sleep;” “We haven’t gotten food or water;” and even, “Have we been forgotten?” The first weekend I looked up to realize that I’d spent five hours straight staring at maps and reports and could hardly see straight anymore.

I got up to go and eat, and I realized that I was shaking.

It’s hard to leave Haiti when I leave the situation room. It’s hard to regain perspective and focus on the demands of classes and real life. I’m nowhere near as involved as some volunteers, and it still gets to me. I’m coping a lot better than I did a week ago, but I still remember every message I’ve read, and wonder if the people who sent them have gotten help yet. The Haiti earthquake will never be some remote disaster I forget about in a year or two. For me, it’s become a stream of individual voices.

The stress of helping with the Haiti relief efforts is unavoidable, even when you’re physically remote. On the other hand, empathy is the reason the Ushahidi group at Tufts exists. Caring about people we’ll never meet is a kind of double-edged sword. It’s powerful, too. I get confirmation every day that our efforts are helping save lives. We improve the chances of people getting basic help (water, medicine and food) where they desperately need it.

I’ve been volunteering with Ushahidi for over a week now. Simply put, it’s nothing short of inspiring. There’s a strong undercurrent of hope and determination in that basement of Cabot. Sitting in a room full of volunteers, the positive energy and sense of purpose is almost tangible. There’s even the occasional vein of humor to offset the seriousness with which all the volunteers approach saving lives.

I’ve also learned just how disaster truly draws people together in the aftermath.

Seeing people of many nationalities and backgrounds come together for this one purpose is enough to make me believe that things will get better. Right now things are very bad in Haiti, I know. There are plenty of difficulties and things to criticize, and we can’t fix everything all at once. But it will get better, because people are working together. And that’s enough to change the world.

Kate Perino is a sophomore majoring in English. She is a volunteer for the Ushahidi project.

Picking your battles

BY RICHARD BOUSSARATH MALONE

TEDDY MINCH | OFF MIC

ently useless? Do people have a right to discriminate? If I decide to wear women’s clothing, do you have the freedom to harm me? According to Tufts policy, no. But in some jurisdictions in the country, maybe you do have that freedom. Luckily for me, I’m not in one of those jurisdictions.

With the recent election of Scott Brown (R-Mass.), some liberals have been taking the pessimistic stance that health care reform is now dead. If you put the partisan hysteria aside, you’d find that Scott Brown is a moderate Republican. Some of his beliefs are mainstream Republican; others are not. Without taking a stance on the health care debate, I would just like to point out that Democrats still have a majority in both houses of Congress. I think Mr. Brown’s election just points out that people on either side of the political spectrum need to choose their battles wisely, so to speak. Getting elected officials to agree on policies that are supposed to keep more than 300 million Americans safe and happy is an apparently impossible but necessary task.

No matter what a law states, somebody is going to say their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon.

You know what, though? They’re right.

The real question is if the loss of these freedoms is for the greater good.

With any of the hot-button issues right now, take the time to think about not only which policies help you, but which

policies help our society. It is entirely possible that your original beliefs helped you at the expense of everybody else, or vice versa. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, some people will never be happy.

There is something that Tea Party protesters and the thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights supporters at the National Equality March both have in common: They want to defend the freedoms of this nation. Any government, big or small, has to define what freedoms the people do or do not have. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution as a protection against the government infringing upon what were then called natural rights. Is that enough? And what constitutes a natural right? I would argue for secular morality, morality free from religious bias. I know that some people think there is no such thing as secular morality — that somehow all of our morals are founded on a so-called Judeo-Christian value system. The Founding Fathers could not have foreseen the issues that are under debate today. But if they could, what would they say? What is the nature of the government and law supposed to be?

Richard Boussarath Malone is a junior majoring in English.

he nation’s capital was hammered with 32 inches of snow last weekend. The storm pushed Washington, D.C.’s total snowfall this winter to 45 inches — the average annual snowfall is 15-17 inches. That said, things were frozen in D.C. for some time before the snow began falling Friday evening, and certainly before President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address a few weeks ago.

President Obama covered standard ground in his State of the Union, but what stood out most about it was his highly accusatory, disdainful tone toward Congressional Republicans. As the speech wore on, Obama reminded viewers and congressmen alike that the Bush administration had created a fiscal mess long “before I walked in the door.”

Obama then proceeded to scold Republicans, to denounce them as the “party of no,” and to vilify them for working in lockstep against the Democrats, forcing 60 votes “to do any business in this town.” Obama continued on the warpath later that week in Baltimore, Md. where he locked horns with state Republicans in a heated televised debate.

Somehow, President Obama has forgotten that Democrats and Republicans are not supposed to agree on every policy issue, and that core philosophical differences still exist between the Left and the Right. With explicit regard to two major initiatives, health care and job creation, Obama seems to expect Republican leadership to automatically approve of a massive expansion of government through health-care reform, and to sanction the immensely interventionist $787-billion stimulus package passed last year.

In all fairness to President Obama, the Republicans certainly have refused to cooperate with the Democrats — they have not engaged in any modicum of bipartisanship.

The Republicans have made life incredibly hard for Obama and the Democrats — and most certainly not by accident. The nomination hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor this past summer were an excellent example of the sort of senseless, premeditated partisan bickering that has become standard from Republicans.

Leadership in both houses of Congress require that the majority engages the minority in some capacity beyond name calling; the majority must listen to ideas, incorporate policies from both sides and eventually hammer out some sort of amalgamation of both sides’ ideologies. The Democrats did not exhibit any quality of leadership during the first year of Obama’s presidency, largely because they didn’t need to with a cloture coalition intact.

But their inability to lead their party, no less all of Congress, became painfully obvious last fall during the struggle over health-care reform.

The Democrats railed against the Republicans, asserting that Americans “can’t afford the politics of no.” But Americans can’t exactly afford the “politics of yes.” Americans need neither the politics of “yes” nor “no” — call it the “politics of maybe,” if you like.

Ultimately, Democrats need to realize that blaming George W. Bush for their problems does nothing to stabilize the economy, create jobs or bring about meaningful change in governance; Obama’s recent over-aggressiveness does not help, either. Republicans must realize that simply rejecting anything the Democrats propose is brazen, shameless obstruction, and is clear evidence that both leadership and constructive policy is lacking at all levels. Both donkeys and elephants need to learn to play nice in the same pen to avoid a catastrophic legislative logjam.

In short, now that the Democrats have lost their supermajority, they must legitimately engage the Republicans — and the Republicans, for that matter, need to make themselves worth engaging. Both parties need to stop beating around the bush (Republicans) or beating the Bush (Democrats) and get to work. It may seem like a common-sense conclusion, but as evidenced by the current deep freeze of the Washington political process, common sense may not be so common.

Teddy Minch is a senior majoring in political science. He hosts “The Rundown,” a talk show from 3 to 5 p.m. every Friday on WMFO. He can be reached at Theodore.Minch@tufts.edu.

OP-ED POLICY The Op-Ed Op-ed section of the Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. Op-Ed Op-ed welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length. All material is subject to editorial discretion, and is not guaranteed to appear in The Tufts Daily. All material should be submitted by no later than 1 p.m. on the day prior to the desired day of publication. Material must be submitted via e-mail (oped@tuftsdaily.com) attached in .doc or .docx format. Questions and concerns should be directed to the Op-Ed Op-ed editors. The opinions expressed in the Op-ed Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Tufts Daily itself.

10

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

THE TUFTS DAILY

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

11

SPORTS

WOMEN’S SQUASH

ETHAN LANDY | CALL ME JUNIOR

Win over Camels salvages tourney weekend Tufts knocked out of winners bracket by 16th-ranked Colby BY

EMILY BEINECKE

Contributing Writer

Coming into last weekend, the women’s squash team had just one win in 2010, a commanding 8-1 victory Feb. 2 at Northeastern.

But after eking out a 5-4 victory against Conn. College at the NESCAC Championships on Saturday, Tufts was poised to close out the season on a high note, despite falling short against Colby and Bowdoin earlier in the weekend.

In the final tilts of the event, held at Trinity and Wesleyan, the Jumbos came through with a 5-4 victory over the No. 27-ranked Camels. The win, which came thanks to victories in the second through fifth slots in the ladder, did not surprise the Tufts captains.

“We beat Conn. in the afternoon, and that’s what we really hoped to do because they are ranked lower than us,” junior tri-captain Valerie Koo said. “It was more crucial to beat Conn. than Bowdoin to keep our rank-

ing, and we did that.”

Against Conn. College, sophomore Mercedes Barba gave up just 14 points in a sweep at the No. 3 slot, while firstyear Jess Rubine, sophomore Alyse Vinoski and junior tri-captain Erin Bruynell all won in straight sets.

Unfortunately for the Jumbos, the win over the Camels was the only one of the weekend. In the opening match against No. 16 Colby on Friday, the Mules proved that they had a talented squad with enough depth to take down the Jumbos for the second time this season, although Tufts has shown improvement since the Jan. 23 shutout.

Barba came out on top in three games against Colby senior Madeline Dufour, while Jess Rubine tacked on the second of the Jumbos’ two overall wins, defeating her opponent in three games and giving up just 13 points.

“We knew Colby would be tough because we played them already, but we did a lot better,” Koo said. “Mercedes … played really smart and outwitted her

opponent. She played the right shots at the right time and won in three.”

The biggest disappointment of the weekend was the Jumbos’ 9-0 loss to nationally ranked No. 23 Bowdoin in the opening match of the consolation bracket on Saturday. Only three Jumbos managed to force four or more games against the Polar Bears. Freshman Ushashi Basu, for one, played an impressive match versus junior Katie Boyce at the No. 7 spot, but fell 11-6 in the fifth game.

“We were hoping to beat Bowdoin,” Koo said. “We couldn’t win at the bottom of the ladder where we had wanted to.”

The No. 25 Jumbos entered this past weekend’s matches on the heels of a dominating 8-1 victory over No. 28 Northeastern, one in which all Jumbos save sophomore Alix Michael beat their opponents in straight sets.

With the Championships over, the Jumbos look forward to taking on Wellesley at Belmont Hill School this Thursday before the Howe Cup at Yale Feb. 26-28.

Proud Pac-10 could be embarrassed on Selection Sunday INSIDE NCAA continued from page 12

But despite abysmal seasons for these two teams that have been perennially ranked in the top 25, the biggest disappointment in the Pac-10 might be a team that many thought was poised to make a leap to national prominence.

The Washington Huskies were ranked No. 14 in the preseason polls after ending last season with a narrow 76-74 loss to Purdue in the second round of the NCAA tournament — Washington was a No. 4 seed in last year’s bracket. The Huskies have faltered in conference play, spoiling the breakout season of senior Quincy Pondexter, who has looked like the best player in the conference while averaging 20.6 points and 8.3 rebounds a game, and the presence of last year’s Pac-10 Freshman of the Year in Isaiah Thomas.

The biggest issue for coach Lorenzo Romar’s team has been its struggles on the road. Washington has played just five games away from the Bank of America Arena in Seattle and has not emerged with a single victory. That mark includes four conference losses.

Washington, at 6-5, is currently second in the conference but, with a 16-7 overall mark, has a chance at being a part of March Madness. Of course, if the Huskies cannot win on the road — where they will play five of their next

MCT

Although Washington senior Quincy Pondexter is nearly averaging a double-double on the season, the Huskies remain on the cusp of earning a berth in March’s NCAA Tournament. seven games — their chances of dancing next month will be gone.

Regardless, the Pac-10’s performance as a whole has been entirely underwhelming. It could turn embarrassing come Selection Sunday if the major conference receives fewer bids than a number of less-prestigious leagues. The last time the

Pac-10 had fewer than six teams in the NCAA tournament was in 2006, when it had four. This year, it will be lucky to have half that number.

It has certainly been a hard fall to mediocrity for a conference that usually held its head up high in the world of college basketball.

Jumbos look ahead after strong finish

Upcoming matches versus top-15 squads provide chance to rebounds

FENCING

MEN’S SQUASH

continued from page 12

continued from page 12

brought the Jumbos their first win since Jan. 30 against Hunter College.

The only blowout loss of the day for Tufts came at the hands of Boston College with a score of 21-6, as the more experienced and polished Golden Eagles proved difficult for the sabre and foil squads to handle. However, the épée team, which was undefeated on the day in all six matches, prevailed with a win.

“Going undefeated this weekend was a big highlight of this season, and as this was my last conference meet with Tufts fencing, I was really happy that my squad had such a great day,” senior épée captain Amani Smathers said. “We often start the year with a number of girls who have never fenced before, and my guess is that all of BC’s starters had a lot of fencing experience, so Tufts’ épée win against them was an upset.”

The Jumbos, now 6-14 on the season and 4-8 in NFC action, will look to carry the momentum of their weekend performance into the New England College Championships on Feb. 20 before turning to the NCAA Regional meet at Brown in mid-March.

“New Englands are the last big event of the season, so we’re looking forward to that, and hopefully we’ll do well again,” Smith said.

Amherst finish.

Against the Continentals, the Jumbos pushed seven out of the nine matches into four sets, with junior Andrew Kim edging his opponent in the fourth set 12-10 in the No. 9 position. Following the losses to Williams and Amherst, the Jumbos’ 6-3 victory over Hamilton pushed their overall record back above .500 to 10-9.

“We were down 3-1 at one point in matches against Hamilton, so to pull off five wins in key spots was great,” Bradley said. “Hamilton was lower in the rankings, but they just got some players back from injuries, so they’re close to us in skill level. It was a good way to close off the weekend.”

“We’ve played some close matches against Hamilton over the past few years, and I think we had a mental edge over them,” Leighton added.

Last Tuesday, Tufts got a chance to warm up for a long slate of NESCAC Tournament action with a match against the No. 32 Northeastern Huskies in Boston. The Jumbos gave up just one match in the 8-1 decision.

In the No. 6 match, Taylor eked out a win in straight sets in a 14-12 third-set victory, while junior Ben Rind clinched the No. 5 game with

three consecutive 11-7 sets.

“Northeastern has a bunch of good players, but we came out with confidence that we were going to win,” Bradley said.

“We carried that through from warm-ups to the matches, and that was a part of winning by such huge margins.”

The Jumbos suffered a slight drop in the national rankings to No. 19, and the road ahead may prove increasingly difficult for Tufts to produce wins. The Jumbos now enter their final weekend of regular season matches before the NineMan Nationals later this month and then the CSA Individual Championships in March. However, Brown and Dartmouth loom on the slate for this weekend, and both are ranked in the top 15.

“Brown is a match we should expect to find some success in,” Leighton said.

“We’re expecting it to be very competitive. Dartmouth is going to be one of the toughest opponents all season, but it’ll be good preparation for Nationals.”

“NESCACs is a long weekend and it’s put some wear and tear on everyone,” senior co-captain Max Dalury added.

“We’re looking at this weekend like we would any other. Just because we’re playing strongly ranked opponents this weekend, we’re not going to play any less than we would against other opponents.”

Save Jesus?

T

he question is no longer, “What would Jesus do?” It has now become, “What should be done with Jesus?”

Depending on which of the various reports you believe, Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge is either looking to trade guard Ray Allen (whom I will continue to refer to as Jesus), or Ainge has laughed off the suggestion of a possible deal. I can’t say I didn’t know this was coming. Back in June 2007, when the Celtics traded for Allen and his two bum ankles, I remember thinking that if it didn’t work out they could always trade him when his contract was expiring.

But a month later, the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves, ushering in the best 11-month stretch of my life as a sports fan, which culminated in a 17th championship banner. Now, after less than three seasons together, it looks like the Big Three might be splitting up. And as much as it pains me to say it, because I have grown to appreciate just how good a player Sugar Ray is, it is potentially a move that Ainge has to make.

Simply put, this is not a championship team at the moment. You can blame it on the struggles of Kevin Garnett in his return from knee injury or on the ill-fated signing of Rasheed Wallace, but no matter who you blame, the fact is that the Celtics have won just nine of their last 21 games dating back to Christmas Day. My diagnosis of the Celtics’ troubles?

Well, I think that this team believes it is better than it is. It also probably believes that it can coast into the playoffs and then turn it on once there.

In other words, there is no sense of urgency, which is evident when a team constantly gives up leads in the fourth quarter.

Realistically, the Celtics are the fourth-best team in an Eastern Conference that has regressed as a whole this season. They cannot beat the Magic or the Hawks, and they have lost 17 games already, one more than they lost in 2008. And Ray Allen is certainly a part of the problem. As someone who has been a Jesus apologist, even I have to admit that the fact that he is having his worst three-point shooting season in his career cannot be ignored.

At 34, Allen is at the age when shooting guards start to lose their legs. But if anyone could continue to be productive, you would have thought it would be him. I don’t think I am ready to give up on Jesus yet, and I have a reason why — any trade involving Allen would give up this team’s best shot at winning a championship. I’m not saying that there aren’t some decent targets out there — the possible Kevin Martin and the unlikely Andre Iguodala — but any deal would be a signal that Ainge is thinking ahead to the future instead of keeping his head in the now.

Before the Big Three and their run to the banner, hardly anyone cared about the Celtics. While Ainge’s job is to balance the present with the future, getting rid of Jesus now would tarnish what he helped accomplish. I would rather see the Celtics give it one last shot with this team — which I know has the capability of being the best in the league — instead of blowing things up now.

I know I might be in the minority, and I might be wrong — it might be time to inject some youth into this team to turn things around and offset the injury to Garnett and the recent run of poor play. But as frustrating as this season has been, it seems wrong to panic. Give Jesus one last shot to prove he’s still got game, because if he regains his form there is still a chance that this Boston team can finish up like another team that was fourth in the East: the 1968-69 NBA-champion Celtics.

Ethan Landy is a senior majoring in English.

He can be reached at Ethan.Landy@tufts. edu.

Sports

12

INSIDE Women’s Squash 11 Call Me Junior 11

tuftsdaily.com

MEN’S SQUASH

NESCAC Tournament loss to Williams ends win streak at five Seventh-seeded Tufts gets by Conn. College in first round, defeats Hamilton in consolation bracket BY

ANNIE WERMIEL/TUFTS DAILY

ranked one spot above the Tufts squad.

In the No. 6 position, first-year Sheldon Taylor rallied back after losing a 2-0 lead to take the match in five sets, while senior Scott Leighton pulled off a four-set victory in the No. 8 match.

“Sheldon getting a win at six was huge,” Bradley said. “Amherst won the key points when they really needed to buckle down and get it. I think it was the turning point in some of the four-game matches we lost. It was just close at a lot of spots, and that day they were the better team.”

The Jumbos also unexpectedly picked up a win at No. 1 when Amherst junior Brian Warner defaulted due to a minor injury incurred in a previous match. The Jumbos, however, found it difficult to finish on four separate matches that each went into four sets, as the Lord Jeffs dealt Tufts a 6-3 loss.

“For Amherst, we were disappointed with the final score; we thought it would be a 5-4 match,” Leighton said. “We started strong, but they took the matches in the middle of the lineup. I think overall, however, we’ve been pretty good at taking the close matches this season, like against Colby.”

In the final consolation match of the weekend, the Jumbos posted a comefrom-behind win against the nationally No. 25-ranked Hamilton Continentals, getting Tufts back on track after a disappointing

Senior Scott Leighton was one of just two Jumbos to record wins against the higher-ranked Amherst Lord Jeffs, as Tufts went 2-2 this weekend at the NESCAC Tournament.

see MEN’S SQUASH, page 11

MICHAEL SPERA

Daily Editorial Board

With a record-breaking five-game winning streak under its belt, the men’s squash team was reminded in this weekend’s NESCAC Tournament at Trinity College that all good things must come to an end.

After advancing past Conn. College in the first round of the conference tournament with a resounding 8-1 victory on Friday, the seventh-seeded Jumbos were matched on Saturday with some of their stiffest competition all season — nationally ranked No. 10 and eventual NESCAC runner-up Williams.

Having shut out Tufts in late November, the Ephs repeated history thanks to solid performances throughout the ladder.

While the top three in the Jumbos’ ladder sent their respective matches into four sets, most of the Tufts lineup could not hold the line against the second-seeded Williams squad that took most of the matches in straight sets.

“We’ve played Williams already and knew they were a very good team,” senior co-captain Zach Bradley said. “We just wanted to try and compete at some spots. We worked hard and made a push to keep some of the matches tight.”

The Jumbos hoped for greater success in the consolation bracket on Saturday, when they were pitted against the nationally ranked No. 18 Amherst Lord Jeffs, who are

FENCING

INSIDE NCAA BASKETBALL

Undefeated épée squad keys Pac-10 marred by Jumbos’ 3-3 showing at Carzo Cage mediocrity, violations BY

DANIEL RATHMAN

Once-powerful conference in trouble

Daily Editorial Board

Entering the second and final Northeast Fencing Conference meet of the season on Saturday with an overall record of 3-11, the fencing team hoped that the event at Carzo Cage would be an opportunity to prove their mettle.

After a grueling day of matches, the Jumbos doubled their season win total with a 3-3 outing.

Even in their three defeats, the Jumbos gave a valiant effort, and two of the matches they lost could very well have gone either way.

In its final tilt of the day against UMass, Tufts was dealt a 15-12 setback, even though the squad felt it was the better team.

“We were hoping to do a little better than we did, but it was the end of a long day, and we were really tired,” sophomore sabrist Brianna Smith said. “We’re going to work on conditioning in our upcoming practices, and hopefully that’ll help us keep everything running at the end of competitions in the future.”

The Jumbos earned consecutive victories for the first time this year in their two earlier matches, downing Boston University 18-9 and the University of New Hampshire 17-7.

Tufts delivered a strong all-around performance in both contests, and its success with all three weapons proved to be the difference.

“Sabre showed a lot of improvement on Saturday, and foil did a lot better,” Smith said. “Our foil team is really a work in progress because we had a lot of people leave, but they’re getting better all the time.”

Both of the Jumbos’ first two matches were nail-biters that ended with final scores of 14-13.

In the latter one, Tufts was edged out by Sacred Heart in a loss that was especially painful, as the the team felt it had not played its

BY

ETHAN LANDY

Daily Editorial Board

JOSH BERLINGER/TUFTS DAILY

The fencing team doubled its wins this weekend while hosting a Northeast Fencing Conference meet at the Carzo Cage, going 3-3 overall in the final conference slate of the season. best match.

But an opening victory over Wellesley was still fresh in the Jumbos’ minds, making the aforementioned heartbreaker easier to swallow. The victory over the Blue was particularly special for Tufts, given that it had been routed 21-6

by Wellesley at Carzo on Nov. 22.

“We were really excited to beat Wellesley,” Smith said. “It was really encouraging because it showed that we’ve managed to get a lot better over the course of the season.

Any win for any fencer is amazing, no matter what, but this one really showed the result of all our practice and hard work.”

Senior Naomi Bryant provided the finishing blow for Tufts against the Blue, winning 5-3 against Wellesley foil captain Hannah Braaten, who placed sixth last year at the NCAA Regional meet. With the overall team score tied at 13, Bryant see FENCING, page 11

The Big East is home to five of the AP’s top-25 teams in the nation. The Mountain West Conference contains three. Even the Ivy League is represented in the ESPN/USA TODAY poll, with Cornell ranked No. 22.

And then there is the Pac10. There is a distinct possibility that a conference that had six teams in last year’s NCAA Tournament might not have more than one dancing come March, meaning no atlarge bids.

The trouble for the Pac-10 starts with the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans, which will not be participating in postseason play this year after the university instilled self-imposed sanctions on the basketball team due to violations of NCAA rules dating back to the recruitment of the highly touted O.J. Mayo, who now starts for the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Trojans might actually have the best résumé in the conference thanks to victories over the No. 12 Tennessee Volunteers and the No. 23 UNLV Rebels, and they beat current Pac-10 leader California last week, 66-63.

But regardless of how USC finishes, the Trojans’ season will end in less than a month.

The rest of the conference is muddled together, as there are five teams a game behind first-place Cal in the Pac-10 standings. The Golden Bears were ranked No. 13 in the preseason polls, but have stum-

bled to a mediocre 15-8 record, including a 7-4 in-conference mark. This comes in spite of the Golden Bears returning their top four scorers from last season, including a pair of all-conference first-teamers in seniors Jerome Randle and Patrick Christopher.

Still, Cal is probably the best bet at the moment to represent the conference in the NCAA tourney, even if it is currently 0-3 against teams ranked in the top 25. The Golden Bears are the only team in the Pac-10 with an RPI in the top 50, sitting at No. 25. If Cal does not win the conference tournament, it is likely the only team in the conference that has a legitimate shot to earn a spot off the bubble.

What, then, happened to the other teams that made the tournament last March? The Arizona Wildcats reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 12 seed before bowing out to the Louisville Cardinals last year. Now, the Wildcats are barely hovering above the .500 mark at 12-11 under the direction of former Xavier coach Sean Miller and have gone 6-5 in conference tilts.

Arizona lost its arguably two top players to the NBA — lottery pick Jordan Hill and swingman Chase Budinger — while fellow traditional Pac-10 heavyweight the UCLA Bruins also lost three of its best players to the professional ranks. With an 11-12 record, the Bruins are enduring their worst season since Ben Howland took over the program in 2003, when they finished 11-17 overall. see INSIDE NCAA, page 11