Monday, November 28, 2016

MEN’S CLUB SOCCER

The Cannon: The history behind the campus landmark see FEATURES / PAGE 2

Div. III Jumbos scrap with Div. I teams at Nationals

While star-studded, ‘Starboy’ falls short of The Weeknd’s last effort see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 3

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

THE

INDEPENDENT

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXII, NUMBER 52

tuftsdaily.com

Monday, November 28, 2016

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

Tufts students in Madrid host rally against Trump, intolerance

by Charles Bunnell

“As members of a diverse and unified community of people who call the United States a home it is our duty to promote personal accountability, advocate for and defend the rights of each individual,” the statement read. “We reject Donald Trump’s discourse of hate and vow to protect the people whose oppression and exclusion he has encouraged.”

According to del Castillo, many local Spaniards showed up to help after they heard about the rally through social media.

“They came with their own signs and they were just so into what we were doing,” del Castillo said.

Del Castillo said that the rally was well received by the majority of people in the square, which is located in the heart of Madrid and is comparable to New York’s Times Square.

“We started chanting [and] the crowds grew. People were really interested in what we were doing,” she said. “There were tons of people from the United States and other countries. They were really supportive, joined in our chants and stayed for a long time.”

While del Castillo said that the atmosphere of the rally was positive and many passersby joined in, she noted that there was one woman who yelled at the protestors in Spanish, “shame, shame on you all,” as they chanted slogans in support of the Black Lives Matter movement during the rally.

Contributing Writer

Tufts students studying abroad in Madrid, Spain, organized a rally entitled “Love Trumps Hate Madrid” yesterday afternoon in Plaza Puerta Del Sol. While the event was orchestrated by approximately 40 students in the TuftsSkidmore Spain study abroad program, about 1,000 people in total, including students from La Universidad Autónoma, American tourists and members of the group “Todas Contra Trump” (Everyone Against Trump), joined the students in the square throughout the afternoon to protest hate in the United States and around the world, according to Tufts junior Anna del Castillo, who organized the event along with Tufts juniors Ana Manriquez and Mateo Davis.

Attendees congregated for several causes including the promotion of the Black Lives Matter movement, sanctuary cities for undocumented citizens and universal healthcare, and also protested against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. They stood in the square while holding posters and chanting phrases such as “Black Lives Matter,” “Trans Lives Matter” and “Water is Life.”

Tufts and Skidmore students involved in the protest wrote a statement beforehand explaining their position and motivation for the event, according to del Castillo.

COURTESY CHAVELA OLIVARES

Students and mentors from the Tufts-Skidmore Spain study abroad program organized and participated in a demonstration of solidarity against President-elect Donald Trump in the Plaza Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Spain, on Nov. 27.

Josh Ferry, a Tufts junior who attended the rally, said that despite this negative comment and the poor weather, he believes that the message of the rally was delivered successfully.

“Although it was pouring, and although the paint from our posters was smeared, there was a tangible positive energy throughout the rally,” Ferry told the Daily in an electronic message.

Ferry said that while it may seem strange that American students were protesting the election of the president of the United States from across the Atlantic,

Events on the Hill MONDAY “Liberal Arts Distribution Requirements: Your Thoughts!”

Details: This is the first in a series of meetings to evaluate the liberal arts curriculum and make suggestions to change or improve it. Pizza will be served.

When and Where: 12 p.m.-1 p.m., Alumnae Lounge Sponsor: Tufts Community Union Senate “The Magnitsky Case: What a Death in a Moscow Prison Means for U.S. Future with Russia” Details: Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Bill Browder, the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, will be discussing the case of Sergei Magnitsky, Browder’s lawyer, who was imprisoned, tortured and killed after exposing financial fraud by the Russian government, and how it relates to the larger question of U.S.-Russia relations.

When and Where: 5:30p.m.7 p.m., Cabot Intercultural Center, ASEAN Auditorium Sponsor: Institute for Business in the Global Context

Please recycle this newspaper

Partly Cloudy 45 / 33

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TUESDAY “Foreign Policy in the Digital Age with Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg” Details: Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, former Minister of Defense under German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will be discussing the future of the technology and digital sectors and how they interact with foreign policy.

When andWhere: 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Cabot Intercultural Center, Room 205 Sponsor: Institute for Global Leadership

FRIDAY “Supply Drive for Standing Rock” Details: Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts is collecting warm winter clothes, tents, sleeping bags and other materials to help winterize the camp made by protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline At Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.

When and Where: 12 p.m.-5 p.m., Tufts LGBT Center Sponsor: Indigenous People’s Day at Tufts

THURSDAY “Civic Science Roundtable Series: Human Cloning: What Can We Do? What Should We Do?” Details: Professor of Oral Pathology at Tufts Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences Jonathan Garlick will be hosting a conversation on the questions surrounding human cloning.

When and Where: 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m., Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center Sponsor: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY “The Second Annual Conference on Gender and International Affairs” Details: Keynote speakers, panelists and discussion groups from the Fletcher School and the Greater Boston area will address this year’s conference theme: “Gender Sensitive Leadership: Putting Theory into Practice.”

When and Where: Friday: 4:30-9 p.m., Saturday: 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Cabot Intercultural Center, ASEAN Auditorium

For breaking news, our content archive and exclusive content, visit tuftsdaily.com @tuftsdaily

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there was a sense of fear and a need to act that pushed them to action.

“We have our community here and over the past three months we’ve come to feel at home in Madrid. We felt it necessary to let our host city know that we reject the rhetoric of Presidentelect Donald Trump and his supporters, and that we will resist the hateful policies he has proposed throughout his campaign,” Ferry said.

While the students were largely protesting against Trump’s election, junior Julia Hofer said it was also important to recognize that the movement that propelled Trump to the presidency was not a phenomenon limited to the United States. “[The rally was] important because it felt like a positive way to channel the hurt, anger and frustration after the elections,” she told the Daily in an electronic message.

“And with the rise of far right wing parties across Europe, [it] seemed appropriate to protest the general message of intolerance that these parties represent.”

According to Ferry, a group of Democrats in Madrid had rented out a nightclub the evening of the election to celebrate what they thought would be a victory for Secretary Hillary Clinton. However, he said that the enthusiastic mood at the beginning of the night evaporated as results from key swing states were reported in Trump’s favor.

“For us the world stopped, but Spain went on ... As I rode the metro home, I could pick out the Americans from the shock and sadness on their faces,” he said. “Life goes on here, but we’ve all felt a weight from being so far away from home.”

Ferry said that in the aftermath of the election, students faced many questions from their Spanish friends and host families.

“Many of us have found that we’ve become spokespeople for the United States, although we are only able to offer what we marked down on our own ballots,” he said.

This, coupled with concern for the situation back in the United States, helped prompt the rally, Hofer said.

NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................2 ARTS & LIVING.......................3

OPINION.....................................5 SPORTS............................ BACK

2 tuftsdaily.com

Features

History on the Hill: The Cannon

by Emma Damokosh Contributing Writer

Underneath the many coats of paint that cover the Tufts Cannon lies a controversial political history that started one of Tufts’ most well-known traditions.

The rules of painting the Civil War artifact, according to the Tufts Admissions website, are simple: it can only be painted at night, and if more than one student or group of students wants to paint it that same night, the first group must stand guard until the sun rises to avoid leaving their artwork vulnerable to usurpers who may paint over it.

The Cannon is a replica of a model used on the deck of the USS Constitution, a ship launched in 1797 by the U.S. Navy. The City of Medford had received the Cannon from the National Park Service as a sign of appreciation for local children who had raised money to restore the USS Constitution, but could not initially find a proper location to display it. Accordingly, in 1956, the Cannon was placed in its current location on the green between Ballou Hall and Goddard Chapel in its former unpainted form as a gift from the Medford Historical Society.

In the 1960s, Tufts’ campus became a hotbed of student activism, and widespread antiwar sentiments on campus ultimately led to the temporary removal of the Cannon, seeing as some viewed the artifact as a symbol of imperialism and war.

However, a group of alumni successfully petitioned to reinstate the Cannon after the Vietnam War ended, and it was returned to its location on top of the hill in 1977, still unpainted, according to a Winter 2006 Tufts Magazine article.

However, it was not long before the monument became the center of controversy yet again, as it was first recorded as being painted in the fall of 1977 in relation to a controversy surrounding the presidential family of the

Philippines at that time. The New York Times reported that The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy had accepted a $1.5 million grant from the authoritarian Filipino regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos that fall, to be allocated for the newly formed Ferdinand E. Marcos Chair of East Asian and Pacific Studies.

In the midst of protest over the grant

by hundreds of students and faculty, the Cannon was painted for the first time in recorded history by students opposed to the acceptance of the grant from Marcos. Marcos ultimately withdrew the grant for the Fletcher School in 1981.

This display of protest was then painted over by a student who disapproved of defacing the Cannon, according to a historical piece compiled by the Tufts AntiAuthoritarian Collective, a former student group that once distributed Tufts’ Disorientation Guides.

The practice of painting the Cannon was not initially approved by all members of the Tufts community, according to former history professor Daniel Mulholland. Mulholland, who arrived at Tufts in 1968, immediately became involved in the activism taking place on campus. He served as the keynote speaker for an alternative commencement ceremony in 1970 that some graduating seniors organized to protest the official commencement ceremony.

Mulholland recalled the practice of painting the Cannon as an explicit act of protest that was initially not sanctioned by the university, and that some students also denounced. He explained that the Cannon was used in the naval ROTC ceremonies and was generally consid-

Monday, November 28, 2016

Rainbow House 2016 On Queer ered something to be respected.

“It was a sacrilegious act to paint the Cannon,” he said.

Former University Provost Sol Gittleman recalled that over the years, students sometimes left the site of the Cannon a mess with paint cans and paint splattered all over the ground.

Gittleman, who arrived at Tufts in 1964, witnessed the evolution of the Cannon’s role on campus.

“The Cannon was used like a message board,” he said. “I’ve seen marriage proposals, ‘I love you’ … it changed weekly and sometimes daily.”

He also noted that the painting of the Cannon started during about the same time that students began “chalk-ing” the campus as a way to advertise student organizations and events.

Later, another major controversy surrounding the Cannon took place in 2001 following the 9/11 terror attacks. For several weeks, the Cannon was painted with the word “peace.”

In October 2001, on the night of the first bomb strikes against Afghanistan, several members of the former conservative student publication, The Primary Source, painted over the Cannon with an American flag. That same night, three members of another former student organization, the Coalition for Social Justice and Nonviolence, got into a fight with the editor of the Primary Source, landing the students a disciplinary warning.

Despite its controversial history, the Cannon’s presense and its painting have become an accepted part of campus culture. Over the years, Tufts has funded the sandblasting of the Cannon so that it may retain some semblance of the landmark’s original shape.

Today, painting the Cannon is a university-sanctioned activity, with one exception: during commencement ceremonies, when the Cannon is painted black out of respect for the graduating class, according to Gittleman.

NICHOLAS PFOSI / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

The Cannon was repainted following a St. Louis grand jury’s Nov. 24, 2014 decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

On call-outs

E

ven in these times, I believe that most people are well-intentioned.

We want the best for each other.

We want each other to be happy, healthy and successful. We want to treat our friends and family well.

Yet, we have to acknowledge that we, as individuals, have unique identities that may result in different experiences. Our identities play a part in determining how we live, what we see and how we are treated. Gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, background, family income and so much more. Our bodies are vessels that carry our personal perspectives, but they cannot carry those of anyone else.

So naturally, we do not always understand how someone else feels. If someone has one specific identity, maybe someone else’s experience is completely unrelatable, even unbelievable, to them.

Inevitably, there must be effort put forth to see someone else’s reasoning behind the perspective they hold.

We all have felt invalidated at some point in our lives, albeit in different ways.

For some, the pain is deeper, the trauma is collective and the violence is institutional. For others, institutional violence has never been a personal concern because every portion of their identity aligns comfortably within societal norms. For others, and arguably for most, our identities lay at an intersection in which we feel accepted in some ways, but excluded in others.

Especially when we are unaware of different experiences around us, we may be perpetuating harmful, oppressive behaviors. “Calling out” is the act of bringing attention to such behaviors to an individual.

Let’s demystify and destigmatize callouts. First and foremost, the purpose of call-outs is to communicate to someone that a behavior is harmful. Nothing more, nothing less. I, personally, do not believe in shaming well-intentioned people. So, to anyone who never intended to cause harm that they may have been accused of causing, relax. Hold back the ego. It’s not a personal attack. We cannot be expected to know everything about how to avoid hurting people as individuals or as an entire demographic. The truth is, everyone has messed up and hurt people before.

Instead, a call-out is someone asking for one to stop participating in a harmful behavior. Making a call-out takes effort and bravery, too. A call-out is made out of love and trust, out of belief that whoever is receiving it has the compassion to understand and change. Those on the receiving end are assumed to have at least some capacity for respecting others.

As call-outs are a call to responsibility, what should one do after gaining awareness that a behavior is oppressive? If possible, stop doing it. In the moment, a quick apology and moving on with life suffices.

Next, try to understand from the perspective of the survivor of violence. Maybe whoever made the call-out didn’t entirely explain why a behavior is oppressive, or maybe it isn’t entirely clear yet. Try to find resources either online, on campus or somewhere already available. Ultimately, respecting others is about treating someone how they want to be treated.

This column was written by an anonymous resident of the Rainbow House. They can be reached at rhouse@gmail.com.

Monday, November 28, 2016

ARTS&LIVING ALBUM REVIEW

The Weeknd shoots for the stars on uneven ‘Starboy’

by Justin Krakoff

Executive Arts Editor

When Canadian singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye first began releasing music under the moniker The Weeknd back in 2010, no one could have predicted his emergence as a cultural phenomenon on the scale that he is now. Sure, there were glimmers of pop stardom beneath the surface, especially with the release of his electrifying cover of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana” (1988) off his third mixtape “Echoes of Silence” (2011). However, his first studio album, “Kiss Land” (2013) merely ended up feeling like a bad continuation of his largely innovative mixtapes.

Beginning with the release of the sultry but poppy “Earned It” (2014) from the soundtrack to the film “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015), The Weeknd made a play for top 40 radio dominance, and the release of his sophomore album, “Beauty Behind the Madness” (2015), saw this goal become a reality, as the record spawned two massive hits: the disco-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” and the eerie “The Hills.” It was around this time that The Weeknd’s style of pop, largely built around dark themes of drug abuse, sex and self-destruction, began to become ubiquitous on the radio, with artists such as Ariana Grande and ZAYN benefiting from this R&B-influenced shift.

After he effectively conquered the airwaves, the time had come for The Weeknd to try something new.

This brings one to the release of “Starboy,” The Weeknd’s third album since 2013. Released on Nov. 25, the LP sees him taking up an alternate persona

REPUBLIC RECORDS

Starboy, The Weeknd’s third effort, features collaborations with Daft Punk and Kendrick Lamar. this time around, perhaps in response to his newfound popularity. However, The Weeknd makes little attempt to push himself in a radically new sonic direction, which results in a record that feels like it is caught between the new “Starboy” and the artist’s old personas over its bloated 18 tracks.

There are still plenty of high points on The Weeknd’s third LP. “Starboy” is bookended by two fantastic and very different collaborations with the French electronic duo Daft Punk. The album’s eponymous opener sets the mood for this concept see STARBOY, page 4

Ang Lee’s ultra high-definition, high frame rate cinematic experiment Assistant Arts Editor

Following its premiere at the New York Film Festival, director Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” released nationally Nov. 11, has garnered mixed reactions.

The film itself is not particularly noteworthy, though it contains solid performances from the lead actors. It is the often-mesmerizing visuals that have generated so much attention and discussion about the

tuftsdaily.com

Nikki Margaretos Is This Thing On?

With The (Black) Beatles

A

FILM SPOTLIGHT

by Elliot Storey

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film. Lee, continuing his penchant for pushing the envelope of special effects as he did in “Life of Pi” (2012), shot “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” in an astonishing 120 frames per second, in 4K resolution and, for the cherry on top, in 3-D. However, because of the technology required to project the film, only two theaters nationwide are capable of displaying it in this format, what Lee calls “The Whole Shebang.” The result is an image that carries 40 times the information of a

SONY PICTURES

Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) salutes during the national anthem in TriStar Pictures' 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'.

standard movie as there are quintuple the frames, quadruple the pixels and then it is all doubled for stereoscopic 3-D. From the very first scene with Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) stumbling out of bed, the visual clarity and smoothness are jaw-dropping, and the ocular overload never ceases. Lee has lamented how the format exposed so much of what goes into a film, explaining that the entire process had to be rethought.

When the audience can see individual drops of condensation on a plate of food and minuscule bits of fraying fabric on Billy Lynn’s uniform epaulets, nothing can be faked. Despite the efforts of Lee and his cast and crew, some of the seams remain exposed. For one, the foley — the sound effects added in post-production — sometimes seems incongruous with what is on the screen, such as when a pat on the shoulder sounds suspiciously heavy.

Though some have dismissed the film’s visual experimentation as a failure, that is to overlook its moments of success. Lee’s film is serviceable, but is certainly a rare misstep in his filmography in terms of its success in articulating a unique message or simply entertaining the viewer.

As a vehicle for demonstrating both the promise and the limits of hyperrealism, its unusual blend of settings – intimate conversations, a football game complete with halftime show spectacular, and wartime see BILLY LYNN, page 4

few weeks ago, I tried to make the claim that no one will ever be bigger than The Beatles, but it appears I’ve been challenged by the rap-duo Rae Sremmurd, comprised of brothers Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi.

If you don’t think duo’s name looks like English, you’re right — it’s their label, “Ear Drummers,” backwards. The Mississippi natives first hit the radio waves in 2013, with tracks like “No Flex Zone” (2014), “No Type” (2014), “Come Get Her” (2014) and “Throw Sum Mo” (2014). If you’ve ever heard any of those songs, you might know what I mean when I say, “There’s a time and a place,” and it’s probably not over baked brie with the whole family at Thanksgiving appetizers. If you’re up on your meme culture, you’re also familiar with the viral hit “Black Beatles” (2016), which was the soundtrack to the mannequin challenge videos earlier this month.

In the style of the Harlem Shake, the trend quickly spread from high schoolers to A-list celebrities. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why the Rae Sremmurd song was chosen, yet it’s currently No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Unsurprisingly, Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi are rapping about their new-found fame reaching a “Beatles-level” craze.

The first frame of the music video shows ecstatic female fans at their concert, not unlike clips of fans during Beatlemania.

It’s even complete with an Abbey Roadstyle rooftop performance montage. So, I thought, perhaps there’s a more profound connection. Naturally, I had to interview the biggest Beatles fan I know: my dad.

First, I explained why I was asking him to appreciate Rae Sremmurd, which involved me trying to explain what the mannequin challenge is, which also required me to explain what an “internet meme” is … Anyway, before I even played the song, my father brought up an interesting point, and that is that The Beatles were actually influenced quite a bit by Motown music. Some of their earlier work includes covers like “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” (1962), originally by their idols Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, or The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” (1961). Even with the smash success that was their single-take recording of The Top Notes’ “Twist and Shout” (1961), the four boys from Liverpool struggled to perfect the art of soul. But I digress. Long story short, my dad wasn’t extremely impressed with “Black Beatles.” His comments were, “There’s no melody,” and “It’s not that clever.” Perhaps this is how 1950’s teenagers felt when their parents told them to “shut off that dang rock’n’roll music!”

There’s a line in “Black Beatles” about Swae Lee “rockin’ John Lennon lenses,” and I showed my dad a photo of the two side by side. He said, “One is cool, and one is a wannabe.” So there you have it, folks.

Alas, my lingering question is, what would the real Beatles think about being objectified by this hip-hop banger? We don’t have to wonder because Paul McCartney has made a mannequin challenge himself.

Your move, Ringo.

Nikki Margaretos is a junior majoring in international relations and economics. Nikki can be reached at nikoletta.margaretos@ tufts.edu.

4

THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Monday, November 28, 2016

The Weeknd's third album does not quite hit the mark STARBOY

continued from page 3 record of sorts as The Weeknd embraces a new slick, Euro-inspired sound and bitingly tells the listener “Look what you’ve done,” in response to his newfound fame. “I Feel It Coming,” on the other hand, is a bright, airy pop song and juxtaposes sparkly synths with The Weeknd’s crooning on lines such as “You’ve been scared of love and what it did to you / You don’t have to run, I know what you’ve been through.”

On “Starboy,” the Weeknd continues his successful collaborations with pop heavyweights, including Max Martin, Cashmere Cat, Cirkuit, Benny Blanco and Diplo. In particular, the highlight of his work with Martin, the man behind his previous hit “Can’t Feel My Face,” comes in the one-two punch of “Rockin’” and “Secret.” The two tracks flow seamlessly from one to the other yet feature two very different takes on 80s dance-pop: the former is slightly unoriginal but makes up for it with its euphoric baseline, while the latter has a fantastic chorus built around the repetition of “I hear the secrets that you keep / When you’re talkin’ in your sleep.”

Even though The Weeknd’s third LP suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, some of the record’s more R&B-sounding tracks rank

among the best of The Weeknd’s discography.

The downtempo “Reminder” uses a simple synth line as he critiques his own rise to mainstream popularity, singing “I just won a new award for a kids show / Talking ’bout a face numbing off a bag a blow / I’m like goddamn b**** I am not a Teen Choice.” His collaboration with the particularly omnipresent Kendrick Lamar, “Sidewalks,” recounts each artist’s particularly rough upbringings and features the line “Sidewalks saved my life / They don’t ever lie,” a metaphor about overcoming the past to reach the present.

The main problem with “Starboy” is that so much of the album does not feel essential. While experiments such as “False Alarm” and “Six Feet Under” are appreciated, they never feel fleshed out enough to justify their existence. The same goes for the repetitive collaborations with Martin and Cashmere Cat as they continue to show up with diminishing returns on tracks like “Ordinary Life” and “Die For You.” Even the presence of Lana Del Rey on the meandering “Party Animal” and all too short “Stargirl Interlude” hurts the record by never truly capturing the magic that makes each of them such talented stars.

“Starboy” is a decent pop record but clearly not the magnum opus The Weeknd was going for, which ultimately makes the final result all the more disappointing.

tuftsdaily.com

‘Billy Lynn’: Impressive filmography with a story that falls short BILLY LYNN

continued from page 3 battle scenes – provides a thorough picture of the format’s strengths and weaknesses.

The elimination of the motion blur seen at lower frame rates in the more frenetic sequences holds great promise for certain genres. Lee only shows a few moments of the football game where Lynn and his squad are to be honored in the halftime show, but even those glimpses offer a tantalizing idea of what sports televised in ultra-high frame rate and definition would be like. When Lynn grapples with an Iraqi insurgent in a drainage tunnel in a scene reminiscent of the knife fight in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998), ending on a closeup of the man’s face as he draws his dying breaths, the realism is more unsettling than any amount of gore could be.

It often feels as though the theater is only separated from what is happening on the screen by an actual pane of perfectly transparent glass. That unmatched closeness to the film provides an effect that it is hard to imagine could be achieved any other way. Surprisingly, the other arena where the format is particularly effective is in the close-up shots of emotional dialogue that permeate the film. Lee likely chose to shoot his actors

with their heads filling the screen and their eyes looking directly into the camera because it allows audience members to put themselves in the shoes of the listening characters. These close-ups are frequently unsettling, but they force the viewer to confront the emotions of the characters. The resolution and the frame rate create a rawness that, at the actors’ best, make a viewer feel almost guilty for any hint of cynicism about their feelings.

It is perhaps in this dichotomy between real and unreal, between acting and effects that appear natural versus created, that the greatest quality of the format lies. By shining such a bright light on every aspect of the filmmaking process, an elevation of technique is required, providing a challenge to actors and filmmakers to create an utterly immersive experience that can withstand the scrutiny of the format.

Regardless of the disappointing critical and box office reception to “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” it would be a mistake to judge the future of ultra high-definition and high frame rate cinema based solely on Lee’s experiment (or Peter Jackson’s tentative use of the technique in his “The Hobbit” trilogy). More may not always be better – more pixels, more frames – but sometimes it is, and the potential of the format lies in that chance.

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Monday, November 28, 2016

Opinion NO-SHAVE NOVEMBER

5 tuftsdaily.com

Aren Torikian The Arena

Turnout for what

T

At the end of No-Shave November

BY STEPHEN DENNISON

Tomorrow is…

If 2,000 people make a gift to Tufts tomorrow, we will unlock $200,000 in challenge funds from generous alumni and parents to support financial aid, faculty, and the student experience.

How YOU can help: 1. Make a gift (of any size!) tufts.edu/givenow6 2. Thank an alumni donor (Campus Center & Tisch Library 11am-8pm) 3. Spread the word via social media

#GivingTuesday #TuftsGivingTuesday

hroughout this campaign cycle, I reminded my readers to go vote on Election Day. Regardless of my noble efforts, voter turnout remained disappointingly low; according to the U.S. Elections Project, roughly 58 percent of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election. The U.S. voter turnout rate is actually one of the lowest in the developed world.

Of course it’s natural to wonder what causes this gap. Surely the Electoral College has something to do with it. In Wyoming or Vermont, voters may not feel like their vote matters as much as in Florida or Colorado.

For the presidential race, this view isn’t necessarily wrong. But down-ballot elections matter too. If the Democrats had won a few more seats in the Senate, they would have been able to reject some of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments.

Many people have also lost hope in the government; according to a recent Gallup poll, only 20 percent of Americans approve of Congress. To be fair, that is up from just nine percent in November of 2013. It’s tough to motivate yourself to vote for a government in which you do not believe.

The elephant in the room is voter disenfranchisement, i.e. the set of laws that make voting more difficult for some people. Disenfranchisement has an ugly history in America. After the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment gave African-American men the right to vote, yet many southern states passed laws making it all but impossible for them to do so. For example, voters were asked to pay a poll tax. This tax disproportionately affected African-American voters, who were generally less wealthy.

The most shocking law was the literacy exam. Election officials would select potential voters (usually African Americans) who could not prove a requisite level of education to sit a 10 minute test. These tests were purposefully nearly impossible to pass.

Some tested advanced civics, while some were basically riddles.

Thankfully, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, outlawing disenfranchisement laws. The act also put extra burdens on specific states and districts where voter discrimination was most widely used.

But the Supreme Court deemed this section unconstitutional in 2013, as the law was based on 50-year-old data.

Since then, we have seen a reversion to some levels of discrimination. Some states have begun to force voters to present ID at the polls, but not everybody has IDs. These laws function as a new poll tax, requiring those who can least afford it to pay to vote.

Again, this generally affects minorities who, for the last few generations, have voted Democratic. In 2012, Pennsylvania politician Mike Turzai noted that voter ID laws would “allow [Republican] Governor Romney to win the state.” If that is not a smoking gun, I don’t know what is. And before Breitbart commenters threaten to fly to England and throw me into the River Thames, even some Democratic states, like Rhode Island, have experimented with voter ID laws.

Naturally, there are plenty of other factors; I did not mention that most felons do not get to vote for years after getting out of jail. But by putting all of these effects together, I think we can start to get an explanation for why Americans vote less than most of the developed world.

Aren Torikian is a junior majoring in Economics and international relations. He can be reached at aren.torikian@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Opinion | Monday, November 28, 2016

T HE T UFTS D AILY Arin Kerstein Editor-in-Chief

EDITORIAL

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OP-ED

Celebrating the interdisciplinary lenses of environmental engineering

by Emma Inhorn and Erynne van Zee We, as students studying environmental engineering, are writing in response to the Nov. 16 Daily article “Against the grain: female students dominate environmental engineering,” because we believe the article did not fully portray the many dimensions of environmental engineering and what it means to contribute as a student, educator, researcher, engineer and consultant — not just a woman — in the field.

We appreciate the acknowledgement that environmental engineering is a welcome space for women, but we feel that a few points in the article deserve more attention.

As environmental engineers, we define our field as designing solutions to challenges related to water, soil and air through lenses focused on protecting the health of human and ecological systems. There is no one identity within environmental engineering; rather, it is a foundation for contributing to a variety of careers. We believe that environmental engineering is an inherently interdisciplinary field, which makes the field attractive. There are many connections and opportunities for collaboration with other disciplines. Those of us in the senior class are planning on going into careers involving public health, environmental education, consulting, sustainable product development, climate change resiliency and air quality research.

We would like to address the implications for women in this field when environmental engineering is labeled as a “softer,” less technologically-oriented, less serious engineering discipline, because these labels have negative connotations for women in science and engineering.

These labels maintain gender stereotypes within engineering and do not leave room for students to break through the confines of gender binaries in STEM fields. This has negative implications for attempts to make a welcoming space for students of all gender identities within the environmental engineering major in the future.

At our core, we are deeply based in engineering foundations and skills. To be environmental engineers, we develop backgrounds in physical chemistry, mechanics, hydraulics, fluid dynamics, biology, public health, occupational and environmental safety, urban design, infrastructure integrity, computer programming and policy. Describing envi-

ronmental engineering as a “softer” form of engineering that lacks technological focus does not fully recognize the breadth of our skill set, and perpetuates stereotypes of women as less competent in using technological tools for research and other careers.

This definition also limits the full potential of our field for leadership, as many women go into careers in environmental consulting and project management.

Environmental engineering encompasses a wide variety of skills and leadership opportunities that allow people of many identities to find a space to pursue their interests and to collaborate on pressing issues. Here are a few examples of why our classmates at Tufts are environmental engineers: “I basically grew up outdoors and have always been interested in what impacts we as humans have on the world around us.

Environmental engineering has helped me learn not only what we have done, but how to apply math, chemistry, biology, physics and computer science to undo some of these impacts. I couldn’t be happier in the discipline I chose to study and hope to continue doing it for a long time to come.” – Craig Drennan, 2018 “Freshman fall, I took Climate Change Engineering and fell in love with the interdisciplinary view of climate change and the environment that this class provided. Since then, I am an environmental engineer because of the combination of the technical aspects of engineering with societal, economical and political perspectives. All of these points of view must be taken into account in order to come up with a reasonable solution to an issue in order to do good in the world, both for people and the environment.” – Jenny Skerker, 2017 “When I came to Tufts, I was struggling to decide which of my academic interests to pursue. I did not want to choose between technology/design and the humanities. In environmental engineering, I have a way to combine these pursuits by working on technology to improve water and sanitation,working on public health to work on finding sustainable solutions and working on proper implementations and communication skills by writing reports that are accessible in a consulting context. These skills allow me to have multiple outlets to work on projects spanning many fields, because environmental engineering gives me the base to collaborate.” – Emma Inhorn, 2017

“Sustainability is driving our policy discussions, product development, investments and activism. It’s an industry-agnostic priority just about everywhere. This is crazy exciting for us, because environmental engineering is accelerating from its origins in remediation to its future as a frontier field for all forms of development. For both the professors and students studying in this program, environmental restoration means more than just “awareness” of the issues — we’re looking for the technical competency to have impact.

Yeah, you’ll see a lot of friendly faces and an outdoorsy community, but there’s serious talent, diversity and civic-mindedness urging everyone.” – Alex Rappaport, 2017 “I switched into the School of Engineering my first year because I wanted to learn why environmental systems interact on a micro level. As I’ve delved deeper into environmental engineering, I’ve realized that so many of my interests in ecological design, environmental education and urban public health intersect with the major. I love the vibrancy and complexity of environmental engineering!” – Erynne van Zee, 2017 Environmental engineering is not just attractive to women for its “humanitarian values,” but rather for the depth and breadth of its interdisciplinary framework allowing students to contribute to pressing local and global issues. While we are fortunate to have so many female-identifying role models in our field, this does not implicate environmental engineering as a “soft” science, or one that is more suited for women, because this label fails to recognize the dynamic nature of the field. We love talking about why we are environmental engineers. If you are interested in the field, have more questions or are looking for interdisciplinary collaboration, please reach out.

Editor’s note: If you would like to send your response or make an op-ed contribution to the Opinion section, please email us at tuftsdailyoped@gmail.com.

The Opinion section looks forward to hearing from you.

Emma Inhorn and Erynne van Zee are seniors majoring in environmental engineering. Emma can be reached at emma. inhorn@tufts.edu and Erynne can be reached at erynne.vanzee@tufts.edu.

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Monday, November 28, 2016 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY

Sports

7

Max Goder-Reiser Out of Left Field

Academic baseball

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ell, we’ve found ourselves in the weird spot between the season ending and the free agency hot stove still heating up. Without much going on in the world of Major League Baseball, this column is focused on baseball at the more academic level, and in particular, a baseball analysis competition. On Nov. 18, the Baseball Analysis at Tufts (BAT) club sent five students to compete in the annual Diamond Dollars Case Competition at Columbia University. Judges at the competition included former Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington, former Tufts visiting lecturer Andy Andres and various front office analysts. Tufts’ team consisted of senior Derek Shin, juniors Matt Carlin and Julia Prusaczyk, first-year Cole Witaszek and myself. The prompt this year was to rank the three most valuable position players in baseball. This valuation took into consideration both a player’s performance and how much they are owed by their team, hence an all-encompassing player “value.”

We projected out the performance of every player using Tom Tango’s Marcel the Monkey Forecasting System, Marcel as in the monkey from Friends. This system projects performance as a function of the player’s previous performance, with the most recent years weighted more heavily.

We then came up with five comparable players for our top five projected players using their statistics, both standard and advanced, through their current age, season, position and skill set. We looked at each of the comparable player’s performances during the years the reference player is under contract and calculated their percent change in wins above replacement (WAR) for each year. To get a final projection, we averaged the Marcel projections with the projections made using the comparable players.

When we looked at our projections, our top five players by WAR to the end of their contracts were Boston Red Sox right fielder Mookie Betts, Anaheim Angels center fielder Mike Trout, Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager, Chicago Cubs third baseman and outfielder Kris Bryant and Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor, all young superstars with mostly team-friendly contracts.

The next step was to find out how much money they were owed over their contract and for arbitration eligible players, project out their money earned during those years.

Once we had their total projected money earned, we had our two variables that accounted for value. To assign a monetary value to a player’s WAR, we multiplied each win added by $7 million, a pretty standard estimate of dollar per win, and adjusted for a five percent inflation rate, adding monetary value to the team. We then subtracted their money earned during their contract from that and ended up with our deciding factor, total surplus value. In order, our three most valuable players in baseball are Lindor, Seager and Bryant, all adding over $200 million worth of surplus value to their teams.

Competitions like this are held biannually and draw in dozens of college teams from across the country. They provide a unique opportunity to think like a baseball executive and over 30 participants have earned internships and jobs with major league teams, including a few Tufts students. To any readers interested in this aspect of baseball, please feel free to contact me.

Max Goder-Reiser is a senior majoring in biology. Max can be reached at max. goder_reiser@tufts.edu.

8 tuftsdaily.com

Sports

Monday, November 28, 2016

MEN'S CLUB SOCCER

Tufts attends club nationals as only Div. III team

COURTESY TUFTS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL CLUB

The Tufts University Football Club poses for a picture at the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) Championships, which were held in Foley, Ala. from Nov. 17-19.

by Yuan Jun Chee Sports Editor

Tufts University Football Club — the men’s club soccer team — capped off one of the best seasons in its history with a berth to the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) Championships, held in Foley, Ala. on Nov. 17-19. Despite a strong showing, the team was unable to overcome any of the Div. I opponents it faced and finished the tournament winless.

The team earned the trip to Nationals with success at Regionals held in New Castle, Del. on Oct. 29-30. Tufts defeated Rochester 1-0 in its opening game of pool play on Saturday, Oct. 29, before losing 1-0 to a very physical Carnegie Mellon team later that day. This put the team in a precarious position as it geared up to play Johns Hopkins on Sunday, needing to finish at the top of the group or be the “best of the rest” to win an at-large bid to the next round.

“At this point, we thought the season was over, because it was very difficult to make it out of the group without having won all of your games,” sophomore Thomas Coons said. “We knew that going into Johns Hopkins on the following day we had to get a really good goal differential and score as many goals as possible and get that win so that we could get an at-large bid.”

That motivation was evident as Tufts thumped Johns Hopkins 5-1 on

Sunday. Goals from sophomore Jarod Glover, juniors Shant Mahrokhian and Sal Sprofera, along with two from sophomore Paolo Melendez, gave the Jumbos a large enough goal margin to qualify for the knockout round.

“We played one of our best games against Johns Hopkins, which gave us momentum going into the playoffs,” Coons said. “That momentum was huge, because when we played Messiah, which was a really really good team, we had the best game, I think, of the season. We played out of our minds, we had the better possession, we scored three goals against really good defense and that was great.”

Tufts’ momentum continued throughout the rest of the day as it then comfortably saw off Messiah Blue 3-0 in the semi-final. The final game of the Regional saw a tightly contested match between Northeastern and Tufts, with both sides having plenty of chances to take the lead.

The breakthrough came late in the game, as junior Scott Sclar, a former member of the varsity team, sealed a berth at Nationals for the Jumbos with the game-winner, finishing a pass from firstyear Noah Neve.

Highlighting the additional challenges club teams face with limited budgets, getting to Nationals posed a major obstacle in and of itself, given the size of the team and the cost of the plane tickets.

The Tufts community actively contributed to the team’s GoFundMe page, raising $1,600, or close to 15 percent of the

team’s overall costs. Coons said that other sources of funding included other club soccer teams around the region, club soccer alumni and extra funding from TCU and President Monaco’s office.

Nationals was a completely different ballgame for the Jumbos – Tufts was the only Div. III team competing, and was thus playing teams from much larger schools, often with fifth- and sixth-year students who had expended their NCAA eligibility.

Coons said that, unlike Tufts, some of these teams had two to three coaches and even a trainer, but this in itself was a source of pride for the Tufts team.

“Part of the reason of our success, and why we’re so proud of our success is because we’re student-run and we’re still able to play at the highest level,” Coons said. “But at a certain point, it was tough playing against schools that had a tremendous amount of funding, tremendous amount of kids to choose from.”

Tufts was drawn in the same group as the University of Cincinnati and Colorado State University. The Jumbos lost both of their games on the opening day, Nov. 17, starting with a 1-0 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats. Tufts had a goal disallowed by an offsides call and then conceded on the counterattack.

Tufts also fell in its second group stage game 2-0 to Colorado State. In the consolation bracket Tufts fell 3-0 to the University of Colorado to finish the team’s season.

In total, the Jumbos were unable to score against their opponents and conceded six goals, but the fact that they even made it to Nationals was an accomplishment itself.

“Going into [Nationals], it was nice to see all the other big name schools,” sophomore defender Derek Sims said. “We’re not one of these 50-thousand student schools, so there was that in the back of our minds, that we’re relatively good compared to these people and we just wanted to prove them wrong. We knew other people would see Tufts on their schedule and say, ‘Oh, we’re playing this Div. III school it’s gonna be a walk in the park’ and we wanted to prove them wrong. Unfortunately we couldn’t put together enough to win, but everyone at the end was still very proud that we made it this far, that we were representing ourselves well.”

Despite the result, Coons believed the team learned a lot from their trip to Alabama.

“Nationals was really cool because we could see the highest level. You could play in Regionals, in the group stages or just against really good teams, but once you see the best teams in the nation playing, you get a sense of what needs to be done next year,” Coons said. “And everyone who’s returning to the team next year knows that there just needs to be a little more discipline towards training, [and we need to] put the time in the offseason for fitness, because we’ve seen the next level and we want to get to that level.”