2011-10-06

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

VOLUME LXII, NUMBER 20

Palestine deserve rights of a state, Atshan says by

Kathryn Olson

Daily Editorial Board

Lecturer of Peace and Justice Studies Sa’ed Atshan called for better Palestinian leadership that more adequately addresses the peoples’ grievances, and a onestate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at last night’s “crash-course” on the Palestinians’ bid to the United Nations for statehood.

The event, hosted by the Tufts chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the International Relations Program’s Directors Leadership Council (DLC), marks the second “crash-course” hosted by the DLC this week. On Monday night, they held a crash-course on the Eurozone and the fate of the European Union.

“The idea is that they are short, condensed presentations on conflicts that are happening right now,” DLC member Aparna Ramanan, a junior, said.

“The goal is to inform the student body about topics they might not have a grasp on,” she said.

Last night’s “crash-course” featured Atshan, who has worked for organizations such as the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Human Rights Watch, Seeds of Peace, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiations Affairs Department and the Government of Dubai. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at Harvard University on the politics of international aid in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The majority of Tufts students are U.S. citizens, and Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world...

Americans have a right to know where their money is going and that their taxes are funding this conflict,” Atshan told the Daily in an interview after the event.

During his lecture, he provided an overview of the root causes of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the main impediments to peace, and the impact of the Arab Spring and the recent request by Palestinian Authority (PA) President

by

Matthew Thompson

Contributing Writer

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone is challenging state restrictions on the number of liquor licenses the city can grant to local businesses, citing a need to attract and help new restaurants and increase economic activity.

The Licenses and Permits Committee of the Somerville Board of Aldermen is now considering a home-rule proposal Curtatone submitted on July 14, which would petition the state to relinquish its power in capping the number of liquor licenses the City of Somerville can allot to local businesses.

Somerville is currently authorized by Massachusetts to issue

16 beer and wine licenses and 84 all-alcoholic beverages serving licenses, 10 of which are reserved especially for future businesses in the undeveloped Assembly Square.

Curtatone, in a Sept. 23 op-ed in the Somerville News, referred to the state-determined limit on the number of liquor licenses Somerville can sanction as a “counterproductive leftover of Prohibition Era thinking.”

He noted that it has become less attractive for new restaurants and clubs to open in Somerville due to the constraints of having to pay for expensive liquor licenses or never being able to receive a license at all. see LIQUOR, page 2

by

Elizabeth McKay

Daily Editorial Board

better addresses Palestinian grievances than the PA, the current governing body of the West Bank.

“The PA needs to become less relevant and the PLO should become more significant,” he said. “Everyone’s voice needs to be heard. It’s a matter of recreating a PLO that is more representative of the Palestinian people,” he told the Daily.

He added that elections should take place not only in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories, but also in East Jerusalem and Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and southern Lebanon so as to ensure adequate representation.

Atshan said that the Arab Spring led Palestinians to question the legitimacy of the PA’s leadership and cemented the notion that unjust leadership is not legitimate.

“What are the alternatives? Do they [the see PALESTINE, page 2

see CONCERT, page 2

Elizabeth Robinson/Tufts Daily

Somerville liquor license policy may change

Matt and Kim to headline Cage Rage concert

The indie-rock band Matt and Kim will headline this month’s second annual Cage Rage Concert, Programming Board co-chair senior Leo Greenberg confirmed yesterday.

Electro-pop duo Timeflies, comprised of Tufts alumni Rob Resnick (E ’11) and Cal Shapiro (LA ’11), will open the event on Oct. 22.

This year’s concert, to be held in Carzo Cage, will have more of a rock vibe than last year’s show, which featured indie group Passion Pit, and hip-hop artists K.Flay and Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Concert Board co-chair Marc Turner said.

In keeping with Programming Board’s recent move toward online ticketing, this year’s Cage Rage tickets will be available for purchase at the TuftsTickets.com website, Greenberg said.

Tickets will become available to students on Oct. 14 at noon at the Mayer Campus Center’s Information Booth for $10 per ID. Guest tickets will be available the next day for $20. Students will be allowed to purchase two guest tickets per ID, according to Turner, a senior.

The exact number of tickets that will be available has not yet been determined, though Turner anticipates that it will be between 1,700 and 2,000.

Matt and Kim’s reputation for strong live performances contributed to Concert Board’s decision to book them, Turner said.

“We think they put on a great live show, very high energy,” he said. “We think they will fit with the cage rage atmosphere.”

“We wanted to go with more of a rock feel for the show, so that’s why Matt and Kim were chosen,” he added.

The contract with the band was final-

Lecturer of Peace and Justice Studies Sa’ed Atshan at last night’s ‘crash-course’ on the Palestinian bid for statehood said that Palestinians should pursue a one-state solution.

Mahmoud Abbas for full U.N. membership.

Palestine, which submitted an application last month to become a United Nations Member State, currently holds observer status at the United Nations.

Atshan said that Abbas’ bid for U.N. membership pushed the plight of the Palestinians back onto the world stage.

“The post 9/11 policy is still fresh.

There are still wars raging in Iraq, Afghanistan ... and that makes it easy for Palestinian suffering to be swept under the rug,” he told the Daily.

The danger, he added, was that it also raised unrealistic expectations among Palestinians that significant progress to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be made by achieving U.N. statehood.

Atshan said that despair and violence could result if perceptible progress toward peace is not made, and in order to mitigate such risks, Palestinians must be represented by a leadership that

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

SAS hosted first Sustainability Roundtable last night

Misako Ono/Tufts Daily

A new branch of the Tufts Sustainability Collective, the Sustainable Action Squad, hosted a Sustainability Roundtable last night, bringing together representatives of student groups and faculty working on issues related to the environment. Attendees discussed potential green campaigns to pursue this year and ways to collaborate in their environmental efforts.

correction The Oct. 5 article, “Health service to hold three flu clinics” incorrectly listed pneumonia, sinus infections and the worsening of asthma as side effects for the flu vaccine. These are symptoms of the influenza illness, not side effects of the vaccine.

Inside this issue

Today’s sections

Three Tufts alumni tutor underprivileged students in local charter schools.

The Daily takes a look at the fashion truck phenomenon.

see FEATURES, page 5

see WEEKENDER, page 9

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Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

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One-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict preferable, Atshan says PALESTINE

continued from page 1

PA leadership] have [the Palestinians’] best interests at heart? Questioning the leadership is healthy,” he said. “[The Arab Spring] reminded people that injustice does not last. Freedom will come one day,” he told the Daily.

Atshan said that the PA leadership is currently suffering from “colonial hangover” that internalized a divisive ideology. He added that Jewish self-determination should not be mutually exclusive from Palestinian self-determination and that a one-state solution that grants rights to every community is preferable.

Rather than creating separate Jewish

and Palestinian states, a one-state solution would create one state across all of Israel and the Occupied Territories, granting all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, equal rights. A solution creating separate states designated for only one ethnicity, Atshan said, would be unjust, as many communities throughout the area are multi-ethnic and multi-religious.

“We’re deeply entangled. We’re one society, and that’s why we need a onestate solution,” he said.

Atshan also addressed the issue of Hamas, an Islamic militant organization that controls Gaza, stating that it should be marginalized in the political process to avoid further radicalization of

Palestinian youth as a result of the Israeli occupation there.

“Hamas is not a monolithic organization ... There are more moderate forces that recognize the 1967 borders. The challenge then becomes, ‘How do we minimize people who subscribe to radical ideology?’ We must grapple with them.”

Atshan acknowledged that Hamas created legitimate security concerns for Israel, but that it does not justify the current occupation, the brutality of which, he said, cannot be denied.

“Security is used to justify things that are unjustifiable,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with building a fence in your

backyard, but building a fence in your neighbor’s backyard and in his house that separates his bedroom from his living room and prevents him from reaching the light in the kitchen? You don’t have a right to do that.”

Atshan also said the past negotiations between Israel, the Palestinians and the United States have failed due to a skewed power dynamic.

“The way negotiations have been set up over the last 20 years is problematic ... Essentially, the occupied are begging their occupiers for freedom. The U.S. as mediators are trying to impose a solution on the Palestinians. They have lost all credibility because of this.”

Cummings School commits to partnership with IFAW by

Robert Joseph

Contributing Writer

The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine last month signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) that aims to promote collaborative research and training.

The agreement was signed by Cummings School Dean Deborah T. Kochevar and Azzedine Downes, IFAW’s executive vice president, and recognizes areas of mutual interest and lays the foundation for more effective collaboration and student training opportunities. “[This] agreement to work together on mutual projects has formed out of the close ties we have developed with this organization,” Director of Veterinary Shelter Medicine Emily McCobb said.

IFAW manages and funds local initiatives across the globe, ranging from the protection of endangered species in local bodies of water to preventing rabies among stray dogs in India, according to Assistant Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Cummings School and Director of the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine Gretchen Kaufman.

Courtesy the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

A newly signed memorandum of understanding between the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and the International Fund of Animal Welfare will enable closer future collaboration between the two groups.

Although the Cummings School to enable greater information and IFAW have worked together in exchange between the two instituthe past, this affiliation is expected tions and allow IFAW staff easier to make collaboration between access to the research of Cummings the two groups easier, according to employees, according to Atema.

Kathryn Atema, director of IFAW’s The two organizations have Companion Animals protection forged a working relationship program and clinical instructor at over the past several years; the Cummings School has sent stuthe Cummings School.

The memorandum removes dents to work for IFAW to work some bureaucratic red tape on animal welfare and conser-

Timeflies to open Cage Rage concert this month CONCERT

continued from page 1

ized over the summer, while the contract with Timeflies was completed this past week, according to Turner.

He anticipates that the alumni duo will be popular with their alma mater.

“We think for an opener they’ll bring a really big crowd. They’re Tufts alums, and their music is very good,” he said.

“We’ve heard really positive responses [to the two bands],” he added.

Last fall’s first annual Cage Rage replaced previous years’ separate fall hip-hop and rock concerts. Concert Board decided last year to combine the two events to allow for the booking of bigger, more expensive acts, Greenberg said.

This year’s event will also feature a new guest limit, allowing only two guests per student, as opposed to last year’s five.

Formed in 2004, the dance-punk duo Matt and Kim released their third album “Sidewalks” last year and have gained popularity for their unique indie rock sound. Their music, backed up by only keyboard and drums, has been featured on such popular TV shows as “Community” and “Entourage,” and their video for “Lessons Learned” earned an MTV VMA for Breakthrough Video in 2009.

Tufts grads Resnick and Shapiro have gained popularity since graduating last year.

Their debut album, “The Scotch Tape” (2011), reached the iTunes top 10 albums a mere 24 hours after its release.

The group is looking forward to its return to campus later this month, Timeflies Band Manager Jared Glick (LA ’11) said in an email.

“We had an awesome time at [T]ufts and after being on the road and playing at other schools we’re excited to be back to play for both fans and friends.”

vation issues across the world, Atema said.

In exchange, IFAW uses research conducted by the Cummings School in its conservation efforts globally, according to Atema.

Several IFAW representatives also teach at the Cummings School in both the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program and the school’s Master of Science in Animals and Public Policy program.

The groups strengthened their relationship when they worked together to plan responses to animals in disastrous situations, McCobb added.

“You don’t create a relationship like this overnight,” she said.

The new agreement will allow for an even greater level of cooperation than has been possible in the past.

The two groups will now be able to train staff jointly and collaborate on projects in addition to providing internships for Cummings students, according to McCobb.

Tufts’ new Masters of Science in Conservation Medicine program will directly set students up with such internships, Kaufman noted.

“IFAW provides for us much greater opportunities for our stu-

dents to work directly in an international setting with animal welfare or wildlife,” she said.

For students studying international veterinary medicine who are unsure of the type of medicine they would like to focus on, such experiences gained through internships can be crucial, according to McCobb. Students who choose to intern with IFAW are providing a huge service to the organization, aiding it in its conservation work, she added.

In addition to receiving increased student internship assistance, IFAW hopes to build a strong partnership with IFAW in order to conduct research with the Cummings School, according to Atema.

The Cummings School and IFAW are both located in the greater Boston area, making mutual access and collaboration easier, McCobb said.

Both groups acknowledged that cooperation is instrumental in their individual future success.

“I hope to see this partnership grow and that we continue to engage in more collaboration and research to impact animals for the better all over the world,” Atema said.

Liquor license reform may support new restaurants LIQUOR

continued from page 1

Curtatone pointed to the fact that both the City of Cambridge and the Town of Arlington are authorized to issue unlimited beer and wine licenses as a reason why Somerville should follow suit.

The fee for a liquor license in Somerville varies depending on the type of license and can range from $1,600 to $5,000.

Somerville Alderman Robert Trane, who serves on the Licenses and Permits Committee and represents Ward 7 — which includes a part of Tufts’ campus — told the Daily that a restaurant’s ability to serve alcohol often defines its “bottomline” in terms of profits.

Though the proposal has not yet been finalized, Trane predicts that it will pass.

“It’s going to get approved in some form,” Trane said.

Although the reform — designed primarily to help new restaurants — is unlikely to affect liquor stores, some area liquor store owners have raised concerns that an increase in licenses may lead to increased competition that could pressure stores to sell to minors in order to break even.

Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman argued, however, that if this proposal only affects restaurants, as he expects will be the case, the selling of liquor to minors should be a non-issue.

“I don’t worry as much about restaurant licenses as I do liquor stores,” Reitman said. “I don’t think that an awful lot of our transports [of alcohol to Tufts] come from restaurants and clubs, because … you can’t take alcohol out of the establishment, and so if you’re getting intoxicated, they see it and they stop serving.”

He noted that Tufts students should expect secondary benefits from this proposal, including having more nearby restaurant options.

Some local business owners are skep-

Kyra Sturgill/Tufts Daily

Somerville is pushing the state to uncap the number of liquor licenses available to restaurants and liquor stores. tical that the city’s downtown restaurant business is in need of this expansion in liquor licenses.

“I don’t think they’re suffering now,” Steve Mosher, manager of The Wine & Cheese Cask, told the Daily. “I think there’s probably more revenue in restaurants in Somerville now than ever before, and they just probably want to keep that revenue stream going up.”

He recognized that his business, which has been a fixture on Washington

Street since 1968, is better prepared to sustain economic hardship than newly opened businesses, which are the crux of the problem according to Curtatone’s released argument.

“We’ve been here for more than 30 years, and other places have opened up certainly in Cambridge and Somerville two or 10 or 15 years [ago] … so I think it kind of depends on what your niche is and who you’re trying to serve,” Mosher said.

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Alumni make difference in charter schools

Three recent Tufts grads impact young students close to home by

Margaret Young

Daily Editorial Board

In the period leading up to graduation, many Tufts seniors think about applying to programs like Teach for America or the Peace Corps.

Last year, three recent grads chose to pursue a similar option right across the river in Boston.

Caitlin Kearney, Gabrielle Sloss and Adam Evans (all LA ’11) are this year in the middle of a year as student teachers with MATCH Corps. The program recruits a group of up to 100 recent grads to work for Boston’s MATCH charter school system.

MATCH Corps members receive housing and a living stipend in addition to two weeks of training in August before the school year begins. They then spend the year typically working 60-hour weeks tutoring students at the MATCH schools.

MATCH provides a rigorous curriculum aimed at helping inner-city Boston students from low-income families achieve success. The organization consists of a middle school in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood and a high school in Brighton.

Each corps member is assigned six or seven students with whom they work intensively over the course of the school year. They meet in small groups and on a one-on-one basis, providing subject specific tutoring in math and English as well as general homework and study assistance. In addition, the members work as teachers or administrative aides and provide a link with students’ parents through weekly phone calls.

Kearney, Sloss and Evans each said that they chose the MATCH program in part because of the opportunity to work one on one with students, as opposed to in a larger group setting such as with Teach for America.

“In MATCH Corps, you can work with students one-on-one or one-ontwo. I thought that by being able to

Courtesy Adam Evans

Gabrielle Sloss, Adam Evans and Caitlin Kearney (not pictured) teach within the MATCH Corps. work with the same students every day, I could form strong relationships with them and cater to their needs,” Sloss said.

Kearney added that she felt MATCH Corps, and particularly the MATCH Teacher Residency Program (MTR) in which she also takes part would better prepare her to become a successful teacher than would a program like Teach for America.

“The whole idea behind MTR is to train unbelievable rookie teachers.

With Teach for America, you’re only given a summer of training, and often that first year doesn’t go very well. One of MTR’s goals is to have those first years be successful so that you don’t become burned out and you can stay longer,” Kearney said.

MTR is a yearlong training program that runs concurrently with a member’s typical duties within the MATCH

Corps. Members of this intensive subset of MATCH co-teach in the MATCH school and take specialized teaching classes. At the end of the year, MTR can help place teachers in urban public schools around the country.

All three Jumbos said that their time at Tufts influenced their decision to join MATCH Corps.

Kearney participated in the Peer Health Exchange program at Tufts, and said that her experience teaching in high schools was a steppingstone in applying to MATCH Corps.

Sloss explained that majoring in American studies at Tufts helped her decide to go into teaching.

“I think that my American studies major changed the trajectory of my life. It gave me a perspective on education as a social justice issue, and I take see MATCH, page 6

Ever notice the Jumbos on campus who put more thought into their wardrobes than it takes to put on whatever the South dryers haven’t shrunk to beyond-skinny jeans? We have, and some of their sartorial styles really caught our eye. There’s been some not-so-autumnal weather gracing New England lately, and fashionistas across campus have been taking advantage of it by working shorter hemlines and bold dresses. These Class of 2012 ladies embraced the delay of fall with eye-catching patterns like organic prints and geometric shapes. photos and compiled by Justin McCallum

—Kristen Johnson, senior

Geography of Tisch

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Street Smarts: Tufts’ Sartorial Scene

“I’m digging this heat—my winter style is sort of grandma with multiple sweaters. I usually think warmth over fashion. Today I wanted something flowy and free! Really, whatever I’m feeling that morning with my hair determines that day’s outfit.”

Chelsea Stevens | Loud Noises

“My personal style is classic and girly—it has to be the worst day ever for me to wear sweatpants to class. If I could wear sundresses every season I would, but that just won’t do when it gets to be negative 10 degrees outside. You probably caught me on my last dress day, unfortunately.”

—Lizzie Langer, senior

“I try to dress casually and comfortably with styles that work for my personality rather than trends. I love this shirt—I have a whole variety of them in tons of patterns. I like that it’s classic but flattering.”

—Ariel Spierer, senior

See Jumbo Slice at blogs.tuftsdaily.com for the full shoot.

ctober. Auburn leaves, Patagonia sweaters, apple cider and pumpkins galore. There is a busy-bee atmosphere about the Hill as 95 percent of the student body settles into study patterns while the other 5 percent watches. After a rigorous Monday afternoon of doing as little work as I could get away with, I hopped, skipped and jumped to the third floor of South while grand visions of kicking back and goofing off for a few hours danced though my head. But what’s this? Noses buried in books, pencils on paper, a wisp of stress in the air? Oh no, not yet! I frantically consulted my calendar and realized it was true: exam season had arrived.

Moments later, after I collected myself from the initial shock, a few friends informed me that they were headed to the library. Realizing that my hopes for an entertaining evening were shot, I reluctantly decided to join. And so began my first trip to Club Tisch.

The library is a fascinating place, full of important life decisions — table or cubicle? Which floor? Convo area? Should I pre-game? All these choices form your Tisch persona. After making the first tough decision — which gate to use to enter the President’s Lawn after crossing the street from the campus center — I made my way up the steps and into the library.

Upon entering I made a quick right — no, not into the reading room, that Hades of Tisch where dreams go to die and condescending glares run amok — but into Tower Café to grab a 20-ounce lukewarm cup of brewed beans and caffeine to get my mind juices flowing. I then entered the main floor, looked around for a moment, and several conclusions arose.

Cubicles: Two very different kinds of students sit here. Exhibit A: “Holy s--t I have a paper due and/or a test tomorrow, and if I don’t block out my body’s sensory receptors, the surrounding idiots will surely hinder my academic prowess.” Exhibit B: “I need to wallow alone in my ADD shame and hide from others the fact that I’m alternating tabs between Facebook and Wikipedia while listening to Ke$ha. Maybe I’ll get bored and do real work eventually.”

Convo Area: If you changed your outfit three times before hitting up Club Tisch to “do work,” you may want to reconsider your priorities. The way I see it, you should either stay in your dorm or house and chill, or go to Tisch and work efficiently so you can chill later. The conversation area a wimpy medium that is neither fun nor productive. Unless you’re working on a legitimate group project or it is 2 p.m., you are going to do no work and might as well have gone to Powder House Pub. Basement: This place is my jam. When I need to write a paper or do some urgent reading, I hole up here. Many fear the basement but seriously, it’s great. Check it out and you’ll never go back.

Level G: Kind of a mystery. Students sitting here are secretly hoping in the back of their minds that their nights might somehow culminate in some steamy sex in the stacks; needless to say, this vision rarely comes to be.

Study rooms: Pre-games.

So I ended up setting up camp at a table near the purple hallway, next to a few books that seemed to be, from what I could glean, about various undersea expeditions off the coast of Australia between 1969 and 1974. I started to ponder the last time anyone touched 99.6 percent of the books in this place. Finally, after staring into space for a while, I cracked open my own book. And then I closed it and wrote this instead.

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

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Tutors work at local charter schools to close the achievement gap MATCH

continued from page 5

that perspective with me at school,” Sloss said.

For Evans, the passion of his professors at Tufts provided a model for teaching that he can use in his work with MATCH. This passion, commitment and awareness of the societal context for schooling are essential in charter schools like the ones MATCH runs. The system, because of the specific demographic it caters to, adopts a certain philosophy, according to the tutors. “[MATCH is a] no-excuses school,” Kearney said. “We don’t make excuses for our kids based on the neighborhood that they are from. Our philosophy is

that every student, no matter where they are from, can learn. This requires longer days and stricter behavior,” Kearney said.

The MATCH schools do not offer arts or music during the school day and have limited sports and extracurricular offerings, according to Kearney.

“Since the students come with greater urgency based on our demographic, we spend more time focusing on academics and less on athletics,” he said.

“The idea is that many of [the] students come in as sixth-graders with a second or third grade reading level, so we need to focus [on academics] so much that we don’t have time for other things.”

Despite the intense experience that the three will have as educators this

year, not all of them plan to continue teaching afterwards.

“We don’t make excuses for our kids based on the neighborhood that they are from.

Our philosophy is that every student, no matter where they are from, can learn.”

Caitlin Kearney 2011 Tufts alum and MATCH tutor

Kearney hopes to be placed in a school

through the MATCH program, but Sloss said she hopes to work as a school psychologist or with cognitive behavioral therapy for teens. Evans hopes to go even further afield, working as either a doctor or a lawyer.

Evans said that the MATCH schools strive to create a strong culture of achievement for their students.

“One of the interesting things about MATCH is the idea of the culture of this school, which means that the school has high behavioral expectations and academic expectations,” he said. “The students are consistently challenged with material that requires them to meet or exceed their potential. The level of trust that the school places in students inspires students to meet these expectations.”

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un, fresh fashion on wheels

Mobile fashion truck trend brings innovation to retail

Retail trucks keep vintage shoppers, sneakerheads on their toes

by

Charissa Ng

Daily Editorial Board

O

ddly enough, people love trucks: take Ashton Kutcher’s infamous — and grossly unfortunate — trucker hat phase in the early 2000s, for example. Recent years have seen an outpouring of trucks selling just about anything, popping up in cities throughout the country. What started off as a food truck trend has quickly expanded beyond the realm of falafel and banh mi to now include clothing and accessories too. So au revoir traditional retail storefronts, hello mobile fashion trucks.

From Food to Fashion Inspired by the innovation of the food truck revolution, Amy Lynn Chase (nicknamed“Punky”) decided to expand her online retail store into the mobile vintage shop, Haberdash Vintage, back in February 2009. At the time, Chase was looking for a retail space, but found that everything was too expensive. Chase was hanging out with friends one night, wondering how she could make this work, when something serendipitous happened: “We walked outside of the bar and there was a food truck there. I go [to my friends], ‘I’m going to put all of my clothes in my trunk and sell them out of my trunk,’” Chase said.

“I was just joking around at first. But then I go, ‘Or, I’ll buy a food truck, and put [the clothes] in the food truck.’ And so the next morning I was on eBay looking for trucks.”

Emily Benson had a similar experience when she decided to open up shop with The Fashion Truck in the summer of 2010. After gaining six years of retail experience working at stores like Henri Bendel and Club Monaco, Benson thought it was high time to open a boutique of her own. Like Chase, however, Benson realized that the advantage of a retail truck is that start-up costs are much lower than that of a traditional storefront. Watching the whole food truck trend skyrocket in New York City eventually pushed Benson to take a risk by bringing retail fashion to the streets.

“I always thought, ‘How cool would it be if a store pulled right up to your house or your office?’ It

always intrigued me, and when I saw the food trucks I thought, ‘Hey, I can make it look like a store instead of a kitchen,’” Benson said.

For Derrick Cheung, a senior at Emerson College and co-owner of the high-end street wear truck, Green Street Vault, along with business partner Howard Travis, this flexibility and freedom to reach out to customers are what sparked their desire to create a mobile retail truck.

“We figured if it’s not busy in one spot, we should be able to move to another spot. React to what’s going on, react to the business, and then move to another location that’s busier,” Cheung said. “We weren’t trying to work off of the food truck trend or anything like that. We were just trying to reinvent the retail wheel and create something new.”

Setting Up ‘Shop’ Mobile retail trucks may be a more prudent option economywise, but setting up shop in the confines of a moving vehicle isn’t exactly a cakewalk.

“I wouldn’t say to anyone that opening a store inside a truck is easy. It’s definitely not,” Benson said.

“But I really fell in love with the idea of having a shop of my own that I could kind of curate and play in.”

Chase spent about two months renovating her own retro-style trailer into the makings of a real boutique. “My space is only 12 feet by 7 feet. You have to be creative,” Chase said. “I was so obsessed with the trailer that every waking minute I was playing with it. It was all very hands-on.”

When HaberdashVintage opened in 2009, Chase unknowingly paved the way for the fashion truck trend when her trailer became the first mobile vintage shop in America.

“I didn’t really know that there was no one else out there until we started getting press right away,” Chase said. “We started in Worcester, and then I started doing the SoWa Open Market. Soon stores in Boston were requesting that we come and just open up shop outside their stores.

Everybody wanted Haberdash there.

It was really cool.”

Beyond the obvious innovation, what is interesting about the Green Street Vault truck is how the con-

cept even came about. Cheung was only a junior when he created a business plan for the mobile retail truck in Emerson’s Entrepreneurial Studies (E3) program last year. After winning the first prize of $5,000 in start-up cash in the E3 Expo, sneakerheads Cheung and Travis hit the pavement in style with the Green Street Vault this past August.

On the Road Unlike traditional storefronts and even their food truck counterparts, mobile retail trucks benefit from their ability to move from location to location on a whim. Green Street Vault, for example, sets up shop just about anywhere in the suburbs of Boston depending on the weather, the day and the demand from customers.

“Food trucks are now limited to food truck spots in specific locations. Whereas we can just pull up to a spot, pay for two, three hours and then just set up shop,” Cheung explained. “[But that’s] only because no one’s really done this before in the way that we’re doing it.”

While Green Street Vault sets up shop in places like Porter Square and MIT, the heftiness of The Fashion Truck — which spans two car lengths — makes maneuvering around the city too difficult. As a result, The Fashion Truck makes its rounds outside of Boston.

“I’ve been focused on being very targeted in where I go and who I go to,” Benson said.

In fact, Benson has developed a three-pronged approach to reaching clientele, including events like the SoWa Open Market, private parties and a mix of going out on the streets and building up an online store.

Hoping to expand her customer base, Benson also uses her fashion expertise with services to help clients organize their closets, build their wardrobes, put together outfits and act as their personal shopper. In addition, Benson explains that hosting private parties on The Fashion Truck is a huge opportunity for business at the moment.

“Women love getting together with other women. And parties are a social experience — as is shopping — so the two go hand in hand,” Benson said. “I’ll drive to your house

on a Friday night at 7:00 and you can have a really fun night with your girlfriends and shop.”

What about when things get too cold in New England over the winter? The Fashion Truck will quite literally be migrating south to Florida for the season until things warm up for its return in April.

While it may be harder for people to make their way to the shop when it is hopping around town, this aspect of spontaneity is what keeps customers coming back for more.

By constantly updating their Twitter, Facebook and website pages with their changes in location, Cheung and Travis allow customers to keep track of where the Green Street Vault will be at any given time in the Boston area.

“It’s really easy for us because it’s just me and Howard on the truck every day,” Cheung said. “So if someone tells us I need this in this size, we’ll write it down and get it for them. We’ll tweet at them on their personal Twitter accounts, they’ll come out to us.”

Great Things Come in Small Packages Because fashion trucks have such limited storage, all three mobile retail truck owners agree that innovation and creativity in opening up the space and designing displays within these confines is key. One solution is to have a quick turnover of products so things don’t get too cluttered.

Fortunately for Chase, being a fashion blogger gives her access to a huge outreach of shoppers that keep a steady stream of business flowing in. “We’ve been able to have a really good turnover rate. So each event that I do, we have to restock the store,” Chase said.

For newcomer Green Street Vault, it’s all about economizing space for their mix of brand name and local Boston-based street-wear apparel and sneakers.

“We buy small runs in pretty much everything because we like to keep our inventory fresh,” Cheung explained. “We like to cycle through all of the inventory that we have to make the space work.”

Fun, Fresh Fashion on Wheels So, what is it about buying things out of a truck that people find so appealing? For mobile retail boutiques, it’s as much about the products as it is about the unique customer experience.

“The novelty aspect of the truck is still so fresh,” Benson said. “Most women, — and guys, actually — young and old, have this sense of ‘Wow, this is cool.’ And that’s what I’m going for.”

It’s this originality and element of surprise that Chase also believes make fashion trucks so sought after. “We shop every day and consume everything. But when there’s an extra element involved in an unexpected place, it’s fun,” Chase said.

Cheung said that the ultimate goal for mobile retail trucks — as with any traditional retail store in today’s economy — is to “create an experience for the customer that they can’t find anywhere else, which is what we do every day.”

Benson’s goal, simply put? “I just want people to leave with a smile.”

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artwork courtesy michael bernard via flickr creative commons

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Arts

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Movie Review

Bland plot, hackneyed script kill ‘Killer Elite’

by Jordan

Teicher

Daily Staff Writer

Though “Killer Elite” is being marketed as some sort of reasonably cerebral cousin to the Jason Bourne trilogy, in reality,

Killer Elite Starring Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro Directed by Gary McKendry it’s just a boring period piece with a few big-name actors and standard fast-paced action sequences. A mustachioed Clive Owen and an underused Robert De Niro stuck on autopilot can only do so much for a shoddy film.

As for the plot summary, the narrative can be reduced into a cliche: A retired assassin is forced to come back for one last job to save a kidnapped friend. Danny Bryce (Jason Statham) comes out of a short retirement after his friend and fellow assassin Hunter (De Niro) is captured during a botched assignment by an old Omani oil sheik. The sheik wants Bryce to hunt down the three Special Air Service (SAS) agents who killed his sons, get recorded confessions and make their deaths look accidental. If Bryce fails, Hunter will be executed.

A large chunk of the film is spent showing Bryce and his team pursuing the three SAS targets. Clive Owen is introduced midway through the movie as Spike Logan, a vengeful former SAS agent who wants to protect his brethren from dying. The plot’s momentum leads up to a Statham-versus-Owen showdown. To top off the cliche, there are short flashback sequences revealing Bryce’s romantic relationship with a blandly attractive blonde. Her character has a name, but she is too insignificant to include in the review.

killerelite.com

Jason Statham stars in ‘Killer Elite,’ a subpar thriller.

The issue of blandness plagues “Killer Elite” from its start. The characters barely deserve names because they are really just poorly veiled Stathams, Owens and De Niros.

The actors actually save the movie from becoming a horrendous disaster. The three big guys on the marquee bring enough star power and bold persona to keep minimal

audience attention. The true offenders are director Gary McKendry and screenwriter Matt Sherring. The duo combined to create a maddeningly weak blueprint for an action movie with a $70 million budget.

The characters travel to Mexico, Australia, Oman, England and France, but each locale plays out on screen like a stereotype. There is no identity. There is no consistent tone or

mood. Yes, there are a few shaky-cam fight sequences, but that’s hardly a fresh take on fisticuffs since shaky-cam fights have become the norm. It’s as if McKendry tried to borrow traditional techniques from the action and spy genres, pasted them together and hoped for the best. The result is an see KILLER, page 11

TV Review

‘Gossip Girl’ conceives unrealistic plotlines, child by

Brionna Jimerson

Daily Editorial Board

Since the show’s advent, “Gossip Girl” has been pushing the envelope of ridicu-

Gossip Girl Starring Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford Airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CW lousness with its convoluted plots, surprisingly emotionally developed characters — excluding Nate Archibald

(Chace Crawford) — and willingness to brazenly depict social taboos like drug use and teen sex.

But after almost 100 episodes, the viewer is left wondering, “What next? What could ‘Gossip Girl’ possibly do to top itself?”

Behold, Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) is pregnant.

In this week’s episode, viewers’ suspicions from the previous week’s show were confirmed: Blair, fiancee to European prince Louis Grimaldi (Hugo Becker) and all-around Upper East Side force of nature, is with child.

At the close of last season,

viewers caught a glimpse (OK, a complete eyeful) of Blair’s sexy one-night stand with her ex-lover Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) before she returned to her doting fiance. Though Blair and Louis’ courtship was quick, their love seems genuine enough.

Blair does not know which of the two men is the father of her child and struggles throughout the episode to keep her morning sickness and discomfort at bay when in the company of Louis’ jealous sister, Beatrice (Roxane Mesquida), who seems hellbent on discovering Blair’s

What’s Up This Weekend Looking to make your weekend artsy?

Check out these events!

“Stilyagi (Hipsters)” (2008) Russian Circle presents a screening of “Stilyagi,” a recent Russian film that promises an introspective and lively viewing experience. Dr. Sasha Senderovich will introduce the film and host a Q&A session afterward. Tonight at 7 p.m. in Olin Center 011; admission is free.

Torn in Two: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War Beginning this weekend, tours of the Torn in Two exhibit at the Boston Public Library take place every weekend until Oct. 29. The exhibit displays the library’s special collection of authentic maps, diaries, pictures, political cartoons, paintings and prints from the Civil War era. Tonight at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Boston Public Library; exhibition through Dec. 31; admission is free.

Liederabend Pianist Anne Kissel and tenor Joe Dan Harper will perform pieces by Franz Schubert, Benjamin Britten and Robert

Schumann. Saturday at 8 p.m. in Distler Hall at Granoff Music Center; admission is free.

Matt Nathanson at the House of Blues For supporters of low-key acoustics, Matt Nathanson rolls into Beantown for one night only. Riding the coattails of his latest release, “Modern Love” (2011), Nathanson should attract college kids and thirty-somethings alike with his folk/rock background.

Saturday at 6 p.m. at the House of Blues in Boston; standing room tickets are $25 and can be purchased at Houseofblues.com.

East Cambridge Business Association Smoke This Rib Fest Heat things up this Sunday and watch as some of Cambridge’s finest BBQ restaurants compete to win the prize as best mouthwatering ribs in town. Sunday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Cambridge Street, East Cambridge; tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at Smokethisribfest.eventbrite. com.

—compiled by the Daily Arts Department

secrets and flaws in order to secure the throne for herself.

Meanwhile, Nate bakes pot brownies and sleeps with a cougar from Los Angeles. What else is new? It seems that for Archibald, each season begins with a tryst with an older woman that fizzles out before the middle of the season.

Certainly, his newest conquest will go the way of the others within a few weeks, after she’s served her purpose as a plot-pushing plaything for Nate.

Still in L.A., Serena (Blake Lively) runs into her imposter cousin “Ivy/Charlie” (Kaylee

DeFer) at a cafe and, in a whirlwind of assumptions and pushiness, convinces Ivy to leave the West Coast and return to New York City with her. Last season, Ivy was employed by Serena’s aunt to steal money from the Van Der Woodsen family, and Serena’s rediscovery of her cousin threatens to ruin Charlie’s carefully constructed lie of a life.

While Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) continues his quest to find out who is attempting to publish his manuscript novel about the lives of his see GOSSIP, page 11

Top Ten | People who deserve a women’s clothing line before Kanye West Last Saturday, Kanye West hit the catwalk at the prestigious Paris Fashion Week, debuting his first clothing line to an audience full of professional style snobs like Anna Wintour and the Olsen twins. His show was a train wreck of sweater shoes, plunging necklines and excessive leather — looks like Kanye’s design sense is anything but a “beautiful fantasy.”

We’re “gonna let him finish,” but here are 10 people we think could debut the best women’s clothing lines of all time: 10. Lady GaGa: Between dresses with strategically placed bubbles and fullbody red lace numbers, she can make little monsters out of anybody.

9. Ke$ha: The trash-can-be-chic pop star once told MTV she wanted to start a “humane” clothing line made from road kill. I see a new PETA campaign in the works.

8. The Naked Cowboy: It would be a very simple collection.

7. Bill Cosby: Who doesn’t like a big old sweater? Answer: Owls.

6. Björk: Swan dress.

5. Elle Woods: What’s not to love about pink dresses, pink heels and an entire wardrobe that complements lusciously golden locks?

4. “16 and Pregnant” stars: A maternity line, featuring elastic waistbands on skinny jeans.

3. Bill Cunningham: Bill Cunningham is too cute in his $5 blue smock to make this funny.

2. Hillary Clinton: Dress to get paid, not to get ... well, you catch our drift.

1. Coco Austin: At long last, clothes for the big-breasted woman, courtesy of Ice T’s wife!

—compiled by the Daily Arts Department

The Tufts Daily

Thursday, October 6, 2011

11

Arts

‘Gossip Girl’ continues with melodrama, crazy plotlines GOSSIP

continued from page 10

Upper East Side social circle, he turns to Chuck for assistance, only to find him enveloped in a world of “Fight Club”-esque (1999) behavior on a quest to “feel” again since losing Blair to Louis. His behavior has resulted in dangerous bruises and injuries, yet Bass maintains he is in control.

This week’s episode highlighted all that is fundamentally right and wrong with “Gossip Girl”: Each character developed his or her own plot line and we are left with a wealth of speculations, assumptions and — you guessed it — gossip about their futures. After teasing through DeFer’s genuinely bad acting, Serena’s mind-numbingly aloof and self-involved disposition and Nate’s stagnant and stale plot line, we are left with an emotionally and physically scarred Chuck, Blair in crisis and an amazing soundtrack. Only two episodes deep into the new season, “Gossip Girl” has already re-taught viewers that things can fly off the handle as quickly as you can send a text message.

Despite the show’s cult-like following and incredibly involved fan community (research “Gossip Girl” fan fiction if you have free time, and prepare to be amazed), it continues to deliver relatively mediocre viewer numbers compared to other shows in its time slot, which include “How I Met Your Mother” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

Meester performs at her best when Blair is in a moral conundrum, and her talent definitely shone through in the latest episode. Meester’s ease in emotional transitions and believability are a definite credit to the show, and serve as a buffer for Lively’s seemingly one-dimensional rendition of Serena as a self-serving heir without emotional challenge or depth.

As Chuck Bass, Westwick does not reveal much of his character’s certain inner torment, at least not yet. But Westwick still matches Meester’s intensity blow for blow. His skill renders Becker’s portrayal of Prince Grimaldi, a lover and future husband, futile in the wake of Chair (Chuck and Blair).

Blair has successfully concealed her pregnancy from her inner circle, save Dan, but when her body begins to betray her, all of the players are in for a hell of a season. XOXO.

Yakety yak

M

Giovanni Rufino/The CW

Blake Lively returns to ‘Gossip Girl’ this season with a secret.

‘Killer’ a major disappointment

The Artsy Jumbo

Science meets art in wild Card

KILLER

continued from page 10

natalee birchansky/tufts daily

It can be difficult to find a biology major surviving at Tufts. It’s rarer still to find a bio major with a budding career as an artist.

Lizz Card is a sophomore majoring in biology and minoring in art. She is also a talented painter who creates portraits of people in a photorealistic style. Card has even made money off her work, as she has been commissioned by a number of individuals to paint for them.

Card sincerely enjoys her painting process. “When I paint I think about all sorts of things. It’s kind of meditation because I have so much time to think. I like just being alone with my thoughts,” Card said.

Card’s artistic endeavors are a side

Tai Frater | Chewing the Fat

passion, as it is difficult for her to balance commissions with her full course load. While she doesn’t expect painting to be her primary career path, she thinks painting will always be a beloved pet project.

In the future, Card would like to venture more into surrealist territory.

She has done a few replicas of surrealist paintings and is currently developing her own surrealist style. She also plans to master watercolor techniques and to start working with bronze.

Card hopes to take more art courses at Tufts to improve her skills and open herself up to new and different ideas when it comes to her works.

—by Joseph Stile

uneven two hours of dullness.

Sherring deserves condemnation as well. The screenwriter is responsible for generating the backbone of a film, and Sherring’s effort is very lazy.

The screenplay is so bad and full of hackneyed one-liners that it is hard to blame any of the actors.

Take the role of Danny Bryce as an example. The character is an assassin with a heart of gold. After years of killing targets for money, Bryce instantly decides to change. He develops a code of morals without warning. No actor in Hollywood could perform well in the role. Statham just needs to pick better scripts.

In case you forgot, De Niro is in this movie. This is the same De Niro from “Raging Bull” (1980) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974). He has no business being in this raging piece of bulls--t; not only is the role of Hunter more suitable for someone like Dwayne Johnson, but the part barely has 15 minutes of screen time.

Even so, De Niro’s talent emerges. He can sleepwalk through his scenes and still be far and away the best actor in a film. In a predominately serious film, he is able to bring some charm and a subtle hint of comedy.

Owen is not bad, either. He plays a flimsier version of his villainous character from “The Bourne Identity” (2002).

Also, he has a mustache, which should count for something.

Beyond the actors’ talent, this movie is a disappointment. Save your money for something worthier of your time.

y next culinary journey led me to local dining establishment “House of Tibet Kitchen” in Teele Square. Here, apparently, was the best yak in Boston.

Yup — yak. To my knowledge, yak is not commonly eaten in the United Kingdom, and I wouldn’t say that it is much of a specialty food here, either. In fact, this is probably true of most places outside of Tibet and Nepal.

When I attempted to explain to my Taiwanese classmates what a yak was, I had to resort to the medium of mime.

Luckily, a third party was able to translate the word yak into Mandarin, thus saving me from further embarrassment.

However, you would never know yak was uncommon at House of Tibet Kitchen — half the menu is dedicated to extolling its virtues.

By the end of the menu, I was ready to order a whole live yak as a survival investment, should student funds run low over the cold winter months. The menu also detailed yak’s nutritional benefits: Yak is incredibly low in fat, high in good fatty acids and low in cholesterol. There were even tables chockfull of compelling statistics to illustrate how wonderfully nutritious yak is compared to other non-yak alternatives. This wasn’t cuisine. This was science.

I was slightly disappointed to discover the yaks were farmed by the distinctly un-Tibetan-sounding McRoberts family of Nebraska. Still, not to be dissuaded, my friend and I ordered two yak dishes: yaksha shaptak — sauteed yak with jalapeno, onion, ginger, garlic, peppers and spices, and yaksha logopetsel — sauteed sliced yak with cabbage, carrots, garlic, ginger, scallions and spices. We also ordered a selection of momo (Tibetan dumplings), jasmine rice and steamed bread.

The yak dishes were surprisingly different given their number of shared ingredients. The shaptak was a kind of dark, spicy curry — perfect for dipping the warm, steamed bread in — and the logopetsel was a much lighter dish in both color and taste. Both were extremely tasty and very satisfying, as were the momo. The yak had an interesting taste — almost like a gamey version of flavorful beef.

Food aside, our culinary adventures at The House of Tibet Kitchen continued even further with the drinks menu. This included the exotic-sounding chudchen dhara — a yogurt shake with banana, strawberry and mango — and bod ja, a traditional Tibetan tea lightly buttered and salted. I settled on cider — good, old-fashioned cider, reminding me of the West Country scrumpy back home.

However, this was no ordinary cider. This was, I soon discovered, a “soft” cider. In the United Kingdom, cider is, as a firm rule, alcoholic enough to strip paint off a wall. Anything else is just apple juice.

This concept of non-alcoholic cider was one my brain struggled to comprehend. But bigger shocks followed. For this cider was not only “soft,” it was served hot with cottage cheese crumbled into it. Wow. Although the cheesy, hot cider proved popular with my companions, I remained skeptical about the dairy element — especially as there is no elegant way to scoop out the remnants of cottage cheese at the bottom of a mug. This is not a date drink.

But cheese aside, I would highly recommend a visit to the House of Tibet Kitchen. If yak doesn’t float your boat, there is a wide range of rice, noodle and soup dishes, all of which looked and smelled wonderful as they were ferried out to other diners. The setting is relaxed and intimate, and the service could not have been more attentive. The restaurant even stocks authentic Tibetan merchandise such as hats and booties — made, I presume, of yak. All in all, a great experience.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 — Minus a halfpoint for the cottage cheese.

Tai Frater is pursuing a post-graduate degree in occupational therapy. She can be reached at Tai.Frater@tufts.edu.

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Editorial

Editorial Niki Krieg Adam Kulewicz Managing Editors Amelie Hecht Executive News Editor Kathryn Olson News Editors Laina Piera Corinne Segal Saumya Vaishampayan Brent Yarnell Bianca Blakesley Assistant News Editors Gabrielle Hernandez Brionna Jimerson Michael Marks Elizabeth McKay Marie Schow Minyoung Song Mahpari Sotoudeh Martha Shanahan Executive Features Editor Jon Cheng Features Editors Maya Kohli Amelia Quinn Falcon Reese Derek Schlom Victoria Rathsmill Assistant Features Editors Margaret Young Rebecca Santiago Executive Arts Editor Zach Drucker Arts Editors Anna Majeski Charissa Ng Joseph Stile Matthew Welch Ashley Wood Melissa MacEwen Assistant Arts Editors David Kellogg Bhushan Deshpande Seth Teleky Devon Colmer Louie Zong Craig Frucht Michael Restiano

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

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Waging war on the free press

Carter W. Rogers Editor-in-Chief

Editorial | Letters

Less than a week after the high-profile acquittal of Amanda Knox, Italy is once again making international headlines.

Wikipedia has hidden its Italian content in protest of a new bill, Disegno di legge: norme in materia di intercettazioni telefoniche (DDL) — translated into English as the Lawful Wiretapping Bill. Promoted by embattled Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and currently under review by Parliament, DDL would prevent the media from publishing the content of wiretapped conversations, a rather ubiquitous concept in Italy.

DDL would also require news organizations to remove from their publications any material that an individual deems harmful to his or her image within 48 hours or else pay a fine of 10,000 euros, or $12,630. In addition, aside from removing the offensive content, organizations would be forced to allow the offended party to post a reply without any edits or comments. These are the provisions to which Wikipedia objects.

If the bill passes, Wikipedia says it may shut down its Italian site.

Berlusconi has been viewed in a negative light and involved in a variety of scandals, practically from the day he assumed office. He’s currently on trial for using taxpayer money to fund his sex life,

including orders for prostitutes — one of whom was allegedly underage.

Recently leaked, humiliating wiretaps are to thank for his run-ins with the law. In one tape, Berlusconi is heard boasting of having sex with eight women in a single night.

In another, he jokes that he is “only prime minister in his spare time.”

The wiretapping bill is a poor attempt by Berlusconi and his loyalists to rescue the Prime Minister’s image amid such a humiliating scandal. However, in the process, DDL poses a grave threat to free speech, violates the Italian constitution — which clearly prohibits government censorship of the media — and is hardly appropriate for a democratic country like Italy.

The law would effectively prevent both major Italian news organizations and citizen bloggers from posting any incriminating information about any public figure. If the sole criterion for forcing a website to remove coverage of an individual is simply that the individual in question finds it offensive, it will be nearly impossible for journalists to carry out their civic duty to report the objective truth.

We are in full support of Wikipedia’s decision to remove its Italian content. Like blogs and newspapers, Wikipedia’s purpose will be seriously imperiled if it is forced

to remove all unflattering content from its Italian pages. It is hard to conceive how an organization like Wikipedia — committed to providing objective content — could function with the constant threat of government censorship looming over its coverage.

Berlusconi personally owns three of Italy’s seven main terrestrial news channels. Of the remaining four, three are stateowned, thus granting Berlusconi nearly complete control of the Italian media. It’s a power he exploits at every opportunity.

He has denied funding to state-run news organizations that publish unflattering coverage of his administration and has used lawsuits to try to silence groups that aren’t within the government’s grasp.

This latest proposal is designed with the clear goal of protecting Berlusconi from further embarrassment from his sexcapades.

Parliament is packed with Berlusconi loyalists. DDL has a strong chance of passing.

It is hopeless for a college newspaper in Massachusetts to call for its rejection, but it’s important for Americans to be aware of the crime against the media about to be perpetrated by the Italian government. Instead of supporting an unjust bill, we urge you to join the calls for Berlusconi to resign, which at this point is the best thing he could do for himself and his country.

Anna Christian

Daniel Rathman Executive Sports Editor Matthew Berger Sports Editors Lauren Flament Claire Kemp Ben Kochman Aaron Leibowitz David McIntyre Alex Prewitt Ann Sloan Ethan Sturm Kate Klots Assistant Sports Editors Josh Berlinger Virginia Bledsoe Kristen Collins Alex Dennett Justin McCallum Ashley Seenauth William Butt Lane Florsheim Caroline Geiling Meagan Maher Oliver Porter Scott Tingley Dilys Ong

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Off the Hill | New York University

Changes made to Four Loko label counterproductive by

Washington Square News Editorial Board Washington Square News

How can you consume the equivalent of four or five cans of beer with just one 23.5 oz. container and $2.50? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an answer, and it could be an old enemy or friend, based on your history with the drink. We all know what Four Loko was and still is: a drink that leads to reckless nights of debauchery and ruins reputations.

Although the can has been stripped of some of its stimulants, the FTC has not stopped at regulating Four Loko’s placeThe Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. 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.

ment in the marketplace. Next on the agenda, it will introduce a new label to be placed on cans that will tell consumers how much alcohol they contain — the equivalent of four beers. Prior to this new FTC regulation, Four Loko only told consumers that it contained the same amount of alcohol as one to two beers.

While it is true that the original problem with Four Loko was that it masked its excessive alcohol content and attracted college students with its low price and flashy appearance, the FTC’s attempt at transparency may be counterproductive. As we all can agree, binge drinking and alcohol poisoning should not

be aims of the night, but shortsighted students drinking on a budget may now return to the can once more, now that they’ll see how much alcohol they can get. The WSN Editorial Board believes the new preventive information will not discourage, but instead serve to advertise the contents of the drink even more than ever before.

In the end, the FTC actions appear to be contradicting its intended goal. Its need for transparency is respectable but could merely re-popularize the product in the public eye. Instead, let Four Loko naturally fall by the curb where it seems to end up every morning.

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

The Tufts Daily

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Op-Ed

Angad Bagai | A Whole New World

Poison Ivy

W

Justin McCallum/Tufts Daily

Occupying the American psyche by

Kumar Ramanathan

In this newspaper and in countless others, “Occupy Wall Street” and its offshoots have received much criticism — we hear constantly that the Occupiers are too unclear in their goals, that there’s no leadership.

Where are their specific demands?

Why don’t they have concrete solutions? Surrounded by the ineffectual world of American politics, it’s easy to nod in agreement with the barrage of cynicism, but I urge you to take a look at the truly magnificent social movement that’s growing in front of us.

The liberal critique of the Occupy movement misses its central nature.

This is not a conventional protest targeted at one cause; it’s a much bolder social movement. This is a movement of people who are tired of playing by the rules for too long and not having anything to show for it. It is a movement that is angered and frustrated by the plague of economic inequality that grows each day in this country.

Corporate tax breaks, loopholes for the rich and back-breaking student debt have become rampant. Income inequality in the United States has grown consistently since the 1960s.

Corporate greed has run amok in this country, and existing democratic institutions have failed to stem the tide.

There is a unifying expression of dissent and disenfranchisement throughout the Occupy protests. Frustration and anger emanate from city parks and public squares across the nation, but most of all, people are exhausted with the way things are. Cynics write it off by pointing out a lack of specific demands, but the problem driving people to these makeshift communities is too big to address with a list of three or four demands. Not everyone is an economist. Certainly, the population should be involved in the creation of public policy, but the intricate construction of that policy is for, well, policymakers. Sets of specific demands have emerged in the past few days from segments of the

Occupy movement, but they are not, nor should they be, the driving force behind it.

What’s happening here is an attempt to start a conversation, to change the nature of political discourse. Even when we talk about taxes and income in this country, it’s in the context of austerity measures, GDP growth, deficit-reduction plans, etc. All the while, the poor in this country become poorer. People want an outlet for their helplessness. They want their government and their country to be talking about the raging inequality ripping America apart.

When I was in Occupy Boston last Friday, one man sighed, “I want them to know that we matter.” If you really want to know where this movement is coming from, look up the WeAreThe99Percent blog. This is a movement built on people’s stories, and these stories are simple. They are stories of how the system no longer supports the overwhelming majority of Americans.

This movement is more than a mere shouting match with the establishment. Remember that this is not merely a march; it is an occupation. A remarkable thing is happening at “Occupy Wall Street,” Occupy Boston and others around the country. People are building organic communities. They are creating spaces where people can share their frustrations and their stories, where ideas can thrive and grow to develop a coherent message.

David Graeber, one of the initial organizers of “Occupy Wall Street,” addressed the unconventional structure of these communities in an interview, explaining that, “You’re creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature.”

As time goes on, these communities are democratically creating makeshift constitutions, fostering an atmosphere of tolerance and discussion. Groups are formed voluntarily to service the needs of the community, and decisions are made in daily general assemblies that have no hierarchy

and no leaders, only facilitators. The methods of this social revolution are as important as the reason for its existence.

In such an occupation, people rejected by the system find meaning.

“We Are The 99 Percent” is an expression of solidarity that brings together those worst struck by these past few years, those who are not afforded the opportunities to succeed in life. At its barest levels, it is a cathartic experience for the Occupiers. In difficult times, these are communities coming together to find meaning in a status quo that has rejected the idea of social equality.

As Professor Goldstein pointed out in his op-ed on Tuesday, “Successful movements don’t spring up, fully formed out of nowhere.”

The message here is growing and evolving. The Occupiers are speaking to you just as much as they are to politicians and corporations. They are speaking out to this country through their actions and their methods, demanding that we begin talking about the rising inequality in this country. We don’t know how far this movement will go, or what its longterm effects will be. But a real movement for progressive social change is happening here, and it deserves a chance.

There’s an idea embedded in American culture that the game is fair — that if you work hard enough, study hard enough, put enough hours in, be creative enough, then you’ll win the game. But for decades, the vast majority of people have been kicked down over and over again for even trying.

The game is rigged. And people are just plain tired of it.

I urge you also to take an evening off and go down to South Station. Walk around, talk to some people, and judge for yourself what’s going on. But, please, leave your cynicism at the door.

Kumar Ramanathan is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

hen you look at recent college rankings, you’ll find that our university, Tufts, is rather highly ranked. If you look at the World University Rankings for 2010, you’ll see that Tufts University is ranked two places higher than the nearby Ivy League, Brown. If a random passerby in Boston or Medford happens to ask you where you go to school, and you say “Tufts,” the response you’re more or less likely to get is “Wow, that’s a great school,” or something along those lines. And actually, from what I’ve heard from a lot of my classmates who have been to high school in the States, this reaction is not unusual.

Tufts in the United States has a similar academic reputation to what one might find at an Ivy or a Stanford.

Yet 7,000 miles away in India, or perhaps even farther away in places like Singapore or Thailand, the reaction you’d get would be totally different. Of course, I can only speak from my own experience and the few other quips and comments I’ve heard from the people I’ve spoken to on the subject. In those places, Tufts is almost unheard of among the common people. In New Delhi, when you tell a person that you’re going to the United States for college, if you aren’t going to a “Harvard” or a “Princeton,” you’re not really going anywhere necessarily worth hearing about. Name recognition matters to many and for lots of people in these countries, Tufts doesn’t have the name that it deserves. To date, I have relatives who aren’t sure if I’m going to a school named “Tufts University” or “Tuft” as in a “tuft of grass.”

It is true that if one happens to go to an international school or visit an external counsellor for college applications, Tufts has a higher chance of being featured in the conversation. But even then, for a lot of students, it is treated as a back up to Ivy League schools. The attitude people display is, “Oh, I didn’t get into Yale. Therefore, I’m going to Tufts.” While I’m not exactly prepared or equipped to argue that Tufts is academically superior to Yale, I cannot deny the fact that Tufts is a superb institution, and it being a “back up” is almost preposterous.

In terms of my personal experience, back in April and early May, I was struggling to choose between Tufts and New York University as to where I’d like to attend college. If you actually look at it holistically, Tufts is superior in almost every way: academically, in terms of the quality of residential life, etc. NYU only prevails when it comes to the fact that, as the college is in the city, it encourages students to explore more and to be more independent. Coming from a smaller high school, though, I was used to the idea of campus life.

If I think about it retrospectively, I’m not entirely sure why it was so difficult for me to make the choice. However, it pains me to admit it, but I suppose part of the dilemma came from the fact that almost anyone I asked (aside from my friends in high school) had pretty much never heard of Tufts. NYU, on the other hand, was a big enough name in India.

People knew of NYU. And therefore, even understandably, people urged me to choose the name they knew and not the one that sounded like the “tusk” of an elephant.

At the end of the day, I’m glad I’m here at Tufts. I’m glad that I didn’t choose the school on the basis of its name and reputation back home in India. Yet, at the same time, I’m glad that in the United States (or at least in Boston) Tufts truly does obtain the respect that it should.

Angad Bagai is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Angad.Bagai@tufts.edu.

Op-ed Policy The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length. Op-Ed cartoons are also welcomed for the Campus Canvas feature. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. All material should be submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com no later than noon on the day prior to the desired day of publication; authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. Submissions may not be published elsewhere prior to their appearance in the Daily, including but not limited to other on- and off-campus newspapers, magazines, blogs and online news websites, as well as Facebook. Republishing of the same piece in a different source is permissible as long as the Daily is credited with originally running the article.

The Tufts Daily

14

Comics

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Doonesbury

Crossword

by

Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

by

Wiley

Tuesday’s Solution

Married to the Sea

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Beating Roy Halladay in the playoffs

Late Night at the Daily Wednesday’s Solution

Carter: “I’m intrigued.”

Ben: “By the restroom?”

Please recycle this Daily.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

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CHAPLAIN’S TABLE RELIGION AND POP CULTURE MacPhie Conference Room/Dewick Dining Hall Thursday, 5-7 PM October 6, 2011 Professor George Scarlett Child Study How I Met Your Mother: Faith and Being Human All are welcome; no meal points needed

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NBA employees stand to lose the most from lockout Inside the NBA

continued from page 19

It’s not surprising that the players and owners can’t come to a new agreement; they can’t even agree on the underlying facts.

If the lockout continues, it could have devastating effects for all parties involved. The last time the NBA had a lockout, during the 1998-1999 season, both sides reached a compromise in time for a shortened, 50-game season, but the league suffered financial losses, took a hit to its public image and

lost fan loyalty, all of which had lasting effects on its operations. With the possibility of a postponed start or cancellation of the 2011-2012 season, one has to wonder, who will be most affected by the absence of basketball this year?

Surely, the players will not be happy about losing their salaries, but LeBron James, who has accumulated roughly $76.5 million in his eight-year career, can do without one year’s pay. The owners stand to lose financially, as most of their money is invested in the

teams, and their profits would plunge from the absence of ticket revenues and merchandise sales. However, there is quite a market for NBA teams, and as evidenced by the recent sale of the Golden State Warriors for $450 million, the owners will likely survive, too.

The thousands of NBA and team employees may not be so lucky. Eleven percent of the NBA’s workforce was laid off in July, and many team employees will be out of a job if the season doesn’t happen.

In addition to NBA employ-

ees, fans will suffer. Players like James, Bryant and Durant have a finite number of years in their career trajectory, and the lockout is wasting their ability to excite and entertain fans in one of those years.

But by far the worst consequence of the lockout is the hit to the game’s integrity. No longer will NBA basketball be viewed as pure competition and fun for young fans; it will carry the negative stigma of a money-driven business.

Ne g o t i a t i o n s continue between the Players

Association and the league, but according to both sides, an agreement is not likely in the near future, barring significant headway this weekend.

Stern is soon expected to issue a drop-dead date, likely sometime in January, after which if no agreement has been reached, the season will be canceled.

If this situation unfolds, not only will the players, owners, employees and fans suffer, but the NBA risks falling farther behind the NFL and MLB in America’s sports hierarchy.

Though not an easy feat, presidents felt obligation to bring Hamilton in INSIDE THE NESCAC continued from page 20

previous day.

Having gone through the experience once already, the Jumbos are now better prepared for future doubleheaders. There is one more left during the fall season: on Homecoming weekend, most teams will host Williams on Oct. 15, before traveling to Bates on Oct. 16.

“We played hard on Saturday, but I think we could have fought a little harder knowing that Amherst and Trinity were going through the same thing,” O’Connor said. “I think knowing that we had another game to get through Sunday may have played a role in that. Next time, we really need to leave it all out on the field Saturday,

and still be ready to go out there the next day.”

Ensuring competitive equality was a top priority for NESCAC coaches and administrators when Hamilton College became a full-time member of the conference, necessitating schedule changes.

The weekend doubleheader format could not be avoided, because midweek road trips would have resulted in excessive missed class time for student-athletes.

“One other issue has to do with how far away we are from each other,” Gehling said. “[ Tufts is] fortunate to have the central location that we have, because we’re able to get to most schools within a couple of hours. That’s not the case for Hamilton (Clinton,

N.Y.) and Colby ( Waterville, Maine).

It’s unfair competitively to have some teams play back-to-back games and not others.

“Clearly, adding Hamilton was not an easy thing to do. It took a conference with an even number of schools and made it an odd number.

Now, every Saturday, somebody has a Saturday off.”

But Gehling noted that the presidents and trustees of the existing NESCAC schools believed the benefits of adding Hamilton — a charter member of the conference — outweighed the physical and logistical challenges that would ensue.

The Continentals already had several teams involved in NESCAC compe-

tition, including football, softball and baseball, although the Jumbos rarely faced them in the latter two sports because they are in different divisions.

In addition to the fall slate, Hamilton will also become a regular foe for Tufts’ basketball and lacrosse teams.

“I saw positives and negatives to [adding Hamilton], but at the end of the day, it was the presidents’ call,” Gehling said. “Once they made that call, it was my job to do it in the best possible way. Hamilton has some great teams, and it’s great to add them to the competitive mix in the NESCAC. And while I’m not crazy about the SaturdaySunday schedule, it worked out great this weekend — we turned a negative weekend into a positive one.”

Elephants in the Room My Patronus is...

I ___ my ___

Alter-ego

Scott Blumenthal Sophomore midfielder Men’s Soccer

A Blue Zone. It might not save me from dementors, but at least I could eat it

I miss my dog

Backup dancer for Cali Swag District

Whichever one doesn’t get in the way of NQR

Ralph Faia Junior offensive line Football

Very heavy

I love my teammates (Ed’s note: AWWWW)

Charlie Sheen

The blond one

Lindsay Katz Junior Women’s Tennis

Dolphin

I love my dog

Hermione Granger

The guy who gave me a ride home once

My black lab puppy Briggs

I’m on my grind

Laney Siegner Senior defender Women’s Soccer

Laneworth and Katy PerrySiegner

Favorite TUPD Officer

Don’t have one, but Jimmy is my favorite security officer at the gym

all photos courtesy tufts athletics

The Tufts Daily

Thursday, October 6, 2011

17

Sports

Inside NFL

Quarterbacks Sanchez, Flacco struggle in Sunday Night showdown

NBC showed its promos for Sunday night’s Baltimore Ravens versus New York Jets football game throughout the previous week. The ads featured the two quarterbacks — the bushy-browed Joe Flacco of the Ravens and the smug-faced Mark Sanchez of the Jets throwing a variety of passes, followed by a few fist-pumps and chest-bumps with their respective offensive linemen. The buildup could not have been more deceiving.

Sunday’s “Football Night In America” was one of the worst displays of quarterbacking in the past few seasons. Flacco remarkably managed to post a passer rating of just 37.4. Not to be outdone, Sanchez logged an even lower 30.5 quarterback rating.

On the night, Flacco completed 10 of 31 throws for 163 yards, one interception and one fumble lost, while Sanchez went 10-for35 on passes — totaling 119 yards — and one interception and three fumbles lost. That comes out to a combined 20-for-66 for 282 yards and six turnovers. Two teams that are traditionally run-oriented were forced to throw a combined 66 times.

Not surprisingly, the results were ugly.

The Jets were reluctantly forced to try to attack through the air after falling behind 27-7 in the second quarter, in part because of a turnover-turned-touchdown on their first offensive play.

While Sanchez’s mistakes were the reason they were behind, they had no choice but to keep attempting pass after pass to chase the Ravens on the scoreboard. The Jets’ QB coughed up two fumbles in the first by

Alex Arthur

Daily Staff Writer

MCT

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is stripped by Jets linebacker Aaron Maybin for one of the six turnovers in Sunday night’s game. half, both of which were taken back for touchdowns.

New York’s running game was also stifled as running back Shonn Greene could not find any holes behind a challenged offensive line that was missing AllPro center Nick Mangold.

To replace Mangold, the Jets tried using both Matt Slauson and Colin Baxter at center. Unfortunately, both were vastly overmatched against the behemoth Ravens’ interior front line of Terrence Cody and Haloti Ngata. Cody and Ngata wreaked havoc up the middle all night, as the Jets could not muster any push against their strength and combined 690 pounds of bulk.

The Ravens, on the other hand, had no such excuse, as their stubborn playcalling actually allowed the Jets to keep the score closer than it should have been.

There were multiple

occasions where Baltimore should have leaned on Ray Rice but instead elected to pass, including three consecutive possessions in the second quarter. Their lead dwindled, largely because the three drives took just 2:58 off the clock, and one of them ended with an interception that the Jets took back for six points.

For a game that featured 51 points, 36 of which were scored by the defense or special teams, there was a sequence of plays that exemplified perfectly how the night unfolded.

With 11 minutes left in the third quarter, the Ravens were up 27-17, needing a score to seemingly put the game out of reach, when Flacco fumbled on his own 27-yard line and the Jets recovered. The Jets, already in field-goal range, trotted onto the field, and Sanchez, on the very next play, threw an interception that

Lamothe stresses accountability football

continued from page 20

ed film and addressed the areas that required correcting. The second half of the day, according to Civetti, is dedicated to getting out on the field and refocusing on the next mission: in this case, Saturday’s home opener versus Bowdoin.

“It would be the same message had we won,” Civetti said. “Doing your job and playing within the play and doing what’s expected of you, that should be how things are done. You can’t look to the past. What’s important now is correcting the mistakes from Saturday, focusing on this upcoming Saturday.”

Saturday will bring the Polar Bears, who scrimmaged Tufts on Bello Field in September, into town. Bowdoin enters at 0-2 as well after losses to Amherst and Williams, two of the league’s perennial top teams. In a battle of winless squads, something will have to give, and Tufts is doing everything in its power to ensure that a repeat of last Saturday isn’t an option.

After Monday’s walkthrough, the Jumbos kneeled in a circle on Bello and held a playersonly meeting, their coach-

es scattered on the fringe.

Rinciari and seniors Nick Falk and Luke Lamothe, the three captains, stood in the front and addressed the team about accountability.

“Since the beginning we’ve talked about — and this goes back to last spring — talked about holding each other accountable, trusting each other,” said Lamothe, an offensive lineman. “That was what we were talking about after practice, that we need to hold ourselves accountable before we hold others accountable.”

Rinciari opened, talking about a missed assignment against Bates that led to a Bobcats touchdown. And one by one, his teammates followed suit, standing up in order and publicly sharing their mistakes, ones they hope to correct.

“In order to be a successful team and to win games, you have to win the things on your sleeve,” Rinciari said. “As a senior and a leader of the defense, it’s important to say that I messed up, and because of that, something happened.

Instead of pointing fingers, saying the offense or defense messed up, it allows you to look at yourself to see what did you do to put your team in that position.”

was returned 73 yards for a touchdown by Lardarius Webb. Suddenly, the scoreboard read 34-17, and the game was essentially over.

For two quarterbacks who have been labeled “game managers,” whose teams rely heavily on their defenses to win games and who are historically inaccurate — Sanchez has a 54.5 percent career completion rate, while Flacco is at 60.9 percent — their coaches have given them a long leash so far this season.

The Jets and the Ravens ran the ball 50.4 percent and 49.8 percent of the time in 2010, while in 2011, those figures have dropped to 38 percent and 43 percent, respectively. If these two teams expect to return to the playoffs and challenge for a Super Bowl, they seriously need to go back to the run-first game plan with which they achieved success in the past.

Hollender defeats Trinity’s best, falls in next round WOMEN’S TENNIS

continued from page 19

couldn’t finish it out. But we were right there with them the whole time.”

Gann and junior Janice Lam also played doubles for the Jumbos in the tournament. After beating Wellesley in the first round, they lost to Bowdoin 8-5 in the following round of play.

Katz was successful in singles play as well. She faced off against Colby’s Sarah Wiener in the opening match, winning 6-2, 6-1.

She followed this victory with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Springfield’s Samantha Carney. Next up, she faced Williams’ Kristin Alotta, the No. 6 seed in the singles bracket. Katz fell short in her upset bid against Williams’ No. 1 player and was eliminated from the singles tournament, 6-2, 6-0.

“I did how I was expected to do so it wasn’t a bad weekend for me,” Katz said.

“At the same time though, I definitely think I could have played better. I don’t think I showed my capabilities completely.”

Also in singles play, junior Lauren Hollender won her opening match, defeating Trinity’s No. 1 player Hillary Hoyt, 7-6, 6-1. She was knocked out of the tournament in the next round though, losing to Bowdoin’s Kellen Alberstone, the No. 2-overall seed, 6-2, 6-4.

Gann, too, was dismissed by a Polar Bear in the second round; the sophomore fell to senior Emily Lombardi 6-3, 6-1. Lam and Bowman each lost their first-round matches.

“I felt like I could have definitely done a better job in my second singles match, but that being said, I know exactly what I need to work on to get where I want to be,” Gann said.

“It wasn’t my best day but I am still proud of how I played and proud of the fight I had.”

The Jumbos have two weeks off before heading to Amherst and Mount Holyoke for the New England Women’s Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament on Homecoming weekend, the team’s final event of the fall.

Ben Kochman | The Wackness

Romance, baseball collide

T

he film “Moneyball” (2011) was almost an entirely different movie than the Hollywood hit that made its way into theaters two weeks ago.

In 2009, production on the movie was axed after director Steven Soderbergh replaced many of the script’s scenes with actual interviews with the subjects of the film. “It seems clear that [Soderbergh] became obsessed with authenticity,” the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

The high-ups at Sony Pictures Entertainment unsurprisingly freaked when they read Soderbergh’s rewrite.

Would they dare to invest $58 million in a documentary re-enactment art film? Please. The pursuit of authenticity is nice and all, but story arc and entertainment value are what wins at the box office.

Like the Billy Beane-built Oakland A’s of the early aughts, the “Moneyball” movie team has enjoyed success since the film’s release. Though unlike the underdog A’s, who build a competitive team with severely limited resources by innovating the way they evaluate players, this team is Sony Pictures, which can afford the best movie-making staff money can buy and which does not need to change the way sports movies are made to win big.

“Moneyball” is currently rated 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics have spent the last week writing about how “tight” the editing is, how “visceral” director Bennett Miller’s game shots are and how “sharp” screenwriters Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian’s dialogue is.

They’ve also waxed poetic about the emotive power of Brad Pitt gazing upon t h ehorizon while driving his car in laps around the stadium.

And look — they’re absolutely right about all of those things. This movie is entertaining and funny from start to finish. Its discussion of the scientific analysis A’s general manager Billy Beane and his assistant (depicted in the movie as a version of stat guru Paul DePodesta named “Peter Brand”) used to keep Oakland competitive with the rest of the league is accessible — some would say watered-down — enough to engage those who have never watched a baseball game in their lives.

What the executives at Sony should have believed more is that Michael Lewis’ book already has all of these qualities, and does not need the extra Hollywood touch of corny scenes with Beane’s daughter or Beane giving the A’s a pep talk in the locker room. And I’m not just saying this because I am a sports fan.

“Moneyball” (2004) the book revolves around a baseball maverick risking his job to stick it to the establishment. Plus, it has the underlying story of Beane’s own failure to live up to scouts’ expectations and succeed in the big leagues, which drives his desire to more accurately evaluate players. It doesn’t have the drama of a World Series championship, but this story has revolution and redemption by the boatload. Think “The Social Network” (2010), a movie so great not because of its romance but because of the idea of a couple of brilliant college kids changing the world.

Yet this movie is undermined by its insistence on giving us contrived romantic moments. To be fair, these are few.

The first quarter or so of “Moneyball” is great entertainment without sacrificing anything beyond dumbing down sabermetrics to a discussion of the value of on-base percentage (how often a hitter gets on base).

Then the film cuts to Beane buying his daughter a new guitar. The scene’s cute, no doubt, and Pitt’s charisma shines when he compliments his daughter on her voice and asks her to sing for him.

But even as my heart was warmed by the sweetness, it itched at me that this scene was designed to make me warm to Beane, to get me Emotionally Involved.

“Moneyball” wasn’t comfortable enough in its skin to risk me feeling otherwise.

Ben Kochman is a junior majoring in English. He can be reached at bkoch.tufts@ gmail.com or on Twitter @benkochman.

18

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Thursday, October 6, 2011

19

Sports

Women’s Tennis

Ethan Sturm | Rules of the Game

Katz, Bowman beat Bowdoin, Bates and reach ITA doubles quarterfinal by

The Bear (Bryant) Necessities

Ann Sloan

F

our weeks of NFL football are in the books, and parity abounds. Tom Brady was outdueled by a Hahvahd quarterback, the Bills and Lions are a combined 7-1 and the Eagles and Steelers are a combined 3-5.

But we here at Rules of the Game are finally getting over the euphoria of actually having a season, and settling back into our usual rule-mongering, nitpicking nature.

While Commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners were hungrily grabbing even more of the NFL revenue pie from the league’s players, they still found time to make more of a mess of the rules.

Today, we will break down some of the new changes, see how their implementation has affected the game over the first four weeks and rank them with the always simile-rich “Necessity Factor.”

Daily Editorial Board

Junior captain Lindsay Katz and sophomore Shelci Bowman led the women’s tennis team to reaching the doubles quarterfinals this past weekend at the ITA New England Championships hosted

by Bates. Unlike most of Tufts’ matches, the focus at ITAs is on individual success, not team success.

“It’s a chance for individuals to shine and get the opportunity to play other people,” Katz said. “People get to play different players at different spots, which is exciting.”

Even though the format is an individual tournament, the Jumbos still rallied around their teammates and aimed for team success.

“Obviously it’s a little different because you’re not playing for your team, but we approached it very similarly to a team match,” sophomore Sam Gann said. “We were always cheering each other on and so it still felt like a team match in that sense because we were still all in it together.”

Katz and Bowman beat Bowdoin’s Chantalle Lavertu and Emma Lewis in the round of 32, 8-4. They won again in the round of 16 against Elena Mandzhukova and Meg Anderson of Bates in a dominant 8-1 victory. The Jumbos ran into trouble, though, in the quarterfinals, where they faced Amherst’s Jordan Brewer and Laura Danzig. After a hard-fought match, Katz and Bowman fell 8-5 to the eventual ITA champions.

“In doubles, we played pretty well,” Katz said. “We got off to a pretty slow start in the last match. We were down 7-4, and we had the longest game to make it 7-5 but then

Daily File Photo

see WOMEN’S TENNIS, page 17

Sophomore Shelci Bowman teamed up with junior Lindsay Katz to reach the doubles quarterfinals at the ITA New England Championships.

Inside NBA

Players, fans adjust to life without the NBA by

Zachary McGowan Contributing Writer

October is synonymous with the beginning of fall, the explosion of color in the foliage, sweatshirt worthy temperatures, Halloween and, for sports fans, the beginning of basketball season. Basketball fans would normally begin preparing for opening night, marking their calendars with their favorite teams’ first games, highlighting key matchups and researching the latest news on all their favorite players.

This year, however, is a much different story. Rather than sporting their teams’ jerseys on the hardwood, many NBA stars could have very different agendas.

Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo, among others, will be returning to the University of Kentucky to finish his college education. Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets will be taking his talents to Besiktas, Turkey. Kobe Bryant will likely join Williams in playing overseas, reportedly with an Italian club. Kevin Durant will be expanding his resume in light of the lockout, starring in a movie titled “Switch.”

All of this has taken place following a recent resurgence of the NBA: TV ratings, fan attendance and revenue were at an all-time high last season for the league.

If the current lockout continues or leads to the cancellation of the 20112012 season, the NBA could lose all of the momentum it gained over the past several

Moving Kickoffs Up The ruling that led some to declare the end of football as we know it has had less of an effect than many feared. Devin Hester was quoted early this year as saying that the five-yard change in the kickoff spot is “taking the whole return game out of the picture.”

But a quick look at the numbers from the first four weeks of the season shows that that isn’t the case. So far there have been four kick return touchdowns, averaging out to exactly one per week. In 2010, the league averaged 1.35 per week.

Meanwhile, no player averaged more than 30 yards per return the past season.

But four players are above 30 yards per return this year, with three of them averaging above 34 yards.

The other concern was an increase in touchbacks. While only 16.4 percent of kickoffs in 2010 were touchbacks, in the first two weeks of the season 49.5 percent of kickoffs were. But if we have already shown that the big plays are still there, what was happening on the 33.1 percent of kicks? Well, kick returners were bringing them to about the 20-yard line and getting tackled, amounting to little more than a glorified touchback.

Ironically enough, out of the 31 players that through three weeks have enough returns to be ranked, Hester is in the middle of the pack at No. 14. Perhaps if he did a little less whining and a little more practicing, he’d still be having success, even after the change.

Necessity Factor: Another Peyton Manning commercial. It’s not hurting anyone, but could have been done without.

Automatic Challenges on Scoring Plays I’ve always worried that coaches didn’t quite have enough challenges. But I also understood that giving them more could lead to red-flag abuse. The NFL seems to have found the perfect compromise, mandating challenges that don’t cost the coaches on any scoring play.

So far, the rule has been enforced without much controversy. It has helped to make the game more accurately officiated and has had an effect on big plays in multiple games in the early weeks. Sure, it slows things down a bit, but NFL games are already quite long and taking a few extra minutes to make sure everything is in order is more than worth it.

Necessity Factor: A full-time police patrol for Ben Roethlisberger. We are all better off.

MCT

New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams (left) will play in Turkey this winter if the NBA lockout is not lifted. years.

A quick look into the details of the lockout is necessary to understand the conflict at hand. The collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association expired on June 30.

Without an agreement, the league is unable to operate by law and must institute a work stoppage.

What’s making the negotiations for a new agreement so difficult? Money.

The players currently get 57 percent of the league’s revenue, and the team owners would like to see this figure drop significantly.

The league is using a 2009 Forbes report which states that 12 of the 30 organizations actually lost money during the 2008-2009 season, and that the NBA had to borrow $175 million to bail out financially struggling teams to back up its claim.

Owners point to inflated player salaries as the cause

of these financial hardships.

They also want a fixed, hard salary cap with stricter regulations on player signings, though NBA Commissioner David Stern eased off that demand in negotiations earlier this week.

Billy Hunter, the executive director of the Players Association, disagrees with the league’s arguments, stating that the reported losses overstate the league’s financial woes.

see INSIDE THE NBA, page 16

Penalties for Coaches Challenging Plays Yep, that’s right; the league is now punishing coaches for being on top of things. If the coach accidently throws the flag, even if the refs choose not to review, it’s a 15-yard penalty. The Raiders were the first to be hit with this new rule in Week 2.

But outside of simple coach mishaps, it also restricts coaches from challenging calls not looked at. That almost cost the Chiefs this weekend, when the Vikings were given a touchdown on which Michael Jenkins didn’t get two feet down.

Necessity Factor: A pet dog for Michael Vick. Just say no.

Ethan Sturm is a junior majoring in biopsychology. He can be reached at Ethan.

Sturm@tufts.edu.

Sports

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INSIDE Women’s Tennis 19 Football 17

tuftsdaily.com

Inside the NESCAC

Addding Hamilton means Continental drift in NESCAC schedules

On Saturday, the men’s soccer, women’s soccer and field hockey teams all traveled to Amherst, Mass., for NESCAC showdowns with the Lord Jeffs. All three teams lost.

In past years, the Jumbos would have had the rest of their weekend to recover and regroup upon returning from the trip. But because of the conference’s new scheduling format — which includes two Saturday-Sunday doubleheaders per team — each Tufts squad had another conference tilt with Trinity looming less than 24 hours later.

“Obviously, it’s not ideal during the season to have to play on back to back days,” Director of Athletics Bill Gehling said. “Especially with soccer and field hockey — those are some of the more physical games — and especially with the muddy conditions this weekend, they certainly place more of a focus on physical fitness.”

The Jumbos were up to the challenge in each of their Sunday games, earning weekend splits across the board by defeating the Bantams.

That was attributed to the teams’ offseason conditioning, and their ability to turn adversity into a competitive edge.

“We lost a few games in overtime last year, so we knew that fitness was going to be a focus in improving this year,” men’s soccer midfielder Scott Blumenthal, a sophomore, said. “Our assistant coach, Bobby Thompson, put together a really rigorous training program for us, and that definitely helped us get through this weekend.”

“More than anything, it’s a mental battle,” senior women’s soccer midfielder Lauren O’Connor, a co-captain, said. “We wanted to look at Sunday as by

Daniel Rathman

Daily Editorial Board

KYRA STURGILL/Tufts Daily

The men’s soccer team recovered from a shutout loss against Amherst to earn a physical victory over Trinity on Sunday. a completely different day, but we also didn’t want to forget the feeling that we left Amherst with. We really wanted to channel that and make it an advan-

tage.”

One key factor for the Jumbos was remembering that the Bantams, too, were in the midst of a back-to-back

weekend, having hosted and defeated the Colby Mules in all three sports the see INSIDE THE NESCAC, page 16

Football

Backed into a corner, Jumbos are trying to start fresh by

Alex Prewitt

Daily Editorial Board

Faced with the unenviable task of recuperating from consecutive road losses and looking beyond a winless start, the football team did what it does best: The Jumbos went back to work.

“We’ve done a really good job this year of starting fresh,” senior tri-captain J.T. Rinciari said. “It goes back to last year.

After the first week, we had a good mentality going into Bates, and this week’s no different. Our mind’s set on Bowdoin, not Bates. It’s in the past, [there’s] nothing we can do about it.”

Dwelling on the past might seem inevitable, given the team’s current position in the NESCAC. Tufts lost to Bates 28-9 this past Saturday, the Bobcats’ most lopsided win since 2004, after losing to Hamilton in the season-opener for the first time since 1991. The Jumbos managed only 18 net rushing yards and turned the ball over four times versus Bates, mustering single-digit points for the first time since Oct. 16, 2010, against a team that, before Homecoming last season, Tufts had beaten in 24 straight years.

Having not won a game since its 2010 season-opener, Tufts plans to focus on the future, taking its lumps from the Bates loss and learning from the experience. Motivation can be extracted from a 0-2 start, but the team’s collective mentality has

Alex Dennett/Tufts Daily

Senior offensive lineman Luke Lamothe joined fellow senior tri-captains J.T. Rinciari and Nick Falk in leading a team meeting after Monday’s practice. deemphasized using mistakes as a centerpiece for inspiration.

The important thing, according to interim head coach Jay Civetti, is not carrying the loss

from week to week but carrying over the breakdowns and the mistakes to grow in the future.

“Plain and simple, we got beat,” Rinciari said. “That’s

not going to change the way that we approach this week.

But we were very disappointed. We didn’t do everything we needed to do to put us in a

position to win.”

The transition began Monday, when Tufts dissectsee FOOTBALL, page 17