2010-09-21

THE TUFTS DAILY

Sunny 71/57

TUFTSDAILY.COM

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

VOLUME LX, NUMBER 8

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

‘Most dangerous’ ranking draws ire BY

MICHAEL DEL MORO Daily Editorial Board

JODI BOSIN/TUFTS DAILY

The 13 freshmen candidates for the Tufts Community Union Senate introduced themselves at a public forum last night.

Freshman Senate candidates share ideas at Hotung forum BY

BRENT YARNELL

Daily Editorial Board

In advance of Wednesday’s election, 13 freshmen last night made their pitches to represent the Class of 2014 in the Tufts Community Union ( TCU) Senate in Hotung Café.

Lia Weintraub, Andrew Hunter, John Asare, Josh Youner, Jesse Wang, Joe Thibodeau, Christie Maciejewski, Chris Ghabdan, Sofia Shield, Allie Can Lei, Joe Donenfeld, Patrick Bressette and Laura Lasko are each seeking one of the seven Senate seats allocated to the freshman class.

With less than a month of campus life under their belts, many of the candidates have already generated ideas to improve Tufts.

Several candidates said that improving common rooms in the dorms and installing hand dryers in dorm bathrooms were worthy projects to pursue.

Candidates also cited improving communication between the administration, the Senate and the student body as an important objective.

The candidates delivered opening statements and answered questions from Tufts Elections Commission (ECOM) or from the audience.

TCU Vice President Tomas

Valdes, a senior, said that he is excited by this year’s array of candidates. “I am really motivated by their energy and can’t wait to have those seven seats filled,” Valdes said.

Freshman Jacob Wessel, who attended the event, said the forum was a good introduction to the candidates’ leadership styles.

“You could tell which ones were being more upfront than others,” Wessel said. “You could get a feel for the person.”

The candidates spoke to an engaged Hotung crowd of more than 30 students. “The turnout was great,” Valdes said. “I was really happy to see so many

A new listing last week ranked Tufts as the most dangerous campus in the nation, beating out 457 other institutions. University administrators have disputed the label, calling the ranking “extremely inaccurate” and “based on flawed methodology.”

The Daily Beast on Sept. 14 published its second annual survey of the country’s most dangerous schools, a listing based on data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, FBI and Secret Service. The numbers are based on incidents reported to campus or local police, according to the news website.

The National Center for Education Statistics, the federal body that collects education data, groups Tufts’ Medford/Somerville and Boston campuses as one entity even though the Medford/ Somerville campus is located miles from Boston. The Daily Beast followed the center’s delineation.

The rankings covered colleges

with more than 6,000 enrolled students and residential facilities. The Daily Beast aggregated data from 2006 to 2008, the most recent years available.

The report said that 36 forcible rapes, 100 robberies, 119 aggravated assaults, 174 burglaries, 49 car thefts and one arson occurred at Tufts in those years.

As the rankings generated much local media coverage, university administrators decried what they called an incomprehensive and uneven methodology the website used to determine campus crime rates.

“In terms of the rankings, no, we certainly don’t think that they actually represent the situation with regard to safety at Tufts. I don’t know anyone who seriously believes that Tufts is the most dangerous campus in the country,” Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler said.

The Department of Education’s crime statistics are not uniform, Thurler said, because some institusee DANGEROUS, page 2

AALOK KANANI/TUFTS DAILY

see FORUM, page 2

An emergency call box forms part of Tufts’ public-safety apparatus.

Community representative ballot questions take center stage Referendum 3 extends full voting rights BY

BRENT YARNELL

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts students starting at midnight will vote on proposed reforms to the Tufts Community Union ( TCU) Senate’s community representative position that is intended to ensure adequate representation of minority’s concerns on the body.

One of these proposals is Referendum 3, which grants community representatives the right to vote on all questions put before the Senate, including those concerning the disbursement of the Student Activities Fee. Dissenting members of the Diversity Task Force that was convened to study the issue — seniors Chartise Clark, Nadia Nibbs and Carolina Ramirez — authored the Community Empowerment and Equality Model (CEE), which grants community representatives more influence and has become known as Referendum 3. In

contrast, the task force’s proposal, now known as Referendum 4, does not grant community representatives full voting rights.

Currently, community representatives represent minority communities on the Senate and can vote on all questions except those concerning fiscal matters. Four TCU groups — the Asian Students Union, the Association of Latin American Students, the Pan-African Alliance and the Queer Straight Alliance — currently have the right to elect community representatives.

Both proposals would shift the responsibility of selecting community representatives away from the four existing student groups and to the four culture centers — the Africana Center, the Asian American Center, the Latino Center and the LGBT Center — and other potential groups.

Senior Matthew Kincaid, who helped author CEE, said the existence see THREE, page 2

Inside this issue

Referendum 4 witholds some privileges BY

MATT REPKA

Daily Editorial Board

The second of the two ballot questions, Referendum 4, makes fewer changes to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate’s existing community representative position.

Referendum 4 is the product of last semester’s Diversity Task Force, convened by then-TCU President Brandon Rattiner (LA ’10). It makes changes to the community representatives’ role but does not extend full voting power to them, the largest factor distinguishing it from Referendum 3.

Under the existing system, four constituencies have community representatives in the Senate: the Association of Latin American Students, the Asian Students Union, the Pan-African Alliance and the Queer Straight Alliance.

Under both new proposals, any TCUrecognized group can collect 250 signatures and request to be granted a community representative in a school-wide vote.

Under Referendum 4, the community representatives’ own groups, rather than the entire student body, elect them to the Senate.

Like Referendum 3, Referendum 4 calls for the establishment of a diversity and community affairs (DCA) officer position — a full voting member of the Senate who will chair the Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs Committee. But unlike under Referendum 3, the DCA role would be filled by an appointee chosen by the community representatives instead of an elected senator.

The largest difference between the two referenda is their position on granting community representatives voting rights on financial issues. Under the current Senate bylaws, community representatives can vote in the Senate except on matters concerning the disbursement of the Student Activities Fee. Referendum 3 would extend fiscal voting rights to community representatives, while Referendum 4 would not.

Junior Aaron Bartel, a former senator see FOUR, page 2

Today’s Sections

Gargoyles Executive Chef Jason Santos recounts ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ experience.

Photography exhibit provokes thought on immigration issues.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts | Living Comics

1 3 5 7

Editorial | Letters Op-Ed Classifieds Sports

8 9 10 Back

THE TUFTS DAILY

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Panel presents comm. rep reforms FORUM continued from page 1

freshmen interested in what the candidates had to say.”

“The candidates were very articulate, very clear in their ideas for the student body,” freshman Kwame Firempong, another forum attendee, said.

A panel discussion on the community representatives referenda, which will also be voted on Wednesday, followed the candidates forum.

Two panelists introduced each proposition and answered questions from the audience.

Charles Skold and Senator Nadia Nibbs, both seniors, spoke for Referendum 3, and senior Ian Hainline and sophomore Yulia Korovikov, both senators, spoke for Referendum 4. TCU Parliamentarian Dan Pasternack, a senior, answered clarifying questions about the implementation of both proposals.

Korovikov voiced concern that the broader population would not be sufficiently informed about the issues facing minority groups to elect community representatives. She was referring to Referendum 3’s proposal

that community representatives be elected through a school-wide vote.

“Centers like the Africana Center have very specified needs and the people that are involved there are very educated on those needs, and I’m very wary that a school-wide election wouldn’t reach the level necessary,” Korovikov said.

Nibbs disagreed, however, and said that the entire student body should be responsible for electing the community representatives because they handle issues that concern all students.

“Half of the student body doesn’t know where to fill out a bias incident report,” Nibbs said. “The community rep should provide that kind of information for every single student on campus.”

Pasternack said that both proposals would require making changes to TCU bylaws before they can be fully implemented.

“Those bylaws will be drafted in open meetings,” Pasternack said.

“Most likely they’ll be drafted by me, but with a lot of input from anybody who would want to contribute,” he added.

Tufts decries ‘most dangerous’ ranking DANGEROUS continued from page 1

tions, like Tufts, include local police reports in their crime tallies, while others do not.

“Obviously, if an institution has not included those statistics, their numbers were quite a bit lower than those who have it included,” Thurler said. “If you look at other institutions in the Boston area you’ll see some do and some don’t, and that’s something that The Daily Beast rankings don’t appear to take into account at all.”

The Daily Beast’s listing acknowledged that Tufts’ Boston campus was responsible for its high ranking. The publication declined requests for further comment.

ExecutiveVicePresidentPatriciaCampbell said in an e-mail to the Tufts community on Thursday that The Daily Beast’s methodology was “flawed” and that the report was “extremely inaccurate.”

“We want to be aware of what’s happening in the community around us — that’s important, too — but it doesn’t reflect our campuses,” Campbell told the Daily yesterday. “It’s a really important issue for us, and I think the ranking is unfortunate because it doesn’t reflect the safety of our campus and it’s misleading.”

Tufts’ 2009 crime statistics will exclude “extraneous geographical areas,” resulting in lower numbers, since the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) now has access to more precise information, Campbell said in her e-mail last week.

TUPD Sgt. Robert McCarthy agreed with Thurler that the inclusion of the Boston campus statistics unfairly affected the results of the report.

“Most of those crimes happened near the Boston campus, not here,” McCarthy said, referring to the Medford/Somerville campus. “I don’t think this is the most dangerous college campus in the country.”

McCarthy believes that students will not feel less safe as a result of the rankings.

“Tufts has a significant investment in technology and also in people to try and keep members of the Tufts community as safe as possible,” Thurler said, citing the fact that the university is one of only three in Massachusetts with an accredited campus police force.

“I think Tufts works very hard to try and

employ appropriate safety and security measures,” Thurler said.

Sophomore Mike Borys, a tour guide for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, said he fielded a question last week regarding the rankings while leading a tour.

“A father of a prospective student made an off-handed remark, saying, ‘I heard that Tufts was rated one of the most dangerous college campuses in the nation by some newspaper,’” Borys said.

Borys said he explained the rankings’ methodology and the effect of including the health sciences campus to his tour group. “I also told them that I personally have never felt unsafe on campus,” he said.

“Once I explained everything to my group, they all seemed much more at ease,” he said.

One student who was nearly robbed at gunpoint last year said he still feels safe at Tufts.

The student, a junior who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, called the rankings inaccurate. “I don’t really consider it to be an accurate statement. I’ve never felt threatened except for that one time,” he said.

“It seemed like a website that’s trying to propagandize itself,” the student added. “I feel there are many other schools around the country that I know of that are in much more economically depressed areas. …

There has to be other schools around the country, much larger schools that are more dangerous places.”

Harvard University ranked third in the rankings, behind Tufts and the secondplace University of Maryland, Baltimore.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology placed 14th.

Last year, The Daily Beast called Emerson the most dangerous college in the country.

Emerson officials at the time said the listing was misleading.

Campbell said the university is open to discussion about the rankings.

“We think our campuses are safe places, and it’s really important to us to keep them that way,” she said yesterday. “We’re happy to talk to people about safety, and we’re happy to take suggestions from people about ways to keep the campus safe.”

Amelie Hecht contributed reporting to this article.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

NEWS

Referendum 4 supporters warn against compromising electoral equality FOUR continued from page 1

and TCU treasurer, explained in an e-mail to the Daily that he fears this extension of voting rights would compromise the Senate’s impartiality in disbursing the activities fee by injecting community-specific biases into the process.

Senator Yulia Korovikov, a sophomore and chair of the Senate’s Administration and Policy (A&P) Committee, expressed strong support for Referendum 4.

“I don’t think that being in the majority means that you deserve less of a say in how you spend money on this campus,” Korovikov said, noting that many Senate projects affect the quality of student life universally, and not along racial or cultural boundaries.

“I can see why [marginalized communities] would want more of a voice, but I’m worried about giving unequal power to communities when in my mind it should be one student, one vote,” she said.

Sophomore Ard Ardalan, who served as a senator last year, expressed his support for Referendum 4, echoing Korovikov’s belief that granting full voting rights to community represents granted minorities a disproportionate share influence in the Senate’s voting.

Ardalan also expressed his belief that Referendum 4 struck a good balance between ensuring minority representation and maintaining an equitable system.

Korovikov and senior Ian Hainline, also a senator, presented Referendum 4 at a forum in Hotung Café last night.

As the two proposals undergo consideration, some senators expressed reluctance to voice their support for one proposal over another. Hainline stressed the importance of publicizing both proposals as his reason for presenting the referendum, rather than a personal attachment to the proposal.

“There’s a lot of confusion on this issue, and a lot of students who I think would be interested to hear both sides,” Hainline said. He declined to comment on his own personal preference.

Despite the Senate’s key role in crafting Referendum 4, this year’s Senate Executive Board is publicly neutral on the matter, TCU President Sam Wallis, a senior, said.

Wallis said this neutrality is due to the increased oversight role the Senate has played in the revote process.

“We’ve had to do a lot of things ECOM would normally do,” Wallis said. “Within the TCU, there is no one person who oversees the system as a whole.”

Wallis said that the Senate Executive Board is helping to coordinate among the different branches of the TCU over the course of the election.

“We agreed that Senate [Executive Board] would remain neutral so that both proposals can be presented in a neutral manner.”

Referendum 3 would grant community reps full voting rights on the Senate THREE continued from page 1

of the community representative position implies that minority groups are underrepresented on the Senate.

“To then turn around and say that you only have half of a vote sends a very negative message,” Kincaid said.

Under Referendum 3, the community representatives would have the right to vote on all Senate matters and the culture centers would select candidates from a pool of applicants; the student body would then choose among the final candidates in a campus-wide election.

Senior Charles Skold, who helped author Referendum 3, said a campuswide election would legitimize the community representative position and enable its holders to vote on fiscal matters.

“There’s an application process, so they’ll still represent their communities,” Skold said.

Skold also said the campus-wide election would give the student body a regular opportunity to consider the circumstances of minority communities on campus. “The election will open the diversity discussion to the whole campus,” Skold said.

Clark felt that this electoral procedure would lend greater legitimacy to community representatives “The main purpose is to get more representation for marginalized communities on campus and by sparking inter-community dialogue that is longterm,” Clark said. “The community reps are empowered because they have a lot more responsibility, as they are elected by the entire student body.”

Both referenda also create a Diversity and Community Affairs (DCA) Officer to manage diversity issues on campus.

Under Referendum 4, the DCA would be selected by a council consisting of the Senate’s Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs Committee, the Tufts Elections Commission and the TCU president. The DCA would then enjoy full senator voting rights. Under Referendum 3, the DCA position would be filled by an elected senator selected through the Senate’s in-house elections. This selection process would legitimize the DCA position, Skold said.

Kincaid said that since community representatives do not vote on fiscal matters under Referendum 4, the DCA would under that system effectively be expected to vote on behalf of the representatives.

“The idea that it’s a solution to have one person speak for multiple communities as if they’re all the same and have all the same voice is kind of absurd to me,” Kincaid said.

Ramirez agreed that Referendum 4’s system would be an oversimplification.

“With the DCA [under Referendum 4], we’re grouping all these groups together assuming that they all have one voice,” she said.

Kincaid said that under Referendum 3, the DCA would not have to represent four different viewpoints, allowing him or her more freedom.

Junior Jon Danzig, a member of the task force, raised a commonly voiced criticism of Referendum 3, namely that granting community representatives the right to vote on fiscal matters give some students more voting power than others. “[Referendum] 3 creates a two-tiered system in which certain students have more voting power based solely on their membership in a student group,” Danzig said.

Police Briefs DUDE, WHERE’S HOUSE?

MY

A resident of an off-campus house on Sept. 16 notified the Somerville Police Department that a Tufts student had left an iPhone and a wallet belonging to the student in the resident’s basement.

The Somerville police alerted Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) the following day. The student had been drinking the night before,

walked into the wrong house and left his items there. TUPD returned the student’s belongings.

KNOCK, KNOCK … WHO’S THERE? TUPD responded at 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 18 to reports of students smoking marijuana in Wren Hall.

The owner turned over a small amount of marijuana to TUPD officers when they arrived at his room.

BAD ROMANCE

STOLEN ‘GOODS’

TUPD officers at 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 18 assisted the Medford Police Department in a case of assault and battery after receiving a report that a man and woman were fighting on the corner of Edison Avenue and Capen Street. Neither individual was affiliated with Tufts.

TUPD received a report at 2:40 a.m. on Sept. 19 from a resident of Latin Way that a box containing herbal supplements was missing from his common room’s refrigerator.

Responding later to reports of a party in a different Latin Way suite, officers discovered the box, along with several empty plastic capsules and empty bottles of vodka, rum

and beer. All occupants of the suite were under 21. The incident will be investigated further, according to TUPD Sgt. Robert McCarthy.

HIGH HOLIDAYS TUPD officers at 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 19 found a group of students smoking marijuana next to the Granoff Family Hillel Center.

TUPD confiscated and disposed of the marijuana.

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

ISAAC FREEMAN | SEX. DAILY.

They don’t call us Jumbo for nothing!

I

TIEN TIEN/TUFTS DAILY

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ chef Jason Santos cooks up a storm in Davis Square’s Gargoyles.

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ runner-up and local chef reveals behind-the-scenes realities

BY JON

CHENG

Daily Editorial Board

As a preteen, Jason Santos would frequent his grandmother’s living room to watch Julia Child’s cooking shows all day long. As a teenager, he entered into the culinary world, making pizzas at a bowling alley. He enjoyed the job so much that, even then, he knew he wanted to be a chef.

About 20 years later, Santos achieved culinary stardom. Santos is now the executive chef of Gargoyles On the Square in Davis Square, but more famously, he also starred in the seventh season of Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” a cooking competition hosted by world-renowned restaurateur Gordon Ramsay. He made it to the show’s finale but lost to fellow contestant Holli Ugalde, who won $250,000 and the position of head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Although Santos regrets losing the competition by such a narrow margin,

he does not seem to mind the attention and perks he is now receiving. And even after his final episode on “Hell’s Kitchen,” the 34-year-old chef from Melrose, Mass., is confident he will maintain his local celebrity status as the out-there, blue-haired character “Jay” from “Hell’s Kitchen.”

“I got everything from stuffed Blue Jays to women sending me naked pictures,” Santos said. “I’m now getting endorsements and [free] trips around the world.

Three weeks ago, I made $14,000 in one week, just in appearances.”

But the celebrity stardom, Santos said, did not come easy. On top of the hardships he experienced on-screen — including Ramsay’s notorious temper tantrums — Santos’s six-month-long audition for “Hell’s Kitchen” almost three years ago was, as promised, “hellish,” Santos said.

Santos recalled that the audition process was offensively probing and more of a personality test to weed through characters than an actual culinary test.

“They asked me the weirdest ques-

tions, everything from what was it like at my grandmother’s funeral to whether I sang [in a] choir. Then they asked me how I felt about promiscuous sex and what my favorite alcohol was,” he said. “It’s Fox — they’re very thorough.”

When he finally received the call confirming that he was accepted to the show, Santos and his family members had to sign a $5 million confidentiality agreement, prohibiting them from sharing any information about production with anyone, including close friends.

Santos’s solution was to tell his friends that he was going to Thailand for an extended vacation.

“I’ve been there before, so I knew I would have stories if they asked,” he said.

Once finally on set, Santos began to understand the anxieties associated with reality television and likened the experience to living in a jail cell. As soon as Santos and the other contestants reached their hotel accommodasee CHEF, page 4

Student entrepreneurs tackle high textbook prices BY

ROMY OLTUSKI

Daily Editorial Board

Over the past several years, textbook prices have been climbing steadily, and students are not the only ones calling in complaints. Congress was among the first to raise its voice: On July 1, a piece of federal legislation took effect, requiring all colleges to publicize reading lists during registration period — giving students all summer to shop around for discounted books.

A group of Tufts students decided to capitalize on the new bill and worked to develop a tool that would find students the absolute lowest textbook prices: GetchaBooks.com.

The idea came to junior Michael White a few weeks before Fall 2009, when he and a couple of his friends from the Department of Computer Science adopted the lastminute summer project.

“Many startups begin because the founders want to scratch an itch they

have,” White said. “And I thought, ‘It would be nice if I didn’t have to enter the ISBN numbers myself every time I search for a book.’ I was familiar with the Amazon commission system and thought it would be a profitable enterprise.”

White contacted junior Richard Mondello and senior Michael Walker, who has since transferred to Bard College, and asked them to participate in the project a few weeks before the start of the semester.

By the time this year’s freshmen arrived on campus, the first version of the booksearch website was up and running.

According to White, demand for the website was a sure thing. Walker and Mondello, dissatisfied with the way the campus bookstore was run, were happy to join White’s cause. “[Textbooks are] something that every college students needs and yet [they’re] something that everyone gets ripped off on, or if they don’t, they’re spending a lot of time making sure they don’t get ripped off,” Mondello said. “So we came in and

said, ‘This is ridiculous. We’re going to create a website that solves these problems.’”

Now that the administration is required to release course information in advance, the website’s founders have created an interface that merges the practicality of the campus bookstore with the cost-efficiency of the Internet.

It’s a simple process: You visit the site, select your college, choose departments and courses from a dropdown menu and click ‘Go.’ Within milliseconds, GetchaBooks.com pulls up a chart comparing the prices of your required reading at the campus bookstore and various online vendors and offers you its suggested purchase plan, which often draws from a combination of vendors.

“Our competition is every single place where people could get their textbooks,” Mondello said. “Our number one competition right now is the Tufts bookstore, due to convenience; see GETCHABOOKS, page 4

like sex. There, I said it. In fact, there aren’t many kinds of sex that I don’t like: oral sex, passionate sex, sex for one, vaginal sex, kinky sex, anal sex, sensual sex, Skype sex and makeup sex.

Stick just about any word in front of “sex,” and chances are, I’d like that, too. I imagine that, on a college campus, though, this doesn’t make me very special. What is a little uncommon is the fact that I really like talking about sex, and I love giving sex advice. I’m not here to suggest all kinds of crazy ideas — despite what you may have read, sex on the Joey won’t be sexy; it’ll just be awkward. For everyone.

I’m here to talk about real, practical suggestions for better sex of all kinds. Nothing groundbreaking, just maybe something you hadn’t thought of before. In fact, I’d really like to answer questions, like I sometimes do among my friends. Send me an anonymous e-mail, and maybe it’ll show up in a future column.

Just to be up front, I’m a straight guy, so the way I write will probably reflect that. It’s not because I’m narrow-minded; it’s just what I know. However, I feel confident that most of what I talk about will be valid for all identities and orientations. But that’s enough about me; try this on for size.

Great sex requires comfort. It doesn’t matter if you could make an orange orgasm fifteen times just by looking at it; if you aren’t comfortable with yourself, with what you’re doing, with your partner and with your surroundings, you’re limiting your potential for great sex right off the bat. It is my experience that great sex doesn’t happen the first time (or the first time with a new partner). It happens within the confines of a relationship. Maybe casual hookups or drunken one-night stands are your thing, and that’s totally cool, but that’s not what this column is about. This column is about having an intimate partner with whom you feel comfortable and completely relaxed. So the first tip isn’t even a sex tip at all — it’s a relationship tip: Find someone you care about. Great sex will follow. I promise.

Also, get comfortable with yourself.

Despite what you think, any physical flaws you may have are the last things on your partner’s mind. She or he is thinking about you as a whole and the excitement that’s in store.

Thirdly, as much as possible, make yourself comfortable in your surroundings. Sex in the stacks of Tisch won’t be your best sex — how can you focus on how it feels if you are worried about being squished between the new rolling periodical shelves in the basement? Here’s an easy tip: Get a copy of your roommate’s class schedule.

That way, you know when they won’t be around to catch you bumpin’ uglies. The less you have to worry about being disturbed, the more relaxed you’ll be.

This last one is key. It probably deserves its own column altogether. Communicate!

If you can’t talk about sex, you aren’t ready to have sex. Period. If you can’t talk frankly about protection and contingency plans, you aren’t comfortable enough with your partner for good sex. And even during sex, communicate! If it would feel better a little to the left, tell your partner! Why suffer in silence and reinforce bad habits? Let him/ her know what feels good, and you’ll both be rewarded.

So that’s all the space I have. I’ve got some things I still want to talk about in upcoming columns, but I’d love to hear your suggestions and entertain your questions! E-mail me at tufts.housemate@gmail.com. Now go home and practice!

Isaac Freeman is a junior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at tufts.housemate@gmail.com.

THE TUFTS DAILY

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

FEATURES

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ chef now heads Somerville’s Gargoyles

GetchaBooks.com helps students track down cheap textbooks, save money

CHEF

GETCHABOOKS

continued from page 3

tions in Los Angeles, where the show was filmed, the producers confiscated their phones, keys and wallets.

“There was no way of getting out; you [couldn’t] talk to your friends and family,” Santos said.

“The first thing that popped into my head was, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

After three days of signing more contracts and reviewing schematics at the hotel, Santos finally met Ramsay in person, and the challenges began.

The superstar is exactly as he appears on TV, Santos said.

“You guys watch the show; you see what he does,” Santos said. “Out of the kitchen, he’s super nice, but once he’s inside, he’s Satan.”

But Santos got used to Ramsay’s mind games early on and managed not to take the vulgar insults too seriously.

Aside from Ramsay’s harsh personality, the producers’ editing heavily distorted what really went on behind the scenes — more, even, than one might expect, Santos said.

“You’ll say something meant for the first episode, but they’ll air it on the third episode. For example, if you say, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s burnt!’ They [may] take a sound bite and put it on a different episode [describing a different dish],” Santos said.

Food descriptions were far from the only misrepresented elements of the show, though.

In one episode, Santos was made to look like he cut and severely injured his finger when, in reality, the incident did not happen at all.

“They even called in an ambulance and medical professionals,” Santos said.

Editing was also used, he said, to create media hype around his off-screen romantic relationship with Ugalde. Although the show’s contract specifically prohibited romances between contestants, producers on the show made an exception for the media-pleasing spectacle made of “SantosUgalde”. One episode featured the two contestants flirting over champagne in a hot tub.

“We were both drunk, and that was 30 seconds taken from our twomonth relationship,” Santos said.

In the end, Santos said, Ugalde’s victory was based not on her cooking skills but on how much those skills had improved over the course of the season — those, plus other media-friendly qualities she possessed.

“She’s a single mom, so it’s a great story. It’s good for ratings,” he said. “You can be the best cook in the world, but if you don’t make for good TV ratings, you’re going to be nowhere.”

This October, Ugalde will begin her job at the Savoy Hotel under Ramsay, while Santos will stay on as executive chef of Gargoyles On the Square in between appearances at press events and guest appearances on television shows.

Santos is also working on a cooking show that he hopes will debut sometime this year on Spike TV, and if the opportunity for a “Hell’s Kitchen” reappearance should ever present itself, he will not hesitate to take it up, he said.

“Physically, being there on [the “Hell’s Kitchen” set] sucked, and they really mess with you,” he said. “But I would totally do that all over again.”

continued from page 3

you tell them your courses and they tell you what books you need. Our second piece of competition is all of the websites where, if you look up all your books yourself, you get them for cheaper prices. So we took the best of both worlds — you tell us your courses, like at the bookstore, but we look them up online and find them at the cheapest price for you.”

The founders see GetchaBooks.com as the solution to a problem that has recently gotten out of hand — one that victimizes every student and can be easily eliminated.

“This is something fundamentally broken that we were able to fix in a few weeks,” Walker said.

Mondello agreed and only regrets that the trio did not solve the problem earlier.

“When I got here my freshman year, several days before classes started, people said, ‘You have to go to the bookstore and get your books now because if you don’t have them for the first day of classes, you’re going to be in trouble,’” Mondello said. “I ended up wasting a lot of money on books I could have bought for half the price.”

Mondello explained that the bookstore is so expensive right now because its business model is not based on students’ needs but rather the university’s contract with Barnes and Noble.

“The campus bookstore — that’s a Barnes and Noble bookstore down there,” Mondello said. “They try and give off the impression that it’s your local

bookstore, but Barnes and Noble has at least 600 campuses they’re on, which naturally leaves books pretty expensive and which I find kind of offensive.”

“Tufts gets a lot of its character by admitting people of different socioeconomic backgrounds,” he said. “So to arrive on campus and be de facto pushed into buying my books on a giant markup — I find that offensive and I’m not afraid to tell people that.

What’s worse, the founders said, is that the campus bookstore goes out of its way to make it impractical for students to purchase books elsewhere. According to them, until July 1 the bookstore did not reveal books’ ISBN numbers and presented book titles in a manner that made them difficult to search for online.

“They have an information monopoly on campus,” Mondello said. “And Congress said, ‘This isn’t going to fly anymore.’”

Walker explained that students are often surprised to hear that GetchaBooks.com is not actually selling anything; it is more like a shopping aid. The website draws information from the university courses’ syllabi and various book-vending sites online and simply points students to the cheapest deals. Sometimes, that best deal is the least obvious one, Mondello explained, like buying one book from Amazon, renting three from Chegg.com — a book rental site — and going down to the bookstore to get two more.

The point is, he said, to cut students’ search time without actually costing them anything.

“If I direct you to one of the vendors, and if you buy your books there, they say, ‘We’re going to pay [GetchaBooks.com] a com-

mission.’ And that commission doesn’t come out of the student’s pocket. So if you look [a book] up on your own, it’ll be the same price. But if you look it up through our site, the site will thank us for our time,” Mondello said.

Once students know about the site, it is not difficult to get them to start using it, Walker said. “We have a very strong product, so once people see the product, they react really strongly to it,” he said.

That said, spreading the word across campuses nationwide is GetchaBooks.com’s hardest task right now, according to White. At Tufts, the campus on which the start-up has had the most success, Mondello spent the mornings of Undergraduate Orientation stationed near the campus bookstore, wearing an oversized sombrero and a sign advertising cheap textbooks. At Bard College, where White is now a student, he advertises using word of mouth. On several other campuses, GetchaBooks.com has a representative or two to keep students informed about the enterprise. But low-cost advertising within a competitive market is difficult, they said.

“The main problem is marketing. Basically, [in a rep], we look for people who are passionate about getting students cheap books,” White said. “Right now, it’s just a couple [of] relatives and friends at some of the other schools. It started with Tufts and Bard, but we interestingly have one guy at Babson [College], which is known for entrepreneurship and business, and we’ve been doing very well there. We’re certainly still getting off the ground.”

THE TUFTS DAILY

4

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

FEATURES

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ chef now heads Somerville’s Gargoyles

GetchaBooks.com helps students track down cheap textbooks, save money

CHEF

GETCHABOOKS

continued from page 3

tions in Los Angeles, where the show was filmed, the producers confiscated their phones, keys and wallets.

“There was no way of getting out; you [couldn’t] talk to your friends and family,” Santos said.

“The first thing that popped into my head was, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

After three days of signing more contracts and reviewing schematics at the hotel, Santos finally met Ramsay in person, and the challenges began.

The superstar is exactly as he appears on TV, Santos said.

“You guys watch the show; you see what he does,” Santos said. “Out of the kitchen, he’s super nice, but once he’s inside, he’s Satan.”

But Santos got used to Ramsay’s mind games early on and managed not to take the vulgar insults too seriously.

Aside from Ramsay’s harsh personality, the producers’ editing heavily distorted what really went on behind the scenes — more, even, than one might expect, Santos said.

“You’ll say something meant for the first episode, but they’ll air it on the third episode. For example, if you say, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s burnt!’ They [may] take a sound bite and put it on a different episode [describing a different dish],” Santos said.

Food descriptions were far from the only misrepresented elements of the show, though.

In one episode, Santos was made to look like he cut and severely injured his finger when, in reality, the incident did not happen at all.

“They even called in an ambulance and medical professionals,” Santos said.

Editing was also used, he said, to create media hype around his off-screen romantic relationship with Ugalde. Although the show’s contract specifically prohibited romances between contestants, producers on the show made an exception for the media-pleasing spectacle made of “SantosUgalde”. One episode featured the two contestants flirting over champagne in a hot tub.

“We were both drunk, and that was 30 seconds taken from our twomonth relationship,” Santos said.

In the end, Santos said, Ugalde’s victory was based not on her cooking skills but on how much those skills had improved over the course of the season — those, plus other media-friendly qualities she possessed.

“She’s a single mom, so it’s a great story. It’s good for ratings,” he said. “You can be the best cook in the world, but if you don’t make for good TV ratings, you’re going to be nowhere.”

This October, Ugalde will begin her job at the Savoy Hotel under Ramsay, while Santos will stay on as executive chef of Gargoyles On the Square in between appearances at press events and guest appearances on television shows.

Santos is also working on a cooking show that he hopes will debut sometime this year on Spike TV, and if the opportunity for a “Hell’s Kitchen” reappearance should ever present itself, he will not hesitate to take it up, he said.

“Physically, being there on [the “Hell’s Kitchen” set] sucked, and they really mess with you,” he said. “But I would totally do that all over again.”

continued from page 3

you tell them your courses and they tell you what books you need. Our second piece of competition is all of the websites where, if you look up all your books yourself, you get them for cheaper prices. So we took the best of both worlds — you tell us your courses, like at the bookstore, but we look them up online and find them at the cheapest price for you.”

The founders see GetchaBooks.com as the solution to a problem that has recently gotten out of hand — one that victimizes every student and can be easily eliminated.

“This is something fundamentally broken that we were able to fix in a few weeks,” Walker said.

Mondello agreed and only regrets that the trio did not solve the problem earlier.

“When I got here my freshman year, several days before classes started, people said, ‘You have to go to the bookstore and get your books now because if you don’t have them for the first day of classes, you’re going to be in trouble,’” Mondello said. “I ended up wasting a lot of money on books I could have bought for half the price.”

Mondello explained that the bookstore is so expensive right now because its business model is not based on students’ needs but rather the university’s contract with Barnes and Noble.

“The campus bookstore — that’s a Barnes and Noble bookstore down there,” Mondello said. “They try and give off the impression that it’s your local

bookstore, but Barnes and Noble has at least 600 campuses they’re on, which naturally leaves books pretty expensive and which I find kind of offensive.”

“Tufts gets a lot of its character by admitting people of different socioeconomic backgrounds,” he said. “So to arrive on campus and be de facto pushed into buying my books on a giant markup — I find that offensive and I’m not afraid to tell people that.

What’s worse, the founders said, is that the campus bookstore goes out of its way to make it impractical for students to purchase books elsewhere. According to them, until July 1 the bookstore did not reveal books’ ISBN numbers and presented book titles in a manner that made them difficult to search for online.

“They have an information monopoly on campus,” Mondello said. “And Congress said, ‘This isn’t going to fly anymore.’”

Walker explained that students are often surprised to hear that GetchaBooks.com is not actually selling anything; it is more like a shopping aid. The website draws information from the university courses’ syllabi and various book-vending sites online and simply points students to the cheapest deals. Sometimes, that best deal is the least obvious one, Mondello explained, like buying one book from Amazon, renting three from Chegg.com — a book rental site — and going down to the bookstore to get two more.

The point is, he said, to cut students’ search time without actually costing them anything.

“If I direct you to one of the vendors, and if you buy your books there, they say, ‘We’re going to pay [GetchaBooks.com] a com-

mission.’ And that commission doesn’t come out of the student’s pocket. So if you look [a book] up on your own, it’ll be the same price. But if you look it up through our site, the site will thank us for our time,” Mondello said.

Once students know about the site, it is not difficult to get them to start using it, Walker said. “We have a very strong product, so once people see the product, they react really strongly to it,” he said.

That said, spreading the word across campuses nationwide is GetchaBooks.com’s hardest task right now, according to White. At Tufts, the campus on which the start-up has had the most success, Mondello spent the mornings of Undergraduate Orientation stationed near the campus bookstore, wearing an oversized sombrero and a sign advertising cheap textbooks. At Bard College, where White is now a student, he advertises using word of mouth. On several other campuses, GetchaBooks.com has a representative or two to keep students informed about the enterprise. But low-cost advertising within a competitive market is difficult, they said.

“The main problem is marketing. Basically, [in a rep], we look for people who are passionate about getting students cheap books,” White said. “Right now, it’s just a couple [of] relatives and friends at some of the other schools. It started with Tufts and Bard, but we interestingly have one guy at Babson [College], which is known for entrepreneurship and business, and we’ve been doing very well there. We’re certainly still getting off the ground.”

Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

GALLERY REVIEW

‘Echele Ganas’ provokes thought on immigration issues through photography BY

ANNA MAJESKI

Daily Editorial Board

The centennial of the Mexican Revolution this year sparked a reexamination of Americans’

Echele Ganas (Do Your Best): A Life Left Behind At the Remis Sculpture Court, through Dec. 19 Tufts University Art Gallery 40 Talbot Ave. 617-627-3518 relationship with Mexico. Immigration reform also fills the media, as fierce debates wage in light of the upcoming elections. Our southern neighbor is a controversial topic for many Americans, but artist Laurence Salzmann introduces a different point of view in his exhibit “Echele Ganas (Do Your Best): A Life Left Behind,” a sister exhibit to “Mexico: Beyond Its Revolution,” now at the Tufts University Art Gallery.

“Echele Ganas,” currently on view in the Tufts Gallery’s Remis Sculpture Court, examines the life of villagers from the village of La Sierra de Norte.

Salzmann lives in Philadelphia, where he met several people originally from the village. Instead of looking at the lives of these individuals in the United States, Salzmann went to their hometown to observe what they had left behind. The exhibit includes a series of photographs and a set of interviews with the workers, where they talk about their lives in the village and in the United States.

In La Sierra de Norte, he found

a community kept afloat by money sent back from the United States.

Salzmann’s photographs portray the daily life of this community. They examine major events like weddings, first communions and quinceañeras, as well as more mundane aspects of village life. Salzmann’s range of images creates a view of village life that is both struggling and vibrant. Above all, he seeks to put an accurate face on Mexican immigrants who look for financial help in America.

The first image is “Catalina with her Calla Lilies, Xonacatla” (2005). A stark, crisply defined photograph, it shows an older woman framed in a rough, hilly landscape. The woman’s face is etched with wrinkles; she wears a cheap plastic hat, a purple sweater and a patterned blue scarf. Despite her worn clothing, the caption tells us that she is going to her son’s wedding. The woman does not look directly into the camera, but stares proudly out of the picture plane into the distance. In her hand is a bunch of white calla lilies — their clean lines form a stark contrast with the landscape and anticipate the joy of the wedding.

Above all though, it is a portrait of the woman. The framing of her face and even lighting create a beautiful composition. She seems perfectly at peace with her environment, and the shape of the flowers mirrors her open face. “Catalina with her Calla Lilies” is an image of a woman who is at home in this village, and whose poverty does not detract from her pride.

“First Communion in Mirador” (2007) shows a different set of villagers. In a cloudy valley, two lines of children, one of boys, one of girls, recede into the

MUSIC REVIEW

‘Hurley’ brings Weezer back into limelight BY

WES ENGEL

Contributing Writer

Weezer is back. After a slew of disappointing albums, “Hurley” comes as the band’s long-awaited return to

Hurley Weezer Epitaph form. Catchy, high-energy songs populate the record from start to finish and evoke the fun, geeky albums that launched Weezer on its path to fame in the ’90s.

The aptly titled song “Memories” starts the album off with a bang. In driving, frenetic verses, lead singer Rivers Cuomo recalls times of old, while grungy power chords build to a simple and catchy refrain.

It’s a formula that has worked before, and it’s used to great effect throughout “Hurley.” Every chorus seems to be crafted to stick in one’s head, and every song lends itself to humming along on the first listen.

Cuomo still delivers the same zany, personal lyrics that work well with the music that fans love. “Memories” begins with the lines “Pissing in plastic cups before we went on stage / playing hackey sack back when Audioslave was still Rage.”

Lyrically, he is reminiscing over simpler times, and the music reflects this backward gaze. The driving chords and catchy melodies are evocative of ’90s Weezer during the period that saw the release of the spectacular

“Blue Album” (1994) and “Pinkerton” (1996), Weezer’s first — and best — albums.

As soon as the opening number ends, the second song, “Ruling Me,” picks right up and holds its own as another standout track. While previous albums suffered from overproduction and a general lack of direction, Weezer uses all of its studio tricks to great effect here.

“Ruling Me” weaves multiple guitars alongside layers of harmonies that keep the song fresh and interesting all the way through. The myriad “oohs” and “aahs” floating behind Cuomo’s voice are masterfully mixed to add background texture without stepping on the lead vocals.

Between fast rock songs at the heart of the album, the music mellows out a bit, all the while retaining its polish.

“Unspoken” is a nice change of pace that plays around with acoustic guitars and flutes, finishing with a powerful, electric conclusion. Most tracks seem carefully crafted without losing any of Weezer’s nerdy selfconsciousness.

The biggest downside is the album’s running time. With only 10 songs, all under four minutes, it seems like it’s over far too soon. Additionally, the second half of the record isn’t as impressive or tight as the first: The songs are passable, but they don’t have the same punch as that of the opening half.

Despite these drawbacks, stellar songs like “Ruling Me,” “Unspoken,” and the silly and rollicking “Where’s My Sex?” make “Hurley” worth the see WEEZER, page 6

MADELINE HALL | THE TASTEFUL AND THE TASTELESS

Bublé blasphemy

F COURTESY TUFTS UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY

‘Graciella and her Escorts’ shows a young girl before her quinceañera. distance. They are dressed in white, and streams of colorful flags fly above while their parents line up around them.

Many of them look impatient and cold, squirming as they wait to proceed in for the ceremony. Capturing a scene of childish impatience at this important event, the image concentrates once again on the villagers. Though most of the children are looking away from the camera, one boy looks directly into it, staring at the viewer — a quiet pause in the busy scene.

Again employing crisp photography, Salzmann draws attention to the family members that have been left behind by those who leave for the United States.

The final photograph in the series, see ECHELE GANAS, page 6

TV REVIEW

‘Gossip Girl’ season premiere disappoints

BY SMRITI

CHOUDHURY

Contributing Writer

Love, lust, scandal and, of course, a weekly dose of gossip are usually provided by the racy The CW series “Gossip

Gossip Girl Starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick Airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on The CW Girl.” The season three finale’s dramatic shooting of a major character and departure of two others on a Parisian romp left fans wanting more, and the premiere of season four seemed like it would be a sure-fire hit. But despite the much-anticipated return of the hit series, the season opener of “Gossip Girl” fails to live up to its reputation.

The character development is oversimplified, and the Parisian setting of Serena van der Woodsen’s (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf’s (Leighton Meister) adventure overwhelms any potentially juicy storylines.

Shots of elite Parisian boutiques and Manet masterpieces are highlighted more than the heartbroken Blair and her struggle to overcome her feelings for Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). Even her love-hate, jealousy-ridden relationship with Serena seems lost against the Parisian backdrop. To make matters see GOSSIP, page 6

ew things frighten me more than popular radio stations. The current probability of catching a Michael Bublé song at any time of the day is far too high for me to feel safe. “Haven’t Met You Yet” haunted me all summer at my receptionist position, along with a whole host of other soft-rock songs created to accompany mothers on their daily drive to the health club.

To me, it doesn’t seem possible to be any more artificial than bubbly Bublé.

The sugary sweetness of his manufactured love songs makes me involuntarily shudder — I want to “come out of nowhere and into [his] life” with a knife in hand and a murderous conviction. I resent his crooning voice, his unnaturally stylized hair, his arrogant confidence in his ability to eventually find that perfect lady and all the rest. In short, Michael Bublé should hope that he never meets me.

With this in mind, you can imagine my horror upon realizing that my sister owned nearly every Bublé album. Yes, nightmares do come true.

Driving with Abby to a since-forgotten destination, my stomach plunged with surprising swiftness when the first track on her mystery CD revealed the snazzy brass of his cover of “How Sweet It Is” (2008). Her shoulders bouncing with visible enjoyment, she turned to me and innocently said the unthinkable: “You like Michael Bublé, right?”

And to think, I believed we were related.

As my skin itched for a snippet of folk or even a modicum of authentic guitar, I simmered in disbelief and disgust. How could someone so closely related to me have such horrible taste in music? What possessed her to favor the tunes of suburban moms and clueless teenage girls?

I had regarded her in such high esteem!

I sat silently for the duration of the drive, mustering all my self-control and willing the ride — and the CD — to end.

Later that evening, while self-medicating with a dose of my preferred music, I recounted the story to my father, a Bach aficionado and jazz junkie. Expecting a kindred response and a similar disappointment in my sister’s selection, I choked back my embarrassment when he replied. “What difference does it make to you? Taste comes in all shapes and sizes,” he said.

I started to retort, but words dissolved on my tongue, unable to form an adequate explanation for my intense judgment. He walked away, leaving me to deal with a horror far greater than the one induced by Bublé’s song.

I had become a full-on snob, and with no recollection of when it happened.

The ease with which my disdain surfaced had only seemed natural to me. I was proud of the things I enjoyed, musically and otherwise, but unknowingly I developed a standard to which I measured everything I encountered. How often had I scoffed at Twilight references last year?

When was the last time I gave Ke$ha a real chance at approval? In my attempt to refine my taste, I had closed myself off to the greater world and effectively limited my mind. Was a sophisticated palate worth spurning my sister? Who was I to judge good culture versus bad? I am no authority, nor do I deserve to be.

Taste is not genetic, nor is it something which can be graded using a concrete rubric. In this column and its assessment of the cultural oddities of today, I’ll reel in my caustic judgment and try to justify the peculiar preferences of our generation. I might fail to understand J-Biebs, but at least I’ll give him a fighting chance.

Still, old Michael Bubs is on my hit-list.

Madeline Hall is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at Madeline.Hall@tufts.edu.

THE TUFTS DAILY

6

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

ARTS & LIVING

Weezer wins with ‘Hurley’

Despite slow season premiere, ‘Gossip Girl’ remains one of The CW’s juiciest offerings

WEEZER

GOSSIP

continued from page 5

continued from page 5

price. The band doesn’t take itself too seriously this time around, and it’s that sense of playfulness that keeps the music fresh and engaging.

Weezer fans have been waiting for a return to form like “Hurley” since the late ’90s at the very least. Weezer still ranks as many listeners’ favorite band because of two albums that came out more than 10 years ago, though the number of die-hard Weezer addicts has waned over the past few years in wake of lackluster releases like “The Red Album” (2008) and “Raditude” (2009).

Seeing Cuomo and the gang simplifying their sound is nice. There are no bizarre guest spots here, as there were on “Raditude,” which had songs featuring Lil Wayne. At least in some ways, sounding like they used to again (which is to say, good) is welcome.

But these new releases do not merely sound like recycled material.

While it’s easy to wish for things to return to way they used to be, it would be lazy for the band to simply deliver the same product again and again.

What ultimately separates Weezer from the pack is its ability to try new things, be adventurous and grow as a band.

Mid-’90s Weezer could not have written the tracks on “Hurley;” only 2010 Weezer, with all of their history, hits, misses and experience, could deliver an album like this.

Both old fans and Weezer virgins alike should check “Hurley” out. Because of its callbacks to the band’s golden era, the album works well as a way for those not familiar with Weezer’s past work to jump on the bandwagon.

It’s not a perfect album, but for anyone who may have lost faith in Weezer, “Hurley” serves as the reaffirmation that Cuomo is still worth paying attention to.

worse, Blair’s characteristic wit and sass are replaced with hormonal high school paranoia, making her little more than a tween dressed in couture.

The severe lack of character development in season four’s premiere does not do the episode any favors. Chuck Bass and Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr) play tangential roles. Their characters are banished to the episode’s outskirts, and despite the fact that an entire summer has passed since the last episode, there are no details of how these characters spent their time. Vanessa’s limited appearance mostly serves to again highlight her unwavering loyalty to Dan (Penn Badgley), providing him emotional support while he adjusts to his new role as a father.

Chuck’s absence is far more significant than Vanessa’s, though. Suspense builds for loyal viewers waiting to find out if Chuck has survived the gunshot wound he incurred in the third season’s finale — or at least an explanation as to why he was

shot. None of the characters have heard from him in weeks. When he does finally pop up in the premiere, it becomes clear that he has gone to extreme measures to try to escape his past, yet more mysteries arise: Is Chuck reacting extremely to the state of his relationship with Blair, or is there more to his sudden self-reinvention? Frustratingly little is revealed, and although this keeps the audience hooked, it seems as though a little more could have been revealed to keep the plot more complex and less gimmicky.

That being said, the first episode of the fourth season, sadly bereft of scandal though it was, did offer its fair share of “oohs” and “aahs.” One shocking revelation is that Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Dan are now shacking up, united by a baby that, according to the rarely reliable Georgina, is theirs. Badgley’s usual wry portrayal of Dan has been abandoned in light of his newfound fatherhood. While the situation certainly demands sensitivity and seriousness, viewers will miss the comic relief that Dan generally provides as

he stumbles through social and romantic gaffes; hopefully, this character’s troubled times will end quickly.

The episode primarily focuses on Dan’s struggles with young fatherhood, Serena and Blair’s therapeutic retail adventures in Paris and Nate Archibald’s (Chace Crawford) emotional rollercoaster. Though this plotline would seemingly provide ample room for scandal, the scatterbrained attempts of writers to include pans of the Parisian skyline dilute the shock-factor.

Despite a weak premiere, “Gossip Girl” still finds itself head and shoulders above the rest of the major network’s fall offerings.

“Gossip Girl’s” consistent delivery of a suspenseful and exciting rendition of the lives of our favorite Upper East Siders should bring hope to disappointed fans everywhere.

Overall, “Gossip Girl’s” failure to deliver a steamy follow-up to the finale of season three disappoints. Hopefully, however, the rest of the season will quench audiences’ thirst for more juicy gossip from their favorite blogger.

Striking photographic images force viewers to consider an unfamiliar lifestyle and community ECHELE GANAS continued from page 5

“Preparations for the Wedding” (2005), shows a group of older women outdoors.

The three women at the front all wear matching blue aprons as they stand around a large black pot being heated over a fire. The photo is more colorful than some of the others, and the strong contrast between the green of the landscape and the bright blue of the aprons draws the eye. The sense of community between the women is tangible, as they all prepare for the wedding of one of their neighbors. They stand comfort-

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ably around, obviously at ease in their environment — though to us it is an unfamiliar scene. “Preparations for the Wedding” shows the strong bonds in this community despite the difficult circumstances surrounding it.

Salzmann’s photographs examine the lives that some Mexican immigrants must leave behind. Showing images of great importance in daily life, as well as less monumental ones, the exhibit strives to form a more complete picture of a group of people and a way of life not seen by many Americans.

The pairing of the exhibition with

“Mexico: Beyond its Revolution” connects it to an entire reexamination of a popular image of Mexican life. “Echele Ganas” seeks to open a dialogue about immigration rights by acknowledging the people and the lifestyle that Mexican immigrants have left behind.

A special screening of the documentary part of the exhibit will take place on Oct. 27 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Remis Sculpture Court and will be accompanied by a talk with the artist.

Editor’s Note: Anna Majeski is also a volunteer gallery guide at the Tufts University Art Gallery.

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

DOONESBURY

NON SEQUITUR

THE TUFTS DAILY BY

GARRY TRUDEAU

BY

7

COMICS CROSSWORD

WILEY

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

MARRIED TO THE SEA

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Defeating Team Rocket

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Yesterday’s Solution

Ellen: “Can we convert the office into a ball pit?”

Carter: “I looked into that with my housemates.

It would be prohibitively expensive.”

Please recycle this Daily.

THE TUFTS DAILY

8

THE TUFTS DAILY BENJAMIN D. GITTLESON Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL Managing Editors

Ellen Kan Carter Rogers Matt Repka Executive News Editor Alexandra Bogus News Editors Michael Del Moro Nina Ford Amelie Hecht Corinne Segal Martha Shanahan Brent Yarnell Jenny White Daphne Kolios Assistant News Editors Kathryn Olson Romy Oltuski Executive Features Editor Sarah Korones Features Editors Alison Lisnow Emilia Luna Alexa Sasanow Derek Schlom Jon Cheng Assistant Features Editors Maya Kohli Amelia Quinn Emma Bushnell Executive Arts Editor Zach Drucker Arts Editors Mitchell Geller Rebecca Goldberg Benjamin Phelps Anna Majeski Assistant Arts Editors Rebecca Santiago Matthew Welch Rachel Oldfield Laura Moreno Larissa Gibbs Elaine Sun Seth Teleky Devon Colmer Erin Marshall Lorrayne Shen Louie Zong Rebekah Liebermann Ashish Malhotra Josh Molofsky Alexandra Siegel

Executive Op-Ed Editor Op-Ed Editor Assistant Op-Ed Editors Cartoonists

Editorialists

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

EDITORIAL | LETTERS

EDITORIAL

The Daily Beast’s crime statistics don’t add up The Tufts community was shocked last week to learn that its leafy green campus topped a list of the 50 most dangerous colleges in the country. The blogosphere, Twittersphere and local media went crazy as university officials tried to save face.

The statistics in the recent report by the news website The Daily Beast account for crimes reported to campus and local police from 2006 to 2008 at both Tufts’ Medford/Somerville and Boston campuses; the website uses the data and delineations of the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics. During that period, one murder, 36 forcible rapes, 100 robberies, 119 aggravated assaults, 174 burglaries, 49 car thefts and one arson occurred at Tufts, The Daily Beast reported.

These statistics present an extremely skewed and inaccurate appraisal of the safety of Tufts’ campuses and result from flawed methodology.

The Daily Beast acknowledges in its report that Tufts’ campus in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood resulted in the university’s poor performance.

Yet another page of the same report lists Tufts’ location as just Medford/ Somerville, which — while accurately reflecting the site of the university’s primary campus — incorrectly implies that all the reported crimes occurred at that campus.

The report also fails to distinguish between crimes that occurred on campus and those that occurred on public

property adjacent to campus, a differentiation that becomes extremely pertinent when dealing with campuses in urban centers. Lumping these two statistics together results in a very inflated portrayal of the crime rate at the Boston campus. For example, only one robbery actually occurred on the Boston campus from 2006-08, according to a 2009-10 Tufts Department of Public and Environmental Safety report, but The Daily Beast ranking takes into account 87 others on adjacent property.

Of the 100 robberies The Daily Beast lists, only five actually occurred on the Medford/Somerville campus, as opposed to in adjacent areas in Medford, Somerville or Boston, according to the university’s 2009-10 report. Of the 119 aggravated assaults, only 11 occurred on the Medford/Somerville campus.

Rather than measuring the safety of American college campuses, The Daily Beast merely regurgitates the crime data that colleges report to the federal government without taking into account the accuracy or completeness of the data it analyzes. As a result, the ranking penalizes schools that report crimes that occur blocks away from their property and rewards those who are less thorough in their reporting.

Illustrating how such poor methodology could manifest itself in the opposite manner, Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus came in third on another list released by The Daily Beast last week: the 50 safest schools in the nation. Crime

in the Flatbush area where the campus is located is notoriously frequent. But the school miraculously reported zero murders, rapes, robberies, assaults and car thefts. Those statistics seem to have more likely resulted from Long Island University’s failure to adequately report crimes that occur on nearby property than from a crime-free stretch of Brooklyn surrounding the campus.

If The Daily Beast sought to highlight the failures of safeguarding campuses across the country, its ill-reasoned process of punishing colleges like Tufts that thoroughly report crime statistics is counterproductive to this aim.

On Thursday, Tufts’ executive vice president, Lisa Campbell, told the Tufts community in an e-mail that the Tufts University Police Department now has access to more precise Boston crime statistics. Moving forward, she said, the university “will be able to exclude extraneous geographical areas from [its] reports to the [U.S.] Department of Education.”

Cutting out areas of Boston that are far removed from the Boston campus is a fine step toward improving the accuracy of Tufts’ crime data. But the university must take care not to remove areas that are relevant to the Tufts community from its crime statistics merely to satisfy the requirements of an ill-conceived public ranking.

While doing so would help the university avoid embarrassing misinformation from appearing in the media, it would also be a step backward from improving safety on campus.

LORRAYNE SHEN

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EDITORIAL

Abstain on Referenda 3 and 4

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From 12 midnight tonight, the Tufts campus will start deciding the future of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate’s community representative system, which exists in order to give minority constituencies a voice on the body. Students have a choice of passing either Referendum 3 or 4 or rejecting both of them altogether — an option that has largely been neglected in the extensive debate on the matter.

Under the present community representatives system, student groups can petition for a position. Groups with representatives, including the Association of Latin American Students, the Asian Students Union, the Pan-African Alliance and the Queer Straight Alliance, elect an individual member to sit on the Senate and its Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs Committee.

Much of the discussion has centered on the issue of voting rights. Under the current system, community representatives do not have the right to vote on fiscal matters, which some have said diminishes their role on the Senate.

It is on this matter that the two referenda most sharply differ, with Referendum 3 proposing to grant them the same full voting rights afforded to senators and Referendum 4 continuing the status quo in this regard.

Both referenda propose the creation of a new Senate Executive Board position: a

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.

diversity and community affairs officer (DCA) charged with spearheading the Senate’s diversity and minority outreach initiatives.

Under Referendum 3, the DCA will be elected from among the TCU senators and thus has full voting rights. Under Referendum 4, the DCA would come from outside student government and be selected by the community representatives and the TCU president; the officer would have full voting rights.

Referendum 4 even goes one step further to allow for associate and assistant DCA positions if the number of community representatives rise to certain levels.

The Daily agrees with many criticisms of Referendum 3, particularly that granting community representatives full voting rights would violate the fundamental principle of equal representation. Regardless of one’s views on affirmative action, any diversity-promotion measures should never infringe upon the basic tenet of fair, democratic representation.

Referendum 4, however, is also undemocratic in granting an unelected official — its version of the DCA — a vote on a representative government body.

Neither of the proposals are in accordance with the principles of a fair and democratic electoral system and thus do not offer a meaningful reform of the Senate’s diversity representation.

We at the Daily support revamping the community representative system so that the concerns of minority constituencies are adequately accounted for in the Senate’s deliberations. But neither referendum on tomorrow’s ballot proposes a workable and appropriate reform of the system.

We urge the student body to reject both referenda, and framers of the referenda to return to the drawing board.

The ideal solution is one that combines elements of the two proposals: Referendum 3’s proposal that the DCA come from within the Senate body and Referendum 4’s requirement that community representatives not have full voting rights.

We envision a system where the DCA leads the Senate’s diversity outreach, working closely with the community representatives to both actively engage in dialogue with minority groups and present their concerns to the Senate.

But the challenge of ensuring that the Senate effectively serves minority needs will not be met through altering electoral and voting procedures. Rather, achieving this goal depends largely on whether our Senators make an active and concerted effort to connect and engage with those they represent — including the minority groups on this campus.

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

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THE TUFTS DAILY

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

9

OP-ED ELISHA SUM | OUR GENDERATION

Male Studies

T

DANAI MACRIDI/TUFTS DAILY

Local banking: Bank on it BY

CAROLINE INCLEDON

This past July, Republicans in the Senate rejected a bill aimed to help struggling small businesses through the expansion of loan programs and tax breaks. As David Herszenhorn reported in the July 30 New York Times article “Republicans Block Bill to Aid Small Business,” this move was largely spurred by Republican desires “to deny Democrats any further legislative accomplishments ahead of November’s midterm elections.” Herszenhorn’s reasoning fails to recognize other justified reasons for Republican opposition — namely, the cost of the program, which would be an additional stress on our already strained economy. But the proposition of the lending program itself and the increased need for one given the current recession should cause members of the Tufts community to reexamine the business practices in which we are all involved.

Firstly, we need to realize that this recession is the result of large banks and irresponsible banking practices. There are a variety of factors that led to the current economic situation, but all of them (irresponsible borrowing, lack of regulation, lack of transparency about risks being taken) somehow come back to the “too big to fail” banks. Big banks package and resell large loans, capitalize off of students and uneducated borrowers, charge big fees and then take risks with

our money. At the same time, they have little to no beneficial impact on our local community. That’s why this bill would have been a great step toward remedying some of those practices that got us into this position in the first place; the small business loans and tax breaks were going to be distributed by creating a $30 billion lending program that would engage with local banks, which are proven to make more loans to small businesses. They also charge fewer fees than the big banks, are less likely to engage in the irresponsible borrowing of larger banks and are more accountable to their clients.

It’s sad that this bill was shut down and equally sad that it is being lauded as a partisan issue. We can all agree, regardless of political orientation, that supporting our neighbors, assisting fledgling small businesses, maintaining long-standing businesses in our community and promoting responsible banking practices should be priorities. That’s why Students at Tufts for Investment Responsibility (STIR) is launching our campaign for community investment at Tufts. Let’s put our money in the community and act as more than “global citizens” and act as local ones, too.

This idea is hardly new. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 encouraged banks and savings associations to assist borrowers of all income levels in their communities. The bill was originally passed to prevent redlining, or partici-

pating in discriminatory credit practices to low-income (and primarily black) borrowers. But even though it has been more than 30 years since the bill’s passage, we can still do much, much more. As tuitionpaying students at this school, we have power. Furthermore, the reputation and $1 billion endowment of Tufts University is powerful. We need to make a collective statement and say where we want to put our money and how we want to be active members of our community.

Students at Macalester College have done this; they moved $500,000 to a local bank in 2007, and the bank is now working to establish student internship opportunities at the bank and through the local businesses the bank supports.

And at Mount Holyoke College, they raised $25,000 for a pilot Responsible Investment Fund that has invested in a nearby community-development financial institution that emphasizes local lending. These examples from peer institutions demonstrate that community investment is not simply possible but also beneficial. Aside from material benefits, Tufts will reap the rewards, such as an improved reputation and town-gown relations that come with such a progressive, community-oriented decision. Change really is possible, and other schools are catching on. Let’s join them and do what Congress failed to do this summer. Let’s support community investment!

OFF THE HILL | LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Anonymous web comments should have signatures BY

KELLY HOTARD

The Daily Reveille

What would you do if you knew you would get away with it?

The rise of the unnamed and anonymous in our generation’s pop culture provides some pretty disturbing answers to that question.

It seems a day never passes by without hearing of some new form of cyber-bullying (Truth Box applications [through which users can leave anonymous comments]), spamming or digital voyeurism (Omegle [an online video chat website]).

The skyrocketing rate of cybercrimes is due, in large part, to the Internet’s stranglehold on our daily lives. How many of us can remember how we wasted the majority of our free time before the age of social networking sites and online forums? I’ve tried — and failed — to remember those days.

The Internet also affords this incredible ability to say whatever we please, to whomever we please, without fear of repercussion. In other words, it is the freedom of speech and press.

Sound familiar?

It should: It’s our First Amendment right.

One would think that in America, the land of the free and home of the brave, most people would proudly exercise this right to publish their views, speak their

minds and defend their beliefs.

But a curious phenomenon befalls people when given a blank comment box and the chance to check “Anonymous.”

Inhibitions vanish along with the nerve it takes to attach a name to one’s own opinion. As a result, honesty and the courage of conviction also crumble. People under the influence of anonymity say things they would never admit in everyday life. The damage this lack of accountability does to our public discourse is crippling.

I’m talking to you, A. Nonny Mouse, and all your immature, similarly named cousins who have infested online news forums, including lsureveille.com, [the website of the Daily Reveille].

Newspapers try to report the truth and stimulate thoughtful conversations among readers, concepts the Internet format only discourages. One must question the validity of everything that is said, not to mention who is saying it — and no online source comes with a certificate of authenticity.

Of course, every mass communication major realizes the importance of anonymity and “protecting one’s sources,” as all journalists are instructed to do in some sensitive situations.

But choosing to remain anonymous while broadcasting one’s opinion is cowardly — and contradictory. Essentially, the message anonymous comments send is: “I don’t mind telling you what I think — as

long as you don’t know I think it.”

The inability to know [whom] you’re really communicating with online makes a genuine, civil dialogue impossible. The effect of anonymous complaining is, well, ineffective when it comes to solving problems and making a difference.

Thankfully, most newspapers require full contact details when readers submit letters to the editor. Some websites even place a flashy “medal of honor” next to members who dare to use their real names — a commendable, but sad measure.

When did such a straightforward action become so rare? To truly stand up for what you believe in is a noble cause that also means dealing with the consequences, whatever they may be. If it’s your heartfelt opinion, own up to it.

To paraphrase a common Facebook quote (coined, no doubt, by “Anonymous”): In a digital realm where you can be anything, be yourself.

Readers, I’m bringing honesty back. Or at least that is my goal as a columnist. I realize when it comes to what is “popular” in our culture, my views are not likely to match the majority of yours.

But I will be candid to you in what I have to say, and in turn, that is what I expect from you. Read each future column with an open mind and by all means leave comments. If you like it, even — perhaps especially — if you don’t, be sure to put a name on it.

ori Amos once sang, “I don’t know why in your boy’s life, you become … like a bull in a china shop.”

Breaking news: Feminism has done so well for itself that men are losing out in today’s society. Thanks to the evils of the feminist agenda, the He-cession, an economic downturn where men are statistically affected more heavily than women, is in full throttle. Women have finally won the oppression Olympics. In response to this reprised, phallocentric narrative of the fall of Man, various scholars truly concerned about the decline of manliness established the Foundation for Male Studies in early April and announced its inception shortly thereafter at a symposium at Wagner College in New York.

Though Men’s Studies has existed for the past three decades, the organizers of Male Studies repudiate (or is it refudiate?) any conflation with its well-established predecessor.

Male Studies scholars differentiate the field in purporting a biological determinist view with the aim of studying what it is to be a cisgender male (those comfortable with the gender assigned at birth) in today’s society.

Exclusionary? Yes. Problematic? I’d say so. Even more troubling is the pro-men, anti-feminist drivel expressed by the scholars. Lionel Tiger, professor of anthropology at Rutgers University and a major proponent of the new field, decries ideological feminism as the cause of men’s problems for having created a world that disadvantages men and favors women.

He was kind enough, however, to expand our minds and introduce the uncommon word misandry to the vernacular.

The inflammatory rhetoric of the organizers of Male Studies explicitly seeks to distance the field from gender studies and its offshoots.

Of course, the study of masculinities and male experience is indeed important; however, the explicit anti-feminist view and the antiquated, simplistic commitment to the perspective of “biology as destiny” belie any legitimacy and necessity of the field.

Gender Studies analyzes gender identity and its intersections with sexuality, race, age, etc. through a macroscopic lens that takes into account the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. To commit to an individualistic perspective and a biological interpretation of sex and gender severely limits the perspective of Male Studies. The discipline claims to be novel and essential, but at this point, it only seems superfluous and misogynistic.

The organizers of Male Studies contend that the solutions to male issues — male underachievement and males as victims of violence, to name a couple — will result from a narrow outlook that focuses on maleness solely as possession the Y chromosome and one that writes off critical analyses of the institutions and conventions of our society that create, contribute to and continue gender inequity.

Additionally, they do not seem to have a commitment to intersectionality, i.e. the examination of the way in which various categories of identity interact on several levels to reproduce social injustice. Their rhetoric of feminist-bashing and valorization of masculinity only corroborate the former claim. While the proponents of Male Studies vilify feminist ideology, they subscribe to an ideology that is extremely limited and exclusionary.

The systemic structures that may disadvantage men on an individual level cannot be addressed by valorizing masculinity.

Furthermore, the focus on cisgender maleness results in a singular conception of male experience and will further marginalize the other permutations of masculinity. That leaves us to wonder which masculinity will be allowed, privileged and studied in this new field.

Will Male Studies devote itself to a male experience only located in the upper echelon of society in terms of power and prominence, that is to say white, heterosexual, middle-class and cisgender? Certain men and manly characteristics (perhaps of the James Bond variety) will garner praise, while others will suffer an erasure of history and existence, for not all Y chromosomes are created equal, and not all “masculine” peoples tout possessing it.

Elisha Sum is a senior majoring in English and French. He can be reached at elisha. sum@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.

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Senior co-captain Jeffrey Ragazzini opened his season with a strong 8k race at Bates on Saturday, helping to lead the team to a third-place finish.

Team’s depth a powerful force MEN’S XC continued from page 12

the line Saturday, missing about a quarter of their squad. Most freshmen rested this weekend but will make their collegiate cross country debut next Saturday. “[The freshmen are] running more miles and more races so we didn’t want them to burn out early in the season,” Rand said. “We’re just breaking them in so they’ll still be feeling good in November.”

Tufts will travel to Williamstown, Mass. on Saturday to compete in the Purple Valley Classic hosted by Williams, this time with the full team on the line.

“It will be exciting racing with a full squad next week-

-

end, because as deep as we were this weekend, we have another ten to 20 guys ready to fill the ranks even fuller,” Ragazzini said.

The meet will be the Jumbos’ first of two races on the course, as they will return to Williamstown in November for the NCAA New England Regional Championship.

“We’re running the Regionals course next week, so the main thing is to get a feel for that,” Rand said. “There will be great competition out there, so we’ll be able to see where we stand right now against some of the best guys in the region. It will be a good starting point to see where we have to go in the next few months.”

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

THE TUFTS DAILY

11

SPORTS

INSIDE THE NFL

Touchdowns abound: QBs take center stage BY

MATT BERGER

Contributing Writer

After a Sunday slate of games in which eight teams put up 30 points or more and six quarterbacks threw for at least 300 yards — and two for over 400 — we see once again how a high-powered passing attack can make or break an NFL team.

In a shootout at FedExField, Matt Schaub of the Texans and Redskins quarterback Donovan McNabb combined for 66 completions, four touchdowns and 923 passing yards in a 30-27 Houston win. Once Washington safety Laron Landry went down with an injury midway through the game, Schaub exposed a depleted Redskin team time and again, leading the Texans back from a 20-7 halftime deficit to a thrilling overtime win.

A couple of quarterbacks who started the year as back-ups also made some noise on Sunday. Michael Vick made his first start in over four years, replacing the injured Kevin Kolb for McNabb’s former team, the Eagles. The three-time Pro Bowler looked like his old self, throwing for 284 yards and rushing for 37 more in the win. Detroit was also led by someone who started the year as a back-up: Shaun Hill, the journeyman quarterback out of Maryland. Hill threw for 335 yards and tossed two touchdowns in the absence of starter Matthew Stafford, proving himself a worthy replacement.

In a sibling quarterback showdown, Peyton Manning outgunned little brother Eli in a 38-14 Colts win over the Giants.

Peyton was dead-on accurate, completing 20 of his 26 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns, numbers that probably could have been better if the Colts had not been up 24-0 at halftime and did not keep the ball mostly on the ground in the second half.

Several other quarterbacks around the league put up big passing numbers in romping Week 2 wins. San Diego’s Philip Rivers continued to show why he is as good in the regular season as any quarterback in the league, throwing for 334 yards and three touchdowns in a convincing 38-13 win over Jacksonville. The other AFC West powerhouse, Denver, saw its quarterback Kyle Orton throw for over 400 yards, helping the Broncos to a 31-14 victory over Seattle.

continued from page 12

in the court,” Browne said. “I didn’t seem to be able to do much to throw off her game. … The match could’ve gone either way, but [Sunday] she was definitely the better player.”

In the doubles draw, the No. 3 seed duo of Browne and her new freshman partner Shelci Bowman cruised through the first two rounds, beating Emerson’s Lacey Russell and Savannah Mosser 8-3, and Salve Regina’s Erin Phillips and Ana Gwozdz 8-1. In the quarterfinals, however, Browne and Bowman’s run came to an end against the No. 5 seeded duo of Amherst’s Brewer and Gabby Devlin, who won 8-4 en route to the tournament title.

“We just made a few too many errors, and by the time we got our game back

Welcome to the Panic Room

I

MCT

In his first start in four years, ex-convict Michael Vick showed how far he has come by taming the Detroit Lions in a 35-32 win for the Eagles.

Rookie wideout Demaryius Thomas was Orton’s biggest beneficiary, hauling in eight receptions for 97 yards.

On the other end of the spectrum, Baltimore’s Joe Flacco almost singlehandedly gave Cincinnati a 15-10 home win. The third-year starter out of Delaware was awful, completing less than 50 percent of his passes for only 154 yards. His biggest problem, however, was taking care of the football. Flacco threw four interceptions, including two crushing blows late in the fourth quarter. The Ravens brought in Anquan Boldin, Donte Stallworth and T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the offseason to improve their passing game, but these additions will be for naught if Flacco is unable to complete passes on a consistent basis.

In Atlanta, the Cardinals’ Derek Anderson had his own problems with interceptions in a 41-7 loss to the Falcons. Anderson tossed two picks and was so bad that he was pulled

for back-up quarterback Max Hall toward the end of the game. For the Cardinals to have any success this season, Anderson is going to have to do a much better job getting the ball to his best playmaking receivers in Larry Fitzgerald and Steve Breaston.

In the NFL, the old adage reads that offenses win games but defenses win championships. While this saying may be true, take a look at the quarterbacks on recent Super Bowl championship teams.

Last season, the Saints were led by quarterback Drew Brees’s passing. Just a couple years prior, it was Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Before Manning, quarterback Tom Brady led the Patriots to three Super Bowls in four seasons.

The evidence here suggests that while defense might still win championships, in the past decade, teams have also needed a great quarterback to launch them into the upper echelon of the league.

Reigning women’s tennis champ falls in semis WOMEN’S TENNIS

ALEX PREWITT | LIVE FROM MUDVILLE

on track, we were already down by a lot,” Browne said of the quarterfinal match of her first tournament with her new partner.

“It was definitely a good experience for Shelci to play in her first college matches.

We definitely have a lot to work on, but we also have a lot to be proud of.”

“I thought Shelci did a great job in her first tournament,” senior cocaptain Edwina Stewart added. “It was very exciting.”

Stewart was the only other Jumbo to win a match this weekend, defeating Gwozdz 6-2, 6-1 in the opening round. But Stewart could not escape the round of 32, where she lost to the No. 9 seed Jacqueline Shen of Wellesley in straight sets.

“I felt a little off going into my first-round match, but I found my rhythm eventually,” Stewart said. “[Shen] is a really solid

player, and I thought I did my best. I was disappointed to lose, but I didn’t feel like anything went wrong.”

Sophomores Lauren Hollender and Janice Lam were part of the six-player team Tufts sent to Babson. Both lost to their first-round opponents in the singles draw, Hollender 6-4, 6-3 to Williams’ Lucy Marchese, and Lam 6-0, 6-3 to Bowdoin’s Kate Winningham.

Lam played in the doubles draw as well, with junior co-captain Jennifer LaCara. The pair lost 8-1 in the first round.

The Jumbos will return to action on Sept.

30 when they host MIT for a dual match.

There’s no time to waste, as the team has just two dual matches and one tournament remaining this fall.

“Our season’s pretty short,” Stewart said.

“So we have to come out strong.”

Handful of mistakes muddles otherwise impressive scrimmage The storm clouds cleared Friday night before the football team took the field at home for its scrimmage against Bowdoin. Though the “game-atmosphere practice,” as senior quarterback Anthony Fucillo described it, ended with a 19-13 Polar Bears victory, the rejuvenating excitement of a new year filled the air as the Jumbos prepared to start their regular season on Saturday against the Hamilton Continentals.

“We need to tackle better, and we need to communicate better,” head coach Bill Samko said of the scrimmage, which saw some untimely miscues from the Jumbos. “But the effort looked really good.”

Bowdoin struck first with a short touchdown run on its second possession. The Jumbos’ defense struggled early on to contain the Polar Bears’ mobile quarterbacks, whose ability to rack up ground yards helped the Polar Bears march downfield for the early lead.

It was not until Tufts found itself down 13-0 in the second quarter following a Bowdoin touchdown that the offense began to show some signs of life.

With sophomore quarterback John Dodds filling in for Fucillo, who sat out as a precautionary measure, the Jumbos were able to stage a late comeback in the first half with a string of completions that finished in the end zone on a hard-nosed sneak.

“You know it’s a good team when you can trust everyone,” Fucillo said of the Jumbos’ quarterback lineup. “The four of us work as one.”

The Tufts passing game continued clicking after the half when the team evened the score at 13-13 with a touchdown through the air. A miss on the extra point, however, seemed to rob the momentum from the Jumbos as the Polar Bears quickly retaliated, leaving the final score at 19-13.

The scrimmage should prove to be a valuable NESCAC dry-run that looked promising even without the team’s most valuable offensive duo in Fucillo and senior Pat Bailey, who sat out as well. The team will need to correct the errors made on Friday, which included dropped passes, motion penalties and a game-changing interception in the end zone. With the ball back in Fucillo’s hands and Bailey on the run, the Jumbos will nevertheless have their most dynamic offensive weapons in play when they welcome the Continentals in their season opener on Saturday.

—by Billy Rutherford

t’s a knee-jerk reaction innately ingrained in humans, similar to flinching at a punch or screaming during a frightening movie.

Deeply embedded in every sports fan’s DNA is the desire to press the panic button, to throw up one’s arms if problems arise and abandon all hope when feces and fan collide.

It’s no one’s fault, really; hate and anger are much easier — and apparently much more socially acceptable — to express on a whim than happiness and glee. Championships are won thanks to season-long success.

Compare that to failure, which can occur at any moment, triggering the furious button-mashing of every fan desperate to avoid another year of heartbreak.

This tradition occurs especially in leagues with short slates, such as the NFL. So it’s not surprising if Vikings fans are slightly upset with the way their elderly savior performed on Sunday.

Going through a full season with Tarvaris Jackson under center was unfathomable for Minnesota, and going through the rest of 2010 without getting a million-dollar paycheck was equally unsettling for Brett Favre, so he came back to the Twin Cities for yet another goaround. All was well for Vikings fans; they had hope once again and a Super Bowl trip — which, seven months ago, seemed realistic until Favre had one of his now-patented senior playoff moments — appeared in sights.

All Favre had to do was hand the ball off to Adrian Peterson, avoid making mistakes and win games.

But the second and third requirements seem to become increasingly more difficult with age.

In a 14-10 loss at home to Miami this weekend, Favre threw three interceptions — his first such game since Dec. 12, 2008, a loss to the Dolphins when Favre was with the Jets.

He coughed up a fumble, accounting for four total turnovers after throwing just two picks in the Metrodome in all of ’09.

His final line read like this: a 44.3 QB rating, two interceptions at the Miami goal line and zero touchdowns. Infinite embarrassment, immediate question marks.

Obviously, it makes little sense for Vikings fans to start panicking or media pundits to begin writing Minnesota off. Peterson (28 carries for 145 yards, one touchdown) is still one of the top two running backs in the league, and the Vikings defense has Jared Allen, a player whose number is 69 because he finds the number hilarious. Karma has a way of rewarding teams with players like these.

For all intents and purposes, though, this situation, at least on paper, would be disconcerting for any team — regardless of which future Hall of Famer is under center.

A stagnant 14-9 season-opening loss to the New Orleans Saints in a rematch of the NFC Championship revealed surprisingly little other than that the two sides were equally horrible or equally powerful. And then there was this stinker against the Dolphins, an abomination in front of 63,846 Metrodome fans who downed their beers while simultaneously pressing their panic buttons.

The problem is that there’s no plan B if things go south for the Vikings, nor would Brad Childress ever dream of benching the Minnesotan Messiah. A home date with Detroit before a Week 4 bye should remedy most of the problems, but this team was supposed to take care of business against Miami on Sunday.

Aligning expectations with reality becomes difficult when the expectations are clouded by memories of former glory. The situation becomes even more complicated if reality enters the realm of negativity.

When things turn sour, it’s that much harder to face facts. With Favre, the facts may be that it’s no longer realistic to hope for a repeat of his 107.2 passer’s rating or 4,000-plus yards over the course of last season.

Perhaps he’s finally slowing down. Perhaps, this time, the end for Brett Favre is near.

But then again, it’s not like he hasn’t made a career out of performing with unparalleled greatness at unexpected times. Maybe this game was an aberration, and we should pull our fingers off the panic button.

At least for the time being.

Alex Prewitt is a junior majoring in English and religion. He can be reached on his blog at http://livefrommudville.blogspot.com or followed on Twitter at @Alex_Prewitt.

Sports

12

INSIDE Inside the NFL 11 Football 11

tuftsdaily.com

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Fresh faces shine for women’s cross country team BY

CONNOR ROSE

Contributing Writer

With the coming of each new year, every college team hopes that it can get a talented and energetic freshman class on which to rest their hopes for the future. And after only one race, it is apparent that this year’s freshman class is ready to make an immediate impact and give such a hope to the women’s cross country team.

The Jumbos opened their season on Saturday with a 5k race at the Bates Invitational at Pineland Farms. In the unique style of super cross country, in which ten runners are scored instead of the traditional five, the women took third out of four teams. Tufts finished with a score of 243, behind Colby and Bowdoin, which had 119 and 186 points, respectively. Bates finished fourth with 306 points.

Anya Price, a junior, led the way for the women, finishing 14th overall with a time of 19:37. Right behind her was a slew of freshmen and sophomores, who took seven out of the top ten Tufts spots.

Freshmen Madeleine Carey and Abby Barker had impressive debuts, finishing 16th and 17th, respectively. Carey finished in 19:44 with Barker finishing six seconds back. Sophomore Lilly Fisher finished one place behind Barker in 19:55. To round out a great front pack, freshman Lauren Creath fought her way into the top 20 with a 19:59 time.

“The freshmen were really

great,” Price said. “They’ve looked great in workouts, and this was a test to see how they’d fare in a race. They are all really excited about performing and making a difference. Having three freshmen in our top five is really promising.”

The underclassmen have stepped up to fill voids left by the absence of some of the returning varsity runners due to injury. The promise of the freshmen class is becoming very apparent, even in this first event of the season.

“I am really excited about my classmates,” Carey said. “There are so many talented runners in the Class of 2014 and it is really great to have such a solid group to train and compete with for the next four years.”

While the race was a good kickoff to the season, Price says it was “not indicative of how we’ll score in future NESCAC races” as there is a lot of progress to be made. “Once we work on our pack running and our pacing a bit more, we have the potential to run with the girls that passed our lead pack,” she said. “We definitely have a shot to move our pack up toward the front of the race.”

With new faces in the scoring spots for the Jumbos, Price hopes to help lead by example and help with the pack running.

“It is a little bit of a challenge to lead this new pack and push the pace,” she said. “In the past I was trying to hang on to the pack in front of me, but now I find myself

leading the pack.”

The talented group of freshmen, meanwhile, is excited about being able to contribute right away.

“I am thrilled that I can be a scoring runner,” Carey said.

“But it also means that I have that much more responsibility to my teammates and my coach. But my teammates are a really great group of people, so that makes it easier to not be so nervous.”

Looking to the future, the Jumbos are hoping to run better as a pack and make a smooth adjustment to the 6k.

“I should have run a smarter race,” Carey said. “I am looking forward to the 6k, but it is always a challenge to race a new distance and I will hopefully be able to use some of my more experienced teammates to help pace me.”

“The season got off to a slow start because of fatigue and a lot of injuries,” Price said. “I think it is really important that our upperclassmen push our frontrunners once the season gets into full swing. I think a lot of the upperclassmen are going to come on strong once they get into things, and I think it’s really going to help out the young runners once we get into championship season.”

With the young talent upfront and the experienced depth, the Jumbos are thrilled about getting into the thick of the season. Saturday will be a preview of the Regionals course at the Purple Valley Classic hosted by Williams College.

WOMEN’S TENNIS

DAILY FILE PHOTO

Junior Anya Price led the way for the Jumbos in their opening 5k of the season on Saturday, taking 14th among 92 competitors.

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Men’s cross country opens season at Bates Invitational BY

LAUREN FLAMENT

Daily Editorial Board

ALEX DENNETT/TUFTS DAILY

Reigning NCAA singles champion Julia Browne lost in straight sets to Amherst first-year Jordan Brewer at the ITA New England Championship Women’s semifinal match this past weekend.

Jumbos open fall season at ITA Regional Championships BY

AARON LEIBOWITZ

Contributing Writer

She might have been the national champion last spring, but after falling in the semifinals of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) New England Championships this past weekend, senior co-captain Julia Browne knows too well how each year brings a new set of competition and a new uphill battle.

For the second straight year, Browne provided the fireworks for Tufts at the championship hosted by Babson College. While last year Browne was the singles runner-up and a doubles champion at the tournament, this time around the reigning NCAA singles champion was outmatched in the singles semifinals and doubles quarterfinals by a new, talented foe: Amherst first-year Jordan Brewer.

Browne, the No. 1 seed in the singles bracket, did not lose a game on Friday in her

first two singles matches, defeating Ashley Brunk of Bates and Nicole Block of Vassar by scores of 6-0, 6-0 in each. She again dominated in both her matches on Saturday, knocking off Caroline Capute of Williams 6-1, 6-4 and Amherst’s Carlissa King 6-2, 6-1 to advance to the semifinals.

But Browne finally met her match on Sunday, losing 6-2, 6-3 to Brewer, the tournament’s No. 4 seed. Brewer proceeded to throttle last year’s tournament champion, No. 2 seed Kristin Alotta of Williams, 6-2, 6-0 in the finals, showing the potential of a national champion.

Browne said afterwards that she was impressed with Brewer’s skill and composure, especially coming from a first-year.

“I wasn’t used to playing someone in the tournament who hit the ball so deep see WOMEN’S TENNIS, page 11

The men’s cross country team opened its season Saturday at the Bates Invitational in New Gloucester, Maine.

Out of the 78 competitors, the Jumbos placed four in the top 10, led by sophomore Matt Rand in sixth with a time of 26:41 on the 8,000-meter course. Senior co-captain Jeffrey Ragazzini followed with 26:45 to claim seventh.

Sophomores Sam Haney and Tyler Andrews rounded out the top 10 in ninth and 10th place, just one second apart with times of 26:49 and 26:50, respectively. Classmate Kyle Marks was close behind in 12th place, running a time of 26:53.

“I think the performance of the meet far and away was Sam Haney’s performance,” Ragazzini said. “In his first contribution as a top seven runner, he was third on the team, less than 10 seconds behind our first finisher.”

In a uniquely decided meet, in which each team’s top ten runners were scored, Tufts took third out of four teams, falling to NESCAC competitors Bates and Bowdoin, but defeating Colby.

Tufts runners used the meet as a chance to brush the cobwebs off their racing shoes without worrying much about how they finished among the competition. The team worked on running a controlled pace in the first half of the race and then on catching opponents in the second.

“The plan was to tempo the first half and then pick it up if we felt good,” Rand said. “I think everyone did a good job with that … and everyone kept it in control the first half. It was a solid first effort of the season.”

“We used the race as a glorified workout,” Ragazzini said. “We had a really tight pack of probably five to 10 guys all

running together for the first three miles, and we split up a little for the next few miles but then all came together pretty close at the end.”

This use of pack running could be a powerful tool for later in the season, and with a deeper and closer team than before, it could be more possible than ever.

“When we’re racing more important meets against strong teams, running as a pack presents a more challenging task to our opponent, because passing a group of four runners all together is always harder than passing four runners spread over the course,” Ragazzini said.

“I think a lot of the guys have made some steps up and some improvements from last year and they will be closer to the front,” Rand said. “Plus some of the freshmen will be packing up and running together, so I think we will be pretty tight in the races this year.”

Without a clear leader as in years past, having a tight varsity squad will be more important than ever.

“This will be the first season that we’ve run without a dominant frontrunner,” Ragazzini said. “We had Jesse Faller (E ’10) leading the way for three years, but now Tufts cross country is a very different beast, having five guys who could all be the number one on any given day.”

Though the team was happy with its first performance of the season, the Jumbos still have to put in a lot of work before they are at the place they want to be.

“The team is very fit,” Ragazzini said.

“We’re more fit than we’ve ever been at this point in the season, but its not specific 8k fitness right now. We’re all ready to work really hard and do the work that gets us into 8k shape.”

The team had 22 members step on see MEN’S XC, page 10