The Tufts Daily - Thursday, March 5, 2020

‘Better Call Saul’ brings home the stars in fiery fifth season see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 3

2020 ELECTION

ExCollege, Tisch College lead planning for 2020 election

Men’s squash finishes final game of season see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE FEATURES / PAGE 3

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VOLUME LXXIX, ISSUE 28

Thursday, March 5, 2020

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Chaplaincy to hire Africana, Hindu community associates

by Anton Shenk News Editor

The Tufts University Chaplaincy began the hiring process this semester for two new part-time community associates to serve the Africana and Hindu spiritual communities on campus.

The Buddhist, Catholic, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim and Protestant communities are already represented in the Chaplaincy’s staff, according to its website. For communities not already served by the Chaplaincy’s staff, the university chaplain is responsible for providing additional support.

University Chaplain ad interim Jennifer Howe Peace explained that the rationale for the new community associates stems from an inclusive perspective to serve the spiritual and religious needs of the Tufts community.

“The need [for community associates] comes from student demographics and our desire to support the spiritual, religious and philosophical life of our whole community,” Peace wrote in an email to the Daily.

Peace said that various community partners — especially the Africana Center and the Hindu Student Council (HSC) — have been included in the search and hiring process.

“Throughout the whole process, I have been working closely with students and other stakeholders on campus,” Peace said. “Students have been involved from the beginning for both searches. They have played important roles in describing their needs, reviewing position descriptions, and interviewing candidates. They have a crucial voice in deciding who we hire.”

Africana Center Director Katrina Moore wrote in an email to the Daily that the center looks forward to the availability of the new resource to students, and is pleased about working through the search and hiring process with the Chaplaincy.

Ishan Gupta, HSC’s vice president, said that the group’s desire for a community associate was boosted by growing student participation.

see CHAPLAINCY, page 2

Headlines off the Hill COURTESY RHONDA WILLIAMS

Rhonda Williams is pictured.

Williams explores history of black power, female activists

by Matthew McGovern News Editor

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life hosted Rhonda Y. Williams, author and professor of history at Vanderbilt University, during a Civic Life Lunch on March 3 in Barnum Hall’s Rabb Room. Williams presented her most recent research and writing, in a talk titled “Black Power and Rethinking U.S. History.”

Williams’ scholarship covers a wide range of historical topics, including race, gender, political identity, citizenship, civil rights and black liberation struggles, according to her Vanderbilt biography.

Both during and after college, she was exposed to foundational experiences and literature that led her to study the history of marginalized peoples. Among those experiences was being mistaken for an intern

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at the Charlotte Observer, when she was in fact a full reporter.

In light of her education at University of Maryland, College Park, and her early experiences and understanding of journalism, Williams aimed to write a more diverse and complete story about people, and one which she thought was more correct.

During the discussion, Williams spoke about her decision to work in journalism and recognized the negative portrait painted by the media of communities of color.

“I thought these are not the people I know, this is not the complicated story I know about where I live and this is not the history I know,” Williams said. “And at that young age, when I didn’t know a lot, I knew that that was not the full story.” see WILLIAMS, page 2

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Davis Square bank robber pleads guilty The man who robbed the Middlesex Federal Savings Bank in May last year, Daniel Rosado, has pleaded guilty on all counts. Rosado, who is 32 according to Boston.com, faces 10 years to life in prison.

The affidavit to his case, filed by John Oliviera of the Somerville Police Department, says that Rosado is charged with taking around $929 while using a weapon. He is also charged with shooting his weapon during the course of the robbery and being a felon in the possession of a firearm.

Rosado, who is from Providence, R.I., and apparently robbed the bank due to financial difficulties, was captured three weeks after his initial robbery. His sentencing is scheduled for June.

Biden and Sanders sweep on Super Tuesday; Bloomberg drops out Former Vice President Joe Biden is now the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination after scoring big wins on Super Tuesday, which were heavily concentrated in the South. His victories came after endorsements from

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former candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, who dropped out just ahead of Super Tuesday and appear to be consolidating centrist support around Biden.

Biden scored an upset 11-point win in Massachusetts, which polls had projected would go to Bernie Sanders.

Elizabeth Warren, who has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 2013, came in a distant third to both candidates. More locally, Warren won Somerville in a landslide victory while Medford went to Sanders.

Biden scored 380 delegates to Sanders’ 328 on Super Tuesday, according to the New York Times. In total, Biden and Sanders have 433 and 388 pledged delegates, respectively. Before Super Tuesday, Biden had pulled together 53 delegates to Sanders’ 60.

Following a poor performance, former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg dropped out and endorsed Biden. Bloomberg spent more than half a billion dollars on his campaign and only managed to win 12 delegates on Tuesday.

— Robert Kaplan

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................4

FUN & GAMES.........................6 OPINION..................................... 7 SPORTS............................ BACK

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Thursday, March 5, 2020

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Students discuss desired qualities in new community CHAPLAINCY

continued from page 1 “I think the growing number of students joining organizations in the university chaplaincy system such as HSC makes me think that having a Hindu Resident will be helpful in creating an open environment for students to talk and allow them to express themselves and their cultural/religious backgrounds,” Gupta, a senior, wrote in an electronic message.

Akshita Rao, HSC’s treasurer, emphasized that the Chaplaincy recognized the demand among students for a community associate.

“The chaplaincy had looked at the growing number of Hindu students getting involved in the HSC and felt that there was a need for someone to provide some sort of central guidance for a diverse group of people,” Rao, a junior, wrote in an electronic message. “HSC has always been open to anyone with an interest or involvement in Hindu culture, regardless of the degree. To help facilitate this, the Chaplaincy thought that a Resident position would be helpful.”

Rao added that the HSC has so far participated in the hiring process by hosting

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continued from page 1 Williams’ talk then turned to her more recent work, particularly her book “Concrete Demands,” which explores the roots of the Black Power movement, its female activists and the historical context of its oppositional approach to civil rights.

Particularly relevant to her reasons for writing this book was the perceived dialectic between the Black Power movement and the mainstream civil rights movement, according to Williams. She also explained the roots of the Black Power movement.

“The proliferation of struggles around black power, and the use of that language as a rallying cry was out there … it’s not like black power was not already existent in communities,” Williams said. “I mean black people were pushing for liberation, self-determination and sovereignty, and against white supremacist and racial suppressive systems and patriarchy for quite some time.”

In light of that broader context of the term Black Power, Williams began her book at the turn of the 20th century with an aim to challenge the movement’s historical context, and emphasize preeminent reformers such as Ida B. Wells.

In the spirit of presenting history from underrepresented and grassroots perspectives, Williams is undertaking a new project, writing for the “ReVisioning American History,” series of books from Beacon Press.

Apart from being accessible to the general public, not solely scholars, Williams shared

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The search process for community associates for both communities will mirror the search process for other candidates, which includes drafting and publishing job descriptions, outreach to encourage applications and a review and interview process, according to Peace.

Muslim Chaplain Abdul-Malik Merchant, the most recent Chaplain to join, described his process integrating with the faith community on campus.

“I’ve found the Tufts community, chaplaincy team, and specifically the Muslim students so loving and welcoming,” Merchant wrote in an email. “Because of their empathic embrace and profoundly competent leadership, I’m blessed that my integration process has been seamless.”

Merchant expressed hope that the new community associates would have a similar experience joining the Chaplaincy.

“Onboarding to new positions is always a growth process, but I think with the support of the team and the loving genius of the Tufts’ students, they will feel right at home,” Merchant said.

Robert Kaplan contributed reporting to this article.

some of the central questions that the books aim to address and answer.

“What would the U.S. history look like, if we not only incorporated stories in a central, non-peripheral way, but also the stories and experiences of vulnerable and exploited peoples?” Williams said.“What would it look like if they wrote the history, and created a framework through their lenses?”

Williams’ scope is broad in her forthcoming book. She shared that in her section of “ReVisioning American History,” she will begin not only with research on The Middle Passage, but also with the racial mistreatment of the Irish by the British.

Williams emphasized that racism and discrimination are complex processes, and that people tend to think that racism always existed in its current form.

“The new book starts with a discussion of white power and black power as a dialectic; there is a need for black power and self-determination because white power exists,” Williams said. “And I will trace how this dialectic changes over time.”

After she presented some of her recent work and spoke about her upcoming projects, Jessica Byrnes, program administrator for Tisch College, opened up the floor to questions from the audience.

The conversation then transitioned to the Black Lives Matter movement, the nature of the responding All Lives Matter movement and the contrasts and contradictions between the two.

Williams emphasized her accord that “all lives matter,” but pointed out that a central point of the Black Lives Matter ideology is responding to the fact that black lives historically have not been treated as part of the “all lives” classification.

“People act out of their own un-interrogated philosophies, upbringing, cultural identity, geographic region, without paying attention to what people are actually saying,” Williams said.

The discussion then shifted to questions regarding the patriarchy, which Williams hopes to interrogate in the contexts of both white and black power in her forthcoming book.

She told a story about how an enslaved woman received a far more brutal retribution than her male cohorts for attempting to overthrow the crew while aboard a ship crossing The Middle Passage.

Williams also spoke to the difficulties of finding accounts of female resistance and activism in her research.

“I am working within the limits of the archive itself,” she said.

Williams is currently serving as Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT, as part of her sabbatical year from serving as a professor of history and John L. Seigenthaler Chair in American History at Vanderbilt University.

The event was also sponsored by The Africana Center, The Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, the Black Student Union and the Department of History.

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potential candidates at meetings and frequently seeking feedback from students within the group.

Peace stressed the importance of interpersonal skills in determining a strong candidate for the positions.

“A successful candidate will have deep roots in their primary tradition of reference, demonstrated leadership, excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to create connections not only with students who share their religious affiliation but also with the wider Tufts community as a whole,” Peace said.

Both Rao and Gupta echoed these sentiments.

“Our organization hopes that we get someone that is understanding and able to create an open space and converse with students who may need someone to talk to and ask questions,” Gupta said.

Rao also identified the importance of a candidate’s accessibility.

“The group hopes that the candidate is someone that can learn as well as teach from us, and help students navigate their spiritual identities during times of crisis of faith,” Rao said.

Williams contrasts Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter movements WILLIAMS

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On Feb. 24 at 2:45 p.m., a staff member reported to the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) that their university laptop was stolen in California. The victim also reported the incident to the local police in the district where it was stolen.

On Feb. 26 at 7:20 p.m., TUPD joined the Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS), Somerville Fire Department (SFD) and Cataldo Ambulance Service to respond to reported chemical inhalation in Pearson Chemistry Lab. Under the guidance of EMS crews, the student irrigated their mouth before being

transported to the hospital. TUPD is unaware of the student’s current status.

On Feb. 27 at 8:15 p.m., a private vehicle was damaged while parked near 574 Boston Avenue. TUPD described the damage as a scuff in the paint. No injuries were reported.

On Feb. 29 at 12:06 p.m., TEMS, TUPD and the Medford Fire Department responded to an injury during a Quidditch match.

The individual had injured their shoulder during the match. The individual was then transported to the hospital. TUPD is unaware of their current status.

On March 1 at 7:40 a.m., TUPD was notified of a health and safety concern in

multiple classrooms in the Aidekman Arts Center. Upon investigation, TUPD found multiple rooms filled with trash and partially consumed alcohol containers. TUPD notified the Office for Campus Life and a cleaning crew.

On the same day at 2:20 p.m., TUPD was asked to assist the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) in Carmichael Hall during a planned health and safety room check. The room contained a bong with burned marijuana residue as well as empty alcohol containers. ORLL informed the student of the violation and TUPD confiscated the paraphernalia.

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Features

Tufts groups begin preparations for election night 2020

RAY BERNOFF / TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

A student is pictured at the Election Extravaganza event for the 2016 presidential election at Mayer Campus Center on Nov. 8, 2016

by Jillian Collins

Assistant Features Editor

Four years ago, Tufts was not ready for the outcome of the presidential election and the impact it had on the community. Students and faculty were shocked by the results, and the school didn’t have the resources to support people in their reactions. Coming into this year’s elections, multiple campus groups are collaborating to plan a more robust and varied slate of programs.

Together, the Experimental College, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, JumboVote, Student Affairs, Office for Campus Life and the Department of Political Science have begun planning various events related to the presidential election, according to Jessica Byrnes (LA’12), Program Administrator for Tisch College.

Traditionally, for the past eight presidential elections, the ExCollege has hosted an Election Night Extravaganza. Four years ago, this watch party became much less of a celebratory night than it had been in previous years, and Tufts, along with the rest of the country, wasn’t ready, according to ExCollege Director Howard Woolf.

“In 2008, it was a giant party, and in 2012, it was a giant party. And in 2016, it started out as a party and quickly turned into something other than a party,” Woolf said. “[By the end of the night] I proceeded to be a kind of therapy group leader … The reason I’m mentioning this is because I don’t want to say it scarred me, but it has stayed with me. That was the impetus for me to get in touch early with lots of colleagues around campus, to make sure that we were much better prepared this time for whatever happens.”

Byrnes had similar feelings regarding the need for early planning for this year’s election night at Tufts.

“I think, you know, [in 2016] Tufts was shocked. A lot of people around the country were shocked. So it just felt like we didn’t necessarily have [the] sort of bandwidth at that moment to handle a lot of the support that the community needed,” Byrnes said. “I think with that experience in the back of our minds, we wanted to come together earlier to talk about election night 2020.”

The majority of planning is no longer focused on just election night in November, but is being distributed more evenly throughout the coming months, according to Byrnes.

“I think it’s much more intentional than past years have been … taking a more holistic approach and just being much more intentional about how we’re going about planning,” Byrnes said.

Leading up to the election, two of the planning committee’s goals are to get people to vote and to make sure people are informed.

JumboVote, a student-run group on campus, continues to be at the forefront of making voting more accessible on campus. They have set up voter registration tables and provided shuttles to polling stations.

According to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement by Tisch College’s Institute for Democracy and Higher Education it was found that undergraduate students at Tufts are voting at higher rates than graduate students are, JumboVote Coordinator Zachary Hertz (LA’19) said. This is not the trend nationally.

Because of this information, JumboVote is gearing a lot of its events to not just the undergraduate campus, but also the Tufts School of Medicine, according to Hertz, who also assumes responsibilities as Tisch College’s Student Outreach Coordinator.

In addition to driving students to the polls, JumboVote hosts a program called Democracy Reps to help aid students in their voting. The goal of Democracy Reps is to engage communities on campus who usually aren’t engaged to vote.

“Every [first-year] dorm, and looking to expand to more dorms next year, have one or two representatives who can answer all your questions [about] voting. They host one to two events every single month. They do door-to-door registration and really serve as the in-house representative to help you with all types of questions,” JumboVote Student Co-chair Lidya Woldeyesus said.

JumboVote has already begun planning events for fall 2020, focusing on making sure the incoming first-year class is equipped with the necessary knowledge for the election.

“Throughout the summer, we’re going to be working on to make sure that we have a major presence at orientation and that voter registration is integrated into orientation,” Woldeyesus, a sophomore, said. “We [will] continue our efforts to be present at all of the pre-orientation programs and at the Group of Six open houses.”

While JumboVote is making sure students are able to vote, the Department of Political Science is working on events to help individuals feel more educated on their vote. The department is holding its first panel discussion on the state of the primaries on April 2, according to Deborah Schildkraut, chair of the Department of Political Science.

“We are going to have all of the American politics professors in the department at that event, except for Jeff Berry … We will also have representatives from Tufts Dems, Tufts Republicans, JumboVote, Tufts for Warren,

Tufts for Pete and Tufts for Bernie,” Schildkraut said in a March 2 interview. “Everybody [will be] giving their perspectives on what went well, what didn’t go well for their candidates and what they think about the convention coming up.”

In addition to panels, the political science department, in partnership with the Department of Psychology, is planning on bringing in a political psychologist to talk to students about research related to voting, both before and after the election, Schildkraut said.

Although the planning committee is putting more pressure on planning events before and after election night, they are still planning for the night of the election.

On election night in 2016, there were about 2,000 students in and out of Mayer Campus Center during the course of the night, according to Woolf. The building and faculty couldn’t physically handle that amount of individuals, Woolf said. Because of this, they are now forming multiple watch parties for students to participate in this election night.

“We’re planning on having multiple watch parties happening in many, many different spaces,” Woldeyesus said. “[We also will] have a lot of expert panelists [and] political scientists from Tufts to speak about what is happening on the screen, what is happening across the country and what the results are going to show.”

The planning committee is also aware of the mental toil this election has taken and will continue to take on the community. Counseling and Mental Health Service (CMHS) will be playing a large role in helping throughout the course of the election. They are discussing the idea of having onsite therapists and counselors there on election night, according to Woldeyesus.

Additionally, CMHS will be holding support groups for students before the election to discuss their fears and emotions, Woldeyesus said.

Members of the planning committee are bracing themselves for a range of reactions from the Tufts community, no matter the outcome of this unprecedented presidential election.

“If the president’s re elected, that’s not going to be fun. If he’s defeated, it may also be a little bit weird, because who knows how he will respond. He is quite capable of saying, ‘Oh the election is rigged’ and God knows what, so it’s not going to be an easier transition either way,” Woolf said.

Schildkraut added that Tufts must be prepared for the outcome of the election and the variety of responses people will have.

“One thing that I wouldn’t be totally surprised if it happened again is if we have an electoral college popular vote split like we did in 2016 … We have never, as a country, had that happened two elections in a row, and it would’ve been the third election in the 21st century where that happened. So that’s a real crisis for democracy, I think, and … we need to be anticipating what reactions might be on campus if that happens and how to help students feel about that,” Schildkraut said.

Tufts is fiercely preparing for all outcomes of the race, even if it feels we are a long way away from November. Above all, Woldeyesus sees election night as an opportunity for celebration.

“The cupcakes and the balloons aren’t as important, but what we really want to make sure is that students feel supported before, during and after the election,” Woldeyesus said. “[It’s] a celebration of democracy and showing that … this is what happens when we all vote, and you get to see — whether the person who [you] wanted to be elected or not wins — that your voice was counted in that process.”

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Thursday, March 5, 2020

Aadhya Shivakumar What's next

T

A brokered convention

he 2020 Democratic primaries have seen over two dozen candidates vying for the nomination. Now, the field has been winnowed down to four candidates, and with 2,448 delegates up for grabs in the various primaries in March, you would think we would have a clear nominee soon. Unfortunately, this is probably unlikely. Bernie Sanders is currently in second place for the nomination, and according to FiveThirtyEight, Sanders only has a one-in-twelve chance of getting to the 1,991 delegates needed to secure the nomination; the website shows a three-infive chance of July’s Democratic National Convention being a brokered convention.

A brokered convention occurs when a candidate “fails to win a majority of delegates after the first round of voting.” Delegates then keep voting until a nominee is finally picked.

In between votes, candidates may negotiate and make deals in order to get more delegates, promising other candidates cabinet spots if they drop out. Superdelegates will also play a role in the nominating process if there are multiple rounds of voting. Brokered conventions seldom occur, but every time they have has been incredibly chaotic and controversial. The pandemonium of contested conventions is brought out in the season six finale of “The West Wing” (1999–2006), “2162 Votes.”

The episode focuses on three candidates: bland, robotic front-runner Vice President Bob Russell; young, idealistic Representative Matt Santos and disgraced former Vice President John Hoynes. Another element of chaos comes in the form of Governor Eric Baker, who attempts to win the nomination from the floor, taking delegates away from Russell, Santos and Hoynes. Multiple members of President Bartlet’s administration try to convince Santos to drop out. Eventually, Santos gives an inspiring speech on the convention floor and wins the nomination in the fourth round of voting.

“The West Wing” is not afraid to show the messiness of American politics; “2162 Votes” is frantic and stressful to watch, as viewers start to wonder how Santos will fare against the Republican nominee, Senator Arnold Vinick. When comparing the Republican convention to the Democratic convention, former White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry says, “Four days of Swiss watch precision. We get a pie fight.”

Santos does win the presidential election, but it is by the skin of his teeth; it’s possible the optics of the convention made his path to victory all the more difficult. A “pie fight” never bodes well for a political party, not just because they look disorganized and inefficient, but because it is usually indicative of divisions within the party that cannot be solved by multiple ballots and backroom deals.

Although I understand the idea behind it, I sincerely believe that a brokered convention in July would hand Trump reelection on a silver platter. Whoever goes into the convention with a clear lead in delegates needs to get the nomination.

Anything else could be seen as the establishment attempting to supersede the will of voters and could deeply and irreparably damage the Democratic Party.

Aadhya Shivakumar is a sophomore studying political science. Aadhya can be reached at aadhya.shivakumar@tufts.edu.

4 Thursday, March 5, 2020

ARTS&LIVING

Colette Smith and Madison Lehan Love It or Haute It

Bermuda shorts

Recently, Bermuda shorts have been attempting a comeback. American Eagle brought them back in stock last year and they have even graced the thighs of the Kardashians. Though there is plenty of evidence of a resurgence, many are still undecided over whether they should try the shorts. So, as temperatures begin to rise around campus, we are here to decide whether you should squeeze back into your old pair.

Coco: People of all ages choose to wear Bermuda shorts. From soccer moms, to too-loud fathers, to fourth grade girls, all can be seen in these tropical trousers. This does not mean however, that the shorts work for all these groups. I would argue that they do not work for any of them. These shorts are awful and I hate them. They seem confused as to what they want to be. What temperature do I wear them in? If it’s hot, I am going to wear shorts and, if it’s cold, I am going to wear jeans. So where do these atrocities fit in? Similarly, the fact that they are at awkward abovethe-knee length makes them so unflattering. If Kim Kardashian does not look as absolutely amazing as she usually looks when she wears Bermuda shorts, I am personally not going to take any chances trying to wear them. The only acceptable time I can imagine wearing these shorts is if they are the only shorts that work for your middle school’s dress code. But, now that we have the freedom to wear whatever we want, I seriously question anyone who voluntarily wears these.

Beans: Ah yes, Bermuda shorts. The uniform of a dad headed out to watch little league on a breezy summer afternoon, who claims ‘it’s all about the kids having fun,’ but gets thrown out in the sixth inning. The go-to for a different dad, grilling up a storm and pitching out lines like ‘hey watch it pal, this barbecue is ripping hot’ and ‘will you be a sport and toss a brewsky to this old-timer?’ It is especially a classic for the dad at a NASCAR race, flip-flops on and toes out, who can see the speed no matter the UV index with his slick pair of Oakley sunglasses firmly in place thanks to his croakie. The Bermuda short is rarely worn by anyone within spitting distance of the country, yet this island is forced to be associated with these distinct, colorful patterns and dads soaking up the sun. This, however, is not a critique of this style as a concept. I firmly believe there is a place in society for this look: with the older generation. Leave it to the boomers. I say we let them have their fun. Let them live without the burden of being alive for the inevitable environmental failure. Let them continue with their lives without concern for the intersection of crushing student loans and an impending recession. Let them enjoy their knee length, mismatched atrocity in bliss and naïvete.

Colette Smith is a sophomore studying quantatative economics. Colette can be reached at colette.smith@tufts.edu. Madison Lehan is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. Madison can be reached at madison.lehan@tufts.edu.

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‘Better Call Saul’ picks up where it left off after putting audience on hold

by Daniel Klain Arts Editor

After being criticized early on for a slow-moving plot, it seems like the time the writers of “Better Call Saul” (2015–) spent world building has come back to benefit them and their viewers.

In just the first three episodes of the fifth season, major plot points have moved the story further forward. Most notably, at the end of the second episode, “50% Off,” Nacho Varga brought in Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, to help the Salamanca family with a tricky legal situation. Finally, after seasons of simultaneous storylines, we see the two begin to merge. Not to mention that the third episode, “The Guy for This,” brought DEA legend Hank Schrader himself back into our Albuquerque universe.

The end of the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth season showed that we are headed on a collision course for all of our main cast in some way or another. Nacho’s double-agent lifestyle can only last so long, Kim can only balance her passion and profession until she will ultimately have to decide and it won’t be long before the persona of Saul Goodman fully takes over Jimmy.

“Better Call Saul” so brilliantly, especially in its most recent episode, shows this impending doom on a number of storytelling levels. The show’s writers are excellent at using dialogue both sharply and efficiently to capture characters’ emotions and desires. Nacho’s haunting “once you’re in, you’re in” comes to mind. This little line of dialogue hammers home for Saul that there is no escape; now that he is a part of this he will always be the cartel’s lawyer.

Despite Saul or Jimmy’s best efforts, which are really minimal at times, his nefarious past can’t help but keep dragging him back into a world of crime.

Equally amazing is how well the writers build story and allow tension to be recognized but unsaid. Over the course of the fourth season we see Kim and Jimmy’s relationship begin to unravel as the two go down different paths.

This has only continued into the fifth season, when we see Jimmy and Kim romantically daydream as they take a tour of a house together, only for Kim to say it would be a nice idea later down the road. The two could have it out there — because we understand that this is not just about financials but about Kim being afraid to make that much of a commitment to Jimmy, and Jimmy’s suspicious behavior — but they don’t and the show would never do that. Like always it takes its time, letting the story build and show the tension for itself.

What makes “Better Call Saul” head and shoulders above every other show on television currently is not just the writing but also its mastery of filmmaking. Frequently “Better Call Saul” has brilliant photography that, even in the age of post-peak television, is thoughtful and breathtaking. Showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have smartly trusted experienced television directors this season, such as Norberto Barba and Michael Morris, to craft episodes of “Better Call Saul,” and it shows here.

The third episode begins with the image of ants crawling onto and feeding off the ice cream cone Jimmy left on the ground at the end of the second episode. It’s an ugly image but properly fitting for the mess that Jimmy’s life is about to become, with a vast number of people feeding off of him. It’s fitting in the show’s ironically tragic style that Jimmy stumbles upon this cone again, only to recognize its grotesqueness and walk away.

VIA IMDB

A promotional poster for “Better Call Saul” (2015–) is pictured.

Again, later in the episode, we see Kim and Jimmy drinking on their patio. As they talk, the focus of the scene is a glass beer bottle that is anxiously standing on the rail near the edge. It perfectly symbolizes Jimmy and Kim’s professional lives, which they are discussing in the scene, and their personal relationship, both teetering just on the edge of falling and shattering into a million pieces. Irony strikes again later on in the episode when Kim and Jimmy are drinking on the patio yet again and decide to take out all their frustrations and throw their bottles on the ground.

Due to the fact that we know the likely endpoint of Saul’s arc, “Better Call Saul” is not wrapped up trying to land the plane, something that has tarnished many great shows.

Over the course of its seasons, it’s used this freedom to build characters’ stories and create an even larger world for the viewer to soak in. And only now with its end in sight, “Better Call Saul” is beginning to cash in on this tactic, driving its characters into dangerous situations that most likely will not end well for many of them. It’s clearly not all good, man. It will still be thrilling to watch though.

Arts & Living

Thursday, March 5, 2020 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

5

Offill wades through climate anxiety in ‘Weather’

by Peter Lam

Contributing Writer

In most popular apocalypse stories, the plot largely takes place either during or after a worldwide catastrophe. After a disaster or plague, we watch protagonists struggling to survive in a society post-collapse, which only vaguely resembles our current world.

In an inversion of this narrative, “Weather” (2020) by Jenny Offill instead focuses its attention on the lead-up to such a world. “Weather” tells the story of Lizzie, an academic librarian at the university she dropped out of as a graduate student. Through this character, Offill explores what it means to come to terms with the full scope of impending doom.

In states of tightening anxiety over the course of the novel, Lizzie moves from apathy around climate change to a slow, but full, panic about the state of the world and its impending destruction.

Offill herself is a fascinating author to portray this transformation. She made her name in 2014 with her novel “Dept. of Speculation,” a philosophical work exploring marriage and infidelity.

At the center of Offill’s repertoire is the fragment: both “Dept. of Speculation” and “Weather” feature pieces of writing rarely extending past three to four sentences. The final result is a pointillism-style work that evokes similar feelings as Renata Adler’s “Speedboat” (1976)or Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” (2019). A picture is painted with only a few choice strokes,

but the author has thought deeply about which marks will resonate deepest.

In “Weather,” Lizzie’s gradual education of the climate crisis comes about through emails. Lizzie is still in touch with her mentor Sylvia — who pulled strings for her to get her position as a librarian and runs a climate-focused podcast called “Hell or High Water.”

Sylvia offers Lizzie a side-gig answering emails for the podcast, and Lizzie accepts, fielding questions from listeners that range from “Why do humans like applause?” to “How did we end up here?” By nature of the podcast’s content, Lizzie often fields emails from listeners that are either depressed or struggling,yet she doesn’t mind this much. She already plays the role of an amateur shrink to those in her family: her brother recovering from addiction, her divorced mother, her husband and son. She is well-accustomed to ways of parsing the world such that it’s digestible to others.

Offill excels in how she portrays the response of the privileged to a distant but forthcoming apocalypse: a mixture of selfishness, overreaction and obliviousness. With Sylvia, Lizzie attends an event where the rich discuss the best places to purchase property now so that their children will survive; she and her husband later discuss how their ideal “doomstead” would be on a hill, for floods and for defense. At times this is frustrating to read; while the characters speculate about the future, they ignore anything outside

VIA GOODREADS

The cover of ‘Weather’ (2020) by Jenny Offill is pictured. of the United States, including climate refugees of the present. Yet this feels intentional on Offill’s part, and Lizzie seems aware of her status as someone in between two extremes — neither a climate refugee nor someone wealthy enough to purchase a doomstead. There’s a satirical bent in Lizzie’s narration of her world that suggests this awareness as she watches those around her react to bad news

of different kinds, such as the 2016 election.

Still, even with this awareness, Lizzie’s thoughts start to break down as she surrounds herself with more and more bad news: from listening to her mentor’s podcast, to the emails that pile in, to the visions her brother has about accidentally killing his newborn baby.

She becomes a “prepper,” detailing ways in her emails and to those around her on how one might survive an upcoming climate disaster. Offill suggests that as people become disheartened by the scale and impact of a problem, they turn toward individualism by focusing on the small actions that could save themselves and their family. Lizzie becomes overwhelmed with survival techniques, and the text follows suit; more and more fragments in the novel are about these techniques, instead of Lizzie’s own plot.

But she doesn’t have the luxury of fully collapsing underneath these worries: Offill shows Lizzie ultimately caught between anxiety about the future and her current day-to-day world. In a pivotal moment, a character asks Lizzie: “What’s keeping you here?” and it seems to signify Lizzie’s larger issue with speculation — whether she’ll follow her paranoia. But Lizzie starts to understand how her worrying takes away from the current reality of her family and life. Her reply isn’t a revelation so much as a hint of a worldview that she’s only beginning to understand: “All these people,” she thinks. “I have so many people, you wouldn’t believe it.”

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6

THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN&GAMES | Thursday, March 5, 2020

F &G FUN & GAMES

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Kevin: “Mike and Aidan are the same height right?”

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Pisces (Feb. 19–March 20)

Stay close to home. Avoid overdoing it with crowds, distraction or noise.

Misunderstandings come easily. Focus on practical professional priorities and get quietly productive.

SEARCHING FOR HEADLINES

Difficulty Level: Getting 3rd place in your home state primary

Wedneday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

Opinion

tuftsdaily.com

The art of protest Works of art grace many buildings on Tufts campus. You can see them at Tisch Library walking past the Combined Degree Exhibition, on the second floor of the Campus Center, at the seventh floor of Dowling Hall and even next to Eaton Hall. Wherever you go on campus, it is not difficult to find artwork of some form. But do you really take in these works as you go past them, or are they simply part of the campus scenery? Do you ever talk about the meanings behind the works with other students, or do you not even give them a second thought?

Art is not just decorative; it offers a reflection of who we are and makes statements about the world we have created.

This is one of Héctor Tobar’s points in his New York Times opinion article, “We Need Protests. And Paintings.” Héctor emphasizes the potential of artworks as a tool to generate cultural shift and enlighten people about social changes – especially racial diversity – in the city of Los Angeles.

Although Los Angeles now has more immigrants than ever, he believes many works of art fail to reflect the diversity of the community. He highlights the need for people to protest and eradicate the sense of exclusion by having more artworks with appropriate meanings by more diverse artists.

Certainly, artworks can subconsciously influence peoples’ perceptions. We have enough paintings and artworks at Tufts. But

just like the issues raised by Héctor, what we actually lack and need is more opinions and protests about those artworks that surround us. Even before we reach the stage of protesting, we need to stimulate conversations about what the majority of us consider as mere decorations. The majority of the students at Tufts unconsciously absorb visual information without concern or opinion, as we have become accustomed to it. We need to form more critical opinions about the artworks on campus.

Next, we need to protest. Although the word “protest” has connotations of violence, in this case, protest can be a type of explicit expression about what you feel uncomfortable about — even something as gentle as communicating with the people who are responsible for exhibition can be a form of protest. In fact, there was an incident at Tufts where students criticized a mural in the Alumnae Lounge at Aidekman Arts Center. The piece is a depiction of the university’s past; in this mural, there is not a single person of color, which is an inaccurate portrayal of the school’s history. Also, while the mural is an important part of our school’s heritage, Tufts students today come from different backgrounds. According to Tufts Senior Vice President Deborah Kochevar, “Students have told us that they don’t want to receive awards in Alumnae Lounge because they feel excluded.” Tufts has promised to safely remove and store the artwork.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Spencer Christiansen 2020 Vision

OP-ED

by Unyoung Kim

7

I am not saying all artworks on campus, like the mural, are problematic. I am saying that we need both formation and expression of opinions on those artworks that might stimulate a sense of exclusion on campus — not only racial, but also social, sexual, political and religious. Rather than reluctant acquiescence, if we can spur more communication and expression, artworks that we consider mere decorations can be the keys to initiate powerful changes on campus. Even the mural in the Alumnae Lounge at Tufts “gave [Tufts] a push to make this important step” to reassess the new public at Tufts, Kochevar said. According to David Henley in his journal article titled Art of Disturbation, he claims censorship is a strategy to keep “disturbation a self-empowering element in the art experience;” that is why we need protests.

By staying silent and apathetic to these artworks on campus, we put ourselves at risk. We risk our individual artistic perspectives to fade. We risk having our community’s values misrepresented. Surely, artworks serve the campus as embellishments. However, we should not ignore the meanings they hold. As a community, sublimating the messages of the problematic artworks towards a more advisable and thoughtful direction is a balance worth striving for.

Unyoung Kim is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Unyoung can be reached at unyoung.kim@tufts.edu.

MY SHELTER PETS ARE MY BEST FRIENDS

OLIVIA MUNN WITH CHANCE AND FRANKIE: ADOPTED 2014 AND 2016.

THESHELTERPETPROJECT.ORG The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community.

The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

EDITORIALS 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.

OP-EDS 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 and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions.

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Super Tuesday shakes things up

A

s the dust settles after the biggest single day of voting for the Democratic primary contest, the field looks dramatically different than it did just days before.

To begin, there are fewer candidates.

Notable moderate challengers Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race before Tuesday, perhaps due to their mathematical lack of a path to the nomination after early state successes. Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg, joined by the early primary hopeful Beto O’Rourke, endorsed Biden on Monday night in Dallas, Texas. The mass-endorsement and appearances at Biden campaign events by Buttigieg and Klobuchar were seen widely as an attempt to unite the moderate vote and trip up the campaign of the then frontrunner Bernie Sanders. This consolidation of power by the moderate wing of the party served to boost Biden handily; after coming off a strong showing, the former vice president had his best night yet on Tuesday, winning 10 of the 14 states.

A notable dropout in the wake of Tuesday’s delegate distribution was former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg’s candidacy was characterized by his poor debate performance and over $400 million ad campaign. The billionaire offered himself as a moderate alternative to Senator Sanders and a more viable candidate than Joe Biden. As Biden succeeded in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states, Bloomberg’s irrelevance in the race became clear. According to Politico, “As of late Tuesday, Mike Bloomberg was on track to win four delegates, which would mean that he paid over $100 million per delegate.”

Bloomberg’s candidacy was premised on his supposed ability to unite the country, a notion rendered laughable by his performance on Tuesday. Perhaps the notable New Yorker’s failure to generate little more than a few weeks of buzz and positive polling should be comforting to those following the election closely; Bloomberg’s effort that many described as an attempt to buy the election woefully failed. One has to wonder though, would the massively funded campaign have fallen so flat had the man behind the money had an ounce of charisma?

A notable figure remaining in the race despite the mathematical realities that arguably drove out Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The progressive fared poorly on Tuesday after performing similarly during the entire primary. She failed to win a single state and lost sorely in her home state of Massachusetts and her childhood state of Oklahoma. Some on the left see Warren’s persistence as an attempt to split the progressive vote and derail the previously successful campaign of Bernie Sanders.

If she does not remain in the race until the Milwaukee convention, Senator Warren’s endorsement will have a significant effect on the race. Many see her as more ideologically similar to Sanders, but she may stand to gain politically from endorsing the Democratic Party establishment’s now preferred candidate – Biden.

It is clear that Sanders and Biden will fight until the bitter end.

Spencer Christiansen is a sophomore studying international relations. Spencer can be reached at spencer.christiansen@ tufts.edu.

Sports

8 tuftsdaily.com

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Jeremy Goldstein The Little Londoner

Men’s squash places 8th at Summers Cup

S

by Sharan Bhansali

Jeremy Goldsteinis a junior studying political science and film and media studies. Jeremy can be reached at Jeremy.goldstein@ tufts.edu.

Contributing Writer

The No. 24 men’s squash team competed in the College Squash Association (CSA) National Collegiate Championship over the weekend, earning eighth place. The tournament was divided into seven divisions, lettered A–G, and the Jumbos placed last in the Summers Cup, the C division bracket of the tournament.

In the first-round match on Friday, bottom-seeded Tufts was outfought by top-seeded Williams 8–1.

Sophomore Dillon O’Shea was the only player to secure a win against the Ephs.

O’Shea and senior co-captain Claude Smith of Williams had an intense five-game battle, in which O’Shea won the first game 12–10. After losing the first game, Smith fought back and won the second game 11–3. O’Shea and Smith split the third and fourth games to force a fifth.

The fifth and last game was highly-intense, with O’Shea emerging victorious, 11–7.

“Everyone was really disappointed with the loss,” first-year Vivaan Jaikishan said about the first-round loss. “We didn’t play as well as we wanted, but we wanted to learn from our mistakes and move on to the next day. Although the team had been training hard, we had an off day, and they were better than us on Friday.”

First-year Kunal Valia, who lost his match in the first position, was also disappointed in the outcome.

“That was a tough loss and it wasn’t our best performance,” Valia said. “It gets a little intimidating to be playing a number one seed team being an eighth seed team, but we changed our mindset for the upcoming matches and believed that we were as good as any of the other teams in the draw and that we could beat them.”

The Jumbos went on to lose Saturday’s match against the Colby Mules in the consolation round in a close 5–4 encounter.

“There were five matches that went to five sets,”Jaikishan said, who lost playing in the fifth position. “We went 3–0 against Colby in the first string of matches, but they bounced back pretty well and managed to get the win.”

Sophomore Marco Rodriguez engaged in a close match against Colby senior Jason Brodo, edging him by 11–9 in the fifth and final game.

O’Shea also managed to win his match against Colby senior Charlie Beauregard.

On Sunday, Tufts competed against Amherst in the final consolation round for seventh place in the C draw, but Amherst emerged triumphant.

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

First-year Kunal Valia prepares to return the ball during a match against Conn. College at the Tufts Squash Center on Feb. 1.

Playing in the seventh position, O’Shea won his final match against Amherst junior Reginald Brewster in straight sets, winning 12–10, 11–6, 11–6. O’shea thus ended his season on a threematch winning streak, defeating players from Williams, Colby and Amherst.

“It was really disappointing to lose such a close match,” Valia, who lost 3–1 in the first position, said. “It could have gone any way, but we definitely showed these teams that we’re here to fight and we’re ready to make some noise next season.”

Valia expressed the eagerness and excitement of the team this season to

get back on the court and face its opponents, after having trained tirelessly this off-season.

“Everybody improved a lot from the beginning of the season,” Valia said. “And there was a lot of growth that the team underwent throughout the season, which I think will carry on to next season. Now that we have got our own courts, the players are going to be a lot more motivated to get better during the off-season.”

The Jumbos’ season has officially come to an end, with the team finishing at No. 24 in the CSA rankings.

ION OF STA IAT TE OC

TERS RES FO

econd division British football can be an absolute pressure cooker for players: unreasonable expectations and petty howl after howl litter the drunken crowds, and no player’s celebrity can exempt him from taking a strong verbal lashing.

Nestled in the corner of Queen Park’s Rangers Loftus Road stadium on a balmy Tuesday evening were the dueling fanbases of QPR’s and Derby County’s diehard supporters.

Chants would emerge centered around the Derby’s new star man: Wayne Rooney.

Rooney is a national icon; the all-time leading scorer for both Manchester United and England, Rooney applies his trade in England’s second-tier as a player-coach, hoping to gain the requisite experience to one day move up the managerial ranks while still playing the game he loves. You heard the Derby faithful lauding him as such: “Rooney, Rooney, Rooney!” This was the only noticeable chant coming from Derby’s supporters.

You wouldn’t need a hint to know who was chanting: “You’re just a fat granny shagger, you’re just a fat granny shagger.” The legend goes that a 16-year-old Rooney was intimate with a 48-year-old grandmother in a brothel in 2004 — an act to which he admitted. Wayne Rooney, however, is far more famous than the collective entities at Loftus Road — combined.

From every which direction you turned you’d find supporters hailing the former England international with taunts. Behind you would be two old men with canes, rising only when a goal was scored or to pepper ol’ Rooney the rooster. A father would allow his son to passionately wag his finger right in the direction of a man who rolls around on the floor, clutching his knee in tremendous pain. The stewards defending fans from running on the pitch couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

The disrespect for an England legend caught me off guard, but they certainly come as no surprise to John Barnes, a former England captain in his own right. Speaking at the 2020 BASL Conference at the glistening new Tottenham Stadium, he expressed dismay over the abuse young black English players were receiving at stadiums and the racial abuse he was subjected to in his own career.

At Euro 2020 qualifier in Bulgaria last October, UEFA found the home fans guilty of Nazi salutes and monkey chants. After the match was stopped twice, England chose to play on. Barnes understood that abuse is abuse and should never be backed, but stated how we should be more concerned about racist chants domestically than those in Eastern Europe.

What is he calling for? An increase in education among our schoolchildren on racial sensitivity. Barnes cited a 13-year-old fan accused of racially abusing a player in a match last year who was suspended from returning to the ground. He questioned if disciplining pre-teens solves any issue when the real problem is institutional racism.

As the Derby game exhibited, abuse taunts at football matches can be easily compounded by a mob mentality. Calling Wayne Rooney a “granny shagger” is one thing — racial abuse is another.

The most illuminating observation about attending lower-level English football matches was seeing how these chants can easily gain steam. Unfortunately, British fan culture seems to normalize them. What happens when they’re racial, and the 12-year-old boy sitting next to his boisterous father is listening?

NATIONAL A SS

On fan abuse

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