2010-04-07

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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010

VOLUME LIX, NUMBER 42

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Applicant numbers up, echoing nationwide trend Need-blind admissions currently suspended BY

AMELIE HECHT

Daily Editorial Board

ANNE WERMIEL/TUFTS DAILY

Last semester’s Veterans Day ceremony took place alongside classes.

Committee recommends that Veterans Day be class-free BY

CORINNE SEGAL

Daily Editorial Board

The Educational Policy Committee (EPC) on Monday approved a recommendation for classes in the upcoming academic year to be held on Columbus Day instead of Veterans Day, which will thus be a school-wide holiday.

Faculty members must vote in favor of the committee’s recommendation at the next faculty meeting in order for it to

take effect, according to Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser.

Labor Day takes place late in the summer during the current and the upcoming academic years, making it impossible to put together a schedule such that students have holidays on both Columbus and Veterans Days, according to Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Chas Morrison, a junior. see VETERANS, page 2

Somerville expands emergency notification system BY

MONICA MOWERY Daily Staff Writer

The City of Somerville on March 23 announced the expansion of its emergency notification system, ConnectCTY, which can now send emergency alerts via text messages in addition to the existing means of telephone calls and e-mails.

“We are continuing to upgrade and improve our existing technologies, and expanding the Connect-CTY system to include text message will allow us to reach more people with urgent information in a timely manner,” Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said in a press release.

Residents can now receive alerts via one Short Messaging System (SMS) number, three phone numbers and two e-mail addresses. This marks the fourth year that Somerville’s emergency notification system

has been in place, according to Jaclyn Rossetti, Somerville’s deputy director of communications.

She added that alerts are often related to snow emergencies but could also be about traffic disruptions and gas or water main breaks.

Text messages were initially omitted from the emergency notification system, Rossetti said, because they weren’t as popular at the time.

“The decision to branch out to text messaging was a function of the city wanting to reach as many people as possible,” Somerville’s Director of Constituent Services Steve Craig said. “It is one more tool at our disposal.”

Tufts also utilizes text message to alert students, currently through the Send Word Now notification system.

Director of Communications

The Tufts Office of Undergraduate Admissions this year saw a three-percent increase in applications, paralleling the nationwide trend of larger applicant pools and lower admissions rates.

Tufts this year received 15,437 applications, the thirdlargest applicant pool in the university’s history. 24.5 percent of applicants were offered admission, down from 26.6 percent last year, making this Tufts’ second most-selective admissions cycle.

Applicants on March 31 were notified of their admissions decisions online. Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin said that the ongoing economic recovery had visible effects on this admissions cycle.

“The biggest trend we saw this year was a restoration of nor-

malcy after last year’s economic craziness,” Coffin said. “People took a deep breath and looked around and saw that they could still apply to college and still give a thought to high-cost and high-quality education.”

Coffin described this year as a year of record selectivity for colleges and universities across the country. Many schools have reported this year as the most competitive year in their admissions history, with many Boston area schools seeing significant increases in applicant numbers.

There was a five percent increase in the number of applicants to Harvard University, which had a 6.9 percent admissions rate. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), applicant numbers rose by 6.2 percent, and a reported 9.7 percent were accepted.

Coffin explained that this trend was largely a function of individual students increas-

ing the number of schools they apply to.

“What is happening is that students are applying to more and more colleges, so it is giving a false sense of volume,” Coffin said. “There is the same number of students applying to more places.”

The admissions office this year reviewed applications in a need-aware manner, as they were no longer able to use a need-blind approach. The university had in previous years attempted to be completely need-blind, successfully admitting the Classes of 2011 and 2012 without regard to financial circumstances.

The economic downturn last year forced the suspension of need-blind admissions toward the tail-end of the process, prompting this year’s shift in practice, according to Coffin. see ADMISSIONS, page 2

Film about cross-cultural interaction to screen tonight The International Center, along with other diversity groups, tonight is sponsoring a screening of the documentary “Crossing Borders” (2009).

The film, by director Arnd Wächter, follows four American and four Moroccan students over the course of an eightday trip around Morocco, tracing their interactions and their process of self-discovery and relationship-forming.

The film screening will take place at 5 p.m. in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room and will be followed by a discussion with Wächter. Free Middle Eastern food will be served.

According to the official film synopsis, “with group travels and frank discussions, the students confront the complex implications of the supposed ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West.”

International Center Director Jane Etish-Andrews believes the documentary’s story will be relevant to the Tufts community.

“People can really relate to it,” she said. “It’s a nice way to have a conversation about differences, to learn about people cross-culturally, learn about stereotypes and breaking [them] down.”

Etish-Andrews cited the fact that the students in the film, over the course of the week they spend together, grow closer to each other as they become more familiar with each other’s beliefs. “[The students] talk about how they see the world through faith and they experience each other’s culture,” she said.

Eric Sullivan, a graduate student in the Fletcher School of Law and

DILYS ONG/TUFTS DAILY

The Asian American Center is co-sponsoring a film screening tonight with other diversity groups.

Diplomacy and a member of the Baha’i Club, echoed this, saying that the club is co-sponsoring the film because of its message of unity.

“The premise is understanding something different from yourself … and the oneness of humanity,” Sullivan said. “It’s the idea of commonality … and understanding each other.”

The documentary has already garnered a number of honors.

At the 2009 Illinois International Film Festival, it was named “Best International Feature Documentary” and it was the winner of the “Gold Kahuna Award” at the 2010 Honolulu Film Festival.

It was also selected for educational screenings sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Education in 14 Greek cities following its screening at the 2010 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

Etish-Andrews hopes that the discussion that the film screening

provokes will help to break down stereotypes.

“People can really dialogue with each other and learn from each other,” Etish-Andrews said. “They will understand, on a person-toperson basis, how much people are alike.”

She expressed her confidence that the screening and discussion would appeal to the entire student body. “It seems like an opportunity for the whole community,” EtishAndrews said.

The screening and discussion is co-sponsored by the International Center, the Middle East Coalition, the I-Club, the Baha’i Club, CAFÉ, the Office of the University Chaplain, the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, the Africana Center, the Asian American Center, the Latino Center, the LGBT Center and the Women’s Center.

— by Martha Shanahan

see ALERTS, page 2

Inside this issue

Today’s Sections

“Sweetgrass,” a portrayal of the life of American cowboys, took eight years to make.

Men’s and women’s crew starts the 2010 season off with losses at home.

see ARTS, page 5

see SPORTS, back

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 11 Back

THE TUFTS DAILY

2

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

NEWS

Admission process returns to normalcy following recession ADMISSIONS continued from page 1

“Last year we tried to be need-blind and we were until the last five percent,” Coffin said. “This year, going in we just decided we need to be realistic, and unfortunately that meant that we couldn’t be completely need-blind.”

Coffin called the two years that the university was fully need-blind an exception, noting that Tufts would be unable to revisit the concept of being need-blind until the university concludes the Beyond Boundaries capital campaign and has time to reengage donors.

He did explain, however, that all applications were initially read need-blind, and students’ financial situations were only taken into account in the decisionmaking room.

“I think it is important to read a folder and say ‘Who is this?’ and then only when we start the decision-making process finances start to be a consideration,” Coffin said.

Fifty-four percent of accepted students applied for financial aid this year, down one percent from last year. Coffin said that financial aid officers were still working on aid packages, but he anticipated a four percent increase in need-based aid expenditures for the incoming class.

One new addition to Tufts’ application — the optional submission of a one-minute video — received significant national media attention.

“It was a tiny part of our supplement, and it caught fire in the media,” Coffin said. “It really captured people’s imaginations.”

Coffin was unsure as to whether students applying for the Class of 2015 will be

given the option of submitting a video as well. He added that each year in mid-May, the admissions committee reevaluates the previous year’s application.

According to Coffin, all college admissions officers will be keeping an eye on the number of students from California who enroll. He citied the University of California system’s significant budget cuts, which might prompt students to apply to private East Coast colleges like Tufts.

“A lot of colleges have seen an increase in their California pools,” Coffin said.

“We are waiting to see if we see if we have more matriculated students from California this year.”

Californian students make up about 10 percent of each class currently enrolled at Tufts, making California the third most represented state on campus after Massachusetts and New York, according to Coffin.

Turning to the waitlist, Coffin said that although Tufts generally does not rely heavily on it, this year a few hundred students were placed on the waitlist.

Approximately 40 students last year were taken off the waitlist, compared to none or only a handful in years prior.

Coffin said that the admissions committee this year modeled its acceptance rate based on an expected yield of about 33 percent.

“What we have learned is that every student we admit is generally co-admitted by about seven other places,” Coffin said. “So as the dean of admissions, I try and figure out how many students to admit if I am trying to build a class of 1,275 students.”

Coffin hopes for a high matriculation rate this year.

“The enrollment deadline is May 3, and

DANAI MACRIDI/TUFTS DAILY

The admissions office saw an increase in the number of applicants this year. all I can do now is wait,” Coffin said. “I am keeping all my fingers and all my toes crossed for a good yield this year.”

He noted that the profile of this year’s accepted applicants is similar to what he described as last year’s “best-ever finish.”

Ninety-one percent of accepted students rank in the top 10 percent of their high school class, up one percent from last year, and the middle 50 percent of accepted students scored between 690 and 770 on each of the three sections of the SAT. Thirty-two percent of admitted students self-identify as U.S. students of color, a two-percent increase from last year. The

accepted class has representatives from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 65 countries. Thirty-eight percent of students admitted to the School of Engineering are women, a five percent increase from the Class of 2013.

The admissions office this spring will host three April Open House days, during which admitted students will be invited to visit campus and stay overnight with current students.

“We will keep the format the same as in the past few years,” Coffin said. “The feedback has indicated that people really enjoy April Open House days.”

City incorporates text messaging into notification system that includes calls, e-mails

Faculty to vote on Veterans Day recommendation

ALERTS

VETERANS

continued from page 1

continued from page 1

and Organizational Effectiveness at University Information Technology (UIT) Dawn Irish said that text messages are more effective at alerting more people quickly.

“What we’ve found in our testing is that SMS messages are the fastest way to notify people,” Irish said. “We probably send 6,000 messages in a matter of few minutes, and that is a great thing when every second counts.”

Irish added that text messages are delivered almost instantly, as opposed to phone calls or e-mails, which take longer to reach recipients.

Although the text message notifications have only been in place for two weeks, the feedback has been very positive, Craig said, especially from constituents who previously had trouble receiving phone calls or e-mail alerts.

“We coordinate with the communications department to make sure that the messages are going out in a timely manner and ensuring that the call-takers know about the information in advance,” Craig said.

Rossetti added that the inclusion of text message alerts has been long awaited.

“A lot of people have been hoping for this,” Rossetti said.

“We are always looking to reach more residents effectively.”

The main test for the system will come during snow season, Rossetti said, when the volume of messages sent out will increase by a significant amount.

Text messages are currently sent out only in English.

Providing information in foreign languages via text message is “not in our capabilities right now,” Craig said.

However, the 311 service that constituents can call with questions or complaints

Glaser echoed this, explaining that that the past fall semester’s calendar posed scheduling difficulties, which necessitated holding classes on either Veterans Day in November or Columbus Day in October.

The decision was eventually made to give students Columbus Day off instead of Veterans Day for both this and next year.

“The schedulers settled on Columbus Day because it’s part of a three-day weekend, and it’s in October, as opposed to a day that’s so close to Thanksgiving,” Glaser said.

This decision upset some students who wanted Veterans Day to be a holiday so that they could honor veterans, according to TCU Senator Bruce Ratain, a junior.

“We traditionally honor holidays that are of great significance by not having classes on those days, which allows students to attend any ceremonies and memorials that we may have on those days,” Ratain said.

Ratain, Morrison and former TCU Senator Sam Wallis, also a junior, in November coauthored a Senate resolution calling for next year’s schedule to be adjusted to make Veterans Day a holiday, after identifying a viable solution to the problem.

“We started working with Dean Glaser to identify a potential alternative, and we found that we could trade having Columbus Day … off to having Veteran’s Day off,” Ratain said.

“To us, honoring the veterans far outweighed the convenience of a three-day weekend in October.”

Ratain cited the active Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program on campus as an important reason for the university to demonstrate its respect for those who serve in the military.

“This is about honoring members of our community who are

TIEN TIEN/TUFTS DAILY

Residents of Somerville can now receive emergency alerts via text message. also provides information in Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.

Another potential obstacle that text message notifications must overcome is the difficulty of shortening complicated, indepth alerts, Craig said.

Irish added that Tufts confronts the same issue of condensing complicated alerts for use in text messages.

“We’ve had to become strategic in what we put in the text messages … to make them as brief and informative as possible,” Irish said. “It is work,

but it is worth it.”

The Office of Communications and City Cable will take what Craig describes as a “wait-and-see approach” to address issues.

“If a serious issue came up, we’d be sure to address it right away, Craig said. “But it seems to be going well.”

Social media outlets like Facebook.com and Twitter.com may also be used to connect with constituents in the future, according to Rossetti.

Saumya Vaishampayan contributed reporting to this article.

making sacrifices and are making commitments in defense of our nation,” he said.

Morrison agreed and said this was in line with Tufts’ longstanding values.

“Tufts has a long tradition of honoring public service, and military service is the highest form of that public service,” Morrison said. “I think it is important to have a day off to honor past and current veterans’ sacrifices and contributions.”

Ratain noted that the Senate found that most of the student body favored holding classes on Columbus Day instead of Veterans Day. “Overwhelmingly, the response we got from students said that Veterans Day was more important,” he said.

Glaser said that he understood the perspective of students who wished to use Veterans Day to honor U.S. veterans and applauded students’ willingness to make sacrifices to enable that.

“I think that students feel so strongly about this on principle is to be admired,” Glaser said.

“Especially because in many ways, the Columbus Day falls at a more convenient time to take off, so there is a little bit of cost.”

Ratain said he was pleased with the EPC’s decision and is looking forward to the faculty’s response.

“That, to me, was a very important milestone,” he said. “I would hope that the faculty will affirm the decision of EPC.” TCU Senator Edward Chao, a junior and ROTC member, expressed his gratitude for the recommended schedule change.

He said that when classes were held on last fall’s Veterans Day, he noticed that fewer people were able to attend remembrance ceremonies.

“I am certainly happy that they are honoring veterans on campus,” Chao said.

Amelie Hecht contributed reporting to this article.

Features

3

tuftsdaily.com

‘Thirsty Thursdays’ have negligible effect on test performance for students Study analyzes memory-retention rates after alcohol consumption BY

DEREK SCHLOM

Daily Editorial Board

Common sense dictates that significant alcohol consumption the night before a big test is not advisable — brain cell destruction and a morning hangover don’t exactly seem conducive to academic performance.

However, a recent study conducted by the Boston University School of Public Health in conjunction with Brown University suggests that socalled “Thirsty Thursdays” may have little to no impact on testing performance, potentially opening a proverbial can of worms when it comes to college alcohol culture.

The study, which was led by Professor Jonathan Howland of the Boston University School of Public Health and Professor Damaris Rohsenow from the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown and is featured in this month’s edition of the scientific journal Addiction, found that, while binge drinking the night before a test negatively affects mood, reaction times and attention levels, actual test results were only negligibly effected.

To determine the effects of binge drinking upon testing performance, the researchers selected 193 Bostonarea college students, all of legal drinking age. Over a four-day period, groups of participants were provided, in a controlled environment, with either nonalcoholic or alcoholic beverages. Subjects provided with alcohol, under the supervision of medical professionals, drank until their Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) reached 0.12 percent, higher than the legal Massachusetts driving limit of 0.08.

The next day, the researchers administered to both groups a variety of neurological tests, along with a version of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and a quiz based

AMELIA QUINN

Daily Staff Writer

The Texas Board of Education on Friday, March 12 passed new social studies curricula that will go into effect in the fall of 2011 in a 10-to-five vote with every Republican on the board in support, according to a recent article in The New York Times. The new curriculum affects public school students in fifth grade, middle school and high school, and with its emphasis on the benefits of capitalism, painting conservative political views in a better light and questioning the commitment of the Founding Fathers to a secular government, it will force the adoption of new economics and history textbooks.

The repercussions of this decision will resound far beyond the state lines, as Texas is one of the leading purchasers of textbooks, and publishers will be more likely to tailor their books to fit Texas’ standards.

“The recent Texas School Board decisions about what sorts of names, dates, and places are important in US history shows the deeply political nature of history curricula,” Department of Education Lecturer Steven Cohen said in an e-mail to the Daily. “It is especially important when it takes place in Texas because the size of the market for history textbooks in Texas has a major effect upon what appears in texts nationwide. While I haven’t seen the whole document, it seems pretty clear that a very conservative agenda has given a rather

Breaking up is hard to do

T

DANAI MACRIDI/TUFTS DAILY

Authors of a new study on drinking practices’ impacts on testing insist that its results do not mean students should be drinking as well as studying. on a mock lecture that the participants had attended the previous day.

The next week, the groups switched and repeated the process.

The scientists conducting the study noted in their hypothesis their expectation that long-term memory, as tested by the GRE, would be affected less than short-term memory (as tested by the quiz based on the mock lecture). In actuality, the quiz results among the drinking groups were marginally higher than those of the placebo groups (a difference of .11 points between the averages), while the average GRE verbal scores were 2.23 points lower and quantitative scores were 3.37 points higher

for the drinking groups than for the placebo groups. This indicates that binge drinking had a minimal impact on both forms of information retention.

In a Boston University School of Public Health press release, Howland noted that his research team was “surprised by the test-taking results, because some prior studies have found that occupational performance was impaired the day after intoxication.”

Howland added that the findings are hardly conclusive. “Test-taking is only one factor in academic success.

Study habits, motivation and class see ALCOHOL, page 4

Controversial decision changes social studies curricula of public schools in Texas BY

JESSIE BORKAN | COLLEGE IS AS COLLEGE DOES

idiosyncratic view of U.S. history.”

The Board of Education has been split between a conservative bloc and a few Democrats and more moderate Republicans for years, with the sides battling over parts of the curriculum such as the intentions of the Founding Fathers and Darwin’s theory of evolution. The dispute has been more heated recently, with over 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards impacting social studies curricula for elementary through high school passed since January.

“I don’t know the whole election process for the committees, but as a liberal Texan, I’m pretty against [the changes] because I don’t think that they really reflect the entire population, as most of the major cities vote Democratic,” freshman and Texas native Conor Wilson said. “I went to a Texas Young Democrats convention five years ago, and they brought up this issue, and it seems like there is still this ‘Old Guard’ government that doesn’t respond well to how things are in fact changing.”

Sophomore Nisha Mohamed, also from Texas, said that the recent move of the Board of Education is not out of place in her home state. “This isn’t an uncommon thing,” she said. “A lot of really conservative movements occur in Texas public high schools. I might not support it, but I feel a majority of students and their parents support these kinds of things.”

According to The New York Times, seven of the board members are in the conservative bloc, but on important votes such as the March changes, one or more

of the other three Republicans vote with them. No actual experts in the relevant social sciences fields were consulted by the board.

“It’s really dumbing everything down,” Wilson said. “The issue is that you have people who aren’t experts in a field deciding how the curriculum should be taught, and so it just boils down to a patriotic bulls--t version of history. And it downplays marginal groups like blacks and women.”

“Even as a conservative, [I think that] to this degree it’s a little ridiculous. The reason why they already report on the history that they do now is because that’s what actually happened,” senior Braulio Rivas said. “What really upset me is that it wasn’t actual professionals that were brought in to consult. Instead, it was a group of people who wanted to push their own agenda. While some of them claimed to be experts, they didn’t consider how this would affect the learning of children.”

The head of the board’s conservative bloc, Dr. Don McLeroy, was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “We are adding balance … History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.” The conservative board members claim that they are trying to fix this liberal bias by small changes that question concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the Revolutionary War. see TEXTBOOKS, page 4

here are 18 days of classes left, and as a senior, I am doing my best to prepare for the impending reality slaps that will be afforded to me by graduation. So far, this preparation has consisted mostly of me rolling around on the lawn and drinking PBR (usually at the same time), and that, in conjunction with a healthy amount of Googling the word “jobs,” has seemed to work pretty well in terms of acclimating myself to the upcoming termination of the college lifestyle.

For four years, I have slowly but surely been checking things off the list of life skills I need to acquire before leaving here, simultaneously making sure I will be able to survive after college and trying to have an awesome time during it.

Make friends: check. Feed myself: check.

Learn to throw an awesome party: check.

Manage money: check. Manage time: good enough. Despite my enduring lack of skills like “clean room,” “find a job” and “don’t set the kitchen on fire,” I am confident that I will master them in time for my real life to start, and if not, I know I will figure out a way to compensate.

What I’m not prepared for, however, is my break-up. I’m not the only one; couples all over campus are dutifully avoiding the question of what comes after college in the hopes that if they ignore it, it will go away. My relationship can’t play that game much longer, I fear.

The relationship I am speaking of, of course, is with Tufts. We are breaking up, and short of failing a PE class (easy) and scrounging up 50 grand for next year’s tuition (slightly more difficult), there’s nothing I can do about it — I cannot turn a blind eye any longer.

Nor do I want to. The last time I ignored the inevitable end to a romance, I ended up with the relationship equivalent of gangrene. It was devastating, and the last I heard he was dating a stripper and in a band called Lowly, the Tree Ghost. I don’t want that to happen with Tufts.

But suddenly, everything between us is about lasts. It is our last semester together, and it is peppered with things like the last Senior Pub Night, my last time in Tisch (just kidding, that one happened sophomore year), my last month’s rent, the last time I go to class still drunk and, pretty soon, the last time I go to class — period. I can barely handle the finality, but we have to deal with this, and since one of us is not actually a person, I have to deal with this. Rolling around on the lawn was a good start, and I suggest you do the same — as much as possible — on every green spot on campus. In the days to come, I will be figuring out more ways to come to terms with what is the closest thing to the end of an era my young life can muster.

Face it, a lucky 86 percent of you will be graduating from Tufts at some point in the next four years. If you’re a senior like me, you’ve got less than two months, so I suggest get your affairs in order. I don’t mean relationship-wise — considering my personal romantic history reads like a zombie remake of “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” (2004), I’m the last person on Earth you should take romantic advice from.

When it comes to Tufts, however, I’m a Jumbo through and through, so listen up — be true to your school. Have the talk. Spend some quality time, for the end is near. Maybe you can still be friends. After all, it’s not Tufts, it’s you — and breakin’ up is hard to do.

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

Borkan@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

4

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

FEATURES

Factors other than alcohol contribute to lower test scores after a night of drinking ALCOHOL continued from page 3

attendance also contribute to academic performance; each of these could be affected by intoxication,” he said.

The results of the study, regardless of the degree to which they can be applied to the college student community at large, shed light on the internal debate of many a drinker: with a test tomorrow, to indulge or not to indulge?

“I would think that three beers or something like that the night before a test wouldn’t have any affect on how someone would do on a test,” sophomore Kyle Paoletta said.

Paoletta isn’t convinced, however, by the results of the Boston University study. According to him, the drink-

ing standard established by the study doesn’t match the alcohol consumption level of a significant portion of college students.

“I would consider binge drinking to be a lot higher than .12 [BAC], so I’m not surprised that people did well the day after drinking that amount,” Paoletta said.

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking to bring a person’s blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above,” or the consumption of five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women in the span of two hours, according to the study.

“I don’t drink before tests, and the

study doesn’t make me more inclined to do it,” freshman Ned Coltman said.

Coltman, like Paoletta, thinks the study is inherently flawed.

“In actual cases, if you drink before a test, then you’re probably already prepared for it anyway,” Coltman said.

The Boston University experiment did not include any studying on the part of the participants; the only preparation for the testing was attendance at the mock lecture on which the quiz was based and the administration of a practice test to familiarize participants with the GRE, which is based on knowledge acquired over the course of a student’s academic career.

“Test-taking is only one factor in academic success. Study habits, moti-

vation and class attendance also contribute to academic performance; each of these could be affected by intoxication,” the researchers noted in their press release.

Regardless of the test results, freshman Lauren Tvedten Kopka finds the notion of alcohol consumption the night before an exam illogical. “I don’t see how you can do well on a test unless you’ve had enough sleep,” Kopka said. “I think that hangovers are pretty unavoidable.”

“How much sense does it make to binge-drink the night before an exam?,” sophomore Gabby Horton said. “I understand the whole ‘live it up, you’re only in college once’ thing, but really?

Just wait until the weekend.”

Texas Board of Education’s decision draws accusations of conservative bias TEXTBOOKS continued from page 3

In addition, they added sections on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Assocation” to the curriculum, The New York Times wrote. Additions included sections about the violent Black Panther movement and how Republicans voted in support of civil rights legislation in Congress.

“I read the Times articles and then I read blogs by conservative supporters who said they didn’t know why it was so bad,” freshman Moe Barry said. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, because if you’re setting that precedent and Texas is one of the largest textbook purchasers, it’s going to really affect the nation.

“The fact is that the conservative pundits are all excited because the little kids in Texas get to read about the Contract with America, while at the same time they’re completely ignoring the works of Jefferson, because he’s the one that coined the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’”

MCT

Changes to the social studies curricula in Texas could change textbooks across the country.

Barry added. “None of the people on the board were historians or had any knowledge about what they were saying; they were just conservatives who felt entitled because they were making decisions that would impact one of the largest student

bodies in the country.”

Thomas Jefferson was cut from a list of historical figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries because the conservatives on the board disliked his introduction of the idea of

“separation between church and state.”

He was replaced by St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone in the new materials.

“I know that they were trying to promote diversity — it’s interesting because they’re ensuring that students are being taught the violent side of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the Black Panthers, and the implications of things like Title IX and the Civil Rights Act, but at the same time, anything they’re trying to say about how it’s for the better of the nation is untrue,” Barry said. “They’re just trying to put out their conservative notions to the rest of the country.”

“Cutting out figures because they’re slightly democratic hinders people’s understanding of the United States,” Rivas said. “Once again, the reason why they’ve been studied for so long is because their ideals are the ones that have succeeded.”

The changes will be finalized in a vote in May. The proposed changes are currently viewable on the Texas Education Agency Web site.

Carter Rogers contributed reporting for this article.

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Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

MOVIE FEATURE

‘Sweetgrass’ captures dying lifestyle of American West BY

REBECCA SANTIAGO Daily Staff Writer

It’s clear right off the bat that Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s “Sweetgrass” is no glossy, run-of-themill blockbuster. Their raw and riveting documentary about dying cowboy culture in the American West offers neither high-speed car chases nor passionate, moonlit kisses. In fact, it doesn’t even have a script — just stretches of unadulterated land, rugged and oft-disgruntled men in straw hats and sheep as far as the eye can see. The simplicity of the film draws viewers into a startlingly candid cinematic experience.

“Sweetgrass” follows the grueling trek of rancher Lawrence Allested as he drives his flock of sheep from Big Timber, Colo., into Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for the last time. Allested is the last man to undertake this century-old sheepdriving journey, and the documentary not only captures the death knell of Allested’s own career, but also for an entire traditional lifestyle.

The film’s organic nature traces back to its inception, when the story fell into Barbash and Castaing-Taylor’s receptive laps.

“Inspiration came from lots of plac-

SWEETGRASSTHEMOVIE.COM

Cowboys herd sheep in the documentary “Sweetgrass.” es, [but] we had the topic presented to us,” Barbash, the producer of the film, said.

She explained that Allested’s story reached Castaing-Taylor, the cameraman for the film, by word of mouth; nowhere to be found are the calculated plot devisors of the Hollywood industry. Barbash even denies targeting any kind of specific audience, saying instead that they “weren’t really

THEATER PREVIEW

Bare Bodkin presents Tufts original ‘Just Press Play’ BY

MICHELLE BEEHLER

Daily Editorial Board

In Bare Bodkin’s upcoming spring major “Just Press Play,” the intersecting lives of a Hoover customer service assistant, a comic book writer, his feminist fiancé and a couple of overbearing mothers are thrown together to create a play that is comedic but simultaneously takes on real-life problems. “Just Press Play” is an original script written by junior Joanna Hausmann and is directed by junior Jeewom Kim. In writing the play, Hausmann said

she wanted to pick a topic that students could relate to. The play is a sort of “Woody Allen-esque type of comedy,” Hausmann said. With the theme of therapy always just beneath the surface of the story, the comparison holds fast. Hausmann said the play portrays “big things a little lighter.”

One of the characters whom the story follows is Fernando Levi (sophomore Kevin McDonald), the vacuum cleaner customer service assistant who struggles with an unsuccessful career see PLAY, page 6

sure who was going to be interested in it.”

Through her passion for the film and ambivalence for its market success, Barbash painted herself and Castaing-Taylor as artistic reporters, rather than business-oriented cinematographers.

“We just made the film we wanted see SWEETGRASS, page 6

CONCERTS PREVIEW

Boston looks forward to an exciting lineup of concerts in April The Boston concert scene will be hopping this spring. Though many bigger names mean bigger ticket prices, there is a plethora of bands playing the smaller clubs — often for $20 or $30. Coming up in April, these concerts would all constitute a good study break before finals, and luckily, there’s something for everyone.

Dashboard Confessional: Starting as lead singer Chris Carrabba’s side project, this band has reached a prominent position in the alt-rock world over the past 10 years. Playing the House of Blues, Boston, tomorrow night, the emotional songwriter and his band are sure to rock the house.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: This Friday, the enigmatic band — their style ranges from pop to ska, from punk to soul — takes on the small yet popular Paradise Rock Club. The group is touring with its brand new album, “The Brutalist Bricks.”

The Carbon Leaf: This band is probably the least-known on this list, but it makes up for its lack of popular acclaim with stellar music. Coming to the Paradise Rock Club next Wednesday, April 14, these Celtic/bluegrass rockers got their start at Randolph-Macon College, representing a success story for millions of college students hoping to break into the mainstream music business.

KRISTEN COLLINS/TUFTS DAILY

Bare Bodkin presents an original play about living life to its fullest.

Elvis Costello: On April 20, this oldiebut-goodie will head to Boston to play at the Orpheum Theatre. While the tickets will probably be a little more expensive, for those who love Costello’s classic songs, this concert is a dream come true.

— by Catherine Scott

ZACH DRUCKER AND CHRIS POLDOIAN | BAD SAMARITANS

A heavy Burton

F

or centuries, mankind has been weirdly obsessed with the mysterious and the freaky. The ancient Romans recounted tales of the multi-headed hydra, the conquistadors searched for the pugnacious Amazon women and 19th century circuses often boasted bearded ladies.

Even today, audiences exalt the macabre on the silver screen, and amid the ominous, one director remains king: Tim Burton.

Beginning his career with several critically acclaimed short films, Burton has made a name for himself as one of the most darkly creative and innovative directors in Hollywood. His many films have revolved around eccentric characters, ranging from Beetlejuice to Pee-wee Herman to a man with razor-sharp scissors for hands. What we love most about Burton, however, is his extensive knowledge of film and his unique ability to incorporate and personalize early cinematic techniques and genres.

Nonetheless, we are not writing this column to give more praise to Burton; we are writing to critique his work. Though we love his original ideas and his morbid sensibilities, we have one large issue with his films: He has a tendency to take iconic classics and try to make them his own. We don’t like this tendency. After all, it’s this tendency that’s brought us Nikola Tesla’s theory on alternating current, the Uh-Oh Oreo and Zac Efron.

Burton has made three remakes of classic films in the past 10 years: “Planet of the Apes” (2001), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (2005) and “Alice in Wonderland” (2010). With “Apes,” Burton tried to take the 1968 original and “re-imagine” it by taking Mark Wahlberg’s abs and knack for talking to farm animals and throwing them onto a battlefield with some ruthless apes. In fact, Tim Roth passed up the role as Severus Snape in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001) in order to portray the sadistic chimp General Thade. That’s what you get for monkeying around, Tim. You must really be bananas, Mr. Roth.

With “Chocolate Factory,” Burton didn’t fare much better. There are two cardinal rules of movie-making: Never remake a film that received a 90 percent or better on Rottentomatoes.com and never cast Nicolas Cage if you want your film to be taken seriously. Though Burton knows to stay far away from Nic Cage, he did opt to remake “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971). Burton thought he would bring originality to the story by casting Johnny Depp, his talented and overused muse, as Willy Wonka. The film worked on some levels, but seemed entirely unnecessary, given Gene Wilder’s deliciously quirky portrayal of Wonka in the original.

Finally, and most recently, Burton brought “Alice in Wonderland” (2010) into the world of 3-D and live action. Attempting to tell the story of Alice’s return to Wonderland as a teenager, this film has a dazzling aesthetic, an enormous budget and a stellar cast, but a flimsy plotline. The 1951 animated Disney masterpiece remains without equal.

Besides, Burton can never be quite as loco as Lewis Carroll, the man who bought a oneway ticket on the LSD Express and wrote the novel that started it all. Having said that, we think that Carroll would’ve enjoyed watching the caterpillar hit the hookah in 3-D. All of Burton’s aforementioned works were financial powerhouses, and at the end of the day, Hollywood cares most about the bottom line that is money. Still, we wish Burton stuck to following his more novel filmmaking impulses. That’s why we cannot wait for his next movie, “Frankenweenie,” due out in 2011. Based on his 1984 short film of the same name, this film will follow a young boy, Victor Frankenstein, as he brings his deceased bull terrier back to life.

Zach Drucker is a sophomore majoring in International Relations, and Chris Poldoian is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.

They can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts. edu and Christopher.Poldoian@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

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ARTS & LIVING

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

‘Just Press Play’ presents black comedy with relatable characters PLAY continued from page 5 as a writer. His worried Jewish mother (junior Eliana Sigel-Epstein) decides that the best way to fix her son’s life is to send him to therapy. In the psychiatrist’s office Fernando collides with the unhappily engaged Ana Cutt (senior Emily Code) and Don Salcedo (senior Sam Dunn), who are seeking couple’s therapy before they are even married.

The story continues as the lives of the characters overlap in multiple ways, leaving them fired from their jobs, avoiding their mothers and stranded in elevators as they are forced in some cases to reflect and in others to move on.

The focus of the play is the characters’ relationships with one another or, in the case of Fernando, the lack thereof. His life is paused in a dead-end job, with no romantic relationships and a failed venture as a novelist. As a writer he is unsuccessful because he has no interactions with other people; he relies on recording strangers’ dialogues as a source of inspiration.

The metaphor for the play’s title comes from Fernando’s static and isolated lifestyle and ties in the fact that he always has a voice recorder on hand.

To just press play is the advice that Fernando desperately needs.

He finally learns that lesson when he becomes stuck in a broken elevator with the bickering Ana and Don, forcing him to confront the human emotions that he has been avoiding.

Keeping in sync with the metaphor of the voice recorder, flashbacks allow for Ana and Don to rewind and examine their relationship. The two have been living their lives in a constant mode of fast-forward, and before they move on to the 20 or so children that Don’s mother (sophomore Amanda Billoch Vazquez) predicts they will have, they need to stop and reflect on the reasons they are together.

One of the benefits of putting on a

play written by a student is the flexibility of the script and characters and the accessibility of the playwright. Watching the play come to life has been a positive experience for Hausmann, who said, “The cast brought a new view to the story and characters.”

In directing, Kim stressed the reinterpretation of the characters in rehearsals.

Kim said that he told the cast members that they “should approach all these roles as giving some of themselves to the characters.”

Kim’s method consciously parallels that of Woody Allen’s, who takes the background and personalities of his actors seriously when casting them. Kim in fact adopted a little bit of Allen’s approach when directing his cast. He said that he asked his cast to “interpret their character based on their own baggage.”

The script intersperses contemporary cultural references throughout the fluid storylines of the characters. Dr. Phil and Philip Roth are just a couple of the names that are casually dropped in a rapidfire way that would make “Gilmore Girls” (2000-2007) proud. It also makes the humor accessible to Tufts students, as Hausmann intended. “Just Press Play” is full of jokes and references specifically geared toward its expected college audience, as well as anyone who enjoys a little black comedy.

The comedy is not the only aspect of the play Hausmann hopes students will connect with. “I feel that everybody sitting in the audience will find something to relate to with at least one of the characters,” Hausmann said.

The problems facing the characters and their personalities might be universal, but “Just Press Play” hopes to present them in a unique and memorable way, giving the story a little bit of originality.

Performances of “Just Press Play” are on Sunday April 11 at 8 p.m. and Monday April 12 at 9 p.m. in Cabot Auditorium. The show is free and no tickets are required.

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SWEETGRASSTHEMOVIE.COM

“Sweetgrass,” a new documentary, focuses on the death of the American cowboy lifestyle.

Documentary portrays rancher’s last sheep drive SWEETGRASS continued from page 5

to make,” she said. “It’s different from a feature film … [in which you’re] committing to something that’s going to be something of a commercial success.

“We didn’t really think ‘We’ve got to cut this out or shoot this particular scene because it’s going to be more commercial and play better in Los Angeles,’” Barbash added.

So if it’s not about turning a profit, why film the documentary? “I think it’s very rewarding to be able to take interesting people, and interesting relationships between people and animals and beautiful landscape and pull that all together into a film,” Barbash said.

These sincere motivations impacted the production phase, during which Castaing-Taylor went to great lengths to avoid broaching the authenticity of the subject matter. Toting his camera up the mountain range on foot, he eschewed the convenience of multiple cameras and cameramen for the chance to film the story intimately.

“Lucien wore the camera suspended from a harness that was around his body … He carried it all the time and it sort of became a part of his body, the way crutches or a wooden leg do,” Barbash said. “People would always see him with a camera, so they lost a lot of their normal self-consciousness.”

An interesting challenge for the filmmakers was ensuring that “Sweetgrass” presented a fluid and cohesive narrative for viewers, in the absence of a script or commentary. The editing process consumed a lengthy eight years, since Barbash and Castaing-Taylor had over two months of footage to sort through and piece together.

“In terms of editing, we worked a lot on pacing. We wanted the film to constantly be moving forward,” Barbash said. She describes the pace of the film as “measured … and slow, but hopefully not unpleasantly slow.”

The element of sound functions in the place of a traditional scripted narrative, knitting together each scene. “We’d be recording four different soundtracks at the same time, so you could hear birds and sheep and people cursing and horses grunting and the soil being stepped upon, all at the same time,” Barbash said.

Barbash explained that she and Castaing-Taylor attempted to give the viewer a sense of being transported into the sheep drive with their camerawork.

“We chose all sorts of different kinds of angles that would make [viewers] feel as though they were there,” she said. “Sometimes, [those angles] might make you feel as though you were there as a human, and some-

times they might make you feel as if you were short as a sheep walking up the hill.”

She credited Castaing-Taylor’s initiative with the success of these techniques. “He really placed himself right in the middle of all the action,” Barbash added.

In fact, Castaing-Taylor’s involvement extended well beyond his mere duties as a cameraman. During the filming process, Castaing-Taylor became deeply incorporated in the lives of his subjects, forming bonds that could not possibly be formed in the sterility of a studio setting.

“At various times, Lucien would put the camera down and help out … if [the ranch hands] needed an extra hand,” Barbash said. “It was just [Castaing-Taylor and the camptender and the sheepherder] in the mountains for two months, so there was plenty of time to talk, hang out and get to know each other.”

The distribution phase of an independent film differs enormously from that of a feature film. “If you’re going to make a feature film, you’re probably going to spend a lot more money than people making documentaries because you’ve got to pay for actors, camera people and all sorts of crew members,” Barbash said.

She praised the virtue of documentary-making for documentarymaking’s sake, subtracting distribution from the equation until the very end of the filmmaking process. “Once you’ve got your documentary done … you talk to different companies,” Barbash said to explain the postfilming process. “We found one that was the best match for us, which was Cinema Guild, which has a very good list of mostly independent films.”

That this documentary has begun to grace the silver screen has been a pleasant surprise for Barbash.

“We were hoping for a general, television-style audience,” she said.

“What’s interesting is that … it seems to appeal to a wide range of audiences around the country. [Not only does it appeal to] people who have grown up in the West who may have participated in ranch life, but it also appeals to East Coasters and Californians who are merely interested in those lifestyles.”

Even with widespread distribution, the profitability of the film is still unknown. Fortunately, for Barbash, fortune is not in the least the most gratifying part of making this documentary.

“Both of us really loved what the film was about,” Barbash said. “We both really enjoyed being in the West and seeing that part of American history and connecting with the people.

We really enjoyed all of those different aspects coming together in one piece of art.”

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

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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 Amelie Hecht Corinne Segal Martha Shanahan Jenny White Brent Yarnell Carter Rogers Executive Features Editor Marissa Carberry Features Editors Robin Carol Emily Maretsky 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 Lorrayne Shen Louie Zong Vittoria Elliot Rebekah Liebermann Marian Swain Seth Teleky

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

EDITORIAL | LETTERS

EDITORIAL

Leaked war video raises issues of accountability Wars are never fought entirely cleanly or easily, and this is especially true in the modern era of conflict in urban areas with disguised combatants and a constant media presence. A video taken in Baghdad in 2007 that was recently leaked illegally by WikiLeaks, a Web site that works to publish classified information from governments around the world, has created controversy due to its graphic illustration of how chaotic war can become in such an environment. The video shows the pilots of two U.S. Army helicopters monitoring a group of men — some of whom were armed — standing in a square, shooting them down from the helicopter and then opening fire on a van that came to rescue survivors.

According to the footage, no shots were ever fired at the helicopter by the men on the ground. Much of the controversy surrounding the incident derives from the fact that two of those killed in the firefight were Reuters journalists embedded with insurgent forces, and that the van that attempted to rescue the injured contained children.

(The children survived the attack.)

According to the Army’s statements regarding the content of the video as

reported in The New York Times, the pilots apparently obeyed protocol — they observed the situation, asked and received permission from their commanders to engage the targets and did not fire on an injured target until they thought they perceived that he was reaching for a weapon. Military officials claim that the pilots were not in the wrong for firing on the journalists, as they believed that the Reuters employees were insurgents reaching for their weapons and claimed that the journalists did nothing to indicate their credentials.

The video, however, gives a strong indication that the pilots were not hesitant to fire on the group; at one point, they expressed impatience at not being able to shoot at unarmed men who were picking up the wounded. Later, after wounding the children, one of the pilots said, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.” This casual attitude about harming civilians who did not display violence toward the pilots is extremely alarming. The American military in Iraq investigated the situation, but has of yet decided not to pursue any disciplinary action.

Perhaps the most troubling issue regarding the video stems from how the Army has handled the issue. Reuters’ Freedom of Information Act appeals to make the video public were denied, and the Army attempted to suppress efforts to publicize its contents. A military spokesperson even went as far as to lie about the engagement, stating in 2007 that the U.S. combatants were responding to hostile action, even though the video reveals they were never fired upon.

This lack of an interest in making the information public as well as a failure to respond appropriately to the incident on the part of the military is disturbing. If the Army suppressed this video — one which shows irresponsible action by its members and casts doubt on the words of one of its spokespeople — the question of whether it takes similar steps to conceal from the public additional information that casts military action in a negative light must be raised. Confusion and deadly mistakes are, tragically, inevitable in war, but if they occur, there should not be an attempt to cover them up, and appropriate action against the perpetrators should be taken.

LORRAYNE SHEN

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Alex Prewitt Executive Sports Editor Sapna Bansil Sports Editors Evan Cooper Jeremy Greenhouse David Heck Ethan Landy Daniel Rathman Michael Spera Lauren Flament Assistant Sports Editors Claire Kemp Ben Kochman James Choca Executive Photo Editor Josh Berlinger Photo Editors Kristen Collins Danai Macridi Tien Tien Virginia Bledsoe Assistant Photo Editors Jodi Bosin Alex Dennett Dilys Ong Scott Tingley Anne Wermiel Mick B. Krever Executive New Media Editor

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OFF THE HILL | OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

April showers bring hemp flowers

BY SCOTT

D’AMICO

The Daily O’Collegian

The calendar has turned to April, which just happens to be the same month for American’s most celebrated underground holiday, 4/20. On April 20, any stoner will get high, and those who went before them will fondly recall the days of their stoner glory. The holiday represents a unified act of civil disobedience. But, it doesn’t always have to.

Our country’s attitude toward marijuana would be humorously absurd if it were fictitious. Unfortunately, it’s horribly sad. Along with other drugs like LSD, ecstasy and heroin, the Controlled Substances Act considers marijuana a Schedule I substance. Despite what fourteen other states have concluded, the federal government finds pot “as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.”

Heck, even Fox News doesn’t believe that. In fact, in early March, the most fair and balanced Web site in news published a story on its health blog that trumpeted

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.

the role cannabinoids played inside and outside the body in pain reduction. “As state and local laws mutate and change in favor of greater tolerance, perhaps cannabis will find its proper place in the home medicine chest,” the story concluded. Nevertheless, for recreational and some medicinal users, the consequences of getting caught with pot can range from a ticket to a felony. For those in college, a marijuana arrest can be even more damaging.

Take Oklahoma for example. Our state can revoke grants, fellowships, loans or other means of financial assistance authorized through the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education for those arrested for marijuana related crimes. Is this a great state or what?

There are only two setbacks to federal decriminalization. First, marijuana has long been considered a gateway drug, and statistically the numbers tend to back that up. For instance, the National Institute on Drug Abuse notes the risk of using cocaine is 104 times greater for those who have experimented with cannabis. Other studies show similar links to marijuana use and the use of harder drugs, according

to the Department of Justice.

But it’s not the drug’s side effects that are the problem; it’s the fact it has to be bought on the black market. Drug dealers usually don’t specialize; they’ll sell anything that gets them a buck. When people are forced into the black market for pot, they’re more at risk to being exposed to harder drugs.

The second thing standing in the way is the American public. A Gallup Poll from October of last year shows 44 percent of Americans want pot legalized, compared to 54 percent against. Compared to 40 years ago, public opinion for legalization has increased 32 percent. There’s little doubt the legalization camp will continue to grow.

Politically, there may never be a better time to legalize. The Democrats’ political fortunes in November are already cashed, so why not buck the American public again? The party could help end the senseless assault on a fairly benign drug, and simultaneously stimulate the economy by taxing it.

In reality, decriminalization or legalization federally this year is probably just a pipe dream. But within the next decade, openly celebrating 4/20 won’t be.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

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OP-ED

An indictment of the entire fraternity system BY

DANIEL WITTELS

For those of you who don’t know, the title of this piece is part of Otter’s famous speech in the classic comedy “Animal House” (1978). For those who have seen it, you’ll recognize that Otter is contesting his house’s punishment for the actions of “a few, sick, twisted, individuals.” Just like in “Animal House,” the fraternities at Tufts are being held to an unfair standard in the community. While strongly criticized by many members of the Tufts community — students and administration alike — the Greek community is also one of Tufts’ most valuable assets and is being judged unfairly by the community at large.

One of the chief issues among the Tufts fraternities is the continued criticism and special rules. As a member of a fraternity, I’ve heard every excuse in the book. Fraternities are believed to be misogynistic, promote sexual harassment of women, are biased against homosexuals and minorities and elitist. While I would love to address each of these arguments one by one, let me say that fraternities provide more than movies like “Animal House” or “Old School” (2003) would have you believe.

In fact, this semester alone, every fraternity on campus has agreed to engage in philanthropic endeavors for local charities in addition to each house’s normal philanthropic efforts, which include Haiti relief, the American Heart Association, the Jimmy V Foundation, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and many, many more.

One point that I find particularly irritating is the idea that fraternities are restrictive, especially during parties. Students are angry at the fact that they often are forced to wait at the door before entering, especially when they see other people admitted who arrived after them. To this point I have two responses. First of all, while many complain of long waits and supposedly discriminatory policies, students also complain of excessive heat, cramped space and long waits for access to bathrooms and refreshments. I assure you that not only is it nice to be able to move around once inside, but fraternities are also ever-worried about fire safety and regulations. Having a house that is too crowded is ample reason for the police to shut a party down, which means that no one gets to enjoy the party. Additionally, realize that many of the line-cutters are often members of the house, girlfriends of members or other invited guests. While fraternities attempt to be fair in admittance policies, those who are personally invited (or are paying dues to the house) should hold preference over random attendees. The same would be true at house parties if they were held to the same standard in terms of crowd control. This leads me to the focal point of this article: There is a severe doublestandard between fraternity parties and parties held at houses or on-campus residences.

I was on my way to a party this past weekend with a close friend of mine in a Latin Way apartment. When I arrived I was surprised to see dozens of partygoers idling in the street next to the apartment complex. While I have no problem with party guests exiting for a smoke or to get away from the noise, this is issue

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number one at fraternities. If there is ever a crowd hanging around outside, the cops are sure to take notice.

Think of any one of the fraternity parties you may have attended recently that was broken up prematurely. Chances are the cops broke up the party because of crowd control. It seems logical that if keeping guests off the sidewalk or street is important for fraternities, it should be equally important that other parties should follow the same rules and guidelines. I understand that Tufts isn’t necessarily liable for incidents that occur at parties that are held off campus, but certainly they would be forced to act if there was an incident in housing provided by the university, such as Latin Way. As I ventured up the stairs to enter the party, I noticed two men standing at the door. One had a permanent marker in his hand, a notorious staple that validates entry and subsequent alcohol service. The second, however, had an item I am not used to seeing at comparable fraternity parties. He held a pouch in his hand, in which he was collecting a $1 entrance fee.

I realize that a single dollar is certainly a reasonable cover charge for the consumption of subsequently free alcohol, but the issue is not the price of admission. City ordinances strictly forbid selling alcohol without a license, and regardless of what your thoughts are on cover charges such as this, the cities of Somerville and Medford certainly think cover charges equate to selling alcohol. In addition, Tufts also forbids the selling of alcohol without the acquisition of a valid license and nixes cover charges to “cover expenses.”

The policy goes so far as to compel the Tufts police to reject an idea for an interfraternity fundraiser, where all partygoers would have to pay admission to every fraternity party for a given weekend, with all proceeds going to charity. Furthermore, the presidents of Tufts’ fraternities have been warned against asking for any sort of charitable donation when alcohol is even present to avoid confusion with the law. If the administration feels like this is out of line, then certainly parties thrown by the average Jumbo should be held to

the same standard.

Finally, fraternities are forced to register parties well in advance of hosting such events. While this is a minor inconvenience, even the slightest mistake can lead to the early closing of a party. I know this happened this past weekend at one house, causing an abrupt end before the party even really started. While it isn’t necessarily prudent for every off-campus house to register a party whenever they host guests, the same issue arises at fraternities. If the total number of occupants exceeds roughly 50, the police have the right to come shut the party down. There are many houses on campus whose membership exceeds this number and therefore should hypothetically register a “dry party” every time they hold a meeting. Though I’ve thankfully never heard of a meeting being broken up, the flaw in Tufts policy is glaring.

Let me be perfectly clear: I do not advocate charging admission for any kind of party on campus, fraternitysponsored or otherwise. I similarly do not argue with the merits of registering parties or controlling the crowds that gather outside a house. However, I believe it is important to recognize the blatant oversight on everyone’s part when viewing the culture on campus and the fraternities’ role at Tufts.

Unfortunately, students, administrators and police officers continue to complain about the fraternity system at Tufts while ignoring the same issues at non-Greek gatherings.

Hopefully Tufts can continue to enjoy fraternity functions, parties or otherwise. Furthermore, I implore each of you reading to join me in changing the image surrounding fraternities on campus and exposing the double-standard that exists. Next time you see your favorite frat boy on campus, make sure to thank him for the great party he threw, as well as the fact that his house’s policies about crowd control and entrance are for your safety and enjoyment.

Daniel Wittels is a junior majoring in American studies and political science. He is president of the Theta Chi fraternity.

LET THE CAMPUS KNOW WHAT MATTERS TO YOU. The Op-Ed section of the Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. Submissions are welcome from all members of the Tufts community. We accept opinion articles on any aspect of campus life, as well as articles on national or international news. Opinion pieces should be between 600 and 1,200 words. Please send submissions, with a contact number, to oped@tuftsdaily.com. Feel free to e-mail us with any questions.

he Young Eagles seemed harmless enough — just an organization created by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to woo the next wave of conservative donors. Young Eagles membership was open to any individual younger than 45 and had only two stipulations: that the individual donate annually and that the donation meet a predetermined minimum value. Receiving donations from $2,500 for 21- to 25-year-olds to as high as $7,500 annually for 36- to 45-yearolds, the Young Eagles were a highly successful fundraising operation.

But what did one get for one’s several-thousand-dollar annual donation? One had the opportunity to participate in “national meetings, regional meetings, the annual Young Eagles Summit, and conference calls,” according to the Young Eagles’ Web site. Well, why join then — is that really worth the money?

Maybe for the deep-seated feelings of pride and patriotism felt when giving money to support a political ideological platform? Maybe for the feeling of supporting the political process in a meaningful way?

Or maybe for the West Hollywood lesbian bondage nightclub outings the Young Eagles held, subsidized by the RNC, at Voyeur, which describes itself on its Web site as “a destination for provocative revelry that combines eroticism and nightlife exclusivity.” Sounds like family values to me.

But the risqué outings weren’t the only costly trip the fundraising group embarked upon. With news of “bondage-gate” breaking last week came a flurry of RNC receipts for high-end Beverly Hills hotels and swanky Los Angeles restaurants and cocktail bars, all of which picked up the tab for Young Eagles outings.

Though GOP Chairman Michael Steele was not in attendance at any point during the $2,000 spending spree at Voyeur, responsibility for the event, as well as for the recent spate of hopelessly frivolous spending by the RNC on private planes, limousines, event catering and even designer flowers, has landed squarely on Steele’s narrow, awkwardly slumped shoulders. Many in the media have argued that bondage-gate reinforces to the American people that Republicans are out of touch and could care less about the average American, and that such a grave transgression will surely hurt the Republicans at the polls in November midterms.

What’s ironic about this entire spectacle, however, is that even though Republicans will certainly take a blow to their already tarnished image, they will not be the only ones to suffer. This type of incident affects all incumbents: Republicans or Democrats, radicals or moderates, many-term senators or freshman congressmen.

Midterm elections regularly bring about a fair amount of backlash to whichever party controls Congress, or at least the presidency, but this particular set of midterms in November promises to also showcase a rapidly growing anti-incumbent backlash. Phrased differently, it doesn’t particularly matter to a lot of voters with which party a candidate identifies, just whether or not they have been in office for the past few years.

Politicians caught frequenting strip clubs and wining and dining with socioeconomic and political elites in cosmopolitan bars only further reinforce the image so many Americans have of their politicians — of selfindulgent, hypocritical bureaucrats with only two concerns: to find the next major donor and to get re-elected.

Certainly Democrats will disagree with this assessment, but they cannot honestly claim that this sort of hedonistic spending is endemic to the Republican Party only, nor can Republicans claim this is the only incident of its kind to have ever happened to the RNC — this one just happened to make news. Realistically, well-seasoned politicos on both sides of the aisle must understand that bondage-gate will have political blowback for incumbents on both sides come November, regardless of which party’s operatives were caught reveling in eroticism and nightlife.

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.

THE TUFTS DAILY

10

COMICS

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

DOONESBURY

CROSSWORD

BY

NON SEQUITUR

GARRY TRUDEAU

BY

WILEY

TUESDAY’S SOLUTION

MARRIED TO THE SEA

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Dealing with slight hay fever

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Tuesday’s Solution

Ellen: “I’m not going near your crotch or your leg nook.”

Sapna: “It’s called a knee.”

Please recycle this Daily

THE TUFTS DAILY

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Event

Event

Chaplaincy CHAPLAIN`S TABLE - “A Look at Religions” MacPhie Conference Room/Dewick Dining Hall Thursday, 5-7 PM April 8, 2010 Rabbi Jeff Summit Jewish Chaplain “The Changing Face of Judaism Today”

Commencement What do you need to know?

COMMENCEMENT 2010 http://commencement.tufts.edu

Chaplaincy Noontime Concerts at Goddard Chapel April 8, 2010 - Thursday, 12:30 PM Leah Kosch, piano

11

SPORTS

Housing

Housing

Services

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McCarthy Self Storage 22 Harvard Street Medford, MA 02155.781-396-7724 Business Hours Mon-Fri 8am to 5pm Sat 9am to 2:45pm Sun 10am to 2:45pm Space available to students close to Tufts Univ. 5x5x3 $30.00, 5x5x8 $48.00, 5x8x8 $66.00, 5x10x8 $71.00, 5x12x8 $81.00 Please call for more information

$$ SPERM DONORS WANTED $$ Earn up to $1,200/month and give the gift of family through California Cryobank`s donor program.

Branch offices in Cambridge.

Apply online: SPERMBANK.com

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

Goalie José Theodore a rock between the pipes for Washington Capitals INSIDE THE NHL continued from page 16

round. Theodore was pulled after giving up four goals in game one, opening the door for rookie Semyon Varlamov, who had only played in six games that season. Varlamov shined and helped lift Washington to the Eastern Conference semifinals after seven tough games against the Rangers.

Unfortunately for the Caps, Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins marched right through Washington on the way to their third-ever Stanley Cup victory. More than revenge, the Capitals want the hardware they saw slip out of their hands a year ago.

Ovechkin’s Caps are 26-3-6 since early January, including an impressive 14-game winning streak during that stretch, giving the team some much-needed momentum heading into the postseason.

Furthermore, the Capitals will be looking for mid-season pickups Joe Corvo, Scott Walker and Jason Chimera to help lead the team deeper into playoffs this year. Corvo has been a sturdy addition to the Caps’ blueline, especially on their power-

MCT

With a team-leading 46 goals and 104 points on the season, the offensive prowess of captain Alexander Ovechkin could carry the Washington Capitals to their first-ever Stanley Cup victory.

FORMANDFUNCTION: TOPOLOGYASATOOL

play unit. Walker and Chimera have chipped in with some of the team’s dirty work, battling for loose pucks and throwing their weight around.

All in all, Washington has what it takes to win the Stanley Cup. Between the pipes, Theodore has shown that he’s ready to give his team a chance to win every game.

In the offensive zone, there’s no lack of talent. At center, the Capitals have one of the best playmakers in the league in Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom, who has a team-best 64 assists this season, will have to be a major factor for Caps in the postseason.

Alexander Semin has 38 goals this season, while defenseman Mike Green has now reached the 70-point plateau two seasons in a row, exemplifying the top-to-bottom skill of this club.

Ultimately, regular-season statistics and standings only mean so much come playoffs.

However, if this season has been any indication of Washington’s ability to completely dominate their opposition, Ovechkin and the Capitals have a great chance to capture the franchise’s firstever Stanley Cup.

SOPHOMORE LIBERAL ARTS STUDENTS

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Norbert Wiener Lectures

Registration for fall courses will be on Tuesday, April 20th

PROFESSOR ROBERT GHRIST Andrea Mitchell University Professor of Mathematics and Electrical/Systems Engineering University of Pennsylvania SENSOR SENSIBILITY : THE MATHEMATICS OF SENSOR NETWORKS

Monday, April 5

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

Braker Hall, Room 1 5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m.

Reception: Terrace Room UNDERGRADUATE SEMINAR

SHEAVES AND DATA

Tuesday, April 6

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

Bromfield-Pearson 101 5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m.

Reception: Bromfield-Pearson 117 James A. Clarkson Mathematics Conference Room COLLOQUIUM

CURRENT TRENDS IN APPLIED ALGEBRAIC TOPOLOGY

Wednesday, April 7

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m.

Robinson Hall, Room 253 5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m.

Reception: Anderson Hall, Room 206

All lectures are free and open to the public.

The Norbert Wiener Lectures are funded by an anonymous gift to the Department of Mathematics. Please visit us at http://math.tufts.edu.

All events are taking place on Tufts’ Medford/Somerville campus.

If you have not declared a major ( http://uss.tufts.edu/registrar/Forms/Major_Declaration_Change_Advisor.pdf )

OR

If you have not completed the sophomore survey (http://uss.tufts.edu/SurveySoLA.asp)

You have a HOLD put on your registration.

Take steps today to rectify this !

THE TUFTS DAILY

12

SPORTS

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The War on Kids “The War on Kids� is a documentary that reveals problems with the American public school system that result from the institutions themselves. The film exposes many ways in which the system has failed children and robbed students of many freedoms due largely to irrational fears that are manifested in prison-like security, arbitrary punishment, and pharmacological abuse. “The War on Kids� won Best Educational Documentary at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2009.

Discussion and Q&A with director Cevin Soling to follow Admission is Free! th

Wednesday April 7 at 7pm in Tufts Hillel

Presented by:

THE TUFTS DAILY

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

13

SPORTS

Crew teams hope to improve performances for weekend NESCAC races

Women’s B Division boat has two top-5 places at Brown

CREW

SAILING

continued from page 16

“The attitude of everyone working together towards success really helped this weekend despite our losses,” said junior Bianca Velayo, who rowed in the second varsity eight races.

“We proved that we are able to take our focus we’ve developed in practice and apply it in a race setting. We have the fundamentals; we just need to work on our race plan. These smaller meets give us a chance to see what we need to build off of and improve.”

In the novice races, however, the Jumbos broke the losing cycle with banner performances from some of the team’s youngest competitors.

Comprised of all first-year rowers, the novice eight boats swept their races against Mount Holyoke and the University of Vermont (UVM) Catamounts with margins of victory of 17 and 20 seconds, respectively.

In similar fashion, the second novice eight boats left the Lyons and Catamounts well behind with 23- and eight-second leads, respectively, at the finish line. In all, the strength and speed of the novice squads should bode well for the future of women’s crew.

“The first and second boats of the novice squad are mixed with both experienced and non-experienced freshmen, and I think they put together a really fast first boat,” Velayo said. “They should have a really great season; they have a good group dynamic and a lot of power ... Watching them race was nice; they killed the competition, and it was good for the team.”

“We only have a couple of seniors on the team, so those novice rowers should be on

the varsity level next year,” Steward added. “They totally crushed Mount Holyoke and Vermont — they were several boat lengths ahead and it was really fun to watch.”

As the crew team ushers in a new season, the squad also welcomes a new head coach, Brian Dawe. Dawe, who previously coached at Williams and Wesleyan, brings a strong commitment to precision and refinement to the Tufts program.

“Our new coach has been really great; everyone has responded well to him,” Velayo said. “He’s a technique-oriented coach, and that’s why everyone is so much more concerned with precision and accuracy and moving together. Our practices have been structured with a purpose to improve certain areas of our rowing, and it’s nice to know that everything is in place to try and make us better.”

As the Jumbos prepare for the first NESCAC races of the season against Wesleyan, Bates and non-conference Wellesley this Saturday, the Jumbos hope to use their strength in an efficient manner to improve their speed and secure more favorable outcomes.

“This weekend, most of our focus is on efficiency,” Velayo said. “We spent the winter building strength and now we need to translate that into working together to build speed to win more important races as we get closer to ECACs and New Englands.”

In the men’s varsity four races against UVM, the Jumbos had a strong start, but couldn’t sustain their effort in the last leg of the race, trailing by 20 seconds in the varsity fours and eight seconds in the second varsity race. A strong

Catamounts showing put into perspective the work left to be done for the men’s squad as higher stakes races come into focus in the coming weeks.

“UVM is a pretty strong program,” Tufts junior co-captain Daniel Ambrozavitch said. “We did pretty well in the first 1,000 meters but in the second 1,000 meters it showed; we have a little ways to go with our training …. We’ve battled through a couple injuries and illnesses at the end of winter training.

So we’re working through that and trying to get up to speed.”

In the novice races, the Tufts squad faced similar losses, with the novice four Catamounts pulling ahead with a 21-second lead over the novice four Jumbos and a 29-second advantage over the novice eight boats. A high turnover rate of underclassmen between last fall and this spring has hampered the novice squads’ progress and ability to find its rhythm.

“It’s been a learning process for the younger guys,” Ambrozavitch said. “They’re just starting to pull it together … We didn’t have a great turnaround with rowers sticking with it from the fall to the spring, but for those who did stay with us, everything is falling into place.”

Facing NESCAC opponents Wesleyan and Bates, as well as the University of New Hampshire, this Saturday the Tufts squad will focus on combining efficiency and power for stronger finishes in future races.

“We’re looking to just increase our flexibility to stay strong in the second half of our race,” Ambrozavitch said. We need to apply power together, and make sure we’re getting the most out of our strokes.”

` SCHEDULE | April 7 - April 13 WED

THU

Baseball

Softball

Bridgewater St. (2) 3:30 p.m.

FRI

SAT

vs. Colby 3 p.m.

vs. Colby (2) 12 p.m.

at Bates 4:30 p.m.

at Bates (2) 12 p.m.

SUN

MON

at Wheaton vs. Western Conn.

vs. Trinity 1 p.m.

Men's Lacrosse

Women’s Lacrosse

at Trinity 12 p.m.

Men's Track & Field

Last Second Multi 12 p.m.

George Davis Invitational TBA

Women’s Track & Field

Last Second Multi 12 p.m.

George Davis Invitational TBA

TUE

at WNEC 7 p.m.

continued from page 16

Dartmouth, Eckerd and Northwestern. Additionally, the Jumbos garnered five wins in nine races in the first round, including wins against host Roger Williams and the University of Rhode Island.

The majority of the experienced members of the sailing team raced at Roger Williams this past weekend, including senior skipper Tomas Hornos, senior crew Rachael Brill, senior co-captains Andrew Criezis and Jen Watkins, sophomore skipper Nicolas Russo-Larsson and junior crew Roisin Magee.

But with their captains racing in Rhode Island, the young members of the squad took the opportunity to garner valuable experience at the Mystic Lake Invitational on the Jumbos’ home waters. The clear skies and soft winds, in addition to new sails that the Jumbos had the benefit of racing with in practice, proved friendly for Tufts, as the top three pairings all finished in the top five overall, including the Tufts “1A” boat that took home firstplace honors.

Racing in the top boat were freshmen Will Hutchings and Amelia Quinn, who captured a meet-best 26 points thanks to a pair of winning finishes in the third-to-last and penultimate races, as well as four additional top-three showings. Sophomores Will Pelleteri and Ruth Summers, racing as the “1B” boat, combined with Hutchings and Quinn to give Tufts 1 a meet-best 80 total points. Pelleteri and Summers finished fifth overall, winning the fourth race and finishing outside the top 10 only once.

“It was a small regatta so it wasn’t a shock, but it’s definitely a good feeling,” Summers said. “It helps our confidence to have everyone do well and it’s also nice to see that we’re performing in our own event at home. It was a nice little confidence booster to the start of the season.”

Senior Sid Richardson and sophomore Artemis Sapountzi, racing as the Tufts “3A” boat, placed second, seven points behind Hutchings and Quinn.

Richardson and Sapountzi, despite an impressive four firstplace showings, were ultimately done in by two 10th-place finishes. Right behind them was the “2A” boat of freshman Max Bulger and sophomore Adam Weisman, who put together a string of three straight runnerup finishes toward the end of the regatta to take home third place with 40 points.

With just one boat outside the top 10 overall standings, the Jumbos placed their first team as the overall meet winner, their second team in third place and

their third squad in fifth.

“At these small regattas you see what you need to do better, so we just worked a lot on logistics and it went really well,” Summers said. “Afterward, we talked about what went well and how our timing needs to be better. I think for everyone else, it’s important for every little pair to keep sailing together well. If your timing is off, you get that sense, so it’s nice to win a regatta and know you did something right, but it’s also good to look back and see what you need to improve on.”

On Saturday and Sunday, the women’s sailing team took home 13th place at an 18-team Dellenbaugh Intersectional regatta at Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston, R.I, 20 points behind Old Dominion and nine ahead of South Florida.

With two boats entered, the A-Division unit finished 13th with a 161-point showing, while the B-Division boat placed 12th, just one point short of taking over 11th place from Eckerd College.

“I think it was some tough conditions, we had everything from really super windy to 20 plus knots to pretty light air, so it was a lot of transitioning, up and down throughout the weekend,” senior captain Meghan Pesch said. “It took us a little while to get adjusted once the wind settled down. When it got windier we switched off, so we tried to keep an optimum weight for the boat.”

Junior Catherine Swanson skippered all 14 races for Tufts in the A Division, securing five top-10 finishes, including a regatta-best fifth place in the fifth and 12th races. She teamed up with classmates Sarah Carnahan, Pesch and sophomore Katie Booras to net 161 total points.

The B-Division boat, skippered by senior Peggy Tautz and crewed by a combination of juniors Margaret Rew and Pesch, sped to a fourth-place showing in the second race of the day and then to third in the sixth race. Out of 18 teams, the B-Division Jumbos were worse than 13th just three times.

The women return to action next this weekend at the President’s Trophy at Roger Williams, while the co-ed squad will endure another splitsquad weekend, dividing up between the Marchiando & Friis Trophies on Mystic Lake and the Admiral Alymers Trophy at Mass. Maritime.

“Our first weekend was a better indication when we won the Boston Dinghy Cup, and it shows this weekend in that we didn’t have our best performance,” Pesch said. “But it gave us a little time to rest up and hopefully we’ll be able to do well next weekend.”

Red Sox’s strong bullpen performed well enough to get win on opening day INSIDE MLB continued from page 15

from pitchers who rely on the fastball or the occasional breaking pitches.

With Wakefield, hitters must take a different approach than they would every other night. Sometimes the ball isn’t moving that night, and he gets tagged for seven earned runs in two innings. Other nights, hitters can’t touch him, and he can give the Sox a solid eight innings. Wakefield made his first all-star game in 2009 — deservedly so. He played consistently in the first half of 2009 and logged 10 wins before the break.

Daisuke Matsuzaka was a waste of money for the Red Sox. They were

expecting an ace from Japan but instead got a mediocre bottom-of-the-rotation type. Dice-K uses so many pitches in each at bat that he reaches his pitch limit around the fifth inning, hurting the team by forcing the bullpen to log more innings and consequently not be as well-rested for the next night.

Matsuzaka is starting the year on the DL, but he will be on the mound soon enough. If he does poorly in 2010, it will simply reinforce everything that Boston fans have been saying about him since he got there. However, it is possible that he could have a breakout year. Matsuzaka is a head case who can seem to work out any jam.

With extended preparation time this

offseason, he could pitch some good innings.

One should not expect much from him while never underestimating how good a head case can suddenly be. He is a sort of ace in the back pocket of the Sox, unless he ends up be being a joker, of course.

The Red Sox will have a deep rotation this season to say the least. However, the Yankees have great pitching and a stronger lineup as well. Odds are, it will come down to a late-season battle between the two. The Red Sox may not be constructed to win more games than the Yankees, but they are made to be able to beat New York in the sevengame series.

On Sunday’s opening night, the Red Sox defeated New York 9-7, doing it in the exact fashion they will need to if they are going to win in October.

Selective Red Sox batters got CC Sabathia’s pitch count high and forced the Yankees to turn to their rather weak bullpen earlier rather than later. And the Red Sox bullpen performed well enough to maintain the lead.

This is the last part of the pitching equation that people often overlook. Home runs make highlight reels.

Quality starting pitching can put people in seats. However, games often come down to a consistent and well-rested bullpen. The Red Sox will have strong pitching for all nine innings in 2010.

14

THE TUFTS DAILY

SPORTS

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Want the most current campus news?

I wish I knew who won that women’s basketball game last night! And how active are Jumbos in the ROTC?

Follow us on Twitter! To stay in the know, follow @TuftsDaily and @TuftsDailySport

Leap into Spring!

Get a fresh start after break by volunteering with one of the Leonard Carmichael Society’s one-time volunteer opportunities on campus!

Ways you can get involved:

April 5-9th Donate to the Coin Drive and buy a T-Shirt at the campus center. All proceeds go to the Medford Boys and Girls Club April 10th April 6-8th Help out with Kids’ Day Donate blood at the Blood Drive

THE TUFTS DAILY

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

15

SPORTS

INSIDE MLB

ETHAN LANDY | CALL ME JUNIOR

Bye bye birdie

I

MCT

If he can perform to his potential, Daisuke Matsuzaka could be the factor that gives the Red Sox the edge over an equally deep Yankees rotation.

With Lackey aboard, Sox stress run prevention Team’s fate in loaded AL East will depend on its defense, pitching

BY SAM O’REILLY Senior Staff Writer

The Boston Red Sox will be boring in 2010. There is no other way to put it.

In the offseason, the Sox front office went out and invested in pitching and defense. Therefore, run prevention will be the name of the game for Boston this upcoming season. And the days of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both bopping 40 home runs are long gone.

The Red Sox lineup is undeniably weaker than that of the menacing New York Yankees. Boston, however, has made a strong statement in the offseason that it wants to win now. Free agent signings of a number of older players show a movement to more of an emphasis on defense.

It’s a way of playing that may not lead Boston to the most wins in the

AL East but could spell victory in October. The money is in the arms, and although the Red Sox lineup isn’t anything special, exceptional pitching can lead a team to a championship.

The Sox have one of the most cohesive rotations in recent history. In the offseason, they signed right-hander John Lackey for five years at $82.5 million. Lackey, who could be an ace in almost any major league rotation, will hold down the third slot in Boston.

Number two in the rotation is lefty Jon Lester who has come into his own over the last three seasons and very well could have a breakout, Cy Young-type year. And ahead of them both is the hard-throwing Josh Beckett who just got inked to a four-year, $68 million contract. All three pitchers are primetime number one-type guys. It is rare for any team to have two aces at the same time. The Sox have three.

The bottom of the rotation is pretty strong when compared to those of other teams. The Red Sox will begin the season with 25-year-old Clay Buchholz in the fourth spot. After being rattled in 2008, Buchholz displayed newfound poise at the end of 2009. He was in line to win game three of the 2009 ALDS before Jonathan Papelbon blew a tworun, ninth-inning lead. All signs point up with Buchholz, who will continue to slowly evolve into the solid No. 2 guy he should be in the near future.

Veteran knuckleballer Tim Wakefield is back for another season with Boston and will log crucial innings at the beginning of the year. His contributions cannot be overstated, particularly as his knuckleball is so rare in the modern game in which hitters go out and see the same stuff every night see INSIDE MLB, page 13

DAILY DIGITS

Different quarterbacks who have started a game for the Washington Redskins during Donovon McNabb’s 11-year tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles. The Redskins traded their second-round pick in this month’s draft, and either a third- or fourth-rounder next year, for McNabb, who has one year left on the $115 million contract he signed with the Eagles in 2002. McNabb led the Eagles to five NFC Championship games and one Super Bowl appearance. This season, he will face his former team as a division rival.

138’10” Distance, in feet and inches, that freshman Kelly Allen hurled a discus at the Snowflake Classic on the Ellis Oval this past Saturday, earning her a spot in the NCAA Outdoor Nationals meet later in the year and the NESCAC Performer of the Week award. Her distance, currently ranked fourth in the country, was good enough to break the old Tufts record of 135’3”, set in 1990. Allen won the discus on Saturday, also taking first in the shot put.

1 Tries senior Jesse Faller needed in his career to qualify for nationals in the 10,000-meter run. At the Sam Howell meet last Friday in Princeton, NJ, Faller posted a 30:13.97 time in his first ever 10K run competition, finishing second out of 22 competitors and more than five seconds better than the automatic national qualifying mark of 30:20.20. Faller will look to perform well on the national stage at the Div. III Championships in late May at Baldwin-Wallace College.

.03 Percent of brackets on ESPN.com that had Duke taking on Butler in the championship game. Of the 4.8 million entered brackets on the website, just 1,430 correctly predicted the national final, in which Duke withstood a late charge by the Bulldogs and their star player, Gordon Hayward, to win 52-50.

Kyle Singler was named the MVP of the Final Four as coach Mike Krzyzewski added another national championship to his already lengthy legacy at the North Carolina school.

16

10

5 Combined hits from new Boston Red Sox Mike Cameron, Marco Scutaro and Adrian Beltre, all prized defensive performers, in the Sox’s 9-7 victory over the Yankees in Sunday’s home opener. The Red Sox brass made it an offseason goal to acquire stronger defensive players to promote “run prevention,” but on Sunday, the defensive trio showed that they can put up serious numbers on offense as well.

9 Consecutive home games for the baseball team, after starting off the season with 12 consecutive road slates.

Compiling a 10-2 record to open the season, the Jumbos now return to Huskins Field for two three-game NESCAC series as well as a doubleheader versus UMass Dartmouth. For a squad that is hitting .324 on the year, including four players who are hitting over .400, returning home could keep the hot start to the year alive.

t takes a lot of guts to get rid of your starting quarterback. It takes even more to do it when he was in the Pro Bowl last season. What, you thought I was going to talk about Marc Bulger?

No, this is about Donovan McNabb.

The Philadelphia Eagles finally cut the cord with their franchise player after 11 years in green and white, and not a moment too soon for the ever-patient Philly faithful, though I am sure that Eagles fans are none-too-pleased with the fact that McNabb will be staying in the division and wearing a Redskins uniform next season.

It was a relationship that was doomed from the start. When Philadelphia drafted McNabb in 1999 with the second overall pick, the Eagles faithful booed the pick. (Unless they were shouting Boo-urns. That would make sense, too.) Why? The Philly fans wanted to draft Ricky Williams. You would have thought they were getting Mac or Dennis from the “Invincible” (2007) episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” instead of the best offensive player in the Big East.

All McNabb did in his tenure with the Eagles was lead the team to the playoffs every year in which he was healthy, outside of his rookie season, when he did not start until November.

He helped the Eagles make the NFC Championship five times and the Super Bowl once as he grew into one of the league’s stars. And to think, he was taken after Tim Couch.

But all that was not enough for the Eagles. The lack of a championship — and certainly instances such as the infamous “vomit-gate,” or whatever you want to call it, from Super Bowl XXXIX — haunted him, as did his 9-7 playoff mark. The abysmal showing from the Philadelphia offense in a wildcard showdown with the rival Dallas Cowboys in January certainly did not help. In the end, the fans and the team embraced their inner Obama and felt it was time for a change. The easiest way to do that, of course, is to get rid of the face of the franchise, particularly when there’s a replacement waiting in the wings.

But I am here to share with you a lesson I learned when I was a kid from the “Goosebumps” books: Be careful what you wish for. You know, because it might just come true. It was obvious in 2007 that this day was coming when Kevin Kolb was drafted in the second round of the draft. But now that it is here, Eagles fans are going to be sorry they don’t have McNabb around.

Say what you want about his failures, but in a league in which the likes of Keith Null and Ryan Fitzpatrick actually started multiple games last season, you can’t say that a quarterback isn’t at a premium. Everyone knows you need a good QB to be successful in the NFL; it is why Sam Bradford is probably going to be the top pick in the draft to the St. Louis Rams. Having a player like McNabb is a luxury because you don’t have a question mark at the most important position on the field. When he is on, McNabb is as good as any signal caller in the game.

That is not to say that Kolb won’t play well now that he has a shot. I will even buy that a shakeup was needed in Philly. But does anyone really expect Kolb, who has just two starts under his belt, to lead this team to a Super Bowl anytime soon? You are sacrificing a shot to contend for the next few years. I mean, how often does a team make the playoffs like clockwork? Most teams would kill for that kind of success. The Eagles? They are giving it away.

So enjoy the Kolb era, Eagles fans.

But if Philly is not in the playoffs next year, you won’t have McNabb to blame this time around.

Ethan Landy is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at ethan.landy@ tufts.edu.

Sports

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INSIDE Inside MLB 15 Daily Digits 15 Call Me Junior 15

tuftsdaily.com

CREW

Men’s and women’s squads suffer losses during season-opener Hosting Simmons, Mount Holyoke and UVM on Malden River, Tufts falls short of expectations BY

MICHAEL SPERA

Daily Editorial Board

Kicking off the 2010 crew season on Saturday at home on the Malden River, both the men’s and women’s crew teams fell short of expectations to secure more desirable outcomes in their matches against competitors Simmons, Mount Holyoke and the University of Vermont.

For the women’s squad, the competition proved to be a mixed bag for the varsity boats, while the novice boats delivered better results against their opposition. In the varsity eight race, commanded by senior captain Kate Woodard; juniors Alison Hodgkin, Barbara Franco, Catherine Bowlus, Rachel Steward and Kaylee Maykranz; and sophomores Kathleen Holec and Margaret Debski, the Tufts squad fell to the Mount Holyoke Lyons for the second straight year. The Jumbos finished at 7:02.93, losing by an 11-second margin.

Against Simmons, the Jumbos found victory to be just out of their reach, losing to the Sharks by a five-second margin. Nevertheless, the Tufts squad takes pride in its hard work leading up to the first event of the season and hopes that its strategy will fall into place, as its drive to succeed has already begun to show.

“Both of our races were very similar times, and they were pretty fast times, but Simmons and Mount Holyoke were just faster,” Steward said. “We’ve only been rowing in our boat for about

DAILY FILE PHOTO

If this weekend was any indication, the future is bright for the women’s crew team, as their novice boats swept their races in the season-opener. three days, so we were pleased with our times. It was a good starting point for our season, and we’re just working on becoming faster.”

In the second varsity eight, the rowers

faced similar challenges in reconciling the progress they’ve made with the progress they still need to make as the season rolls on. In their two races, the second varsity eight squad was outpaced by the

SAILING

Lyons by just five seconds, while the Sharks held onto a seven-second lead to secure victory. see CREW, page 13

INSIDE THE NHL

Capitals powering strong through season Ovechkin’s crew poised for long run BY

ADAM PARDES

Senior Staff Writer

COURTESY KEN LEGLER

With the co-ed squad split between two meets over the weekend, the Jumbos brought home a slew of strong results, and the young sailors were given a chance to shine as their captains were on the road.

Co-ed team takes first at home on Mystic Lake, fifth at Roger Williams Women’s team captures 13th spot at Brown BY

ALEX PREWITT

Daily Editorial Board

With members of the co-ed sailing team split up this weekend between home and road races at the Ferrarone Team Race Inter-sectional and the Mystic Lake Invitational/ Central Series Three, the lack of a full roster failed to deter the Jumbos from capturing one of

their best finishes of the young spring season.

At Ferrarone, hosted by Roger Williams University, Tufts placed fifth out of 10 teams, narrowly missing out on qualifying for the final four, all of which would advance to the final round of competition.

Racing in a round-robin format, the Jumbos fell victim in a head-to-head sail-off for the

fourth and final playoff spot versus the host Hawks, eventually going on to take down Brown in a battle for fifth place.

Tufts was forced into the sail-off thanks to nine wins during the two rounds of head-to-head sailing, including four victories in the second round against Charleston, see SAILING, page 13

With the race for the Stanley Cup officially beginning in less than a week, no team is more excited to start the postseason than first-overall seed Washington Capitals.

The Capitals, who have already clinched their firstever Presidents’ Trophy for most points during the regular season, are the clear-cut favorite to win it all after their best year in franchise history. Even aside from the team’s success, Russian phenom Alexander Ovechkin has proven yet again why he is the most offensively-talented player in the league.

Ovechkin’s 46 goals and 104 points make him a contender for his second Art Ross Trophy for most points, third Hart Trophy for league MVP and third “Rocket” Richard Trophy for most goals. After trading away captain Chris Clark to the Columbus Blue Jackets early in the season, coach Bruce Boudreau and his staff decided to name Ovechkin as the team’s new captain, presenting the superstar with a laundry list of new responsibilities.

Despite his numerous achievements, Ovechkin was less than proud to receive his first-ever suspension just a month into the 2009-10 season. The league’s disciplinary actions resulted from a knee-to-knee collision with

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Tim Gleason. Ovechkin was suspended again in midMarch for sending Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brian Campbell tumbling into the boards. Campbell, whose back was turned on the play, suffered a fractured clavicle and fractured rib that ended his season.

The Capitals — even with Ovechkin out of the lineup — have dominated the score sheet all season, leading the league with 299 goals, almost 50 tallies better than the closest team. On the back end, Washington ranked 17th in the NHL, giving up an average of 2.77 goals per game.

While the case could be made that the Caps need to tighten up defensively to succeed in the playoffs, the odds are still considerably on their side when their team averages just under four goals a game.

Washington’s top goaltender, José Theodore, has not lost a game in regulation in 84 days. The veteran’s 18-0-3 record since January 12 has greatly helped the Capitals run to the postseason. Despite two shaky performances last week against the Calgary Flames and Ottawa Senators, Theodore is expected to start between the pipes for Washington for the duration of the playoffs.

In last year’s playoffs, the Capitals faced off against the New York Rangers in the first see INSIDE THE NHL, page 11