2010-09-28

THE TUFTS DAILY

Thunderstorms 77/66

VOLUME LX, NUMBER 13

BY JENNY

WHITE

Daily Editorial Board

Senior Sam Wallis may have won the election for the Tufts Community Union (TCU) presidency last spring, but — according to a few sidewalks on campus — his campaign is still ongoing.

Wallis’s campaign team advertised with spray chalk on a number of sidewalks throughout campus during the elections. Since then, repeated attempts to remove the chalk have failed outside certain buildings, including Robinson and Pearson Halls.

Wallis’s campaign team thought spraying would save time and the chalk marks would disappear soon after the election, Wallis said. The bottle of spray chalk, he explained, indicated that all chalk marks would fade within two to three weeks of use.

“We thought it would be a convenient solution. Turned out otherwise,” Wallis said.

The administration and the Department of Facilities Services initially thought that the chalk was graffiti, AdamWeldai (LA ’10),Wallis’s campaign manager, said. University officials quickly contacted the students in the campaign.

“We talked to the university about it extensively, and we showed them the bottle of spray that clearly said it was washable,” Wallis said. “They were surprised too that it wouldn’t wash out.”

TUFTSDAILY.COM

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2010

Spray chalk from Wallis campaign remains on some surfaces Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds said the spray chalk was inaccurately advertised.

“In fairness to the students from Sam’s campaign, the problem was a failure of truth in advertising,” Reynolds said. “The spray can did indicate the chalk would wash off with rain or in ‘x’ weeks. So all is forgiven.”

Starting this semester The Office for Campus Life (OCL) has forbidden the use of spray chalk for student organization advertisements.

OCL’s posting policy on its website now reads, in bolded italics, “No spray chalk of any kind is allowed!”

Facilities launched attempts to wipe away the chalk almost immediately after the students used it, Reynolds said.

“We spent two weeks and several thousand dollars with a graffiti removal company trying to get it off,” Reynolds said. “What you’re still seeing is whatever the graffiti specialist could not remove even with high-powered steam and whatever else he used.”

Weldai said that campaign members were excited to try this kind of chalking, seeing it as a convenient way to spread awareness.

“At one of our meetings, a campaign member said they had heard of spray chalk,” Weldai said.

“We thought it was a fantastic idea. We looked up brands online,

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Revamped sexual assault judicial process takes effect, garners praise BY

MARTHA SHANAHAN Daily Editorial Board

A new judicial process for sexual assault cases earlier this month went into effect after the administration, in collaboration with the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate and the student group Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), crafted a special procedure for Tufts to handle such allegations.

The new procedure employs an independent trained fact-finder to investigate allegations of sexual assault brought to the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs and also removes a previously existing statute of limitations for sexual assault complaints.

The revised adjudication mechanism accompanies a new sexual assault policy outlining options and resources for victims, which was finalized earlier in the summer. Both are currently available in full on both the student affairs and the SAFER websites.

They will apply to students in the Schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Problems with the previous procedure The old adjudication process

see CHALK, page 2

see SEXUAL ASSAULT, page 2

Obama speaks with college journalists

AALOK KANANI/TUFTS DAILY

The new sexual assault judicial process brings in an independent expert and eliminates a mediation option.

Laptop use in the classroom comes under fire from some professors BY

KATHRYN OLSON

Daily Editorial Board

PETE SOUZA/OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO

President Barack Obama participates in a conference call yesterday with college and university student journalists in the Oval Office. The Daily listened in as the president took questions about education, the economy and political participation by young people. For a recap of the call, visit Jumbo Slice at blogs.tuftsdaily.com.

Inside this issue

More university professors nationwide have increasingly questioned students’ use of laptops in class, with some choosing to ban computers from lectures. Students returning to the Hill this semester have found that some Tufts professors have also made the decision to either discourage or prohibit the use of laptops in their classrooms.

The backlash against students using computers to take notes in lectures comes even as Tufts continues to increase wireless Internet access in university buildings.

Despite the sometimes-unpopular nature of such bans, faculty members defended their policies as being vital to creating a conducive learning environment.

Assistant Professor of Arabic Kamran Rastegar, who discourages the use of laptops during lectures, questioned their place in the classroom.

“It didn’t add much to what was going on in class and introduces all kinds of distractions,” Rastegar said. “Students with laptops distracted other students. It’s not so much that they offend me, I just couldn’t think of a good reason for them being in class.”

Associate Professor of Political Science Richard Eichenberg said his stance on computer use is as much for his own benefit as his students’.

“As a lecturer, it’s not fun to look at 60 laptops,” he said. “I like to see faces and expressions so I can get a sense that what I am saying is hitting home. It has nothing to do with a theory of learning. I just need to have a connection with my student audience. It’s really

a question of physics; students can’t be looking up at me and staring at their computer screens at the same time.”

Professor of Sociology Helen Marrow, who is in her first semester at Tufts, acknowledged the benefits of having computers in class.

“I get it,” Marrow said. “I’m from the computer generation as well and understand that there are incredibly good reasons for using laptops in the classroom. They make it easier to take in a lot more information and if you need someone to look up a definition or an example, they are very useful. In this way they can further class engagement.”

Marrow, however, also articulated theoretical reasons for her position against computers in the classroom — she has taken a more creative approach to the laptop ban, allowing only students sitting in the front row to use laptops.

“As a sociologist, I see this as illustrating how people act differently in large groups,” she said. “The temptation to distract yourself with technology is not an individual tendency.

It’s the context we create with technology in which students are more likely to do other things than pay attention.”

Marrow also compromised with students worried about missing information without a laptop to take notes with by posting her PowerPoint lectures online.

Neither Eichenberg nor Rastegar have reported any backlash from students about the ban. Eichenberg said the no-laptop policy has generally been conducive to classroom participation. see LAPTOPS, page 2

Today’s Sections

Recent polls indicate greater acceptance of marijuana use among the American public.

Despite its talented cast, Fox’s ‘Running Wilde’ disappoints with formulaic plot.

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

2 Police Briefs MONEY HUNGRY A resident assistant in Houston Hall reported to Tufts University Policy Department (TUPD) at 6 p.m. on Sept. 21 that two people were taking money from a vending machine. Officers arrived at Houston and searched surrounding buildings after hearing similar reports from Carmichael Hall.

TUPD Sgt. Robert McCarthy said that the individuals only attempted to enter the machines in Houston and Carmichael. TUPD reported the break-ins to Next Generation Vending and Food Service, Inc., the business that owns the machines.

The company responded immediately and changed the locks on all its machines on campus. TUPD does not believe the two individuals were affiliated with Tufts.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH TUPD officers responded at 10:45 p.m. on Sept. 21 to a noise complaint from residents of Latin Way. When officers knocked on the door of a room from which loud music was playing, the individual who answered tried to close the door upon seeing the officer. “He wasn’t successful,” McCarthy said.

The individual claimed he was a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which

See tuftsdaily.com for an interactive map. another student in the room supported, but showed officers a Tufts ID, confirming that he was a Tufts student.

“He probably wouldn’t have had a report written about him if he told the truth,” McCarthy said.

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? A TUPD officer at 9 p.m. on Sept. 23 saw a male placing two 40-oz. beer bottles on the ground in front of Andrea’s House of Pizza on Boston Avenue. The officer asked for the individual’s ID but noticed that the picture did not look like him. He said he was visiting his brother, a Tufts student. When the student who the ID belonged to arrived at the scene, the officer found that the individual was using his brother’s ID to purchase the alcohol.

CRASH LANDING An officer at 12:36 a.m. on Sept. 25 found a female student lying facedown on the street near the TUPD garage on Boston Avenue. The student had been knocked unconscious after falling down the stairs located next to the garage. She was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital and released at 4:30 a.m. without critical injuries.

JUST LET IT GO, MAN TUPD officers at 12:41 a.m. on Sept. 26 saw two males in an altercation in front of the Delta Upsilon (DU) fraternity house at 114 Professors Row. The fight began after a DU brother refused to let a student enter the house’s party. TUPD broke up the dispute but at 2:48 a.m. found the same two individuals fighting in front of Hodgdon Hall, where one of the students lived.

The Hodgdon resident at 3:42 a.m. reported that someone had written a derogatory phrase on his door. He told TUPD he suspected a specific student, but TUPD did not investigate further due to the lack of witnesses.

FIFTH TIME’S THE CHARM TUPD at 2:21 a.m. on Sept.

26 responded to complaints of a loud party taking place on Teele Avenue. Somerville Police Department officers arrived at the scene as well. Since this marked the fifth time since Sept. 1 that the Somerville Police had responded to reports of noisy parties at this location, the police issued a $300 city noise violation to each of the house’s three residents.

—compiled by Alexandra Bogus

Some faculty try to limit laptop use in classes LAPTOPS continued from page 1

“I frequently ask rhetorical questions that require students to respond,” he said. “If faces are up and eyes are engaged, it’s more likely that conversation will result.”

Rastegar said that the debate about laptop use touches on a larg-

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

NEWS

er discussion of the appropriate use of technology in everyday life.

His own decision to question the constant use of technology came from personal experience.

“We are all struggling with how best to use technology,” he said. “In the classroom, stu-

dents must be succumbing to that temptation of wanting to check their e-mail that I have experienced. Maybe in another generation people will be better trained on how to figure this out, but for now we need to be careful.”

DILYS ONG/TUFTS DAILY

TCU President Sam Wallis’s name remains etched into the pavement.

Spray chalk remains from spring presidential campaign CHALK continued from page 1

thought it was brilliant. How come no one had used it before?

We were revolutionaries.”

In hindsight, Wallis said, the campaign regretted the use of the chalk.

“It was an honest mistake by members of our team,” Wallis said.

“I feel very bad about it. I can’t wait for it to disappear.”

Weldai agreed.

“In every presidential campaign, there seems to be a goofy issue,” Weldai said. “And this became our goofy issue.”

Students left angry messages on Wallis’s campaign website thinking the campaign damaged campus property, according to Weldai. “We had to put up posters to say it was just spray chalk,” he said.

“People thought we were trying to graffiti the campus,” Wallis said.

Weldai said that senior

Lauren Levine, the opposing candidate, employed hair spray over regular chalk to postpone wash-off from rain, a move he called “brilliant.”

Tufts’ Elections Commission (ECOM) Public Relations Director Will Yu said that ECOM received complaints from students about the Wallis campaign’s spray chalk and Levine’s use of hair spray.

“There was a big reaction from students,” said Yu, a sophomore. “But there was no technical breaking of rules. [The campaigns] used their own money to buy the hair spray and spray chalk and went through the proper channels to do it.”

Reynolds said he hopes students will adhere to the new rules in the future.

“I would like to make clear that there is no problem with students using good old-fashioned stick chalk,” Reynolds said.

University implements revised version of sexual assault adjudication policy SEXUAL ASSAULT continued from page 1

for allegations of assault was no different than that used for handling minor Code of Conduct violations, Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said.

“The conclusion about the old system was that cases of sexual assault and other cases of violence were handled the same way all other Code of Conduct violation complaints were handled,” Reitman said. “What we did was recognize that there needed to be a different process for cases in which sexual assault was alleged.”

TCU Senator Wyatt Cadley, a sophomore who represented the Senate in collaborating with Reitman, Judicial Affairs Officer Veronica Carter and other staff from the Division of Student Affairs, said that the previous adjudication mechanism was unfair to the victims.

“In the old system, the judicial process was just a mess,” he said. Under that system, both the victim and the alleged perpetrator would participate in a judicial hearing and present their side of the story with all involved parties present, according to Cadley.

“Needless to say, this was an awful situation for everyone involved, largely because it severely undermined the university’s ability to make a just and fair decision with all the facts,” Cadley said.

The revised adjudication procedure eliminates the judicial hearing component, Reitman said.

“It was said that the judicial hearing was creating a hostile environment,” he said.

“The two students were not only in the same room, but had to confront one another, and in essence it felt like a cross [examination] in a courtroom. Both sides have said that they didn’t get a chance to tell their story.”

The new judicial mechanism Under the new process, following the filing of a complaint with Reitman’s office, a factfinder will determine the circumstances surrounding the allegation through research and individual interviews with all involved parties, eventually providing a conclusive summary and recommendation for the dean of student affairs, according to Reitman. The fact-finder

may also be used in other situations deemed to require further investigation.

“This is a thorough investigation, a thorough exploration of all information possible and all witnesses possible, always [interviewed] one at a time,” he said.

The dean of student affairs will then either act on the recommendation or request for additional research to be done.

“I will only have the benefit of the report of the fact-finder, so it’s not my interest to disregard the report,” Reitman said. “If I had questions or if something remains unclear, I would ask the fact-finder to pursue some additional interview work.”

Aside from the fact-finder, a support person and an impartial note-taker will also be involved in the judicial process.

The support person, who can be chosen and used by any student involved in the situation, can be a faculty member, a student, a parent or anyone the student trusts. According to the document outlining the process, the support person is only involved to offer psychological support and cannot be an attorney.

The new process is an improvement in terms of protecting the psychological wellbeing of both the alleged victim and perpetrator, SAFER President Derek Moody, a sophomore, said.

“It’s a lot better because the complainant and respondent don’t have to actually meet face-to-face, which would be traumatizing for the person who had been sexually assaulted,” Moody said. “Now we’re going to have a fact-finder who knows a lot about what’s going through the heads of both parties. It’s a more relaxed setting; you get to tell your whole story.”

Cadley agreed that the new protocol ensured an appropriate treatment of the matter. “The overall sentiment of the process and the way in which it’s going to be enforced ensures that the students will be able to find justice with dignity,” Cadley said.

Tufts administrators used Harvard University as a model in the development of the new adjudication procedure, Reitman said.

“We met with representatives from Tufts to explain our process and to provide them

with the material that is now available on our website,” Associate Dean of Harvard College John Ellison, the secretary of the Administrative Board at Harvard, said in an e-mail to the Daily.

Harvard’s administration has employed the fact-finder procedure successfully since 2000, according to Ellison. “The process is a great improvement and a successful addition to our process,” he said.

Student affairs administrators at Tufts evaluated the program and thought the model would be applicable at Tufts as well, Cadley said.

Harvard’s fact-finders are often attorneys who specialize in sexual assault cases, Reitman said. He said that Tufts’ own university counsel, in conjunction with the Office of Student Affairs, will make personnel decisions.

“We’re talking with Harvard to know if the people who have done good work for them are available to us,” Reitman said.

The new judicial policy also eliminates the statute of limitations on sexual assault complaints, which previously specified a timeframe within which a victim could file a complaint. There is now no time limit for a complaint to be made following an incident.

“Under the new policy, so long as the alleged perpetrator is a still a Tufts student, a complaint may be brought forward regardless of when the alleged incident took place,” Cadley said.

Mediation, a controversial measure discouraged by the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Education, has also been removed as an option in sexual assault cases, according to Reitman.

Sexual assault policy revisions The updated process follows the May revision of the university-wide sexual assault policy, distinct from the adjudication process.

The Senate and SAFER last year collaborated with the Division of Student Affairs and Health Service to revise the sexual assault policy, in part due to the Senate’s unanimously adopted March resolution calling for a new policy.

Following the resolution’s passage, a Senate survey administered in the spring revealed

that 73.3 percent of voters were “not familiar at all” with the student judicial process for cases of sexual assault and that 52.4 percent were not aware of the resources available to sexual assault survivors.

Reitman said a lack of publicity and clarity hindered awareness.

“Prior to this year, that material was not readily findable,” Reitman said. “It also didn’t really define what sexual assault was, and it didn’t give a comprehensive list of resources.

It was difficult to really identify what is the university’s policy on sexual assault.”

In contrast, the new policy is an improvement, Reitman said. “It’s much more supportive for people looking for information, and it applies to all campuses,” he said.

The new policy provides a more thorough definition of sexual assault and a more comprehensive list of resources available to survivors, Cadley said.

“The purpose is to provide definitions for things such as sexual assault, give an understanding of what consent is, providing a list of survivors rights and what the Tufts police will provide in terms of services if you report an assault,” he said.

The Senate plans to monitor whether student awareness will change as a result of the new policy, Cadley said.

“We could track whether there was a relationship between having a more clear policy and students’ understanding,” he said. “It’s something that we’re going to continue to track throughout the year.”

Cadley and Reitman said that while both documents are subject to slight modifications as they are implemented, they have been designed with clarity in mind.

“There are still some pieces of language that we’d like to clarify and the relevant administrators and the students working on this policy have an excellent working relationship and are committed to making this as clear a policy as possible,” Cadley said.

Students will be able to ask questions about the new policy at an annual forum at the end of October. Reitman, other staff from the Division of Student Affairs and judicial affairs officers will be present to provide responses, Moody said.

Features

3

tuftsdaily.com

ISAAC FREEMAN | SEX. DAILY.

Ladies, pass this to your partner

I

MCT

To smoke, or not to smoke? To smoke, some Americans say.

Americans warm up to marijuana use

BY SARAH

KORONES

Daily Editorial Board

As many on campus have realized, marijuana use is hardly confined to a stereotypical “pothead” or stoner anymore. In the United States, at least, marijuana use is becoming more and more acceptable as larger numbers of people begin to support and argue for the legalization of the drug.

As shown in recent polls conducted

by Gallup and CBS News, 44 percent of all Americans believe that marijuana should be legalized — a whopping number compared to the roughly 25 percent that were in favor of legalization in the ’90s.

The new increase in legalization approval correlates with the number of people who are actually engaging in drug use — a number which, according to a recent survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service

Administration, rose to its highest level in a decade last year.

But why the newly relaxed attitudes?

Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Allen St. Pierre believes the reason is multifold.

St. Pierre attributes much of the change to shifting generational demographics, arguing that the baby boomers and Generation Y are much more likely to embrace and use illegal drugs than members of past generations.

“There is a huge cultural difference regarding the affinity that the baby boom generation has with cannabis as compared to, say … the World War II generation,” St. Pierre told the Daily.

“Each time a new generation takes over the reins of power, there are usually some changes in society.”

St. Pierre also credits the change to improvements in technology, pointing to the fact that, in light of the Internet,

people can share ideas about marijuana and gather support for legalization in a much more efficient manner than was possible in the past.

“The ability for social organizing … has made it so that those who are concerned with a particular topic can organize quite readily in real time,” St. Pierre said. “NORML right now has 1.3 million people in our network: people on our LISTSERV, our Twitter feeds, our Facebook page, our Facebook Causes page. We could not mail one-ounce mailings to 1.3 million people; we would be bankrupt the next day. So the ability to push communications to 1.3 million people at little to no cost and to organize them is, to me, one of the major reasons why these reforms are starting to happen.”

Of course, St. Pierre does not ignore the fact that anti-drug activists also have see MARIJUANA, page 4

Study: Overhearing conversations decreases performance Psychologists study why our brains cannot help but eavesdrop BY

ROMY OLTUSKI

Daily Editorial Board

Have you ever tried to read a book on a bus or train, only to find that you’re spending more time listening in on your neighbor’s phone conversation?

Lauren Emberson has. The psychology doctoral candidate at Cornell University has decided to take on an experiment that tests whether hearing half of a conversation actually causes a psychological effect in those within earshot — or whether your neighbor on the T is just that fascinating.

As it turns out, your neighbor’s life is not necessarily more interesting than anyone else’s.

Emberson, with a team of psychologists, found that what distracts anyone within audible range of this “halfologue” is not the conversation itself but the condition of hearing only one side of a conversation, which, according to the study, automatically draws your attention away from other brain activities and results in decreased performance of the task you are attempting to complete.

The reason? The more unpredictable a situation is, the harder the brain has to — and does — work to fill in the gaps, often involuntarily.

“Your knowledge of a situation drives what’s predictable for you, and new information relative to your mental model of the world causes you to pay more attention. It’s very reflexive,” Emberson told the Daily.

“If you hear a loud noise behind you, everyone turns around,” she continued. “But if you know you’re going to hear a loud noise, you can control that reflex and keep focusing on something else. Or if you walk to work on the same route every day and know that route well, if something on it changes, you’re really captured by that.”

Emberson said she has overheard many bus-ride halfologues — a term coined in her lab that has since gained popularity online.

“The motivation behind this is my own personal experience of my behavior being significantly affected by overhearing other people’s conversation,” she said. “I needed to read on the bus as an undergrad commuting

to school, and I often wouldn’t be able to concentrate because people were talking on the phone nearby me.”

To find out what was at play, Emberson and her team designed two experiments.

In the first, they recorded college roommates engaging in three types of speech: dialogue, in this case a full, two-sided phone conversation; halfologue, the same conversation with one of the roommate’s tracks deleted; and monologue, one roommate’s recap of the conversation. Then, the researchers asked volunteers to ignore the sounds they were hearing and complete two tasks, which tested for verbal and non-verbal capacity.

“They both demand a lot of attention, and they both reflect the way we use attention in our daily lives,” Emberson said.

She hypothesized that the unpredictability of the halfologue impairs cognitive performance — and she was right.

Volunteers succeeded less in their tasks when they overheard a halfologue but see HALFOLOGUE, page 4

n case you missed the first article, this is a series about how to have great sex. It’s meant to be interactive, so if you have any sex questions of your own, send me an anonymous email to tufts.housemate@gmail.com, and I’ll try to answer it in a future column. Last time, the discussion was all about communication and feeling relaxed. This time, I’ll provide some thoughts about cunnilingus. A quick note — oral can transmit STIs just like unprotected sex. Talk to your partner, and get a free dental dam from health services if you’d prefer.

Before your partner drops trou, you’ve got to be mentally prepared. Maybe you’re cool with licking your girl down there, but I have friends who wouldn’t consider it. First of all, if you think it’s going to be terrible, it will be, so go in with a positive attitude, and you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised. Don’t think of this as doing her a favor; if you do a good job, her reaction will be sexy enough to make it worth your while. Now that your head’s in the game …

This goes back to the whole comfort thing, but warm your girl up first. Talk to her, play with her hair, nibble her ears (they are way more sensual than you think) and tell her how you feel; just hold her. She’ll likely be self-conscious, especially if this is her first time (or yours), so be respectful.

Slowly work down from her head, taking advantage of several stops along the way (breasts, belly button, inner thighs). Use her reactions as a gauge on how to proceed. If she seems at all uncomfortable, take a break. No reason to rush things.

Now comes the fun part. Start off gently until you find out what kind of pressure she likes. At first just kind of explore her with your tongue. Maybe incorporate a finger or two inside her. If you did a good job warming her up, you should be able to tell at this point. You may already know this, but under NO circumstances make the “icky face.” Even if it’s not what you signed up for, and you have to stop, be nice about it. She’s doing you a favor by allowing you to be intimate with her, so don’t make her feel self-conscious — it’s so easy to prevent and so hard to shake.

At this point, the key is communication.

Encourage her to tell you what feels good, and do it. If you aren’t sure what to do, try tracing the ABCs (or numbers if you’re an engineer). Once you find what she likes, keep doing that thing, and DON’T stop. I was talking to a friend about this, and her advice was spot on: “Keep going until you feel like you are going to die. Then keep going.” Truer words were never spoken.

Your job isn’t done until she says it’s done, but don’t worry, your perseverance will be rewarded in kind, I’m sure.

A few other notes and suggestions: Beard growers — pick a style of facial hair and stick to it. Beards and moustaches are fine, as is the clean-shaven look, but try to avoid the one-to-three-day stubble. Nobody likes beard burn. Secondly, keep your nails trimmed. Ouch. Thirdly, don’t be afraid to show her you’re enjoying yourself; she can feel your breath and energy. Knowing that you’re into it will make her enjoy the experience even more. The most important step comes later, when you’re cuddling: Ask her how you did. Find out what worked and what didn’t, so you can be even better next time. The trick is to think of it as a game — there’s always room for improvement, and everybody wins.

Isaac Freeman is a junior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at tufts.housemate@gmail.com. He cohosts “Sex Talk,” a talk show from 10 to 11 p.m. every Thursday on WMFO.

THE TUFTS DAILY

4

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

FEATURES

Americans begin to envision a future with legalized marijuana

That conversation overheard on the Joey could cost you, study suggests

MARIJUANA

HALFOLOGUE

continued from page 3

access to the tools of technology; the lack of major, mainstream opposition to marijuana, he said, certainly allows for the dissemination of pro-marijuana ideas and attitudes.

“Generally speaking, doctors are not opposed to it. Nurses are not opposed to it. Teachers are not opposed to it.

Almost every religious sect is not organized against it. Business is not organized against it. It’s just the government,” he said.

According to St. Pierre and his research at NORML, the percentage of Americans who are comfortable with marijuana legalization will only increase in future years. St. Pierre, who began tracking public opinion on the subject over 20 years ago by collecting and archiving polls and survey results, believes that by 2021, a large majority of Americans will favor legalization.

“By 2020-2021, 60 percent of Americans … will want marijuana legalized,” he said.

“Right now it’s at 45 percent. That number has doubled in a twenty-year period.”

These attitudes have already, to an extent, materialized in Massachusetts when voters in the 2008 election approved an initiative to decriminalize the act of possessing small amounts (one ounce or less) of marijuana. Now, those caught carrying the substance must simply pay a $100 civil fine rather than being reported to the Massachusetts Criminal History Systems Board, the consequence for possession prior to decriminalization.

Many students on the Tufts campus say they personally have seen decriminalization result in more relaxed attitudes toward drug use. Senior Will Cohn explained that most students already have little or no personal objections to marijuana use, and the reduced punish-

ment has in turn reduced the only incentive not to smoke.

“Tufts is a pretty liberal campus, and I think most people would be in favor of legalizing marijuana. It’s already decriminalized, so it seems like more and more people have that opinion,” Cohn said.

“I’m pretty sure most people know that the worst thing that happens when you smoke too much pot is that you watch some crappy YouTube videos and then eat one too many Hot Pockets. That’s really about as bad as it gets. They understand that as long as you’re in the privacy of your own home, only so much harm can be done.”

While marijuana use is certainly not regarded as acceptable by the Tufts administration, the newly reinstated “warning” as part of its drug and alcohol policies may indicate a slow move toward a more lenient stance on the drug. Under current policy, students caught illegally drinking or using small amounts of marijuana are now given the opportunity to schedule a meeting with the Director of Alcohol and Health Education in order to have their punishment replaced with a “warning.”

There are, of course, others who stand against the recently lax attitudes.

Government groups such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and drug prevention groups such as the Drug Free America Foundation still stand firmly against the legalization of marijuana.

Lana Beck, Director of Communications of the Drug Free America Foundation, stressed the importance of anti-drug education as a method by which Americans can learn about the negative consequences of drug use.

“I do think drug prevention is very important,” Beck told the Daily. “Drug prevention is paramount for folks to become educated on the issues surrounding drugs and their effects.”

Better banking means better offers for students!

continued from page 3

not when they overheard the more predictable, less open-ended dialogue or monologue.

And for some students who also came to the conclusion that halfologues can be more distracting, like junior John Peter Kaytrosh, the reason why is obvious.

“Not only do you sort of wonder what the conversation is about, but you also wonder how the ums, yeses, nos and sounds that people make on the phone can ever add up to a conversation,” he said. “Not only that — the appearance of someone talking to someone not physically there is just disconcerting.”

Junior Anna Bick had similar ideas about why the halfologue ticks her off.

“If you only hear one side of the story,” Bick said, “it leaves you wondering what they’re talking about.”

Emberson’s second experiment focused on that aura of mystery.

“There’s a number of ways in which halfologues can differ,” Emberson said. “They can be acoustically unpredictable, where you don’t know when you’re going to hear speech, and it can be informationally unpredictable, where you don’t understand the conversation’s full content.”

To test which factor was disruptive, Emberson’s team drowned out the words on the recordings, so that the next set of volunteers could just hear sound.

The result clash with what the researches had predicted: Participants who could not understand any content were not distracted at all, implying that the only reason side-conversations have any effect on us is because our brains, if given a little information, allocate attention away

from other tasks to try and piece together what’s missing from what they are overhearing.

For Emberson, this surprise result raises another question and another potential project: exploring how we process coversations in languages people do not understand.

“You can hear the speech, but if you don’t understand it, it won’t have the same effect on performance,” Emberson said. “Then again, other people have said that they find language — even in languages they don’t understand — distracting.”

Emberson’s experiment could be broadly applied to how people should be using their phones now that they know they are affecting other people, she said. Phone etiquette is already established in places like libraries for the same reasons, Bick said.

“There’s nothing wrong with talking on your cell phone, but when someone answers their phone and carries out a conversation in a quiet place, like the library, then it’s really annoying because not only is it one of the only noises, but it takes all your focus away,” Emberson said.

But there’s a chance that speaking on the phone in less intuitively disruptive situations could also have more an adverse effect than expected.

A halfologue in the backseat of a car, for example, could potentially decrease a driver’s cognitive ability to focus on the road, Emberson said.

“In light of this experiment, it’s important to reconsider phone etiquette,” she said. “I know I try not to speak on a cell phone anywhere in public. We can’t be sure, but it’s possible that if there’s someone speaking on a phone in a bus, not only the people listening are distracted, but the bus driver’s driving could be impaired.”

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Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

TV REVIEW

MADELINE HALL | THE TASTEFUL AND THE TASTELESS

(Mouth like a) sailor song

I

FOX.COM

In ‘Running Wilde,’ Will Arnett is Steve Wilde, humanitarian of the fiscal year.

‘Running Wilde’ fails to live up to its promising, star-studded pedigree

BY JOSEPH STILE

Contributing Writer

Fox’s freshman comedy, “Running Wilde,” has a pedigree that most shows would kill for. Written by some of the

Running Wilde Starring Will Arnett, Keri Russell, David Cross, Stefania Owen Airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on Fox

minds behind the Emmy-winning cult classic “Arrested Development” (2003-06), it stars funnyman Will Arnett and Golden Globe-winning actress Keri Russell, and features a talented supporting cast. In theory, “Running Wilde” should be an instant hit, yet somehow it completely misses the mark.

“Running Wilde,” which was created

by Arnett, Mitchell Hurwitz (creator of “Arrested Development”) and James Vallely, focuses on Steve Wilde (Arnett) and his attempt to win back Emmy (Russell), the one who got away. It does

MOVIE REVIEW

NATASHA JESSEN-PETERSEN Contributing Writer

Sometimes bad movies happen to good people. Unfortunately for the terrific cast of “You Again,” “sometimes” is right now.

You Again Starring Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver Directed by Andy Fickman Due to the shoddy script, the movie’s stellar ensemble of Kristen Bell, Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis and the legendary Betty White almost all fail to deliver. Their lines are contrived and their scenes awk-

see WILDE, page 6

THEATER REVIEW

‘You Again’ falls flat with tired slapstick, scant script BY

not help Steve’s cause that he is an immature, self-centered oil tycoon and Emmy is an obsessive do-gooder environmentalist — a plot which follows the typical rom-com formula all too closely.

Steve Wilde is the type of character that Arnett plays best: the egocentric, overprivileged man-child who is painfully unaware of just how horrible a person he is. Arnett has been hilarious in this type of role in smaller doses on “30 Rock” and “Arrested Development,” but it’s not the

ward. What should have been a brilliant celebration of talent was instead churned into a film of straight-to-DVD caliber.

The premise is neither new nor original. Bell portrays Marni, a once-unpopular and acne-ridden high school student who has transformed into a beautiful and successful PR professional. Newly promoted, she returns home to find that her brother (Jimmy Wolk) is engaged to be married to the girl who made her teenage years a living hell.

This erstwhile alpha female, Joanna (Odette Yustman), has done a one-eighty and reacted to her parents’ recent deaths by dedicating herself to helping the less fortunate. The dynamic between Marni and Joanna is paralleled by that between see YOU, page 6

‘Fraulein Maria’ reinterprets a well-loved classic BY

LAURA MORENO

Contributing Writer

It is never easy to see a childhood classic like “The Sound of Music” reinterpreted, much less parodied.

Fraulein Maria Written and Directed by Doug Elkins At the Paramount Theatre through Oct. 3 Tickets $25 to $69 But Doug Elkins’ funny and refreshing creation, “Fraulein Maria,” does just that. Currently playing in the newly renovated Paramount Theatre, “Fraulein Maria” is less a remake and more a reassessment of “The Sound of Music.” Elkins uses the original soundtrack to create fearless original choreography, questioning both the music and its premise. “Fraulein Maria” gives new meaning to each song through interpretive dances and scriptless interactions.

The show is short, lasting only the 70 minutes of the original soundtrack.

It begins with an amusing interaction between Elkins and the audience.

Elkins divides them into three groups, where each is assigned to sing Do, Re or Mi. As the audience breaks into laughter, the curtains open to reveal the rest of the cast. Right away, the

ROTTENTOMATOES.COM

Betty White is the comedic saving grace of ‘You Again.’

see MARIA, page 6

run the risk of echoing the sentiments of my disillusioned elders, but kids these days are saying some outrageous stuff!

It makes me sick. Some guy named Sea Low is singing a song with the f-word in the title! Whodathunk?

No, I’m not that out of touch with popular culture. Cee Lo Green is not a mystery to me, nor is his new song, “F**k You,” enough to send my arthritic limbs into perpetual shakes. In the past month, “F**k You” has clogged the Internet airwaves and Facebook pages of thousands of individuals simultaneously thrilled and appalled by Cee Lo’s lyrics; the combined total views of the song’s two main videos on YouTube is quickly moving towards 12 million. Viral? You betcha.

All the usual suspects are weighing in on the song, with unsurprising commentary by Pitchfork and Rolling Stone remarking on the duality of the sunny beat coupled with the aggressive lyrics.

However, a chorus of other unexpected critics is commenting on the controversial nature of the song’s message.

An Aug. 30 New York Times article by Noam Cohen avoids mentioning the correct title itself while discussing the crudeness of the song, unintentionally highlighting the awkwardness the song imposes. “F**k You” shows us that in spite of our foul-mouthed tendencies, four little letters can still cause quite a stir, even for a news source that has seen it all.

Why, though, should this be so controversial? This isn’t even the first expletive-centric song to air with the f-bomb dominating the title and chorus.

Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” on her 2009 album “It’s Not Me, It’s You” paired a chipper, upbeat melody with a face-slapping set of lyrics. She cited closed-minded opinions and general hatred as the grounds for her distaste, alternating between perfectly polite requests and downright rude demands. Fulfilling her primary goal to produce an ironic jab at the idiots who grind our gears, Allen’s song was forceful and without apology.

But we’re not that easily surprised; it takes more than some tasteful swearing to ruffle our feathers. Walk around campus and you will hear plenty of “f--- you”s thrown around with reckless abandon. This ain’t new.

The shock among students our age, then, is not the swearing or the irony. It is the straightforward honesty of the universal anger felt after heartbreak that moves us to listen to this song. Say what you will about the genre or the mainstream appeal that might turn off discerning music aficionados, there’s a satisfaction behind Cee Lo’s “F**k You” that cannot be denied by anyone with a history of letdowns.

Remember the girl who inexplicably ignored your romantic overtures in seventh grade? Sure, a 10-page love letter written in her favorite color ink (magenta) was kind of overkill, and the detailed description of the back of her head as it appeared to you during homeroom didn’t win any hearts, but she didn’t have to post it online for everyone’s enjoyment. Better yet, do you remember that guy who hit on you for the entire evening, enjoyed a “classy” night with you and then promptly made off with all the spare cash from your desk in the form of repayment for his “chivalry”?

Somehow this tune sings true to the embarrassment and disappointment that we all experience from time to time. It is much easier to let Cee Lo squeak our favorite phrase for us at maximum volume, rather than shout it ourselves.

Besides, isn’t it more joyful to hear a rhyming admonishment directed toward the jerkface that ruined your whole day?

There’s nothing like some sick rhymes to heal that hurt.

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 28, 2010

ARTS & LIVING

The hills literally come alive in Doug Elkins’ ‘Fraulein Maria’ MARIA continued from page 5

astounding energy of the performers is evident, and this energy is maintained throughout the show.

The plot of “Fraulein Maria” does not deviate from that of the original Rodgers and Hammerstein production. Maria becomes a nuisance to her convent, and so she is assigned as a nanny in the von Trapp household. Once there, she manages to make both the children and Mr. von Trapp fall in love with her. As “Fraulein Maria” abandons any dialogue, the plot is understood by a combination of three different elements: a previous knowledge of the original play or movie, the logical order in which the original songs appear and a talented cast who deliver highly sophisticated interpretative dances.

It is important to point out, however, that the performance may be unremarkable to those unfamiliar with “The Sound of Music.” The absence of any dialogue in the play means that the plot often relies on a presumed familiarity with the premise of the original play.

Though the performance is a parody of the classic play, it is a loving parody that prompts both nostalgic smiles and uncontrollable laughter. For example, as the final dance routine, Elkins uses the original track “So Long, Farewell,” as a play on the title’s lyrics.

The choreography, which mixes elements of hip-hop, ballet, and interpretive dance, is splendid. The cast is just as unorthodox as its material, freqently gender-bending and trading roles. Elkins himself even jumps between roles shamelessly, acting as Gretel in one scene and as a curtain in the next.

The uniqueness of the performance lies in the absurd comedy. Maria is interpreted by not one, not two but three different young men. Throughout the play, these characters often interact with each other, as if representing different aspects of Maria’s character in dialogue with one another.

COURTESY CHRISTOPHER DUGGAN

Cast members perform the gender-bending ‘Do-Re-Mi’ routine from Doug Elkins’ ‘Fraulein Maria.’

“Fraulein Maria” uses very few props, but this is often to its comedic advantage.

During the performance, amused chuckles emitted from the audience as dancers cleverly interpreted mountains, hills and curtains. For “The Sound of Music,” several characters made their way into the audience and threw different colored sheets onto their heads, revealing

a surprisingly adequate depiction of the Alps. This is no high-budget Broadway musical — throughout the performance the main stage remains bare, and it is completely up to the dancers to enrich the show with their talent.

From a cross-dressing nanny to sheetwearing Alps, “Fraulein Maria” is an original and fun-loving show that does not

‘You’ combines awkward script and tired plot YOU continued from page 5

Marni’s mother, Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Joanna’s Aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver). These parallel storylines let loose a storm of equally immature attitudes and petty competitiveness.

Although Curtis and Weaver both got their breakout movie roles within six months of one another — “Halloween” (1978) and “Alien” (1979), respectively — the two actresses have not worked together until now. This makes their unsuccessful collaboration even more unfortunate. This disappointment is compounded by the relationship between Bell and director Andy Fickman, who worked together on the highly acclaimed and Emmy awardwinning “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical” (2005). Fickman somehow manages to dull the normally vivacious Bell, making her unpleasant to watch.

Despite categorizing itself as a romantic comedy, there is little romanceorcomedy.ProducerJohn J. Strauss, who penned “There’s

Something About Mary” (1998), somehow managed to remove all the romantic and comedic structures that made this previous film such a success. Marni’s love interest — seemingly an ode to Drew Barrymore’s high school love interest in “Never Been Kissed” (1999) — appears in a grand total of three scenes, each one more lacking in chemistry than the last.

Thankfully for the viewer, there is at least one scene which makes the rest of the movie bearable.

Featuring Kristen Chenoweth as the over-the-top wedding planner Georgia and Betty White as Grandma Bunny, a ridiculous salsa lesson unfolds, rescuing the movie from utter monotony. Chenoweth’s charm translates effortlessly to the silver screen, her exuberant characterizations ever-entertaining. In this scene, the other characters finally break out of their confining stereotyped roles, allowing them the freedom to have fun. There’s something to be said for iconic Hollywood actresses dancing in a wildly inappropriate fashion on the big screen.

The other scenes in the movie fail to deliver the same effortless humor, coming off instead as forced and almost uncomfortable. The fight scenes are exaggerated and antics, such as the throwing of plates, come off as distasteful instead of funny.

It is unrealistic to believe that any of those characters, all of whom appear to be educated and mature, would lower themselves to such juvenile reactions.

This movie needs to be watched with remote in hand, so that the viewer can fast forward to White’s scenes. Her lines are some of the few clever parts of the script and she delivers them with her brand of timeless humor. Fickman delivers one-liners with a punch, her cute face wrinkled into a cheeky smile.

While everyone else struggles to appear effortlessly funny, White is entirely natural. With complete ease, she reminds Weaver and Curtis — and newcomers Bell and Yustman — what it truly means to be a Hollywood legend.

ROTTENTOMATOES.COM

These looks of polite amusement are as big a reaction audiences will give to ‘You Again.’

disappoint. The talented group of dancers manages to communicate well with the audience, despite the absence of dialogue and scant props. If you want to be amused and entertained by a group of talented dancers, or if you feel like singing along one more time to “The Sound of Music,” this performance is highly recommended.

Poor script and lack of chemistry hurt ‘Wilde’ WILDE continued from page 5

type of character that can carry an entire show. Even with a running time as short as 22 minutes an episode, his antics grow stale.

Further damaging not only Arnett’s performance, but the show as a whole, is the clunking narration by Emmy’s daughter, Puddle (Stefania Owen), which is heard over almost every scene.

Rather than letting this talented cast show the audience what is going on, the narration insists on explaining exactly what is happening.

Russell, who is best known as the star of the hit show “Felicity,” (1998-2002) is serviceable as the love interest, especially because of the strong chemistry she has with Arnett. The two leads share a similar comedic timing and delivery, particularly when working with the more absurd humor, and are skilled at reacting to one another’s jokes.

The show’s biggest laughs come from Russell and Arnett’s first interaction at a party Arnett’s character has thrown in honor of himself. At the party, Steve is trying to sober up so that he can talk to Emmy, while Emmy is simultaneously trying to get drunk so she can talk to Steve. The amusing misunderstandings and puns that ensue make the show seem like it could have a certain charm, although the rest of the episode then fails to deliver.

While Russell and Arnett are funny together, they don’t convey their romance very convincingly.

Emmy is supposed to be the love of Steve’s life and care about him in return, but on-screen their all-consuming love is unbelievable. This is most apparent when Steve shows Emmy that he has kept the tree house in

which they spent much of their time together as children. In this scene, Arnett’s delivery makes it seem that Steve is more afraid to be alone than actually in love with Emmy, and the character comes off as pathetic rather than sympathetic.

The show manages to deliver a few strong laughs, though mostly from the absurdity of characters like David Cross’s selfproclaimed eco-terrorist Andy, whose constant bumbling leads to a number of easily garnered laughs. This type of absurdity, and Cross’s scenes in general, are way too short, and the show would greatly benefit from expanding on both of them.

Though its pilot is merely lackluster, “Running Wilde” definitely has enough talent to turn itself around with a little effort and some stronger scripts. If worse comes to worst, it’s always nice to see mini-”Arrested Development” reunions.

FOX.COM

Keri Russell and Will Arnett are an awkward romantic pair on ‘Running Wilde.’

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

DOONESBURY

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YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

MARRIED TO THE SEA

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SUDOKU Level: Never making it to the Homecoming game

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Yesterday’s Solution

Ellen: “Have you seen these Community Day photos? They make me want to have babies and squish them.”

Please recycle this Daily.

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

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

EDITORIAL | LETTERS

EDITORIAL

Sexual assault updates send positive message After an extensive, yearlong review, the collaborative efforts of Students Active in Ending Rape (SAFER), the Tufts Community Union Senate and the administration have resulted in the crafting of Tufts’ new sexual assault policy and adjudication process.

The previous policy had been widely criticized for being inadequate and unclear, as well as for having an inherently flawed adjudication procedure for allegations of sexual assault — a process that included the controversial option of mediation.

Today, the sexual assault policy is manifested in a detailed nine-page document that clearly lays out for students a straightforward plan of action in the event of any incidence of sexual assault, outlining the resources and options available to victims.

The policy has an accompanying sexual assault adjudication policy that describes a new three-step judicial process entailing the filing of a complaint, a fact-finding phase and a final recommendation from the dean of student affairs.

One of the more noteworthy changes is the involvement of an independent expert in the fact-finding element. The fact-finder is charged with conducting an impartial examination of each allegation

and providing a report to the dean.

The Daily applauds this move in particular, because bringing in a trained individual adds a previously lacking level of professionalism and expertise to the handling of these cases. In addition, it addresses another concern raised about the previous policy: that a conflict of interests exists in having Tufts administrators investigate these matters, since concerns about the university’s liability could compromise their objectivity.

The inclusion of an outside expert eliminates the necessity of conducting a formal hearing at which both the alleged victim and perpetrator would be present. This is a vital step toward making the experience less painful for victims, sparing them the agony of being in the same room as the perpetrator.

Other modifications to the judicial process further enhance victim protection. One example is the elimination of the option of pursuing mediation between the alleged victim and perpetrator — particularly notable because the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education discourage the use of mediation. This method is controversial because it forces the victim into an uncomfortable and possibly unequal confrontation.

Perhaps most significant is the creation of the adjudication protocol itself. Under the previous system, there was no distinction between the handling of allegations of sexual assault and other Code of Conduct violations, such as plagiarism. The creation of the new judicial process addresses issues specific to sexual assault cases, crafting a fairer, more efficient means of handling such incidents that sends the important message that the university as a whole recognizes sexual assault as the serious and devastating crime that it is.

Allegations of sexual assault deserve to be treated with a level of seriousness in accordance with the potential harm suffered by victims, and the proceedings must respect victims’ tremendous psychological needs. The reform of Tufts’ policy is a huge step toward according sexual assault the recognition it deserves as an important, unfortunately prevalent, important issue.

We applaud those involved in the crafting of this adjudication process, especially the administration for having the honesty and transparency to acknowledge that the university’s previous system for sexual assault cases was broken — and for working with students to craft a new one that works.

LORRAYNE SHEN

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OFF THE HILL | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

French citizens should protest restrictions on freedom, not age limits BY

THE TARTAN EDITORIAL BOARD The Tartan

France came to a standstill last week as a 24-hour strike shut down schools, offices and even public transportation throughout the country. Nearly 1.1 million angry French citizens took to the streets. The reason for this discontent was a proposed government plan that would raise the retirement age by two years and change the current pension system.

Earlier this year, when the French government proposed a ban on face coverings, including the full Islamic veil, there was hardly any internal protest. The only form of protest apparent through news reports was when a small group of veil-wearing French women spoke to reporters about their views. Clearly, living a luxurious old age is more important than freedom of expression. Or at least a significant fraction of the French think so.

To us, the veil ban is a much more important issue than a slight increase

in retirement age. The proposed veil ban angered a number of Muslims and non-Muslims across the world.

While members of the Persian Gulf countries felt that the French policy regarding veils showed hostility towards Muslims, countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States also opposed the ban for its religious ramifications. Given the large-scale global disapproval of the veil ban, and the fact that France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, it is surprising that the French did not consider the ban important enough to protest about it.

Historically, the French have always been quick to raise their voice against unpopular government policies — protests in 1986 prevented the implementation of a university reform, those in 1993 prevented the restructuring of Air France’s staff, and those in 2005 prevented the school system from being reformed. In most previous cases, the opinion of the French people played a significant role in

shaping the government’s final decisions. Now, as well, the large-scale French protests will probably cause the French government to reconsider its pension and retirement schemes.

Had the French demonstrated against the veil ban, it probably would have had some impact on the final government decision. However, the law banning veils has now been passed in France, thought it still needs to be signed by President Sarkozy.

While the people of a democracy have the right to raise their voices against what they deem unjust, it is equally important for them to choose issues that are pertinent to the welfare of all the country’s people. But in this case, we believe that France has taken “welfare” too literally. France already has one of the lowest retirement ages in the world. Raising this limit from 60 to 62 will hardly destroy France’s history and culture. We wish that Americans were as publicly active as the French are, but not for the same trivial causes.

Correction Yesterday’s article “Errors mar elections, students say” incorrectly stated that Elections Commission members receive a stipend of $500 at the end of each semester; in fact, they receive the stipend at the end of each term they serve.

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

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

ADVERTISING POLICY All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director. A publication schedule and rate card are available upon request.

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

9

OP-ED

OFF THE HILL | BROWN UNIVERSITY

ELISHA SUM | OUR GENDERATION

The feminization of men

Liberating environmentalism

BY SARAH YU

The Brown Daily Herald

I grew up under a hole in the ozone layer.

Australians have an extraordinarily heightened sense of danger — being geographically situated away from global security issues but close to poisonous animals probably accounts for this national characteristic. From an environmental perspective, Australians deserve every right to be hyper-sensitive. In addition to the persistent UV rays, there are constant droughts, an unstable ecosystem and a necessarily high level of greenhouse gas emissions. I remember a childhood filled with water bans, [stigmas] against plastic bottles and Styrofoam and obsessivecompulsive recycling.

At Brown [University], I have been scoffed at by my peers for making suggestions that they turn off the bathroom taps while brushing their teeth — “Why do you care so much about saving water anyway? I didn’t know you were an environmentalist!”

I suppose I missed out on the moment when “environmentalism” became just another negative “ism” word, when “environmentalists” were to be detested for their tendency to impose their own values on others. These words have evolved such that the simple act of expressing a concern about running water can lead to accusations of radicalism.

We tend to put “environmental issues” under a big umbrella of politically- and activist-charged debates, encompassing anything from the belief of the existence of global warming to the international competition and security concerns around ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, from researching renewable energy sources right down to separating our domestic trash and recycling.

To be an “environmentalist” today contains the (mostly negative and sometimes inappropriate) connotations of loud activism, culminating in incidents such as Brown’s very own Thomas-Friedmanand-pie affair in the spring of 2008. The Greenwash Guerillas, responsible for the procurement and creative use of the pie at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s talk on environmentalism in April 2008, criticized his legitimacy in calling himself an environmentalist because of “his influential support of U.S. wars for oil in the Middle East.”

It is as if being an environmentalist is only permitted after fulfilling rigid socioeconomic and ideological criteria.

Does environmentalism always come in

T

MCT

a package deal with political liberalism and a fanatical willingness to engage in activism? Does being relatively privileged automatically account for a disregard of sustainability?

Conservative political parties in many Western countries are typically those against lowering greenhouse gas emissions through restrictions and sanctions, and parties based on a “green” agenda more often than not align with the liberal spectrum of policy debates.

These stereotypes are troublesome: When we incorporate a seemingly objective and standard social value such as caring about the environment with a larger picture of political debates, we are taking the focus away from actually helping create a sustainable future. It is using environmentalism as an excuse to further other political causes, and I don’t believe that environmentalism deserves to be treated thus.

Let us think back to our childhood, when we watched “Free Willy” (1993) and learned about saving endangered animals and how to dispose of our trash properly.

We should have experienced the natural progression from learning about wildlife and nature to liking wildlife and nature (and who didn’t love Willy?) to wanting to help the environment maintain its existence. Somewhere along the line, unfortunately, we ceased to care about Mother Earth except when there is the possibility of some other type of gain.

How to care about the environment should not be a debate involving morals and ideology. It should not be so sensitive, nor should it be so contentious. Being sustainable is not about activism or imposition of values — it’s about common sense.

In order to help the environment (which is what environmentalists should be concerned with, above all else), I can think of many logical and practical measures that everyone can take, regardless of what political alliance we choose. Simple and undeniably efficient practices, such as making sure faucets are not running needlessly or turning off the lights when leaving a room, should not be clouded by personal political stances or ideology.

These are things that young children are taught in households and schools early on, and just because these ideas are elementary does not mean that we, as adults and mature political thinkers, should set them aside in search of larger, arguably “more important” goals.

It is a shame that much of our youthful idealism toward preserving wild animals and saving trees has disappeared in our adolescent journeys in a politically realist world, because, unlike many other childish beliefs, the one about the environment is not far-fetched, unrealistic or impractical. A small dose of common sense is really all that anyone needs to become, by my own definition, an environmentalist. I don’t believe that this requirement should be in any way difficult for students at Brown. There are absolutely no benefits that can be attained from leaving taps running or lights on, and attempting to remedy these faux pas does not inconvenience anyone.

We need to think of the “environmental” before we add all the unhappy thoughts that come with the “ism.” It wasn’t that long ago that we wanted to free Willy, and there should not be anything preventing us from holding on to these ideals.

OFF THE HILL | CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Retweet this #column BY

ELANA DAHLAGER

The Cornell Daily Sun

I would totally eat a frankensalmon.

Just, you know, putting that out there.

And what about that whooping cough outbreak in California? Vaccinate your children, America. Jenny McCarthy is a dangerously stupid human being. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

No, today I want to talk about something much more serious. A plague overtaking the nation. That’s right, folks. It’s time to tackle The Twitter.

So here’s the thing: I am late to the “micro-blogging” party. I’ve only recently started using Twitter regularly and only as a means of shameless [self-promotion].

I still don’t really understand what purpose it serves. Facebook, annoying as it is, at least makes some sense to me.

Ditto Tumblr. But Twitter? My whole feed is links to stupid things I’ve written and “retweets” of @50cent.

But maybe that is the point. Twitter represents a whole new frontier for celebrity (and microcelebrity). You can interact directly with honest-to-God, REAL, famous people! And it’s a win-win situation. When Justin Bieber tweets back at a 14-year-old fan, he gets to make all the little girls marvel at how accessible he is, and the lucky fan herself gets to be famous for a minute.

Okay, time for a personal anecdote: So I have been writing music reviews for this website. And I had the brilliant idea to tweet my reviews at the musicians themselves. I have a very minimal understanding of how normal people use Twitter, but I figured if people searched for the artists or whatever, my stuff might pop up. So I tweeted at Kanye West and Rick Ross and nothing happened, obviously. But then I tweeted at Ducktails, who is like an ambient, chillwave-y bro (the main dude from Real Estate). That [motherf-----] retweeted my [s---] like three times. It was crazy! My article was all over [Twitter] for the span of a few hours (or, you know, more than just my dad read it. That’s big for me).

So latch on to a very niche celebrity, is what I’m saying. But seriously, it was very strange. Here was a guy, whose album I own, who I’ve paid to see perform, interacting with me. More accurately, making fun of me. It was surreal. Or maybe I am just too easily [star-struck].

My Internet fame didn’t last very long, either. The pace of the information age, or something.

Did that make me sound like a grandma, or what? But as soon as your tweet gets bumped off the first page, it’s basically old news. That’s crazy!

“So you’re a sad [Luddite], old before your time?” I can hear your thoughts, see.

And yes, I am. But mostly, I am fascinated by the whole social networking phenom-

enon. And Twitter strikes me as the most ridiculous example of our collective need to overshare and collect friends. There are, like, [Twitter] celebrities, normal people (or, rather, “normal” people) who have bajillions and trillions of followers. It’s like the MySpace celebrity, only even more anonymous and depressing.

And, like, Twitter has its own language.

I still haven’t mastered the etiquette. How do you add people you’ve met in real life?

Do you have to respond when people tweet at you? Do I use a real picture of myself? What does RT mean? I just have so many questions.

It’s also not a very effective way to communicate. I don’t understand why it’s so popular. I am confounded by you, Internet. Or maybe I’m just bitter, because I only have 25 followers. And Fiddy won’t tweet back at me.

“Psh, Twitter has been around for like, so long. You are dumb.” This is also true, collective student body hive-mind. I am, how you say, a little slow on the uptake.

I am the opposite of an early adapter. My cell phone has actual buttons (no touch screen) and can’t access the Internet. I know, right? By the time this article gets published, you’ll probably all have moved on to some other totally rad website for ego stroking and narcissism.

I’ll be there soon enough. I just have to tweet this article right quick.

ori Amos once sang, “You say, ‘he got be strong if he wanna be a man.’”

In “Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters,” author Jessica Valenti, founder and executive editor of Feministing.com, reflects on the similarity between the worst epithets for women and men. In doing so, she effectively illustrates that “being [called] a woman is the ultimate insult” for either gender.

She arrives at her conclusion by gendering common, offensive insults based on their denotations and connotations in order to highlight the sexism still in place.

The validity in Valenti’s claim becomes clearer when considering that the most offensive insults aimed at men (e.g. fairy, pussy, f-----, b----) seek to point out their failure to fit into the constraints of a masculine ideal. The exercise suggests that there’s nothing worse than being a woman, for the semantics of our language facilitate the denigration of women. So of course, men becoming more and more feminized is a huge deal. Soon, all the gruff, burly menfolk will be extinct, and the girly boys or metrosexuals sporting feminine threads will thrive in their skinny jeans and V-necks.

Our cultural and social constructs of gender problematizes the supposed rise of effeminate men. People frame the “phenomenon” of the face-exfoliating man as a major issue, and that only has credence because of the heteronormative, gendered world we live in. Evidently, certain behaviors and the concern for personal hygiene and appearance, among various other affairs, should remain only within the purview of women (which is not the case throughout history and across cultures).

The changes in men’s habits inevitably signify that they are turning into women.

We cannot seem to extricate our minds from the paradigms of a gender binary that holds onto conventional notions of gender expression and roles. The phrasing “the feminization of men” itself suggests a rigid binary and yet implies a dynamic model of gender in purporting an overlap between the two. Though paradoxical, it nevertheless ignores the existence of queer identities. In the end, it’s a discourse bound within the conventional expectations for gender performance. The rhetoric surrounding the phrase valorizes masculinity while devaluing femininity and stigmatizing its expression and existence in men.

And of course, the mainstream discussions of this issue again frame feminism as the impetus for the supposed detrimental and alarming changes in men.

So what is hidden behind the disgust and concern for the supposed feminization of men? Perhaps it is rooted in the fear that, ultimately, men will turn gay and the glorified institution of heterosexual marriage will be ruined. To expand, take for example the offensive ad that’s been floating in the airwaves for a karate school in Miami depicting a young boy trying on heels and putting on lipstick. The text suggests karate is the way to toughen him up, while the subtext implies he’s on the path to becoming effeminate and even gay. Clearly, our men need to wake up from this feminine reverie and incite a “menaissance” of former masculine sensibilities of toughness, uncouthness and stoicism.

The possibility and widespread existence of male expressions of femininity implied by this grave issue paradoxically deconstructs the notion of a gender binary while supporting conformity to our flawed system. The construction of what is to be a male and female is clearly subject to change and revision with the passage of time and because of various influences such as feminism and capitalism. We cannot hold on to an essentialist view of gender. Gender identity and expression should be free from policing. Long live queer identities.

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

Freshman defender Ewing makes two goal-line saves to protect lead MEN’S SOCCER continued from page 12

“It’s not about winning the ball in the air; it’s about getting in a position to make sure he doesn’t win the ball, so it’s getting into his chest and not letting him jump to his full potential and blocking his path to the ball,” Coleman added.

The Jumbos had a few chances to extend their lead later in the game. They nearly scored when freshman forward Jono Edelman was played a through ball from senior midfielder Antoine Gobin and faced a one-on-one with the Wesleyan keeper but pushed his shot wide of the goal.

After 90 minutes, however, Coleman’s goal held up and the Jumbos won their first conference game since the final regular season game of the 2008 season against Bowdoin. The victory is even more impressive when one considers the opponent, a Wesleyan team that went undefeated in the NESCAC regular season last season and went to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.

After a tough mid-week loss to Mass Maritime, the Jumbos were eager to get back on the field and fix some of Tuesday night’s mistakes.

“On Tuesday, we strung together some passes and played some pretty soccer at points, but we didn’t really get stuck in, play too hard, and we didn’t really finish our chances, but that’s what we did Saturday,” Flaherty said. “We didn’t string too many passes together, but we hit every chance as hard as we could, and we made hard tackles.”

ANDREW MORGENTHALER/TUFTS DAILY

Senior quad-captain Ron Coleman celebrates after scoring the lone goal in Tufts’ match against Wesleyan on Saturday, leading the team to its first conference win of the season.

Tufts next takes the field in an away game against Suffolk, at the Rams’ home field of Dilboy Stadium in Somerville. The Jumbos will look to avoid the same sort of letdown they suffered last week after a

Jumbos outshoot Cardinals 22-12, but cannot find game winner WOMEN’S SOCCER continued from page 12

co-captain Sarah Nolet said. “As a team, we really didn’t come out mentally the way we needed to. We need to start stronger and really be ready to go from the first whistle.”

Now playing from behind, the Jumbos began to get their offense in tune, outshooting the Cardinals 10-3 in the first half, including a thrilling chance in the 32nd minute. A shot from Jumbo junior midfielder Lauren O’Connor trickled past the Cardinals keeper, but a defender got back just in time to stifle the Jumbos’ last real threat of the half.

“All of us were pretty frustrated [at halftime],” Michael said. “We had opportunities in the first half, but we didn’t take that last step to get the ball in the back of the net.”

The Jumbos had the wind at their backs in the second half and did not hesitate to take advantage. Six minutes in, Michael rode a free kick with a lot of pace past the Wesleyan defensive wall, but junior goalie Clare Colton once again made the stop.

But less than a minute later, freshman forward Sophie Wojtasinski found some space down the left side and challenged the keeper yet again. The shot was blocked, but the clearance eventually fell to Michael, who settled it before tucking a beautiful shot into the right corner of the goal. The equalizer was Michael’s second goal of the season.

“The ball came out pretty high,” Michael said. “I took it down, but it was still bouncing and my goal was just to keep the ball down because the toughest thing when it comes to volleying a shot is not hitting it over the goal. Luckily, I managed to do so.”

Now level, the Jumbos continued to push for more. Just seven minutes after the Michael goal, Jumbo junior forward Jamie Love-Nichols looked to put freshman forward Maeve Stewart through for an easy score, but the flag went up for offsides.

In the 83rd minute, it again seemed for a second that the Jumbos had gone in front. Love-Nichols, who finished the game with six shots, had room to work down the right side, faked out a pair of defenders and, approaching the end line, sent a clean cross to the far post. Senior forward Bailey Morgan was there and headed it back across goal, but the ball was just outside the frame.

In the overtime periods, Wesleyan outshot Tufts 5-3, but neither team seemed to have much in the tank.

“Everyone was tired [in overtime] and it was hotter than it has been, which is always tough to play through,” Nolet said.

“But I don’t want to make any excuses; we just didn’t get the job done.”

It was a disappointing draw for Tufts against a Wesleyan team that they dominated throughout. The Jumbos outshot the Cardinals 22-12 and had the bulk of the scoring opportunities.

“In no way were we happy with the tie, especially knowing we were the better team,” Nolet said. “We needed to come out on top, and it is pretty disappointing that we didn’t.”

The Jumbos now stand in fourth place in the NESCAC, with four points in their three matches. But with powerhouses Williams and Trinity still lurking at the end of their schedule, a pair of wins in Tufts’ next two conference matches against Bates and Colby will go a long way toward securing them a home match in the first round of the conference tournament. Yet the Jumbos are staying focused on doing some damage to Wednesday’s non-conference foe, the Babson Beavers.

“We haven’t really thought about Colby and Bates at this point,” Michael said.

“The next game on our schedule is Babson and with the record we have right now, we can’t be thinking too far ahead. Even though Babson is an out-of-league game, it is still important that we come out and perform well.”

positive NESCAC result.

“We just have to be hungry,” Coleman said. “Going into the weekend against NESCAC opponents, no matter who you’re playing, you’re going to be pumped up to

play. We have to come out mid-week with the same sense of urgency. Last week we just didn’t have that mentality that we were going to win our individual battles in the box.”

Want the most current campus news?

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

Follow us on Twitter: @TuftsDaily and @TuftsDailySport

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

THE TUFTS DAILY

11

SPORTS

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Strong pack leads women at Purple Valley BY

CONNOR ROSE

Contributing Writer

Knowledge of the course is always a huge part of being successful during a race. It is essential to know the turns, hills and markers in order to run a course as fast as possible.

Considering this fact, the women’s cross country team knew how important it was to not only run the course quickly but also to learn its intricacies.

This weekend’s Purple Valley Classic hosted by Williams was held at the same course that will be used at the Div. III New England Regional meet in November, which could prove to be particularly important for freshman runners who won’t have had much experience on the course come Regionals time. With several NESCAC teams participating in the meet, it was also a great preview of what is to come at the NESCAC Championships in late October.

Middlebury, the No. 2 team in the nation, took first place with 57 points at the race, while the host Ephs took second with 76 points. Johns Hopkins and MIT finished third and fourth, respectively, with 86 points and 102 points.

Amherst, Colby and Tufts rounded out the top seven, with 142, 175 and 206 points, respectively.

Junior Anya Price led the way for the Jumbos, finishing 21st in a time of 23:18.

Senior tri-captain and All-American Amy Wilfert made her debut this season finishing second for the team in 24:01 and 45th overall. Freshman Lauren Creath had an impressive performance as well, finishing 50th in a time of 24:06.

Sophomore Lilly Fisher and freshman Abby Barker were the final scorers for the Jumbos, placing 55th and 60th.

Freshman Laura Peterson and sophomore Melanie Monroe rounded out the top seven.

Not only was it the first 6,000-meter race of the season for the team, it was also the first 6k ever for the Class of 2014. Adjusting to a new distance is always a challenge, especially on a tough course. Assistant coach Daniel Murner was impressed by the team’s attitude going into the race.

“They were racing on a tough course and against a loaded field,” Murner said. “For many of them, this race was their first 6k. Still, the team went into it undaunted.”

Wilfert was similarly pleased with the effort of the freshmen. With the success that many of the young runners saw in their first 6k, there is a lot of optimism regarding the team’s potential for the remainder of the season.

“I think the freshman adjusted pretty well,” Wilfert said. “I think it will take some a bit longer to adjust than others, depending on what they were used to racing in high school. As a whole they did really well in the 6k, considering

continued from page 12

Jumbos were able to defeat all five other NESCAC schools in the race.

“It was a pretty good preview of the Div. III New England and NESCAC schools,” Andrews said.

“I think seven of the top 10 New England schools were there, he said. “Some of the schools like Williams and Amherst weren’t racing some of their varsity squads, but MIT and Keene were, so we know we definitely could be right up there with them.”

The Tufts squad will return to Williamstown in November to run the NCAA New England Regional meet on the course.

“It was really good to get out and check out the course before Regionals for all the new kids,” Andrews said. “I definitely learned a lot about how I should run that course.”

The squad will rest this upcoming weekend before competing at the AllNew England Championships held at

A necessary change

F

DAILY FILE PHOTO

Senior tri-captain Amy Wilfert, above in a file photo, finished second for the Jumbos. this was a more difficult 6k course.”

Pack running remains a focus for the team, as evidenced by having the fourth through seventh runners finishing within 16 seconds of each other.

In many cases, a tight pack moving together can help runners achieve better times than they would get running alone.

“In cross country, finding teammates to run with is always huge,” Murner said. “We are lucky to have a pack that is naturally tight. They don’t have to look very far before they find a teammate.

This will serve us well in the future.”

Staying aggressive and moving the pack as close to the front as possible can provide huge point swings in cham-

pionship races.

“We’re doing a pretty good job of establishing a pack,” Wilfert said. “We just have to work on moving our pack up so it can break up the packs from other teams.”

Now that the young team has a 6k to build off, the Jumbos look forward to making adjustments to maximize their potential.

“I think the biggest thing we can improve on is being aggressive and really putting ourselves out there to take some risks,” Wilfert said. “We’re going to be underdogs this season. We have nothing to lose. We just need to put ourselves out there, take some risks and go after what we want.”

Young Jumbos get off to a grand start at Williams Invitational over the weekend, show true colors MEN’S XC

ALEX PREWITT | LIVE FROM MUDVILLE

Franklin Park on Oct. 9.

The meet will prove unique for the Tufts squad, with a wider and more

“I thought the freshmen that ran their first 8k, like Liam and Ben who were three and five for the team, came out pretty big. ...

They’ve come pretty highly touted so it’s good to see them put together the performances they have.”

Kyle Marks sophomore cross country team member competitive field filled with Div. I, II and III athletes. The Jumbos will get a chance to see where they stand

against many of their Div. III rivals.

“I think after the Williams meet and after this next meet, we’ll have a fairly decent idea” of where we stand in the region, Marks said, “but I think we’re going to be a team that peaks for the right meets at the end of the season.”

Still early in the year, the Jumbos are optimistic. They are beginning to translate their work this summer into their races and feel that they are only starting to tap their own potential.

“It’s a really exciting time to be part of this team,” Andrews said of the young squad. “Right now we have so many young kids on this team who have so much talent — both the Class of 2013 and the Class of 2014.

“There are just a lot of kids who are really passionate about running, and then we have a lot of upperclassmen who are good role models about training and living healthy outside of running,” Andrews continued.

“That really rubs off on these younger kids,” he said.

orget the dog-fighting puns, the prison jokes and the mocking laughs. The impossible has become reality and it’s time to wake up from our disillusioned fantasy world of moral purity: Michael Vick is, once again, an elite quarterback in the NFL. I know, I know. It’s hard to comprehend. It seems only yesterday that the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback was marred in legal troubles stemming from a dog-fighting ring, becoming the most-hated athlete in America in the process. The mountain was an impossible climb. In order to become socially relevant again, Vick had to perform on the field, stay hidden off it and simultaneously transform his image as a bloodthirsty criminal to born-again football star.

I think he’s off to a good start.

Cue the pundits burying their heads in shame.

It was only last week that NFL personalities were calling for Eagles coach Andy Reid’s head after he announced that Vick would start over poster boy (and criminally clean — yes, that’s relevant) Kevin Kolb. “Andy Reid makes a knee-jerk decision,” one ESPN blog post read. John Clayton posted another, titled “Vick move a mistake by Eagles.”

Whether these writers became blinded by the path to morality or suffered from a severe case of tunnel vision is unclear.

Vick, however, went out and proved all of them wrong.

Again.

On Sunday in Jacksonville, Vick posted a 119.2 QB rating, throwing for 291 yards and three scores, including a 61-yard bomb in the first quarter to DeSean Jackson that let all the air out of the Jaguars’ balloon. Vick later ran for a score in the third quarter, and ended up with 30 yards on the ground as well.

Not bad for someone who spent 19 months behind bars. And, perhaps more importantly, it wasn’t bad for someone who had the whole world rooting for him to fail.

Suddenly, the impossible enters the realm of probability. Michael Vick is becoming a likable quarterback, a beacon of light for troubled stars looking for one last shot. What he did, of course, was horrific, and I won’t pretend we can look past his criminal record. But Vick should be the starter in Philadelphia.

There’s no way to defend the contrary view anymore.

The shame is that while Vick rises to near-stardom once again, Kolb is still on the sidelines. After three seasons as a backup to Donovan McNabb, the Eagles deemed it time to begin his era under center, trading their longtime franchise player down to D.C. But all Kolb defenders base their arguments off a very small sample size and, realistically, refuse to believe that Vick could ever be an effective player again.

Yes, Kolb became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 300 yards in each of his first two career starts.

And yes, he was deemed one of the best reserves in the league. But this is 2010 and Kolb has rarely shown any sort of ability to carry the Eagles. He looked like a rag doll in the preseason and got hammered in Week 1, eventually leaving with a concussion.

Vick nearly brought Philly back from a 20-3, third-quarter deficit, a deficit solely at the hands of Kolb, who finished with just 24 passing yards before leaving at halftime.

Vick, a player who the rest of the world refuses to trust, seems to have built up quite a strong reputation with his team. With Vick calling the shots, the Eagles look confident enough to — gasp — make the playoffs.

More will become clear in the next few weeks, especially when McNabb returns to Philly on Sunday and the Eagles welcome in Week 6 the Atlanta Falcons, Vick’s former squad. For now, the obvious has come to fruition.

Michael Vick is the Philadelphia Eagles’ starting quarterback. And it should stay that way.

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 @Alex_Prewitt

Sports

12

INSIDE Women’s Cross Country 11

tuftsdaily.com

MEN’S SOCCER

Coleman’s goal gives Jumbos first NESCAC win since ’08 Men’s soccer emerges victorious in 1-0 win over Wesleyan, looks toward Suffolk game BY

ALEX LACH

Daily Editorial Board

As the last seconds of a NESCAC match-up with Wesleyan ticked off the clock, senior quad-capMEN’S SOCCER (1-1-1 NESCAC, 2-2-1 Overall) Kraft Field, Saturday Wesleyan Tufts

0 1

0 0

— —

0 1

tain midfielder Ron Coleman raised his arms in victory. It was his goal in the 20th minute that proved the difference in a 1-0 victory for the men’s soccer team over the Cardinals, the team’s first conference victory of the season and first since Oct. 31, 2008, in a win over Bowdoin.

“It was a great feeling,” Coleman said. “Anything I can do to help the team win is obviously going to feel great.”

After senior forward Michael Fitzgerald was pulled down by a Wesleyan player in the box, the ref called obstruction and the Jumbos were awarded a rare indirect free kick inside the box.

On the ensuing play, junior midfielder Matt Blumenthal tapped the ball back to Coleman, who blasted a waist-high shot through the wall and straight into the Wesleyan goal.

“The last games we’ve had some issues with finishing our

chances, so it was great to have a senior captain step up and put the responsibility on his shoulders and finish the chance when he got one,” senior quad-captain midfielder Chris Flaherty said.

After the goal, the Jumbos were able to hold the lead for the next 70 minutes against an increasingly aggressive Wesleyan attack. The Cardinals outshot the Jumbos 17-6, including 12-3 in the second half. Wesleyan also had seven shots on goal, but Tufts junior goalie Alan Bernstein was more than up to the task, recording saves on all seven. Some of Wesleyan’s best chances weren’t stopped by Bernstein, however, as a few Wesleyan attacks were saved off the line by Jumbo defenders. Twice in the second half, once off a header and once on a low shot, freshman defender Ben Ewing made clearances on the goal line to protect the lead.

“The play of the game was Ben Ewing saving the ball off the line … twice,” Coleman said.

“We were getting stuck in defensively,” Flaherty added. “We started playing as a team, and the whole mentality really came to fruition. That leads to good saves from the backline and good saves from your keeper.”

Many of Wesleyan’s best chances came off set pieces, where the Cardinals tried to

ANDREW MORGENTHALER/TUFTS DAILY

Junior goalie Alan Bernstein made seven crucial saves to preserve the Jumbos’ first conference victory since 2008. profit from a sizable height advantage over the Jumbos.

The Jumbos gave up seven corner kicks and a number of free kicks in their own half but were able to make up for their smaller size with aggressive marking. The heart of the Tufts defense also had to make up for the loss of sophomore

WOMEN’S SOCCER

center back Mike Walker, who left early in the first half with an ankle injury. Junior defender Stratos Saropoulos filled in admirably, but the loss of the 6’2” Walker did not help the effort to defend the likes of Wesleyan’s 6’2” Cabell Maddux, 6’3” Rueben Johnson and 6’4” Rory O’Neill.

“We know we’re going to be one of the smallest teams in the league, and probably every team we play is going to have some inches on us, but it’s really about the work ethic you put into it and taking the personal responsibility of not letting your man beat you,” Flaherty said. see MEN’S SOCCER, page 10

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Young Jumbos take flight at Williams Invitational BY

LAUREN FLAMENT

Daily Editorial Board

VIRGINIA BLEDSOE/TUFTS DAILY

Junior Alix Michael, seen above in a game against Middlebury, scored a goal in the second half of Tufts’ 1-1 tie with Wesleyan.

Jumbos dig out of early hole to draw BY

ETHAN STURM

Daily Editorial Board

Fifty-six seconds into Saturday’s match against Wesleyan, the women’s soccer team’s season WOMEN’S SOCCER (1-1-1 NESCAC, 1-2-2 OVERALL) Kraft Field, Saturday OT1 OT2 Wesleyan 1 0 0 0 — 1 Tufts 0 1 0 0 — 1 was in serious jeopardy. Having

lost twice in a row, the Jumbos found themselves on the wrong side of a first-minute goal from a Cardinals squad that they had not lost to in four years.

Yet the Jumbos showed the resolve that they have lacked at times in past seasons, equalizing early in the second half on a blistering shot by sophomore midfielder Alix Michael and continuing to press for a win through two overtime periods.

Ultimately, the team settled for a hard-fought draw.

Tufts entered a windy Kraft Field with high hopes of notching its second NESCAC win of the season, but less than a minute into the game, Wesleyan sophomore Laura Kurash scored off an unsuccessful Tufts clear attempt, slashing a low ball back across goal and out of the reach of Tufts sophomore goalkeeper Phoebe Hanley.

“It was just a lapse in mental toughness for a second,” senior see WOMEN’S SOCCER, page 10

Boosted by a trio of topfive finishes from new additions, the men’s cross country team finished third out of 18 teams at the Williams College Invitational on Saturday.

Sophomore Matt Rand led the Jumbos and he continues to show that he can stick with the top runners in New England. Rand took sixth in the field of 198 runners, crossing the finish line on the 8,000-meter course in a time of 26:30.

In his second race for Tufts, sophomore Tyler Andrews proved the importance of his addition to the squad with his second top-five finish in as many races this season.

Andrews was Tufts’ secondfastest runner, running 27:02 to take 20th. Freshman Liam Cassidy and sophomore Kyle Marks were right behind with times of 27:06 and 27:07, taking 22nd and 23rd, respectively.

Freshman Ben Wallis rounded off the Jumbos’ scorers, taking 35th in a time of 27:21.

Though Tufts rested some of its key contributors Saturday — including senior co-captain Jeff Ragazzini, Tufts’ second-fastest racer last weekend — the less-

experienced runners showed their ability to race alongside the Jumbos’ best, adding a new depth to the squad.

“I think we should be really happy with our race,” Marks said. “Our top five were all freshmen and sophomores, and we had some of our best runners not even racing, but we put together a really solid team performance and had a really good pack.”

Saturday’s event was the first 8k for most freshmen on the team. The group expects to only improve over the course of the season.

“I thought the freshmen that ran their first 8k, like Liam and Ben who were three and five for the team, came out pretty big,” Marks said.

“They’ve come pretty highly touted so it’s good to see them put together the performances they have.”

Tufts tied for third with Fordham in the field of 18 squads, scoring 106 points.

With the Jumbos’ sixth runner finishing faster than Fordham’s, the Jumbos won the tiebreaker in the overall score.

MIT and Keene State tied for first, each scoring 90 points.

Even while resting some stalwart performers, the see MEN’S XC, page 11