2012-02-28

THE TUFTS DAILY

Mostly Sunny 45/27

Tufts hosts annual College Democrats summit

Health Service launches sleep campaign

by

Nina Goldman

Daily Editorial Board

Tufts Health Service next month will launch a campaign that will focus on raising student awareness of the importance of sleep and educating the community about good sleep habits, as well as the physical and emotional repercussions of lack of sleep.

The campaign was organized

by Violence Prevention Education Coordinator Elaine Theodore.

Theodore believes that most students are not aware of the far-reaching effects sleep has on their lives. Each night’s sleep affects not only how tired students feel next day, but also their overall health, academic performance and well-being.

“I thought sleep would be a nice way to address something that everyone has a relationship to, and everyone feels that they probably know a lot more than maybe they do about how it affects you physiologically and possibly emotionally and your well-being,” Theodore said.

During March, students can expect to find various helpful websites and sleep tips throughout campus. Information packets will be given to Residential Assistants (RAs) to make information boards in dorms, according to Theodore.

“We’ll be tabling in the campus center,” Theodore said. “We will have sleep masks.”

“This campaign is really meant to bring more awareness to the necessity of getting good sleep for your academic life and for your emotional well-being,” she added.

Theodore believes that sleep can reduce students’ overall stress level as well as improve their physical health.

“They really have seen that sleep is probably the number one booster of the immune system and, if sleep goes, then the immune system just kind of falls away,” Ellen Sitron, a nurse practitioner at Health Service, said.

The Tufts Democrats on Saturday hosted the College Democrats of Massachusetts (CDM) annual Winter Summit for the second consecutive year.

The summit included panels, networking opportunities and a breakfast session, where selected students from schools that placed well in the organization’s Registration Rumble competition heard from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The students who attended the breakfast session also received monetary prizes that rewarded their success in registering voters and volunteering for political causes from Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party John Walsh.

Ten students from the Tufts Democrats accepted the group’s $100 award for registering the most voters.

Walsh spoke encouragingly of the group’s and others’ efforts toward getting Democrats to vote on Election Day. “Some of you have already started doing this work, and I’m really, really excited about it,” he said. “You spend an amount of energy that I really appreciate.”

Coakley similarly congratulated the students gathered from Tufts, Smith College, Boston College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She said it was up to passionate young people like them to fix the mistakes made by her generation.

“A funny thing happened to my generation on their way to changing the world … a lot of them discovered Wall Street,” Coakley said. “Stay engaged.

Hold us accountable.”

Coakley, who ran against Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in the U.S. Senate special election in Massachusetts in 2010, discussed issues that both she and the students care deeply about, most notably the rising costs and sinking quality of primary and higher education.

“How do we fund and maintain excellence in our schools?” she asked.

“When we don’t have an educated pub-

see SLEEP, page 2

see DEMOCRATS, page 2

by

TUFTSDAILY.COM

TUesday, February 28, 2012

VOLUME LXIII, NUMBER 22

Emily Pascal

Contributing Writer

oliver porter / The tufts daily

The Tufts Democrats on Saturday hosted the College Democrats of Massachusetts (CDM) annual Winter Summit, which brought Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party John Walsh to the Hill.

Red Line weekend service to resume March 10

by Victoria

TCU Senate Update

Two student groups’ buffer funding requests were approved at Sunday night’s Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate meeting.

The Hawaii Club received $400 to use Goddard Chapel as a venue after hours. It was an unforeseen expense, so Allocations Board (ALBO) recommended the group receive a buffer fund and the Senate agreed. sQ! received $300 in order to purchase copies of the Best of College A Cappella (BOCA) 2012 CD, on which they are featured.

They will sell the copies they purchase and return the money once they have sold all of the CDs purchased.

Leistman

Daily Editorial Board

The $80 million Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Red Line construction project, which since November has halted Saturday and Sunday service on the Red Line north of the Harvard Square station is on schedule for its March 4 completion date.

“They’re confident they’re going to get it done on time,” Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Advisory Board Executive Director Paul Regan told the Daily.

The timely completion of the project, which shut down weekend subway service at the Davis Square station, is possible due to efficient labor and a see RED LINE, page 2

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Oliver porter for the tufts daily

Weekend service on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Red Line at stations north of Harvard Square, including Davis Square, will resume on March 10.

Inside this issue

—by Laina Piera

Today’s sections

The university is considering ways to make campus more bike-friendly for students.

“Time Stands Still” puts the issues of wartime photography front and center onstage.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Classifieds

1 3 5 6

Editorial | Letters Op-Ed Comics Sports

8 9 10 Back

The Tufts Daily

2 Visiting the Hill this Week TUESDAY “Black History Month? In the Caribbean” Details: Patrick Sylvain, a Haitian language and culture lecturer at Brown University and Harvard University, will lead a discussion on how Haitian and other Caribbean people fit into Black America.

When and Where: 7:30 p.m.; Sophia Gordon Hall Multi-Purpose Room Sponsor: Caribbean Club

“Hamlet on the Barricades: Shakespeare and Arab Revolutions” Details: Margaret Litvin, an assistant professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University, will discuss how Shakespeare’s tragedy has turned into an Arab political text.

When and Where: 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Tisch Library Room 304 Sponsors: The Anthropology department, the English department and the Middle Eastern Studies department

WEDNESDAY “The Transnational Study of Race and Social Identity Discussion Series” Details: Fatima El-Tayeb, an associate professor of African-American literature and culture and associate director of critical gender studies at the University of California, San Diego, will give a lecture on “Dimensions of Diaspora. Black Europe, Africana Studies and Queer of Color Critique” When and Where: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Barnum Hall 008 Sponsors: The Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the American Studies Program, the Women’s Studies Program and the Office of Intercultural & Social Identities Programs

THURSDAY “Groundfishing in New England: Have the Manager” Details: Peter Shelley, vice president and senior counsel with New England’s Conversation Law Foundation, will speak about the New England groundfish collapse of the 1990s.

When and Where: 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm; Lincoln Filene Center Rabb Room Sponsors: The Environmental Studies Department and Tufts Institute of the Environment

—compiled by Lizz Grainger and Victoria Leistman

News

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Campaign to educate students about ways to improve sleep habits SLEEP

continued from page 1

There is no quick fix for sleep deprivation.

Students who sleep less than eight hours a night develop a deficit, according to Sitron.

A student who gets five hours of sleep one night and four hours the next already has a seven-hour deficit. The student’s brain cannot compensate without the good sleep needed to make up for the deficit, she said.

This cycle is insidious and nearly impossible to break because sleep deprivation leads to stress, which in turn leads to difficulties in falling and staying asleep, Sitron added.

Sitron said that daytime naps are not as effective as students might think. “[They] don’t make up for night time sleep … When the sun goes down is when you’re supposed to go to sleep,” she said.

Commonly used melatonin tablets likely operate using the placebo effect, rather than having a direct effect on capability to sleep, she added.

Many students rely on caffeine and other stimulants to make up for their sleep deficit — alternatives that, according to Theodore, are futile. While using Adderall to stay up to finish a paper or study for an exam may seem harmless, it can actually be quite damaging, Sitron warned. The drug — which is prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — can seriously disrupt a person’s sleep cycle if used without

the guidance of a physician, she said.

Sitron added that many students complain about not being able to fall asleep after pulling “all-nighters.” Pulling an all-nighter changes circadian rhythm, which changes when the body thinks it should sleep.

Also, working on computers right before bed makes falling asleep difficult, because the bright light from the computer screen makes your brain think you are awake. As a result, it takes an hour before you can actually fall asleep, Sitron added.

There are many small changes that students can implement in their daily routines that would make a huge difference in their sleeping habits, according to Theodore.

Mindfulness and meditation are important keys to sleep, relaxation and overall stress management, she said.

“I think [students] know the facts.

Whether they actually act on it is another thing,” Theodore said.

Sleep is something that many students are willing to sacrifice for school work or even just for hanging out, according to Demetra Hatzis-Schoch.

“I try to prioritize sleep because I definitely function better when I sleep enough,” Hatzis-Schoch, a freshman, said. “But definitely, when I’m busy, I will do the work over sleeping. But I have never pulled an allnighter, completely, and I definitely need at least … six hours to function okay.”

Tufts shuttle service to Harvard may continue after Red Line service returns RED LINE

continued from page 1

lack of weather complications, Regan said.

According to Regan, water leaks due to inclement weather would have put them behind schedule, because workers would have had to deal with those issues rather than focusing on construction.

The Tufts weekend shuttle service between Mayer Campus Center and Harvard Square, which was announced in October in response to the Red Line closure, will continue at least until the Red Line weekend service resumes.

Since the shuttle has an active ridership and there have been few problems with its operation, it may continue running even after the Red Line weekend service resumes, according to Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds.

The money for the shuttle is currently coming out of the Operations budget, and the cost must be re-evaluat-

ed before a decision is made, Reynolds said.

According to Regan, the weekend repair plan was the best way the MBTA could have gone about the construction process.

“The Red Line is the busiest line,” he said.

“You really can’t shut it down during rush hour because we are talking hundreds of thousands of people who would have to find alternatives.”

Paul Regan Executive Director “The Red Line is the busiest line,” he said. “You really can’t shut it down during rush hour because we are talking hundreds

of thousands of people who would have to find alternatives.”

MBTA crews have worked diligently over the weekends, Regan said.

“On Sunday between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m., they finish up, they clean out, they run a couple of trains over to make sure everything is running fine and they just go back to normal service,” he said.

The MBTA widely publicized information about the T shutdown and alternative MBTA buses, Regan said, resulting in no serious complaints from its passengers.

“It’s an inconvenience, but it’s a necessary one. I think they tried to make it as least inconvenient as possible,” he said.

Administrators introduced the Harvard shuttle to minimize the impact of the service changes on the Tufts community. Reynolds said he proposed the idea to offer additional substitute transportation through Joseph’s Transportation after the announcement about the

Red Line construction was made last fall.

“We were in contact with administrations about it saying that students would definitely like it,” Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator and former co-chair of TCU Services Committee Lia Weintraub said.

According to Reynolds, the shuttle services have been extremely popular, with the Tufts community making 14,858 trips either from Tufts to Harvard or Harvard to Tufts between the weekends of Nov. 5 and Feb. 18.

“I mostly heard very positive things about it, that the school was actually responding to a student desire,” Weintraub, a sophomore, said.

While there is no way to gauge how these numbers would compare to the number of travelers if the T were open, the results seem to be very positive.

“We have certainly had very, very active ridership,” Reynolds said.

The first weekend the Harvard bus was offered, it became clear that one shuttle would not be enough to meet the campus’s needs, so a second one was added to decrease waiting time on both ends, Reynolds said.

“Ever since the first weekend I have not had any feedback of any problems,” he said.

Students are using the shuttle for various purposes that would make the shuttle desirable even when the T construction is over, Weintraub added.

“I think it kind of has a distinct purpose, as well as transporting people to the Red Line, it also allows people to get to Harvard Square pretty easily or to get their groceries in Porter [Square] without having to walk there,” she said.

Reynolds said the continuation of the shuttle is under consideration but emphasized that he wasn’t making any promises.

“I’m delighted that the student body seems to be enjoying the ability to have it,” he said.

Coakley, Walsh encourage Tufts Democrats to tackle inequality in America DEMOCRATS

continued from page 1

lic … the country loses very badly.”

Another major issue she discussed was the economic downturn. When Coakley asked the students if any of them were unsure of their future job prospects, many raised their hands.

“You all need to know the history about what happened in this foreclosure crisis,” she told them. “They have destroyed what is the middle class, stable economy.”

Coakley attributed much of this financial difficulty to unfair policies that hurt the majority of Americans.

“Nobody gets a free ride, but it’s about making it fair,” she said. “The game is rigged.”

She cited court decisions such as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) — where the Supreme Court ruled that, under the First Amendment, the government is prohibited from limiting the amount corporations and unions can spend toward political causes — as examples of encouraging bad policy.

“There’s been no single more corrupting [factor],” Coakley said. “In the end it

will come back to haunt everybody.”

Facing the issues head-on is the best way to achieve solutions to fundamental problems, she said. Coakley cited her work to declare the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in Massachusetts as an example of what can be done to make change.

But she warned that such successes were not enough to consider the issue resolved.

“Do not take any of these hard-won battles for granted,” she said, noting that when she was the students’ age, she and her peers considered contraception — the subject of frequent debate in this year’s elections — a done deal and a non-issue.

“These are all challenges for your generation,” she said.

Walsh encouraged the gathered students to step up to the challenges that Coakley described. He especially reemphasized one of the key points of his Jan. 31 speech to the Tufts Democrats: more young women need to follow Coakley’s lead and run for office.

“We need more women in elected office … The numbers are just not reflective of our community,” he said.

“Bigwig people don’t ask women to run for office, so I’m asking you.”

Some students in attendance took his directive and Coakley’s example to heart, including Smith College freshman Rosamond Hayden.

“How do we fund and maintain excellence in our schools? When we don’t have an educated public … the country loses very badly.”

Martha Coakley Massachusetts Attorney General

“I’m sort of new to all of this, and I was really impressed,” Hayden told the Daily. “It’s sort of intimidating to think about, but I think that was his message, that you have to do things that are intimidating.”

The talks were followed by the main portion of the CDM Winter Summit, where all Tufts students, as well as

students from across the state, were invited to panels featuring people working for Massachusetts politicians, including Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Deval Patrick. The panels discussed various jobs available for the politically inclined, from consulting to fieldwork.

“Students can figure out what jobs might be out there for them,” CDM President Kate Moore, a senior at Smith College, told the Daily.

Taylor Barnard, the president of Tufts Democrats and CDM’s programs director, told the Daily before the summit that it would be an opportunity to learn about work in politics and to make important connections to get involved.

“I’m most excited for the opportunity to get to know all the other college Democrats and network,” Barnard, a sophomore, said. “People have actually walked away from this with internships.”

Barnard said that politicians and political activists are happy to spend their Saturdays talking to college students because those students can play an important role in campaigning and getting voters excited.

“College students are the most eager and have the most time,” he said.

Features

3

tuftsdaily.com

Ben Schwalb | Das Coding

T

andrew morgenthaler / the tufts daily archive

The lack of bike lanes on campus often forces students who travel around Tufts on their bicycles to ride in the middle of the street.

Transportation on the Hill gets a facelift by

Nadezhda Kazakova Daily Editorial Board

Trekking uphill on a daily basis ranks among Tufts students’ top complaints about life on the Hill. A new campus mobility survey seeks to not only take complaints like these into account, but to gather information on how to improve campus transportation and infrastructure.

The Department of University Space Management and Planning and a field project class at the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Institute (UEP) collaborated to create an interactive online map and a questionnaire that gives Tufts students, staff and faculty an opportunity to speak about the daily challenges of traveling to and around campus. This new tool seeks to gather feedback for master planning and help make recommendations for safer and more sustainable campus transportation.

The campus mobility survey, developed by Sasaki Associates, asks participants to use several icons to identify their vehicle or bike parking spots, favorite open spaces and destinations on campus, as well as problem areas.

In addition to marking their primary routes, participants may trace routes they wish they could take and add general comments.

According to Director of University Space Management and Planning Lois Stanley, the idea of using a modern tool to document patterns and challenges to campus mobility was conceived last fall.

“We saw that Babson [College] and Harvard’s Kennedy School were using this neat tool to learn how the university community gets around campus,” she said. “The creators from Sasaki Associates showed us how Tufts can use it for master planning.”

While they initiated discussions with Sasaki, Stanley’s team was reading reports about a significant number of transportation accidents around campus.

“With six accidents recorded only in the first month of the academic year, we became convinced that we should use

this graphic to learn what locations are easy to traverse and what are more difficult,” she said.

Around the same time, Stanley became aware that the UEP would be doing a field project in the spring and saw it as an opportunity to include students in the plan.

Together with UEP Lecturer Robert Russell, she wrote a project assignment entitled “Transportation Planning for a Safer and Greener Campus.”

“We asked students to document existing transportation infrastructure and essentially act as consultants to Tufts Planning about how to make the campus safer and greener in terms of mobility,” Stanley said.

Rather than the traditional formation of a committee to gather results, the Sasaki campus mobility survey became their primary method for collecting data used in the study.

“Since we’re working with an entire campus, it could be hard to get an answer to such broad questions,” Stanley said.

“This tool is a modern alternative to the focus group approach and more tailored towards students.”

The members of the field project team echoed Stanley’s appreciation for the tool’s scale and reach.

“There are only that many ideas that our small group could come up with on our own,” first-year graduate student Laura Smead said. “But this survey is an opportunity for the whole community to share how they [get around] campus and express what’s missing from the Tufts landscape.”

After participants were offered one of three Nook Colors, the online survey received more than 500 responses by the end of last week, 57 percent of which came from students, Stanley said.

After the survey officially closes, the field project team will analyze the data.

Then, they plan to study the experiences of other colleges with similar transportation challenges.

“We will look at examples of best practices in other campus transportation plans, particularly campuses with

similar topography,” first-year graduate student Emily Mailloux said.

The project requires the team to recommend both short-term and long-term improvements to campus infrastructure, focusing on improvements that could feasibly be implemented by Tufts rather than by the Medford and Somerville city governments.

According to the UEP students, this project is particularly valuable because it was created by a group of students who are concerned about their colleagues’ safety.

“This is the time for the students to say what they want from their campus and we will do our best to incorporate their responses into the final proposal, which will be presented on April 18,” first-year graduate student Natalia Collarte said.

Tufts Bikes, the campus bike-sharing program, is one student organization that has expressed interest in the survey’s results. Part of Tufts Bikes’ mission is to make the campus more bike-friendly and to ensure the safety of bikers in the local community.

According to Tufts Bikes President Neil Aronson, a sophomore, the survey’s results will help the group develop ideas for future projects.

“We can use this [survey] to lobby the administration for changes that would be beneficial to the biking community,” he said.

Aronson identified the lack of bike lanes or designated bike pathways as a challenge to biking around the Tufts campus.

If bike accessibility were to be improved, he said, it would encourage this green form of transportation as well as make it safer.

In the future, a similar interactive tool might be used to learn more about the community’s use of classrooms, according to Stanley.

“Rather than identifying the MBTA stops, we would identify classrooms on that map and get a sense of the opinions of students and faculty through questionnaire and narrative,” she said.

Planes, trains and computers

he majority of the world seems to have reached a consensus that our current transportation systems are not sustainable. Most notably, the transportation system in America accounts for about one-third of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. For one thing, we rely too much on cars.

For this reason, there is a large push in many places for public transportation, which is a good thing. However, the sheer number of people whose lives are based around cars make for very frightening transitional costs, leading researchers to also look into ways to make cars more fuel efficient.

But finding new fuel sources is only one part of improving the way we drive cars.

Most readers will be familiar with the fact that there are two miles per gallon (MPG) statistics: highway and city. The highway value is always higher since maintaining one speed is more efficient than constantly stopping and starting. Even on a highway, stop-and-go traffic can result in worse fuel efficiency than estimated for the city. The solution lies (as I usually claim it does) in computers and programming algorithms.

The reason city traffic is so inefficient is, of course, traffic lights. Traffic lights are supposed to be timed to the speed limit so that if you maintain the speed limit, you’ll never need to stop. However, lights are not always timed properly. All too often, drivers find themselves stopping at every light despite staying on the same street, even though no cars are coming from the other direction. Pressure sensors that change lights only when necessary do exist, but they are expensive to install.

Luckily, a cheaper alternative does exist: thinking. Traffic lights are not magical boxes that randomly change color; they are programmed by humans. And statisticians can use computer-recorded traffic data and mapping software to time lights such that they stop cars on busy, important roads less often. The timing can even depend on the time of day, so that a route normally used by commuters is given priority in the morning and afternoon but not at midday. This lowbudget solution is not implemented nearly as often as it should be, and I’d encourage any reader who knows of a poorly timed light to say something to the town’s department of transportation.

A simple improvement on this, proposed by a University of Texas professor, is to use what computer scientists would call a scheduling algorithm. In essence, any car would be able to inform a traffic light that it is coming and wants a green light. Police departments use such a system, but that’s basically an on-off switch.

To make this work for regular drivers, the light has to be smart. It has to set a green light for the busier street without making the other street wait too long. It also has to know what the other lights are doing so it doesn’t send cars to an already full intersection.

Additionally, it can tell a driver its decision so that, instead of speeding through a red light, you can simply coast until it turns green.

Tackling the problem on a larger scale requires the science fiction-style self-driving car. The military encourages most of the research in the field so fewer soldiers have to risk their lives in convoys, but it can revolutionize consumer gas efficiency too. The EU-based SARTRE project aims to create road trains.

Instead of fully automating driving, one expert drives. All other cars use onboard collision sensors (already on many cars) to closely follow but not hit the car in front, minimizing the air resistance (headwinds) each car encounters. The researchers hope for 20 percent greater fuel efficiency from this automated version of auto racing’s drafting technique.

Ben Schwalb is a member of the Class of 2012 who majored in computer science. He can be reached at Benjamin.

Schwalb@tufts.edu.

4

The Tufts Daily

advertisement

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

It is still winter, but are you thinking about your plans for the summer?

We are.

WORK AT TUFTS THIS SUMMER Tufts University Conference Bureau & Summer Programs

employs approximately forty college-aged individuals in over nine different positions. We offer you the opportunity to gain experience and skills necessary to effectively perform in a professional working atmosphere. Our positions are designed to strengthen your communication and interpersonal skills, as well as your abilities to solve problems, manage multiple tasks simultaneously, and think on your feet. In addition, we strive to offer you a summer full of excitement and fun. We emphasize working in teams and several social events are offered throughout the summer months.

Positions now are available in conference facilitation, staff supervision, office administration, and residential counseling. Many positions include housing on campus and duty meals.

For more details and an application, please come to our office at 108 Packard Avenue. For questions, please drop by our office, call us at x73568, or visit our website at http://ase.tufts.edu/conferences/employment.

Arts & Living

5

tuftsdaily.com

Theater Review

‘Time Stands Still’ creates poignant snapshot of post-war life in New York by

Priyanka Dharampuriya and Drew Robertson Contributing Writers

Sometime between the commands “please turn off your cell phones” and “enjoy the show,” the director of the Lyric

Time Stands Still Written by Donald Margulies Directed by Scott Edmiston At the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through March 17th Stage Company said something very important: “No one has heard of this before,” he said. “This is a new play.”

And while this was said to encourage the crowd to spread the word about the show, he made a fair and interesting point. This is very much a new play. Fresh, relevant and thought provoking, “Time Stands Still” is both an allegory for life after war and a snapshot of the life of civilians in the midst of it.

The play begins with wartime photojournalist Sarah Goodwin (Laura Letreille), who is returning to her New York City home after being injured in a bomb blast while covering the Iraq War. She and her longtime journalist boyfriend, Jamie (Barlow Adamson), struggle to adjust to life after war.

Their lives hint at a strong connection, but their few calm moments together quickly dissolve when Sarah’s recent traumatic experiences in Iraq bubble to the surface. Jamie wishes to move on, while Sarah cannot think of anything else. Her brooding on the

topic of war and violence charges the play with a dark energy, and Sarah’s character reflects this. Her sense of humor is gritty, sarcastic and dark, a perfect balance for her character and situation.

Jamie and Laura are quickly joined by Richard Ehrlich ( Jeremiah Kissel) and Mandy Bloom (Erica Spyres). Richard is Sarah’s former fling and current best friend, and Mandy is Richard’s airheaded, far-too-young girlfriend. Each character brings a different perspective to the solemn issues that Jamie and Laura are grappling with, giving the play another level of richness.

Spyres provides comic relief

see TIME, page 6

Mark S. Howard / The Lyric Stage Company of Boston

Laura Latreille and Barlow Adamson play off each other with haunted interactions.

Movie Review

Restaurant Review

Physical humor, comedic timing justify ‘This Means War’ by

throughout the show. Mandy’s character is a splash of color in all of her scenes, providing both humor and painful insights.

When introduced to Sarah for the first time, she hands her two balloons, claiming she couldn’t decide which one to use. She’s a constant relief and annoyance; however, much like a Shakespearian fool, Mandy occasionally voices the bitter truths that even Sarah is afraid to say. These moments are especially poignant due to the paradoxical nature of Mandy’s character.

The juxtaposition of humor and morbid

Kate Griffiths

Daily Editorial Board

If purposely over-the-top action scenes, a plethora of humorous interactions and attractive lead actors aren’t enough to bal-

This Means War

Greek Corner serves up classics on the cheap by

Damanpreet Pelia

Contributing Writer

The food at Greek Corner Restaurant is just like its decor — bright, plentiful and unpreten-

Greek Corner Restaurant

Starring Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon Directed by McG ance out a mindless plot or the ethically questionable usage of spy equipment, then “This Means War” (2012) should probably be avoided at all costs.

For anyone who enjoys a good action, comedy or romance flick, this is one of very few films that delivers all three genres. “This Means War” follows two brilliant, lethal and, of course, extraordinarily good looking CIA agents, Tuck (Tom Hardy) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foster (Chris Pine), who both happen to fall for the same woman, Lauren Scott (Reese Witherspoon). Meanwhile, an angry and ambiguously evil German named Heinrich (Til Schweiger) is hunting Foster, seeking revenge for his brother’s death. Yet that plotline doesn’t really seem to matter for most of the film.

The strength of the movie lies in the physical comedy that Chris Pine and Tom Hardy achieve by playing off each other throughout the film. The playful banter see WAR, page 6

2366 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02140 617-661-5655 Price Range: $11-$30

thismeanswarmovie.com

The duo’s competition over Reese Witherspoon adds spice to ‘This Means War.’

tious. Everything from the waiters to the wonderfully aromatic, freshly made trays of baklava speaks to the cozy familiarity that makes this restaurant a great place for a relatively inexpensive meal. There were no surprises at Greek Corner, but that’s no insult — the simple presentation, quick service and friendly staff delivering the flavorful Greek food one would expect from such a family-style restaurant combined for a memorable meal.

Seating, early on a Saturday night, was quick, and the restaurant quickly filled up with families and college students alike. The menu features Greek staples like spanakopita (spinach pie) and avgolemono, a traditional egglemon soup. The server was quick see GREEK, page 6

James Barasch | Barasch on Books

T

‘Socrates: A Man for Our Times’

his week we turn from the world of the Cold War to the world of classical Greece with “Socrates: A Man for Our Times,” by acclaimed historian and biographer Paul Johnson, who produces a brief celebration of the life and influence of the well-known Athenian philosopher. This little treasure of a biography succinctly explores the life of Socrates in classical Athens and the great philosopher’s essential ideas, written in Johnson’s famed accessible and engaging style.

The life of Socrates (469-399 B.C.), the wandering philosopher, was filled with paradoxes, as was acknowledged even in his own day. In modest fashion, he claimed that he knew nothing, yet he displayed abundant wisdom in his cross-examinations of philosophical rivals. Raised to be a stonemason and relatively poor, he nevertheless gravitated towards the wealthy. Though many of his students were perhaps oligarchic, he remained adamantly loyal to the principles of Athenian democracy and proved to be a staunch patriot and heroic soldier in the Athenian army.

Nevertheless, by challenging the fundamental social and philosophical beliefs of his day, he left his contemporaries (and later biographers) questioning whether he was a smoothtalking agitator or a genuine, serious thinker.

Socrates lived during both the best times of the Athenian golden age and the empire’s worst era of war and civic unrest. He loved Athens and city life and was inspired by the hustle and bustle of a powerful democratic city at the center of a rich, diverse commercial empire awash in new ideas from all across the eastern Mediterranean. Its wealth, security and intellectual openness provided a cultural vibrancy unknown elsewhere.

Socrates knew well the great Athenians of his age — Pericles, Alcibiades and the family of Plato — a familiarity that would have been impossible without Athens’ progressive attitudes toward social class.

However, the long Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404 B.C. with the defeat of Athens and the destruction of its empire, brought a decreased tolerance for his philosophical inquiry and ultimately his demise.

His trial and subsequent suicide by drinking hemlock remain an enduring indictment of the mob-like nature of post-war Athenian democracy and its volatile, uneven jurisprudence, as well as a much later (18th century) argument for constitutional republicanism over direct democracy.

Johnson also highlights numerous Socratic principles and their subsequent effects on Western philosophy. He skillfully elucidates some of the most notable trends in Socratic thought, such as the separateness of the body and soul, the integrity of law, the need to educate women, the immorality of revenge and a disregard for material possessions and honors. These and other ideas would become the foundational questions for over 2000 years of subsequent Western philosophy. Socrates himself comes alive in Johnson’s book as a lively, thoughtful figure that rejoices in intellectual discussion and repartee and who seeks knowledge with a religious zeal.

Lacking any writings from Socrates himself, Johnson must rely on the records and testimony of others — primarily Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. However, Johnson actively admits and engages with this problem of documentation, arguing, for example, that Plato’s dialogues, the primary repository for Socratic philosophy, are initially reliable, then become less so as Plato interjects his own ideas. At other times, Johnson uses phrases such as “I suspect” and “I assume” to keep his arguments flowing, which is understandable in light of the genuine dearth of primary sources. This tendency poses no challenge to the veracity of his analysis. Regardless, Johnson’s gripping narrative and insightful commentary makes Socratic ideals relevant to the 21st Century, moving Socrates from “ancient history” to a “man for our times.”

Rating: *** James Barasch is a sophomore majoring in history. He can be reached at James.

Barasch@tufts.edu.

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‘This Means War’ parodies action-romance-comedy-chick flicks WAR

continued from page 5

between the two charms the audience into rooting for their friendship rather than either of their relationships with Lauren. Yet what starts out as a competition to win her affection inevitably turns into an all-out battle of wills that breaks their friendship and leads to some fairly creepy scenes where they utilize CIA espionage equipment to bug both Lauren and her house.

Clearly, their lives are utterly ridiculous and over the top. To start, Foster lives in an apartment with a swimming pool for a ceiling, through which he can view the obviously attractive ladies that care to take a dip. Their CIA office is overly extravagant and their boss even turns out to be played by Angela Basset, who unfortunately is severely underutilized in the film.

Witherspoon’s character is slightly difficult to sympathize with, perhaps because it was so poorly written and slowly developed. To make this point clear, the ending of the film teaches the audience that even though both men have broken into Scott’s home, used the privileges of their jobs to run background checks on her and even pretended to be interested in the same things she is, it is still acceptable for her to choose one of them because their charms override all the ethically questionable escapades they’ve engaged in throughout the whole film.

thismeanswarmovie.com

Leads Tom Hardy and Chris Pine make ‘This Means War’ worth watching with their good looks and humor.

The action sequences in the film are few and far between. Apart from a short gunfight at the beginning and a pretty standard car chase at the end, the highlight is one of the dates Tuck takes

Lauren on to prove he isn’t the “safe” option. They go paintballing. Exhibiting awesome martial arts skills that leave children limping off of the paintball field apparently isn’t enough to trigger some

‘Time Stands Still’ brings traumatic effects of war up close to its audience TIME

continued from page 5

themes in “Time Stands Still” can make it almost uncomfortable at moments, but all of this conflict makes the play all the more thought-provoking. One character, recalling a play they had seen about conflict in the Middle East, laments that viewers of a play may be touched by the drama, but are rarely driven to action. The irony of this moment does not escape the audience; perhaps the metaphor is even too blatant.

While “Time Stands Still” does not inspire action, it does

inspire thought. Sarah and Mandy in particular have the most emotional resonance.

The former gives the audience a snapshot of post-traumatic stress disorder, while the latter is a platform for biting satire.

Although Adamson and Kissel deliver incredibly strong performances, the women carry the show.

Sarah and Jamie grow almost visibly older during the play. They decide what to do about the future of their relationship, their careers and their relationships with their friends. The actors handle this

with grace and subtlety and are compelling to the last minute.

The ending is bittersweet; a reminder that, no matter how many times we try to freeze it, life goes on.

The play observes the macro through the micro, taking a small, unchanging set — a house and two couples — and using it to tell the story of an entire group of people shell shocked into action, or in some cases, inaction. In a way, that is exactly what a photo is like — a still frame, a sample of what life holds.

Mark S. Howard / The Lyric Stage Company of Boston

The small cast of characters makes the play’s bleak themes all the more potent.

sort of response from Lauren. Yet when her gun jams, she elicits some mild bewilderment and the scene culminates with a shot to Tuck’s crotch.

The random swing from moments of slapstick humor like this to more bizarrely funny dialogue is one of the highlights of the film. When attempting to come up with negative aspects of both of the men she’s dating, Lauren says that “FDR has these tiny, like girl hands, like little T-Rex hands,” an explanation that Witherspoon manages to pull off in a funny manner, as surprising as it sounds. Her go-to friend Trish (Chelsea Handler) also provides some humor, albeit of the more disturbing and grossly sexual sort.

The plot is predictable, trite and frequently challenges whatever suspension of disbelief the audience can muster.

In this way it’s pretty similar to most action films and shouldn’t be passed off purely because it throws in some romantic comedy elements. What director McG manages to pull together in the end is surprisingly funny, although this is most definitely due to Hardy and Pine’s physical comedic abilities and timing.

Without their completely nonchalant attitudes toward the outrageous stunts and plotlines they walk through within the film, the movie would definitely become a parody of itself. As it is, “This Means War” seems fine with being a parody of most other romantic-comedyaction-chick-flicks, of which there are very few.

Greek Corner offers classic fare in a casual atmosphere GREEK

continued from page 5

to bring out hummus and pita, which made for a classic start to the meal. The pita was a bit dry, but the hummus was more than satisfying. Despite lacking bells and whistles, the hummus was flavorful with relatively sparse olive garnishes, but it wasn’t quite as thick as traditional hummus.

Abundant hummus and pita were followed by spanakopita, which had a deliciously flaky crust. The filling, which was perhaps the best part of the dish, was tart and hearty, providing the proper balance to the delicate puff pastry. The appetizers were definitely filling. While the choice of hummus and pita was perhaps not the most authentic, it did the trick.

Entrees were quick to follow. Overall, the service was extremely fast, providing a seamless transition from the first course into the best part of the meal. The lamb souvlaki plate, with a side of Greek salad and fries, was filling, but a bit too one-dimensional. The lamb itself was a bit too lemony and garlicky, though it was both tender and plentifully portioned. The salad made for a good refreshing break from the monotony of the lamb. A side of tzatziki sauce would have been a welcome addition to the dish, yet no such treat accompanied the meal.

The falafel sandwich, featuring falafel and vegetables wrapped in pita, was not the best showing of falafel in the Boston area. The falafel itself was large and crispy, but the inside was not the beautiful bright green traditionally seen in such a dish.

The best option for those going meatless is probably the combination vegetarian plate. Laden with hummus, falafel, stuffed grape leaves and spinach pies, the sheer abundance of this dish makes up for its less-thanoverwhelming individual components. All of the entrees were relatively inexpensive, ranging from only $6.50 for the falafel sandwich to $10.75 for the souvlaki plate and $11.50 for the vegetarian combination plate, allowing for a reasonably priced meal no matter the dish.

The entrees were followed by the baklava that tempts customers during the entire meal.

Thankfully, it was well worth the wait. The baklava was crisp and fresh, and the golden brown diamond was syrupy and sweet, but not cloying by any means.

Fortunately, Greek Corner was able to maintain the crucial nuts-to-syrup ratio that so many restaurants seem to get wrong.

Greek Corner, with its simple decor and unassuming menu, is the perfect place for a casual Greek meal. It is aptly named, considering how easily one could encounter such a place on an ordinary street corner in Greece, and such a meal might just be the best kind if you’re looking for solid, inexpensive fare. Greek Corner is the perfect place for a casual night with friends and, while not necessarily exceptional, delivers on its promises. Focusing on the basics of Greek cuisine, there is little experimentation on the menu and that is in no way a bad thing. It is what it is: an inexpensive, no-frills kind of place that promises good food, a friendly wait staff and an enjoyable dining experience.

The Tufts Daily

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

American Studies Major Information Session Wednesday, February 29, 2012 203 Eaton Hall 12:00pm-1:15 p.m.

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Editorial | Letters

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

editorial

Jumping to conclusions at Chardon High School Chardon High School, a public high school about 35 miles outside of Cleveland, Ohio, was the scene of a deadly shooting yesterday. According to multiple reports, a student entered the cafeteria and opened fire, killing one student and wounding four others. The senseless tragedy is made even worse by the fact that it brings back memories of other school shootings, most notably those at Columbine High School in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007, America’s two deadliest school shootings of the last 40 years.

The news of the events has pervaded the Internet, with virtually all of the major media outlets reporting on the tragedy. Most of the articles circulating now echo the testimony of various students at the school: They discuss how the gunman was a bullied outcast who came from a broken home and various other aspects of his background as they try to make sense of the tragedy.

It may be relevant that the gunman had been a victim of bullying and had come from a broken home. These are facts that could conceivably shed light on the gunman’s motives, though to attempt to prematurely draw conclusions from them now with so little information to go on is undoubtedly irresponsible. If news sources want

to report on the gunman’s living circumstances or rumors that he’s been bullied, they must take care that what they’re saying is rooted in fact, not just speculation and hearsay.

But news sources are also quoting a student who says the shooter was in the midst of a “gothic phase.” This is a very serious mistake on the part of the media, as it propagates the negative stereotypes associated with an already maligned high school clique.

The Associated Press and other major news sites treat the idea that he was going through a goth phase as if it is just as relevant or just as enlightening as his possibly having been bullied.

To state facts about his background is good journalism; to lend credence to a negative stereotype is not.

The media made a similar blunder following the Columbine massacre in 1999. The major networks reported that the two shooters in that case, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, had been involved in a goth cult. Given that the members’ personal life choices were portrayed as driving forces in their descent into violence, the subsequent culture war was hardly a surprise.

In fact, some have argued that multiple culture wars were ignited by the media’s irresponsible reporting on the Columbine shooters’ lives. Their

avid playing of games like Doom and Quake led to a backlash against violent video games. High school cliques were scrutinized and blamed for allowing frustration to boil over into violence. And, of course, any attachment to non-mainstream groups was dissected.

In trying to find the perfect answer to such tragedies as quickly as possible, the media takes groups they don’t quite understand — but that seem somehow sinister — and throw them into the national spotlight, where they’re consumed by readers who are desperate to blame someone for an unthinkable act of violence. But all this accomplished after the Columbine shooting was to exacerbate cultural tensions.

When Associated Press hears rumors that the gunman was a “goth,” it needs to be very, very careful about how it reports them, and it needs to keep lessons from Columbine in mind.

The tragedy at Chardon was a harsh reminder that violence can erupt out of nowhere and end innocent lives. In the coming days and months, the motives of the shooter will be dissected and analyzed. For now, the media should content itself with spreading the story of the people hurt by this to as many ears as possible. It shouldn’t concern itself with amateur psychology.

wants or needs, I would like to reassure him that when it’s necessary to further investigate rationalization behind a certain policy, questions that need to be asked to Senators would be.

Richards writes, “While gay marriage is an important issue and I am not trying to belittle it in any way,” that’s exactly what he does in his letter. He continues, “I would also add that spending 40 grand for a chef is more controversial than gay marriage at Tufts.” To that I must ask the question: Really?

Is gay marriage not a hot button topic nationwide? Yes, I will concede that at liberal arts colleges such as ours gay marriage may be “less” of an issue, but to say outright that it’s a nonissue simply goes too far. Mr. Richards might like to take a second

glance at our campus just to see the divide with regards to gay marriage.

Maybe in Mr. Richards’ circle it is a nonissue — and to that I would congratulate him — but if he were to venture out of that comfort zone, he might see some controversy.

So, not to belittle TCU Senate happenings, but articles such as the New Jersey gay marriage bill are just as important, possibly more relevant and deserve that coveted front-page spot more so than one senator’s opinion on a grant to a culinary club. If senators agree with Mr. Richards, might I suggest a personal blog to voice your opinions? Senators’ votes should speak for themselves.

wes engel

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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, On Feb. 22, the Tufts Daily published a letter to the editor by TCU Senator Ben Richards. Richards shared his belief that the Daily should cover more matters that have an immediate effect on the Tufts campus, specifically campus senators’ opinions on why they choose to vote on or reject certain policies and plans enacted by the student legislative body. At the same time, however, he wrote that he believed matters such as gay marriage in New Jersey, which received a front-page article (as it should, mind you) should make way for more news on Senate happenings, and transform the Daily into a forum for senators to justify their opinions.

While Mr. Richards may think that adding more information about the TCU Senate is what this student body

The 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.

Sincerely, Alex Kaufman Class of 2014

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

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Op-Ed

Walt Laws-MacDonald | Show Me The Money!

Buffet Rules

W

the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, openly calls for the “transfer” of ArabIsraelis out of Israel.

It is easy to hide behind the veil of wanting “peace” when, really, you support the same essential power distribution and oppression that is perpetuated by the status quo. We want peace more than anything, but we want a positive peace free of structural violence, not a negative peace wrought with oppression and suffering, as is the bitter reality faced by far too many Palestinians today.

In line with Tufts’ philosophy of active citizenship, we’ve planned a week of grassroots initiatives to promote the message of social justice and equality, including a number of lectures by well-regarded intellectuals. On Feb. 27, Diana Buttu, a former legal advisor to the PLO Negotiations Support Unit, delivered a talk titled “Israeli Apartheid?” We want to draw attention to the resilience of the people of conscience who are working hard to create a better reality.

On Thursday, we will commemorate Khader Adnan, a Palestinian prisoner who was illegally detained and held like many others in Israel, by hunger striking the whole day until 6 p.m.

At 6 p.m., we will meet at Dewick Dining Hall to have a community dinner. Fasting is optional, and all are welcome to join. We invite anyone without a meal plan to come and get swiped in by us.

On Friday, March 2 at 2 p.m., journalist and author Max Blumenthal, a Jewish-American, will be giving a talk on “Birthright-Israel and the Whitewashing of Apartheid.” We encourage people of all perspectives to attend, come to their own conclusions and maybe even contribute some new ideas for nonviolent action.

There is hope. Not long ago, campuses all over America and around the world united to bring a halt to the apartheid regime of South Africa.

Now, a picture of the Jumbo protesters hangs in Hotung for all to see.

We are confident that students here at Tufts will once again choose to be on the right side of history.

arren Buffet announced over the weekend in his annual letter to shareholders that his successor as chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway had been chosen — but he didn’t say who. Then, in an interview with CNBC on Monday, he said that this person has not been told that he/she is the successor to the throne. The Oracle of Omaha always loves to keep a little mystery about his business.

Who is Warren Buffet? As my good friend Stephen Monk eloquently put it, “Warren Buffet is the man.” It’s true. I cannot emphasize this enough. Buffet is unlike any other investor. He invests on value, not imbalances or swings in the market. He sees his holdings as long-term, 10-, 20- or 30-year plays.

In addition to being the man, Buffet is also the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate holding company worth over $200 billion. Since Buffet took over the failing textile business in 1962, the company’s book value has grown nearly 20 percent annually.

Berkshire owns large stakes in a wide range of businesses, including American Express, Coca Cola and Wells Fargo. As Buffet said in his letter, “When you look at Berkshire, you are looking across corporate America.”

The philosophizing, ukulele playing, model train enthusiast is 81, and despite “naming” his successor shows no signs of slowing down. Last year, Buffet made a brief cameo on “The Office” when the show was looking for a replacement for Steve Carell.

Buffet played his frugal, value-seeking self: “When I make long-distance calls, will I be monitored or is it on the honor system?”

What makes Buffet so likable is his honesty and straightforward thinking. Buffet is not a “corporate raider” like Carl Icahn, nor do his philosophies take on the wordy prose of George Soros. Buffet focuses on the upside of a company and rarely shorts stocks. When Buffet announces that Berkshire has invested in a company, its stock often experiences a noticeable bump due to the market’s faith in his judgment.

Buffet also readily admits when his investments have failed. After listing the profits Berkshire made this year, Buffet wrote, “I’ve run out of good news. Here are some developments that hurt us during 2011.” Describing one particularly bad bond purchase, he said, “In tennis parlance, this was a major unforced error by your chairman.”

Perhaps best of all, Buffet, whose net worth tops $50 billion, has given billions of dollars to charities. Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates challenged the billionaires of the world in 2010 to donate half of their net worth to charity. His philanthropic pursuits have set a standard for those around him. Upon his death, Buffet is expected to donate 83 percent of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Despite his attempts to stay out of politics, Buffet has voiced his approval for the bailouts of the banking and automotive industries, affirming that they saved jobs and the economy as a whole. Buffet has also taken a stand on income equality, making news last year when he publicly stated that the top earning Americans weren’t paying enough in taxes.

President Obama agreed, and the “Buffet Rule” — which would ensure that Americans earning more than $1 million would not pay less than middle class earners as a proportion of income — quickly became a part of the tax plan vernacular.

Buffet has long been an investing establishment, but he continues to provide a refreshing change of pace. He still lives in his single family home in the suburbs of Omaha with his wife. He drives his own car, does not own a cell phone and has no computer. Other billionaires enjoy exotic cars and tropical getaways; Buffet likes to play bridge.

I dread the day when Buffet will hand over the reins. Until then, we should let him work his magic.

Munir Atalla is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Walt Laws-MacDonald is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Walt.Laws_MacDonald@tufts.edu.

mct

Calling a spade a spade by

Munir Atalla

It is with a heavy heart that I begin writing this op-ed, but the time has come to call a spade a spade. Seeing the word “apartheid” next to the word “Israel” might come as a punch in the face to some students. As a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine, I would like to explain how we — a diverse group of Jewish, Palestinian, American, and international students — came to the consensus to draw the campus’ attention to the unfortunate reality of the situation in Israel/ Palestine. We are organizing the ongoing “Israeli Apartheid Week” at Tufts as a message of solidarity and love for the Israeli and Palestinian people. We also see ourselves as part of the global nonviolent struggle against the pervasive and institutionalized racism that Palestinians have suffered through for far too long.

We are a horizontally run group: no president, no vice-president, just individual members pulling their own weight. At a meeting earlier this month, we decided to join the growing Toronto-based movement of hosting an “Israeli Apartheid Week” here at Tufts. As one of our brave new members said, “If there is apartheid out there, and we don’t call it apartheid, that’s just wrong. Silence in the face of apartheid is also a crime, isn’t it?”

When the arc of history leans towards justice and the apartheid system in Israel/Palestine comes to an end, we want to be remembered not as a university whose students took the easy way out and used timid, palatable terms, but rather as those who, like true Jumbos, addressed the elephant in the room.

Literally, “apartheid” means “separation” in Afrikaans. Calling the situation in Israel/Palestine an apartheid was not our idea. In fact, former president Jimmy Carter was among the first to take the leap and call Israel an Apartheid state in his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.” But please, don’t take our word for it. Go online and research the issue, read the president’s book; that is the purpose of our week. We are encouraging people to drop in, to do their own research and come to their own conclusions.

According to the International

Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the “crime of apartheid” is defined as follows: “Similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa… [namely] inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

Many famous human rights activists have agreed that this definition applies to Israel. Noam Chomsky, South African ANC leader Ronnie Kasrils, and former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair are just some of the leaders that have spoken out denouncing Israel for its racist treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Even Nelson Mandela said, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” In the words of the Israeli historian Dr. Ilan Pappe: “To pretend that Israeli racism against Arabs is no different from other countries is to fail to understand the imperatives and dictates of Zionism.”

Recently, the International War Crimes Tribunal, based in Cape Town and founded by Bertrand Russell, has come to the official conclusion that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid due to “inhuman acts” against the indigenous Palestinian people. While the situation in Israel isn’t exactly the same as it was in South Africa in every respect, that doesn’t mean it’s not apartheid.

In fact, the living conscience of South Africa, the Reverend Desmond Tutu, has repeatedly spoken out against Israel’s apartheid policies after witnessing firsthand “the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” He shares our belief that Israel will “never get true security and safety through oppressing another people.”

Anyone familiar with Israeli politics knows that within Israel, politicians hardly attempt political correctness in regards to the Palestinian citizens of Israel. In fact, Avigdor Lieberman, the Deputy Prime Minister and head of

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.

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Comics

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

U of Zoo

Crossword

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Brooke Weber

Married to the Sea

Monday’s Solution

Late Night at the Daily

Falcon: “I’m an Uh-Oh Oreo. I look white on the outside, but I’m a velvety chocolate man on the inside.”

SUDOKU Level: Defeating Chase Budinger in the dunk contest

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The Tufts Daily

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Tufts Daily

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The Tufts Daily

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Sports

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Women’s Lacrosse

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

Senior tri-captain Lara Kozin led the women’s lacrosse team last season with 88 points and was tied for the team lead in goals with 39.

Jumbos battle Stonehill in preseason scrimmage The women’s lacrosse team began its campaign for a fifth consecutive winning season this weekend, taking on Stonehill College in a preseason scrimmage. Although Stonehill earned the victory, 15-14, in overtime, the result of the game was less important to Tufts than the chance to experiment with its lineup in preparation for the first regular season game against Hamilton on March 10.

“We focused a lot on our transitions from defense to attack, and also communication on defense,” senior tri-captain Lara Kozin

said. “It gives us a chance to practice on working as a team.”

The scrimmage was also an opportunity for the eight first-years to get their feet wet as Jumbos. Head coach Carol Rappoli is counting on the freshman to patch things up on the defensive end — although the Jumbos led the NESCAC in goals and points per game last season, they finished fifth in goals allowed per game.

“They’re all working hard, and they all have positive attributes that they can add to

the team,” Kozin said of her freshman teammates. “It’s tough to make the transition [from high school to college lacrosse], but they are all really good players and have the skills to do it.”

Expectations will be high this year for the Jumbos, who will be looking to avenge a disappointing 13-12 loss to the eventual conference champion Trinity Bantams in last season’s NESCAC semifinals. The lineup has a strong veteran presence, including the top goal scorers from last year — Kozin and

Athletes of the Week: Johann Schmidt and Liz Moynihan Sophomore Johann Schmidt Men’s Swimming and Diving

Junior Liz Moynihan Women’s Basketball

Schmidt earned the award for his performance in this past weekend’s NESCAC Championships at Williams College. Schmidt won both the one- and threemeter dives — earning scores of 496.10 and 536.25, respectively — and remains undefeated in his two years at the conference meet. Both scores were the highest ever achieved at Williams’ Samuelson-Muir pool and were also enough to qualify him for the NCAA Championships on March 21st in Indianapolis.

“I wanted to do really well for me and have a personal best, and I really wanted to win, of course,” Schmidt said. “I wanted to defend my first place last year on both boards and do the same thing this year.”

Schmidt has been dominant in his meets all season, finishing first in all but two diving events.

He will now continue to train to represent the Jumbos at the national meet, where he earned a pair of All-American honors last year by finishing 12th in the one-meter and sixth in the threemeter dive.

“I’m hoping to get top eight [at nationals],” Schmidt said.

“Everyone is really good at nationals, so basically it’s [about] who is going to mess up. I need to practice hard this week.”

A couple of weeks into the season, Moynihan easily could have thrown in the towel.

After breaking into the starting lineup as a freshman, she managed just 5.5 points per game over her first four starts this season and was relegated to the bench the rest of the way.

But Moynihan continued to work on her game and contribute off the bench, making major contributions for the team down the stretch on both the offensive and the defensive ends.

While her performance for much of the second half of the season has been deserving of praise, it was the way she played in one of the biggest games of the Jumbos’ season on Saturday that earned her this award.

Looking to return to the NESCAC Championship game for the first time since the 2007-2008 season, Tufts faced off with a Bowdoin squad that had already beaten them once this year. But led by Moynihan’s 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting and five rebounds in just 25 minutes, the Jumbos jumped all over the Polar Bears in the second half, earning a definitive 55-40 victory.

Tufts opens NCAA play Friday against Misericordia, and there is little doubt that Moynihan will play a crucial role.

—by Alex Baudoin and Ethan Sturm

Casey Egan — who will both return for their final year with the team. Meanwhile, sophomore Gabby Horner will be looking to build on an impressive freshman campaign, during which she scored 37 goals, tied for second on the squad with junior Kerry Eaton.

“We have a really experienced team, and we keep telling ourselves that this is our year,” Kozin said. “We want to go all the way.”

—by David McIntyre

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The Tufts Daily

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

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Sports

Third time’s the charm against Conn. College

Alex Prewitt | Live from Mudville

Hey, hey, LBJ

women’s squash continued from Back

Paige Dahlman won at least six points in each game, while senior co-captain Alyse Vinoski notched eleven and eight points in her first two games before being held scoreless in the third.

The following day, Tufts emerged with renewed purpose and focus in the match against No. 22 Conn.

College. The Jumbos capitalized on the Camels’ top player, Caroline Sargent, being sidelined, and they never looked back.

Senior co-captain Mercedes Barba set the tone at the No. 1 spot, fighting back from 1-0 down to win in four games. Dahlman again played a hardfought match, coming from behind to win in four. She sealed things with a 13-11 fourth-set victory.

Moving to 11-13 on the season after the 6-3 victory over the Camels, the Jumbos faced a more talented opponent in No. 21 Colby. Although they lost 8-1 overall, the lopsided result belies how competitive the matches were.

Four of the matches went to at least four games, and three of those were decided in five. Dahlman, the lone winner, came from behind to win a fivegame thriller. Trailing 2-0, Dahlman rallied and kept the momentum to wrap up the victory. Vinoski and junior Jessica Rubine each lost a heartbreaker in five games, while junior Hafsa Chaudhry lost in four.

“Knowing that this was our last team tournament of the season, everyone stepped up their games a notch,” Dahlman said. “We had some very close matches this weekend that displayed our improvement and skill.”

With their match against Colby, the Tufts women concluded their team season with a record of 11-14.

Although the weekend failed to end on a high note, the Jumbos’ victory on Saturday and valiant effort on Sunday offer them some degree of optimism heading into the offseason.

“All season long, we had struggles focusing during our matches and trying not to let the pressure get to us,” Chaudhry said. “I think we did a good job of going out on the court on Saturday and Sunday feeling like we had everything to win and finally focusing our energy on our best games.”

After making marked improvements as a team this year, Tufts will head

Jumbos grab third on final day of conference meet men’s swimming continued from Back

addition to his thrilling victory in the 50-yard freestyle on Friday, Rood joined Wood and freshmen Will Parker and John Devine to finish fifth in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:23.78. Later that day, sophomores Kyle Savidge, Eric Douglas and Turk joined Wood to come in fifth in the 400 medley.

When the night session concluded on Saturday, the Jumbos remained in fourth place.

Tufts tallied no victories on the day but managed to bring its two-day total to 725.0, only 19 points behind Conn. College. The Camels made a push from fifth to third on Saturday due in large part to victories in the 200 medley relay, 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.

Sunday’s events culminated with the Jumbos passing the Camels to take over third place.

“We built up our performances well over three days,” Rood said. “Often that is hard to do with six sessions stretched out over that time period. It shows a lot of determination and willpower to come back on Sunday and put out best times to win races. We had kids do that time and again. It was great to see.”

“We knew what we had to do all season, and we did it,” senior co-captain Joe McLoughlin said. “I really think the leadership by the entire senior class is responsible for the success of the team. Down the stretch, it was the determination of every single guy, and we were able to put in the level of focus that we needed. We just didn’t give up.”

The Jumbos will now wait and see which of their qualifying times will be good enough to send them to the NCAA Championship meet, which begins March 21 in Indianapolis.

A

scott tingley / the tufts daily

Senior co-captain Mercedes Barba fought back from a 1-0 deficit to beat her Conn. College opponent on Saturday, when the Tufts earned its lone Howe Cup victory. to the College Squash Association Individual Championships at Amherst on March 2-4.

They know that they will only get better in the future.

“Our work during practices definitely paid off, and we’re ready to keep training on our own during the offseason so we can have an even stronger season next year,” Chaudhry said.

Foil squad recovering nicely from departure of key fencers WOMEN’S FENCING continued from Back

focused play, with the top six A’s, top four B’s and top two C’s overall from each weapon advancing for a total of 12 fencers per weapon category in round-robin pool play.

Tufts sent five team members into the individual rounds. From the epee squad, all three starters were selected to move on — Hutchison, junior Abigail Hepworth and freshman Katharine Lynch.

“I was excited that all three of our starting epees made it to the individual rounds. We have a stronger squad than we’ve had in the past,” Hutchison said. “We’re also really proud of [Lynch]. She came in this year as our first drop-in and has continued to perform really well.

She made it to the individuals yesterday and was kicking butt.”

Joining Hutchison and the epee starters from the sabre squad were senior captain Sarah Danly and senior Brianna Smith. Sophomore sabre captain Julia Hisey narrowly missed the cutoff, placing seventh among the A-strip. She was tied with Brandeis sabre Zoe Messinger with an 8-5 record, and the tiebreaker came down to touch indicator, with the advantage going to Messinger.

“She was off by one touch. ... If she had gotten two more points [against] anyone all day she would have made it,” Danly said. “We’re expecting her to do really well at

regionals. This is also the strongest [the sabre] squad has ever been.”

The foil squad fared well despite the departure of half its fencers nearly a month ago and the relative youth and inexperience of the remaining members. Freshman Anjali Shankar had a strong performance, placing eighth in her division in her first varsity-level start.

“She held her own really well, so I’m very proud of her,” junior Kelly Manser said. “The foilists have stepped up and they’ve improved, and I’m looking forward to doing even better next year. We’re not necessarily getting the wins right away, [but] we’re setting the groundwork for future years, and we’re not letting that get us down.”

“As a team I think we did really well. I’m really proud of how we did,” Danly said.

With the conference championships complete, the team is looking forward to a bit of rest and then preparation for the upcoming NCAA Regionals, which will be hosted by Boston College on March 9.

Tufts will put its support behind its seven qualifying players, who earned bids to the tournament based on the number of bouts and percentage of victories.

All three epee starters — Hutchison, Hepworth and Lynch — and tournament sabre starters Hisey, Danly and Smith will join freshman sabre Sarah Innes-Gold on the regional stage.

clear and present danger exists among sports media, an inevitable vortex of sorts that consumes the young and veterans alike, gathering them up like houses and cows in a tornado. This is the danger of the “false narrative,” derived from a minute sample size and extrapolated into a national sensation.

We talk about bandwagon fans. There are bandwagon media members, too.

The reason I bring this up: I had planned to write about “The Oscars” and maybe make a movie-related joke or two, but everyone seems to have their headbands in a bunch over LeBron James’ performance at Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game.

Tied for the game-high with 36 points, James had six rebounds and seven assists in 32 minutes and brought the Eastern Conference back from a 20-point deficit in the surprisingly competitive exhibition game featuring a Kobe Bryant broken nose and abundant Moses-esque sea-parting.

The morning after, Twitter and the Internet — as they are known to do following buzz-worthy events — exploded in a debate over LeBron’s clutch-time performance. Buoyed by Yahoo! writer Adrian Wojnarowski’s takedown, we began juxtaposing LeBron with Bryant, the former’s counterpart both in mentality and finger jewelry.

LeBron was spectacular in the fourth quarter, but disappeared when it mattered, most notably with six seconds left when, with his team down 151-149, he gathered a long rebound at the top of the key and turned it over along with the game.

An exhibition, yes, but nonetheless ample fodder for those who wish to further subject LeBron to scrutiny surrounding his well-documented fourth-quarter meltdowns. And Wojnarowski is not wrong when he writes that moments like these are “what [linger] over the NBA Finals for James. Every great player misses in great moments, every great player fails. But this sport wants to see James’ willingness to take the chance.”

But to question LeBron’s motivation and his desire is to question the fundamentality of the sport’s most talented individual.

On SportsCenter Monday morning, analyst Tim Legler settled on the conclusion that we just seem to keep returning to: “I think it shows you that he’s different than some of those guys. Just the way he thinks is different.” He’s no Kobe. He’s no Wade. He’s just a fundamentally different person and we want him to be someone he’s not. We pine for the daggers, the silent assassinations, the Black Mamba demeanor. Instead, we get “The Decision,” the declaration of seven titles and the perceived arrogance.

The only thing that matters is the false narrative now. If LeBron had hit that shot, would we have praised his performance or denied credence given the night’s nature as merely a glorified pickup game? He’s easy to hate. That much is certain. Nights like these stoke the flames just a little bit more.

Unless he breaks one of his oak tree-sized legs, James will be the MVP this season.

He’s averaging 27.4-8.1-6.8. He’s shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 41.3 percent from three-point range, both career highs.

He’s managed to not be a total meathead when it comes to self-awareness.

No matter. Sports are about winning, about what happens at the end. So long as LeBron remains ringless and deferential in the fourth quarter, the narrative — whether you deem it false or not — of James as a clutch-time fader will linger, buoyed by the ammo mustered from whatever LBJ does, in big games or small.

Really, the All-Star Game didn’t tell us anything new about LeBron. We already knew that he shies away from the spotlight, or at least that we perceive him as doing so. But it says plenty about our structure as a fan base, about our desire to perpetuate the false narrative. Controversy intrigues.

It sells. It dictates our assumptions and our consumption.

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

Sports

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tuftsdaily.com

Men’s Swimming and Diving

Women’s basketball

Jumbos earn seventh straight topthree finish at NESCACs G.J. Vitale

Contributing Writer

William butt / the tufts daily

Junior co-captain Bre Dufault is one of only three current members of the women’s basketball team with NCAA tournament experience.

March Madness coming to Cousens This weekend, for the first time ever, there will be NCAA tournament basketball played at Tufts.

The women’s team received an at-large bid yesterday, marking the program’s fourth NCAA berth in the past five years. The Jumbos have already had a sparkling season, reaching the NESCAC tournament finals and compiling a record of 21-6 overall and 8-2 in the conference.

A four-team pod will compete at Cousens Gymnasium in firstand second-round action this weekend. On Friday, Tufts will take on Misericordia and Johns Hopkins will face the University of New England. The games are tentatively scheduled for 6 and 8 p.m., respectively. The winners will then square off in the Round of 32 at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The Jumbos appear to be the favorites against the Misericordia Cougars. In last week’s regional rankings, Tufts was fourth in the Northeast while Misericordia did not crack the Mid-Atlantic ranks.

Still, the 17-10 Cougars — who

will be making their first tourney appearance — should be riding high after beating Mid-Atlantic No. 3 King’s in the Freedom Conference title game this past weekend to earn an automatic NCAA bid.

The University of New England and Johns Hopkins may pose bigger threats to the Jumbos’ tourney hopes. The Nor’easters, who are 22-5 overall and reached the semifinals of the Commonwealth Coast Conference tournament, were second in the most recent Northeast rankings, and have scored wins over Rhode Island College, Southern Maine and Colby. The Blue Jays are 23-4 and earned an at-large bid out of the Centennial Conference.

They were ranked fourth in the Mid-Atlantic region last week.

The Jumbos are 5-3 in their previous three NCAA efforts, reaching the Elite Eight in 2008. But none of the team’s current players have made the Sweet 16, with only three members of the team having any NCAA experience.

—by Aaron Leibowitz

Heading into the third and final day of the NESCAC Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships this past weekend, Tufts was in fourth place and in danger of falling out of the top three for the first time since 2005. But the Jumbos persevered when it mattered most, surpassing Conn. College on Sunday to place third with a total of 1,030 points.

Williams, the juggernaut of men’s swimming in the NESCAC, won the tournament for the 10th year in a row with 2,011 points, marking the second time a team has surpassed the 2,000-point mark.

Senior Owen Rood and sophomore Johann Schmidt were the big winners for Tufts. Rood won the first two individual conference victories of his career, finishing first and earning NCAA B cut times in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle races. His 50-yard time of 20.73 seconds was just .15 seconds ahead of Bowdoin senior Nathan Mecray.

Rood also joined sophomores Drew Berman, Austin Wood and Andrew Turk to place third in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Schmidt, meanwhile, notched his third and fourth career NESCAC

andrew morgenthaler / the tufts daily archive

Sophomore Austin Wood contributed to the 400-yard medley relay team’s third-place finish to close out the NESCAC Championship meet on Sunday. titles, winning the one- and threemeter dives for the second straight year and breaking Williams’ pool records in both events. He also won Diver of the Meet for a second time, and Tufts Diving Coach Brad Snodgrass took home Diving Coach of the Meet.

Williams junior Paul Dyrkacz was Swimmer of the Meet for the second year in a row, winning the 200-yard Individual Medley on Friday, the 400yard Individual Medley on Saturday and the 200-yard breaststroke on

Sunday, breaking pool records in all three and breaking his own 200-yard breaststroke NESCAC record.

After the first day of competition, the Ephs needed only to worry about the Lord Jeffs. The two teams stood nearly 300 points above the rest of the field, but less than 20 points stood between their first- and second-place totals.

The Jumbos held fourth place after day one with 380 points. In see MEN’S SWIMMING, page 15

Women’s Fencing

Women’s fencing captures sixth place at NEIFC championships by

Andy Wong

Contributing Writer

The women’s fencing team took sixth place at the New En g l a n d In t e rc o l l e g i a t e Fencing Conference (NEIFC) Championships in a pool of 14 teams at Vassar College on Saturday.

As opposed to normal conference play, in which the starters all fence against one another in a round robin style, at the NEIFC Championships, fencers were matched up according to individual ranking during the tournament’s first round, consisting of team play.

Under this new scoring system, Tufts’ saber and

epee squads placed third and fourth place, respectively, in squad rankings. The saber squad finished with 29 wins and 9 defeats, with 170 touches scored and only 96 touches received. That equated to an indicator score of plus74, a mark surpassed only by Boston College and MIT, who tied for first.

Close behind, the epee squad finished 26-12 and earned a final indicator score of plus-51, which was fourth place among all participating epee squads.

The foil team, which has been transitioning from the loss of several key members midway through the season,

placed 12th in the final team standings.

Following the first round of championship play, the three squads had a cumulative victory-defeat score of 65-50, touch scores of 416-369 and a plus-47 indicator score good for 6th place as a team.

“It was a great way to end the season on kind of a high note,” sophomore epee captain Laurel Hutchison said. “Everyone was there at the tournament.

Everyone was supportive of one another, and we had a lot of family support.”

The second half of the tournament featured individualsee WOMEN’S FENCING, page 15

Women’s Squash

Tufts battles NESCAC foes at Nationals

by Sam

Gold

Daily Staff Writer

This past weekend, the 23rd-ranked women’s squash team traveled across town to Harvard for the Howe Cup National Championships.

The Jumbos competed in the Walker C Division — consisting of teams ranked 17th through 24th — and went 1-2 against a trio of NESCAC opponents.

The Jumbos were swept in their first-round contest by their NESCAC rival, the No. 18 Lord Jeffs. They recovered nicely in consolation play on Saturday,

winning 6-3 against a Camels team that had defeated them twice in the regular season, but then struggled once more on the final day in an 8-1 loss to the Colby Mules.

Both Tufts and Amherst entered the weekend riding the momentum of three-game win streaks, but the Lord Jeffs were the better team and defeated the Jumbos handily.

All nine players in the Tufts ladder fell in three games, though two Jumbos in particular kept it close. Freshman see WOMEN’S SQUASH, page 15

courtesy nicole chan

The Tufts saber squad earned the third-best indicator score, a plus-74, at the NEIFC championships.