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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Thursday, january 29, 2015

VOLUME LXVIV, NUMBER 6

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

TUDS keeps dining halls open in blizzard

#TuftsBlizzard

by Melissa Kain Assistant News Editor

Evan sayles / the tufts daily

Sledders using kayak slide down the President’s Lawn on Jan. 27.

During the recent blizzard that prompted the university to cancel classes and close buildings for two days, Tufts students discovered that both dining halls would stay open despite the closures of other university buildings. According to Director of Dining and Business Services, Patti Klos, many Dining Services employees stayed overnight to ensure that Carmichael Dining Center and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center were able to continue to serve students during storms.

Klos explained that dining employees are designated “Essential” to the Tufts community and are required to work during weather-related emergencies. Although they are not

required to stay overnight, many employees choose to do so, and employees are encouraged to plan ahead for possible winter storms. Workers are provided with air mattresses and “Comfort Kits” containing toiletries such as shampoo, soap and toothpaste.

According to Chef Manager Joann Pulsford, about 10 employees stayed at Dewick-MacPhie and six at Carmichael. Employees sleep in the dining hall conference rooms on cots and air mattresses and are able to use dining hall locker rooms to shower, she explained.

“It is their decision. We don’t force anybody to stay if they don’t want to … If they decide to stay, we have a certain amount of emergency supplies,” Pulsford said. see DINING, page 2

Ordinance to rezone Sorority recruitment numbers fluctuate Somerville submitted amid increased diversity efforts

by Eeman Malik Assistant News Editor

The City of Somerville is being rezoned for the first time in 24 years, according to George Proakis, the city’s director of planning. Proakis will be leading the rezoning project, which was submitted to the city’s Board of Aldermen for approval on Jan. 20.

Proakis explained that there is a significant need for change because, although the city’s goals and technology have changed over the years, many places haven’t changed since the 1920s.

“Fundamentally, we are doing the rezoning to bring the city’s rules and regulations surrounding land development to match the comprehensive plan, and to make sure we can achieve our city-wide goals,” Proakis told the Daily.

Proakis said that his team hopes to implement a new set of rules concerning development. He explained that the development of the city would be able to include 17 different types of buildings, with some building types better suited to some environments over others.

“The plan specifies different zones in which you can do different types of buildings,” Proakis said. “For example, in the residential district, you can do one of a couple of building types.

A house, triple-decker type or a three-story building is easier to build in a neighborhood square like Ball or

Teele,” he said.

Proakis added that Davis Square’s regulations have remained constant.

“In Davis, you can do a four-story building, though Davis isn’t much different from what it was before,” he added. “And then on the eastern side of the city, which is mainly an industrial area and where the Green Line is going to have a stop in the future, there will be significant transformation.”

According to Proakis, the building types will reflect the current structure of buildings that are already standing in each neighborhood.

“All the building types are going to be based on the measurements of existing buildings, on … what we like about those buildings and about how they work or don’t work,” he said. “Understanding what works to make something fit the character of what surrounds it is important.”

Additionally, Proakis mentioned that it is now easier for artists and businesses to grow in certain places. He said that it is simpler for small businesses to start in neighborhoods where housing is more affordable.

Proakis emphasized that although the ordinance has been submitted, the changes have not yet been made.

“A proposal of what we want to change has to get approved from the Board of Aldermen,” he explained.

“This ordinance has only see ZONING, page 2

by Emma Steiner Daily Staff Writer

Sorority recruitment is experiencing an upward trend, with 310 potential new members going through recruitment this semester, according to Panhellenic Director of Recruitment Victoria Sengstack.

But although recruitment is up, the total number of new members is down, with about 48 new members per sorority, making the average number of women in sororities now 161 per chap-

ter, according to Sengstack.

Sengstack credits the increased numbers of students participating in recruitment to the Panhellenic Council’s recent efforts to make Greek life more accessible for a wider variety of people.

“We are focusing on issues like LGBTQ women in Greek life and how we can make that easier and having those necessary conversations. We are also focusing on making recruitment more financially feasible. The attitude has changed to being much more open and honest

and transparent about what is going on,” Sengstack said.

Director of Programming Neena Kapur added another perspective to the matter. According to her, the Panhellenic Council is aware that diversity issues are not being addressed, and plans to take significant action to change that this semester.

“There is an image that sororities are white, wealthy and heterosexual, and we realized this past semester that see GREEK LIFE, page 2

Evan Sayles / The Tufts Daily

According to Panhellenic Director of Recruitment Victoria Sengtack, many regional colleges are engaging in discussions about diversity and Greek life.

Inside this issue

Today’s sections

Fletcher professor uncovers lack of accountability in national security systems.

Fox’s “Empire” is network TV’s latest attempt to depict American family life.

see FEATURES, page 3

see WEEKENDER, page 5

News 1 Features 3 Weekender 5 Editorial | Letters 10

Op-Ed 11 Comics 12 Sports Back

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Council seeks to make sororities more welcoming GREEK LIFE

continued from page 1

that is not being formally addressed …We really aim to talk about the issues of race, sexuality and socioeconomic status in sororities in order to make people more aware that these are huge issues for sororities that need to be addressed ASAP,” said Kapur.

In an effort to increase transparency, the Panhellenic Council put on a presentation during recruitment this semester to make sure that the financial aspect of sororities was clearly explained to potential new members, Sengstack said. According to Kapur, the large financial commitment of Greek life stands in the way of creating a space more open to women of different backgrounds. These financial commitments, and the way sororities address them, may have a direct connection with this year’s fluctuating recruitment statistics.

Specifically, Kapur indicated that the straightforward presentation about costs may have contributed to more women dropping out of recruitment this semester.

“When the financial information is presented, many girls unfortunately realize that it is difficult to pay and that the payment plans and scholarships may not be able to cover what they need. Girls may have preemptively dropped because of costs,” she said.

Plans to address these and other issues are multifaceted, and include establishing a Panhellenic scholarship, instituting mandatory sensitivity training and holding social justice workshops within each sorority. This spring, the workshops will address race, gender, sexual identity and socioeconomic status, Kapur said. She also mentioned that the Panhellenic Council will be hiring an outside organization each year to teach sororities about dominant identities and oppressed identities.

Furthermore, Kapur added that the Panhellenic Council is also doing internal

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Tufts Daily

work to create several committees to ensure consistent discussion about these issues. For example, Director of Community Outreach Scheherazade Khan will create a group for queer women in sororities — “Something that should have existed a long time ago but now exists, which is awesome and creates a nice space for support,” Kapur said.

Taylor Kennedy, chapter president of AOII, — the first sorority to test out a workshop intended to call attention to potentially isolating ways that sorority women speak to each other, according to Kapur — said that Students Acting for Gender Equality (SAGE) held a workshop with AOII last semester to talk about avoiding certain language that may make some women uncomfortable.

“We talked about creating an open and inclusive space to make everyone feel comfortable and how to open recruitment to people with different backgrounds and different sexual orientations. We need to make sure the space that we are creating is conducive to that,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said that sensitivity training was held for each of the sororities last semester to address the use of respectful language to make all women feel welcome.

According to Sengstack, these discussions are being held throughout the Northeast and contributing to rising interest in Greek life, while Kapur said she believes that Tufts is especially open to these discussions in Greek life.

“Tufts in general is a very white, heternormative space … but in many cases the Tufts environment does lend itself to increasing diversity in sororities. People are talking about race and LGBTQ rights, it is so predominant and so in your face that whether or not you are involved on campus, you have to know about it, you have to have heard,” Kapur said. “It makes bringing this type of [social justice] program to the sorority environment that much easier.”

University endowment grows over FY 2013

by Kathleen Schmidt News Editor

The Tufts endowment has grown from $1.47 billion at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2013 to $2.1 billion at the end of FY 2014, according to the university’s Annual Financial Report. This increase seems to be part of a larger trend.

Christine Sanni, executive director of advancement communications and services, explained that the university’s endowment has seen rapid growth over the past three decades, in part due to large fundraising campaigns.

“In 1980, the endowment was $38 million, and since 1980 we’ve had five comprehensive campaigns,” she said. “The last big fundraising effort we had was called Beyond Boundaries, and that campaign ended in 2011, and it raised $1.2 billion, so every campaign we have raises a substantial amount for the endowment.”

Eric Johnson, vice president for university advancement, said comprehensive campaigns elevate the base level of giving.

“Last year we raised $92 million; this year we’ll be close to or exceed that $92 million figure,” he said. “Prior to the last campaign, our base level was more in the $50 to $60 [million] range.”

Sanni added that every year, about 30 to 50 percent of funds raised go into the endowment. For example, in FY 2014, $92 million was raised, and $31 million of that went into the endowment, as was stipulated by donors, she said.

Johnson noted that the endowment plays a large and direct role in providing students with financial aid.

“People who make endowment gifts for financial aid know that money is restricted for student aid, and that has been one of the focuses of our fundraising,” he said.

Laurie Gabriel ( J ’76), Board of Trustees investment committee chair, added that the growth of the endowment has enabled the university to keep rising tuition costs lower than they otherwise would have been. It also has allowed funding for many projects and facilities on campus along with programs and financial aid that otherwise would not exist, she explained.

“As we look forward, and as the university grows and changes, we hope that the endowment

will continue to grow and potentially support a larger portion of the annual expenses that the university has in providing the high-quality education to all of our students,” she said.

While fundraising is an important part of the endowment’s growth, there are other equally important factors, such as investment performance, Johnson said.

According to Gabriel, there are three factors that affect the level of any endowment: returns earned on money invested, gifts and the return on those gifts and the amount of money spent from the endowment every year.

This year, the university will spend over $70 million from the endowment, she noted.

The endowment is primarily invested in co-mingled funds, in which the university joins with other investors and collectively give their assets to a group of investment managers, Gabriel explained.

“We invest in the public equity market, the stock market, that is,” she said. “We invest in the fixed income markets, we invest in some hedge funds and in some private investments. That kind of structure is fairly typical for all university endowments. I would say that Tufts tends to be financially prudent in all of its operations and that our endowment tends to follow that line and tends to have a somewhat lower-risk profile than some other college endowments.”

Tufts’ endowment had a return of 5.8 percent per year over the last 10 years, which is a typical rate of return for endowments, according to Gabriel. She explained that the university spends five percent of the endowment’s value each year and noted that the effects of inflation also add to the endowment’s costs.

“So in fact our goal is to achieve a higher return than that, a return that would offset the effects of inflation plus spending,” she said.

According to Gabriel, the purpose of the endowment is to support the university in its annual operations on a “forever” basis.

“We assume that the university will be around forever, that it’s going to have a mission of educating students and doing high-quality research … and the endowment is there to help and support that mission,” she said.

Ordinance aims to restructure city’s building goals ZONING

continued from page 1

Nicholas Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Tufts Dining Services employee, Kat Barry, cleans the salad bar in Carmichael Dining Hall on Jan. 27. Kat is considered “Essential” staff, and walked to work for her 5:30 a.m. shift despite hazardous blizzard conditions.

Dining employees sleep overnight in Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie

DINING

continued from page 1

This protocol is not new, Pulsford said.

However, she said that past storms have helped the dining halls improve their preparedness for future inclement weather.

Tufts students are grateful for the hard work of the dining hall staff, and accord-

ing to Pulsford, this gratitude does not go unnoticed.

“We’ve been really touched by everybody being so grateful for the staff staying … The students put up a big thank you [poster] last night, and it really makes all the difference.

It means so much to [dining hall staff members],” Pulsford said.

been reached after hundreds of meetings about the community goals, so we have a pretty good idea of what we want to do and where we want to go, but in order to approve the zoning ordinance, two-thirds of the board has to vote.”

Denis Taylor, Somerville’s director of communications and community engagement, added that Somerville’s zoning code is truly community-driven.

“More than 100 goals that our residents identified over several years of SomerVision community meetings are codified in this code,” Taylor told the Daily in an email. “The code itself was then developed after more than 50 hours of further public meetings. And now we are incorporating additional public comment.”

A community information meeting was held on Jan. 20, where people could express

their reactions to the plan and have their questions answered, according to Proakis.

“It was the first meeting with the whole document, and there were over 100 people,” he said.

Proakis is confident in public support for the zoning changes.

“It seems that, in general, folks are very supportive of what we are trying to do,” Proakis said. “There has been a lot of support for a lot of the individual elements in the zoning ordinance, for example cutting red tape for small businesses.”

Taylor believes that once this is in effect, the city will be exactly on the path the residents want it to be, which is a win for both the community and responsive government.

The Somerville Board of Aldermen is holding a public meeting on Feb. 10, where they will discuss changes, suggestions and improvements before they are ready to vote and put them into effect.

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

Glennon discusses 'double government,' problems with American bureaucracy

by Jessica Mow Features Editor

Michael Glennon is a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His most recent book, National Security and Double Government (2014), explores the true relationship between America’s “visible” institutions, and the ones that really manage national security affairs, away from the public eye. The Tufts Daily sat down with Michael Glennon to discuss his new work.

Tufts Daily: What is ‘double government?’ What does it imply?

Professor Michael Glennon: Well, ‘double government’ refers to the bifurcated system that the United States has fallen into. We now have one set of institutions for show — for public display — and another that actually manage national security policy. People believe that the public institutions — Congress, the presidency and the courts — manage national security policy, but in fact, that policy is defined and implemented by a network of several hundred managers of the intelligence, law enforcement and military departments and agencies of the government, and those agencies are largely immune from democratic accountability.

TD: This other network of people – who are they?

MG: They consist of careerists, and also political appointees and so-called “inand-outers,” including people who move from one agency to another throughout the national security apparatus. It’s a diverse mix of individuals.

TD: So essentially, you have the elected public government that everyone sees, and they have a separate group of people they’re consulting. Is that accurate?

MG: They do more than simply consult. They try to remain in sync with the … expert managers of the national security apparatus because the public institutions aim at maximizing legitimacy, and they can’t do that if they get into frequent fights with the experts who run the national security machinery.

Similarly, those experts recognize that if they play too public a role by crossing the public officials whom the public believes run the show, the experts themselves will lose legitimacy. So both sets of institutions have an interest in maintaining public harmony.

TD: Why is this a bad thing? If public officials are consulting experts – don’t experts know what they’re doing?

MG: Well first, it is not an unmitigated bad thing, because obviously it does provide the American people with security. The managers of the national security apparatus have deep institutional memory, significant expertise, the ability to move quickly and the opaqueness of that machinery is useful in dealing with adversaries.

Unfortunately, these benefits do not come without a cost, and the cost lies in democratic accountability. The courts have ceased to operate as checks on the national security apparatus, congressional oversight is dysfunctional and the president himself more often than not presides rather than decides when it comes to national security decision making.

TD: Are lobbyists involved in this machinery? If so, how do they play a role in this?

MG: That’s an extremely good question and a difficult one, and I don’t really address that in the book. One of the objects in writing the book was to set an agenda for future research by myself and others, so any answer that I give would be speculative because that’s not the question that I looked at systematically.

My study was a study basically of the bureaucracy itself, not external influences on the bureaucracy such as arms manufacturers, foreign governments, domestic lobbies, banking interests, etc.

Glenn Kulbako for Tufts University

Glennon shines a light on the murkier aspects of American politics in his recently finished book, “National Security and Double Government.”

One possibility is that it turns out to be a wash when it comes to lobbies because the very opaqueness of the national security apparatus at once makes it difficult for lobbyists to influence what goes on behind closed doors.

And yet on the other hand, it may be that very sophisticated lobbies are able to penetrate that opaqueness and exercise a level of influence that the mom and pop lobbyists who operate out of little town houses on Capitol Hill could never hope to … match.

TD: If Obama, or Congress, feels very strongly about something, why do they continually go against it? What goes on between the two sides of government to keep this happening?

MG: This element of the bureaucracy, like the bureaucracy itself, has developed a life of its own and a momentum of its own.

It’s much easier for the bureaucracy to continue doing what it’s always done rather than change course. And there are many reasons for that studied by organizational behaviorists, and the book talks about this issue at some length, but the idea that electing a new president will cause programs that have been in effect for decades suddenly to be rethought is a bit naïve.

This more than anything else explains the strange continuity in U.S. national security policy from one administration to the next. Even where there’s a change in the political identity of the presidency, national security policy remains constant, and it’s because that policy is made largely by unelected bureaucrats who are not responsive to electoral constraints.

TD: Does this concept of double government apply to other areas other than national security? If so, how?

MG: That’s also a good question and the answer is yes, clearly. The problem at large is the problem of technocracy and the challenge posed by technocrats to democratic accountability. We saw the same problem during the financial crisis when congressional leaders were forced to shrug their shoulders when they were confronted with the plea to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars to save the economy from imminent collapse.

They had no expertise in these complex financial matters and were forced to, in effect, accept the word of technocrats in the financial community that either they acted or else.

There are other areas also where … the technocracy reigns supreme.

In global warming, for example, and climate change, the debate is largely among those who are experts in one computer model versus another and what appropriately gets coded in one program versus another. Legislators are too busy to become experts in that, so they have no choice but to defer to experts.

All this ultimately undermines the ability of democratically-elected representatives to be generalists and make independent judgments. But there is one key difference, and it’s an extremely important difference — in the area of national security, the departments and agencies in question have the power to radically and permanently alter the legal and political contours of our society, and if they are not kept in check, the potential risk is significant.

TD: How can we go about changing this? What kind of change could happen within the government?

MG: The thesis of my book is that the government is the problem and cannot be the solution … We cannot look to the hollowed out institutions, the hollowed out public institutions — the Congress, the judiciary and the presidency — to exercise the very power that they lack to remedy this situation. The energy must come, if at all, from the outside, which means from the people, and that has to come in the form of renewed energy and dedication to play a meaningful role in governance.

The framers of our constitution thought [about] all this in terms of civic virtue. They believed that the equilibrium of power would collapse without a body politic possessed of the energy and information needed to be good citizens. And unfortunately, the trajectory has been in the opposite direction. As former Justice David Souter has said, ‘pervasive civic ignorance’ — his phrase — is an extremely significant problem today, and it’s getting worse.

And until it starts to get a lot better, our nation doesn’t really have any hope of returning to the system that James Madison had in mind.

This interview has been edited and abridged.

Ecofeminism for All | miranda Willson

The myth of human nature

M

any of my high school history teachers taught watered-down versions of political theories and concepts. In particular, I remember one history teacher who was fond of “fillin-the-blank” note sheets. When he taught our class about capitalism, we completed the following phrase in a handout: “Adam Smith believed that humans are _____, and that this is _____,” with the answers being “greedy” and “a good thing.”

I suppose it’s only natural to try to determine why humans act in the bad ways they do and to assume that these bad tendencies are innate to human beings. Perhaps it’s also natural for some people to suggest that sex, gender, race and ethnicity determine certain “natural” tendencies as well. But while it’s thankfully become fairly unacceptable among progressive-thinking people to make generalizations about the “nature” of specific groups of people, many progressive people are comfortable making similar generalizations about “human nature” in general. Specifically, many people I know share cynical views about the human race being naturally greedy and selfish.

Making generalizations about human nature, compared to generalizations about the nature of people of different sexes, sexual and gender identities, races and nationalities feels less harmful because it doesn’t target one group. It isn’t racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic to say that humans are naturally greedy, corrupt, power-hungry, wary of foreigners, etc. because it doesn’t sound like any one group is being stereotyped; rather, it suggest that we’re all “equally” bad.

But these statements are harmful for a different reason. They allow us to accept the world the way it is and to dismiss visions of a world that’s different from our current capitalist, neoliberal, conflict-ridden and environmentally destructive society as impractical and contrary to “human nature.”

Moreover, statements about the “natural” tendencies of humans in general can be as silencing as statements about the tendencies of specific groups of people. To quote Marx: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.”

It might seem logical to buy into cynical views about humans, accept that certain levels of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, wealth inequality and overall selfishness are somewhat intrinsic among humans, or at least among some humans; after all, humans have done some unspeakably awful things over the course of history, and continue to do bad things today. But when we assume that these actions stem from intrinsic human qualities, we rule out the possibility of ever changing these qualities and creating a world that enhances and emphasizes different “natural” qualities humans possess, such as compassion, openness, generosity and trust.

Moreover, if we accept the notion that humans have naturally selfish tendencies — which primarily benefit the self-interested “ruling class”— then we can easily say that no world system other than our current one could ever succeed.

In my experience, individuals act selfishly because they feel like they need to do so in order to get ahead, because they worry that if they don’t, they’ll get screwed over by others.

But it doesn’t necessarily make people happier or more fulfilled. In fact, acting less selfishly is what builds strong, trusting, meaningful relationships with others and with ourselves, which personally gives my life meaning more than anything else.

Perhaps selfishness is an innate trait, used to justify, or at least accept, the degradation of the earth and disregard and even dehumanize others. But we need to stop believing that it is the only, or the most significant, human characteristic if we want to hold people responsible for degrading the planet and the people who live on it, and if we want to start changing the way our world is run and who is in power.

Miranda Willson is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. She can be reached at miranda.willson@tufts.edu.

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Weekender Arts & Living

‘Empire’ shows evolution of TV's modern American family Chuck Hodes/FOX

“Empire” is a sexy and powerful new drama about the head of a music empire whose three sons and ex-wife all battle for his throne.

by Grace Segers Assistant Arts Editor

The beginning of 2015 saw the meteoric rise of a new popular television show: Fox’s “Empire.” The show premiered on Jan. 7 and has been steadily increasing in its ratings since its pilot episode. In fact, Fox has already renewed the show, which stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, for a second season. “Empire’s” rating success is especially significant, in part, because the show breaks the mold which has plagued American TV for decades: the white, nuclear, affluent family that became a stock image for networks of the American dream.

The show has a primarily AfricanAmerican cast and focuses on the family of a hip-hop scion. The only new show which rivals the high viewership and ratings of “Empire” is “How to Get Away with Murder” (2014 – present), which stars Viola Davis and also features an incredibly diverse cast. Popular shows are no longer solely white, and high ratings reflect the popularity of shows with diverse casts among a diverse American audience.

Shows like “Empire” seem to be slowly subverting traditional, and limited, television tropes as they climb to success.

“Empire” is fundamentally a show about family, a common theme in American television since the medium’s inception. And “family” TV shows tend to promote or condemn a specific vision of the American dream: traditional success through hard work. In the past, the typical nuclear family formed the ideal toward which citizens must strive; classic shows from “Leave It to Beaver” (1957-1963) to “The Donna Reed Show” (1958-1966) exemplify this goal. In “The Donna Reed Show,” for example, the

housewife Donna Stone (Donna Reed) and her pediatrician husband Alex (Carl Betz) live in perfect, suburban matrimonial bliss with their two children. This was the ’50s American Television “ideal” — a Caucasian middle-class life in which the husband provided for his family members, and his wife cared them.

But, naturally, over the years, the picture of the “successful American family” began to shift, albeit incrementally. “The Brady Bunch” (1969 – 1974) featured a blended family — two widowed parents married to bring together two sets of siblings. Even if it still promoted the middle class, white version of the American dream, “The Brady Bunch” stepped a little outside of the cookie-cutter image and allowed other subsequent shows to take bigger strides away from that image.

Later, “Full House” (1987 – 1995), showed three father figures taking care of three little girls, a less-than-traditional method of childcare which diverted from the female-centric caretaker image featured on TV in decades past.

“The Cosby Show” (1984 – 1992) and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1990 – 1996) introduced a more diverse view of successful American family life. Wealthy or upper-middle-class African-American family members were the central characters of these shows which, in turn, explored their successes and failures.

These shows constituted a revolution in the portrayal of the American family in television, a positive beginning which led to the development of shows like “Empire.” The American dream was still based on capitalism, on self-reliance and traditional values, but it was no longer for white families alone.

Throughout the 20th century, mainstream television enforced a specific

Chuck Hodes/FOX

Cookie Lyon has a strong relation with her son, Jamal, after her release from prison.

social norm with regards to proper family life: a middling to wealthy families with parents (or parental figures) who teach their children correct values, whether these lessons are about study habits to succeed in school, or surviving the pains of young love. But thus far, family-centric television shows of the twenty-first century have often sought to subvert the traditional picture of successful family bliss. “The Sopranos” (1999 – 2007), “Breaking Bad” (2008 – 2013) and “Mad Men” (2007 – present) focus on men with questionable motives and ambition, anti-heroes who do terrible things under the pretense of protecting their families. These shows taunted audiences with their morally gray protagonists and exaggerated portrayals of familial dysfunction, leaving a sea of ambiguity in their wake. Are we supposed to root for Tony Soprano, Walter White and Don Draper as they become darker and sacrifice more?

Are we supposed to hope that their wives and children will redeem their patriarch, or that they will run away? And in a crumbling economy, in a violent world, is family life actually sustainable?

These cynical dramas present a twisted version of the American dream, showing that the capitalistic ideal which citizens have been prescribed as a roadmap for success actually can lead one down a path of darkness. While these shows do each have white, male-dominant perspectives — not every aspect of television has been revolutionized as of yet — but these shows nonetheless present a different vision of what family life is and should be.

Even more comedic shows of the twenty-first century have questioned traditional nuclear family values. “Gilmore Girls” (2000-2007) follows a young single mother and her daughter. And LGBT couples are being (slowly) integrated into the social norm of what a proper family is, with examples such as “Modern Family” (2009-present) and “The Fosters”(2013present). It’s about time.

Meanwhile, even “Empire’s” competition in its time slot, Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m., demonstrates this broadening horizon. Airing simultaneously are ABC’s “Modern Family” and “Blackish” (2014-Present), which shows the trials and tribulations of a modern AfricanAmerican family. Clearly, the idea of what “family” means in America, and American television, has transformed over the decades, and “Empire” seems to be keeping with the tradition of subversion.

In the first episode of “Empire,” the dramatic tension is set, as hip-hop legend and record company owner Lucious Lyon (Howard) is forced to confront his mortality. After being diagnosed with ALS, Lyon must choose which of his three sons will be entrusted with the empire he has built. There’s Andre (Trai Byers), the business savvy eldest son with no musical

ear. Soulful, musically gifted Jamal (Jussie Smollett) is the middle child and perhaps the most suitable heir to the company, though he is overlooked and abused by his father because he is gay. Hakeem Lyon (Bryshere Gray) is the spoiled youngest son, a talented rapper with no sense of responsibility or accountability.

Lyon’s choice of heir is further complicated by his ex-wife, Cookie Lyon’s (Taraji P. Henson), release from prison. Lyon built his company using the money Cookie earned by selling drugs, and now she is back for vengeance. By the end of the first episode, Cookie has gained control of Jamal’s musical career, acting as his advocate and manager in the face of Lyon’s homophobic prejudice against his second son. Henson is brilliant as Cookie, her characterization vacillating between wounded victim, loving mother and conniving businesswoman. She’s the Lady Macbeth of an already-Shakespearean plot; traditional mother figure, Cookie is not. She cares for her children deeply, but is willing to pit them against each other if it serves her purposes.

The traditional family and the American dream are no longer the ideals they once were. As citizens have been disillusioned by wars and a recession, by civil unrest and institutionalized racial and gender oppression, television shows must constantly reflect dramatically changing — and often anxiety-ridden — times. These themes are especially apparent in “Empire.” Lucious Lyon may be an incredibly wealthy and successful business owner, but his gritty origins as a drug dealer are ever apparent through flashbacks. And while Cookie and Lyon are seemingly respectable, Howard and Henson constantly resonate raw ruthless power underneath their perfectly coiffed hair.

The ideal of “The Donna Reed Show,” the 1950s dream, is long gone. It has been replaced by a new version of family life, one which at least partially discards traditional white and heteronormative storylines in favor of a more complex, and honest, take on storytelling. “Empire” is just the latest of a slew of shows that explore a different aspect of American lifestyle. And, thus far, it successfully portrays how families can live with a balance of both happiness and darkness, wealth and fear.

The American dream, once more, is changed, and will continue to be catalogued on television screens.

The American Family Through Time and TV see pages 6-7

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The Tufts Daily

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Weekender

Top ten things children have that adults should have too The semester has officially started, and all students are getting back into the routine of binge watching Netfli... studying. Remember the old days, when times were much simpler? You didn’t even have work to procrastinate on! Though we can’t go back (unless you’re a celebrity and have officially discovered the fountain of youth), we can reminisce about the things we used to have as children that helped us stay innocent and carefree. In fact, someone should make these things for adults. Here are the top 10 children’s things that should be made for grown-ups: 10. Picture books that explain difficult concepts. We’ve come close with gems like “Go the Fuck to Sleep” (2011), but grownups should have their own educational books too. Potential titles include “Diaries of a Wimpy Taxpayer” and “The Magic School Bus Explores the Mysteries of Chlamydia.”

9. Fun flavored toothpaste. Remember when you used to go to the dentist, and they would ask you what flavor you wanted them to clean your teeth with? My favorites were always blue raspberry and marshmallow (but

not at the same time, obviously — I’m not a monster). Now it’s more like “would you like mint or EXTRA MINT?” 8. Goodie bags at the dentist. Speaking of which, we used to get considerably better treatment from our doctors and dentists.

At my dentist’s office, you got to pick out a handful of fun toys and were given a balloon after every appointment. Nowadays, you get a travel tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush and, if you’re really bad at flossing, a whole bunch of floss.

7. Recess. When else could you get a whole chunk of time that was just designated for playing with other people your age? I guess you could argue that we now have our own free time and independence and blah blah… but I mean… recess.

6. Onesies. Just kidding. We have those and they’re awesome. If you don’t own an adult onesie, you’re not doing college right.

5. Car- and castle-shaped beds. Or whatever shape you want, really. Basically, if you want a cool looking bed that you can actu-

Artsy Nugget

Death Cab for Cutie makes triumphant return with

by Nika Korchok Executive Arts Editor

Death Cab for Cutie’s hiatus from music is officially over. The band is back with a movement and a gesture that is so characteristically sweeping and grandiose, it feels as though they were never really gone.

To promote its new album “Kintsugi,” out in March, the band created a lyric video for its new single “Black Sun.” In order to create this video, however, lead singer Ben Gibbard wrote out the lyrics to the entire song on a giant piece of canvas and then cut that canvas into 33 pieces. The band then held a contest on Instagram, and gave each of the winners a piece of the canvas. Coming together, fans were able to uncover the entire song, and to create a piece of collaborative artwork between artist and audience.

The lyric video is not a typical wordson-screen montage. It’s a gorgeous piece of video art that takes viewers through geometrically-balanced mountain ranges set in a neutral sepia-toned color scheme.

At the center is the song’s symbol: a black sun. The song sounds like classic Death Cab; It’s eerily similar in tonality and lyrics to tracks like “Grapevine Fires” and “Talking Bird” from 2008’s “Narrow Stairs” and “Different Names for the Same Thing” off of 2005’s “Plans.” Fans who were disappointed with the band’s 2011 album “Codes and Keys” will be overjoyed with this return to classic poetic beauty that established Death Cab as an indie darling in the 2000s.

In an era when music videos for huge pop artists are becoming more and more like walking advertisements for the medley of brands that endorse them — see J. Lo’s “Dance Again Ft. Pitbull” (2012) – Death Cab is sticking to what it does best: producing beautiful music, art and a transcendent cinematic experience for listeners.

Kit Collins

ally fit in now, you’re going to need either a lot of money or mad carpentry skills. Why are all the awesome beds twin sized? Why can’t I sleep like a princess too?

4. Food from the children’s menu. I’m all for trying adventurous foods, but what if all restaurants had a menu of everyone’s favorite foods in addition to their regular menu? You wouldn’t have to worry about liking what you order because every time you know exactly what you’re getting. I’m just saying. Now, speaking of food…

3. Fun menus at restaurants. No one enjoys waiting for their food. As grown-ups, we pretend to enjoy each other’s company and conversation, but during that conversation all we’re really thinking is, “I could really use some crayons and a word search right about now.”

2. Playgrounds. Some places (Madrid is one of them) have attempted to make playgrounds for adults but have miserably failed because they make them as “alternatives to the gym” or something dumb like that. Just give us our darn playgrounds! We just want

adult sized monkey bars and slides! Don’t give me that “exercise” crap, I’m only here to have fun.

1. Naptime. I know most of you do this in college anyway (you’re not human if you don’t nap), but it should be mandatory like it was in the old days. Companies should be required to allow two hours off in the afternoon — one for lunch and one for sleeping — and be forced to designate an entire room to sleeping bags and couches. Hell, let’s make them put in bunk beds!

—by Jessica Mow

Spotlight

Marcella Hastings paves way for ‘swants’ revolution

by Jennifer Straitz Assistant Arts Editor

Senior and comp sci extraordinaire Marcella Hastings is quietly crafting a revolution, though it may not be in exactly the form one would expect. Spending considerable amounts of time walking the hallowed halls of Halligan, her true passion lies outside these walls in the up-and-coming art of swantsmaking.

Swants, or sweater pants, are created through a somewhat elaborate process of repurposing a sweater (preferably from Goodwill) into one’s own pair of pants. In an email interview with the Daily, Hastings explained her commitment to the art of swants. Considering one can pick his or her own swants pattern and add personal touches, such as a belt, it is no wonder that the attire has “played an integral role in [Hastings’] personal development for a little more than a year.”

After coming across the fashion phenomenon on Nov. 9, 2013, Hastings knew she would be dedicating a significant portion of her life to bringing the joy of this clothing option to a greater audience. The senior astutely notes “a lot of people know of swants, but don’t necessarily consider them a functional day-today clothing article … I’ve really been working on breaking down those prejudices and stereotypes.”

Hastings has even reached out to the original creator of this clothesmaking process, knitting instructor Stephen West. She describes the depth of her relationship with West as “quite close,” as demonstrated by his response to her inquiry on his blog and the fact that he both “liked and commented on [Hastings and her

Courtesy David Hastings

Hastings and her siblings discovered the swants movement in November 2013. siblings’] original swants pictures in 2014.” For those still apprehensive about taking the plunge into wearing their own knitted creation, Hastings provides comfort with these words of assurance: “I’ve had a lot of positive interactions with people who were nervous about the whole swants movement, or considered themselves ‘not crafty enough’ to make a pair, [but then] realized that the barrier to swants is much smaller than it appears.”

Courtesy David Hastings

The AMERICAN FAMILY THROUGH TIME AND TELEVISION 1969-1974

2008-2013

“The Brady Bunch” sitcom follows two families who were brought together when their widowed parents remarried.

“Breaking Bad” followed the adventures of Walter White as he transformed from high school chemistry teacher to meth drug lord to support his family.

1958-1966 “The Donna Reed Show” starred Donna Reed as Donna Stone: a middle-class housewife with her nuclear family, a doctor husband and two kids.

Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn PR via Wikimedia Commons

ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons

Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times/MCT

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Tufts Daily

A SWUG's Life | Nikki Blank

What's up this weekend Looking to make your weekend artsy?

Check out these events!

Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year Parade: Start your weekend early with one of the oldest theater groups in the world as they honor their woman of the year: Amy Poehler! Aside from the extravagant parade led by Poehler herself, Harvard Square will be bustling with a variety of performance and free food from local restaurants. (Today beginning at 2:45 p.m. by the Harvard Inn and continuing through the evening.)

Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawī / The Prophet’s Birthday: Join Tufts’ Noor Ensemble as they present a concert of sacred songs

from Morocco, Syria and beyond to celebrate the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. (Friday at 8 p.m. in Distler Performance Hall. Admission is free, no tickets required.)

Road Salt: A 4500 Mile Journey: Student photographer and filmmaker Allison Cekala — MFA student at Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston– takes viewers to a distant Chilean desert, where the road salt that now covers our roads originates. Through beautiful images and photos, the exhibit will allow you to explore the long journey of winter road salt from the Atacama Desert to Massachussetts. (Opens Saturday at the Museum of Science, Boston; Free

with Exhibit Halls admission – Exhibit Halls admission is $23 per person or free with a membership to the museum.)

The World of George Enescu: Pianist Andrew Rangell and violinist Aaron Boyd join forces to perform the major works of the highly esteemed Romanian composer, George Enescu. The concert will feature some of Enescu’s most lively and challenging pieces, including “Sonata in F minor”(1899), “Carillon Nocturne”(1916) and “Impressions of Childhood”(1940).

(Sunday at 3 p.m. in Distler Performance Hall. Admission is free, no tickets required.)

—compiled by Anjali Nair

Album Review

Sleater-Kinney comes back with a vengeance on 'No Cities to Love'

by Anjali Nair

Assistant Arts Editor

Fans of the Riot Grrrl movement have been shaking with excitement since the announcement last October that Washington band Sleater-Kinney would be releasing a new album after its eightyear hiatus.

The feminist punk trio tore through the ’90s and early 2000s with a slew of feisty, politically-charged anthems that left critics loopy with admiration. Not only did the members help garner respect for female rock musicians, but they also had opinions to share, social movements to herald and causes for which to fight. During an arguably whiny and unproductive era of music, Sleater-Kinney was determined to make a difference in the world.

After the dissolution of the group music critic Greil Marcus once declared “the best band in the world,” alternative rock was devoid of a strong, femalefronted activist band for years, as lethargic indie folk and ukulele-wielding singer-songwriters conquered the airwaves. More recently however, 2000-era bands have risen from the ashes of ’90s girl punk — bands like Perfect Pussy and Potty Mouth who are defying the odds of a male-dominated industry.

Thus, Sleater-Kinney’s reunion album could not have come at a more appropriate time in music history. “No Cities to Love,” released on Jan. 20, runs in the direction of modern alt-rock, embracing fuzzed-out stoner tones while throwing some irresistible melodies on top.

But that’s not to say that the album is some sort of tired imitation of what’s hot in the music scene right now. On the contrary, it is a powerful record full of snarling guitars and thunderous drums. Even on the first listen, it’s clear that there’s something special about Sleater-Kinney that its contemporaries have not yet rivaled. Perhaps it’s the bounding, relentless energy that bubbles beneath the surface of the record. Not once does it stop to catch its breath — it’s as if there’s an unexplained urgency in its message. It’s fresh and youthful, but without even a tinge of naiveté.

The opening track, “Price Tag,” starts off with a lone guitar riff, which is soon intensified by a driving drumbeat. It’s as if

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weekender

the verses are sung through gritted teeth, with vocalist Corin Tucker restraining herself as she sings about the mundane rituals of life keeping to the status quo.

This self-control breaks in the refrains as Janet Weiss’ pounding drums crescendo.

Tucker gets to the point, expressing frustration with the capitalist, corporate system and struggling to stand above it. Her anger soars amidst a constant, grinding riff that occasionally gives way to a sloppy melee of dissonant notes and chords. This pattern in the music perfectly mirrors the narrative of the song; The singer tries to suppress her anger, but she becomes just too fed up to hold it together.

“Price Tag” sets a high standard for the rest of the album, but it’s only an introduction to Sleater-Kinney 2.0. The band deals out track after addictive track, never abandoning its punk rock roots, but showing tremendous growth nonetheless. Later, “A New Wave” is a highlight on the album with its messy, noise-rock guitars and catchy melodies. Tucker and guitarist Carrie Brownstein — now of “Portlandia” (2011-present) fame — harmonize during the chorus, singing: “No one here is taking notice / No outline will ever hold us / It’s not a new wave, it’s just you and me.” Though the track is characteristically similar to the group’s ’90s work, it still sounds absurdly contemporary. Before the vocals come in, it could easily be mistaken for a Speedy Ortiz song, perhaps proving Sleater-Kinney’s influence on the new rock scene.

The next track, “No Anthems,” takes an abrupt turn from the poppy sensibilities of “A New Wave” and delves into a heavy, sludgy breakdown reminiscent of Kyuss. Throughout the song, the listener can hear Brownstein’s guitar crackle with distortion, a discordant fury that eventually builds into a blaring solo. It ends quite abruptly, however, giving way to the only weak song on the album, “Gimme Love.” While there’s nothing particularly offensive about the seesawing guitar lines and standard beat on this track, Tucker’s signature wail is simply too intolerable to sit through.

Fortunately, this loss of momentum is picked up in abundance in “Bury Our Friends,” the lead single from the album.

SWUG blowing up on a Tuesday

T

his blizzard is the best thing to ever happen to us, because we are in love with the hot cocoa, and we get two SWUG days! No class. No internships.

No interviews. No “What are you going to do with your life?” We are stuck inside our Target-decorated houses and forced to wear pajamas and watch Netflix all day. But in case binge-watching “Friends” (1994-2004) gets a little tiresome, here are some alternative SWUG Day activities to keep you preoccupied: 1. The gym is closed, which means you have all the excuses in the world to not work out today. Butttt spring break is soon approaching, which means you gotta work that buttttt. Do some leg circuits in your living room while your oven preheats.

2. Online shop for “half-price admission to wine tours in Boston” on Groupon and for a screw dress. Blizzards mean sales, people! What better time to spend your/your parents’ money than when you’re incapable of leaving the house.

3. Invite over a cuddle buddy and “sleep.”

Like all day. Just be careful … this storm is called Juno…

4. Bake a batch of brownies the night before the snow day (or employ a friend to bake) and eat one of those brownies for breakfast. Good thing your Nana made sure that you went grocery shopping.

5. Throw an Uptown Funk (2014) dance party in your basement. Canes and top hats: optional. Learning the dance: required upon entry. Oozing swag like Bruno: dependent on BAC.

sarae via Flickr Creative Commons

Guitarist Carrie Brownstein plays with distorted tones on Sleater-Kinney’s newest album “No Cities to Love.”

It’s at once catchy and dynamic, with layered guitars and harmonized vocals.

For the first time on the record, the band slows down with a brief, dreamy interlude. The song leaves little to be desired, except maybe more of it.

“No Cities to Love” is a testament to the musicians’ progress as songwriters. Surely, the members’ side projects — Weiss and Brownstein’s band Wild Flag and Tucker’s solo effort — gave them plenty of experience in that regard. Often, when bands reunite after periods of inactivity, the spark dies out, resulting in a bland, jaded performance. But age has not worn down the women of Sleater-Kinney; if anything, it has made them bolder and more impassioned in their quest to change the world.

2015-present “Empire” centers around hip hop mogul Lucious Lyon as he faces ALS and must choose the heir to lead his company and control the hip hop empire he has built.

2014-present “Black-ish” follows the life of Andre ‘Dre’ Johnson as he navigates family life in the suburbs with his wife and four children.

6. Do all the things you used to do on a Snow Day in elementary school but make them a little more age appropriate. Instead of pouring soda onto snow to make snow cones, pour your favorite adult drink onto snow to make things a little more interesting. Instead of just boring sledding down a hill, now try BLEACHER SLEDDING! Trek to Hillsides for something to give that hot cocoa a little kick. Take a sip every time your Tamagachi dies. Wonder if these are things your mama did every time you had a snow day growing up. Dial her up and ask.

7. If you’re brave enough, lace up those snow boots and explore the winter wonderland of Tufts with your thermos and selfie stick. Make SWUG angels on the football field. Build an igloo to hide from your job applications. Take a cute new LinkedIn pic that says, “The cold never bothered me anyways.” Wear something skimpy under a onesie ski outfit and parade around Dewick.

Ring Anthony Monaco’s doorbell and start a snowball fight.

8. Read “Infinite Jest” (1996).

9. Keep re-reading the first paragraph of “Infinite Jest.”

10. Give up and read a Buzzfeed article.

11. Do a Dare Bowl and fill up a bowl with scandalous dares like: “Call your landlord and ask him if he received your January rent check” and “Update your resume on a job application” and “Call your grandparents and make sure they still have power.” SWUG blowin’ up on a Tuesday!

12. Does Helen’s deliver in the snow? A research project! ** 13. Make a time capsule and bury it in your backyard in the snow. Two months from now, you’ll know exactly what you were doing during the blizzard.

14. Ask me lots of questions!

Do you want to build a SWUGman?!

SWUG **Your favorite SWUGs tried #12. Helen’s doesn’t deliver during a blizzard. V upsetting.

ABC/Craig Sjodin via Flickr Creative

via Dennis Van Tine/ABACAUSA.COM/MCT

NIKA KORCHOK / THE TUFTS DAILY

Nikki Blank is a senior majoring in English. She can be reached at Nicole.

Blank@tufts.edu

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ACADEMIC YEAR 2015-2016 The International House (13 Sawyer Ave.) is recruiting new residents for academic year 2015-2016 3 Doubles, 1 Triple and 7 Singles available.

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Thursday, January 29, 2015

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Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Tufts Daily

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THE TUFTS DAILY Drew Z. Robertson Editor-in-Chief

Editorial

Jacob Indursky Reena Karasin Managing Editors

Audrey Michael Executive News Editor Daniel Bottino News Editors Jenna Buckle Shana Friedman Nina Goldman Stephanie Haven Alexa Horwitz Patrick McGrath Justin Rheingold Kathleen Schmidt Jei-Jei-Tan Denali Tietjen Melissa Wang Meagan Adler Assistant News Editor Marianna Athanassiou Melissa Kain Arin Kerstein Eeman Malik Safiya Nanji Sophie Lehrenbaum Aaron Pomerance Emma Steiner Gabriella Zoia Jake Taber Executive Features Editor Maya Blackstone Features Editors Sophie Dasinger Hannah Fingerhut Jess Mow Mengqi Sun Shannon Vavra Nicole Brooks Greta Jochem Assistant Features Editors Arin Kerstein Becca Leibowitz Yuki Zaninovich Nika Korchok Executive Arts Editor Dana Guth Arts Editors Grace Segers Anjali Nair Assistant Arts Editors Joshua Podolsky Jennifer Straitz Ross Dember Executive Sports Editor Marcus Budline Sports Editors Alex Connors Wil Glavin Sam Gold Steven Hefter Alison Kuah Tyler Maher Jorge Monroy-Palacio Alex Schroeder Maclyn Senear Chris Warren Ray Paul Biron Assistant Sports Editors Phillip Goldberg Josh Slavin

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Editorial | Letters

Editorial

Regardless of Tsarnaev trial outcome, justice must come from a legitimate trial

Almost two years after the Boston Marathon bombing and the resulting chaos, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial is finally approaching. The trial, which is expected to last for months, will be a trying time for this city; some of our most painful memories will be brought back as the events of those awful April days are re-examined.

However, our lasting anger, sadness and frustration over the bombings must not be an impediment to Tsarnaev’s right to a fair trial.

Although the trial has yet to officially begin, it is already embroiled in controversy. Much of this controversy stems from issues surrounding jury selection.

The court is charged with the daunting task of overseeing the selection of an impartial jury whose opinions of the defendant, Tsarnaev, have not already been colored by their prior knowledge of the incident, which quite clearly has affected most, if not all, Americans. This process, which is currently under way, has lasted far longer than originally expected.

The reasons for this are troubling.

First, there’s the fact that the trial will take place in Boston. Unsurprisingly, finding local jurors who do not already have an opinion on Tsarnaev’s guilt or innocence has been extremely difficult. According to the New York Times, 68 percent of the jurors screened so far are already convinced that he is guilty, while 69 percent

stated that they felt personally connected to the case. In an attempt to evade this glaring issue, Tsarnaev’s defense team has made four separate requests that the trial be moved to a location farther away from the scene of the bombings, but so far the requests have not been granted.

Second, because the Justice Department is pursuing the death penalty for Tsarnaev, jurors must be morally unopposed to capital punishment in order to be selected. This narrows the pool of possible jurors even further; Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1984, and its approval has been steadily decreasing across the country for years. We already know that the majority of Massachusetts voters are fundamentally opposed to this outcome, and are thereby automatically disqualified from sitting on the jury. Additionally, because of the demographic breakdown of death penalty supporters, who are more likely to be white, male Republicans, the jury is less likely to be an accurate representation of the American public.

The problems inherent in a jury selection like this one do not exactly inspire confidence in the moral purity of the justice system. It is important, however, that we resist rushing through this trial, eager to arrive at a death penalty verdict, an execution and “vengeance” — whatever that means. Regardless of one’s personal views of Tsarnaev, by choosing the fed-

eral legal system as a medium to discuss crimes against society and retribution for said crimes, the government has rested the legitimacy of its right to punish wrongdoers in the hands of the people.

While it is perfectly understandable that many would like to see this case over and done with as soon as possible, we need to take great care to ensure that justice is rightfully served. No one is denying that the acts committed at the marathon are inexcusable and shouldn’t go unpunished. The presumption of innocence, however, is one of the bedrocks of our judicial system, and if jurors do not have open minds before the trial begins, the process is hardly more than a sham.

When we arrive at a verdict and sentence, it should be a fair and just one, legitimized by the tenants enshrined in liberty and justice.

Given the tremendous amount of evidence against him, there is little doubt that Tsarnaev will be found guilty. The real question at hand here will be whether or not we can collectively set aside our biases and give him the fair trial that he deserves. The issue of the death penalty is one thing, but if we cannot legitimize a sentence by fair trial and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the very basis of our legal system becomes called into question. We must remain committed to our values and to justice, no matter how emotionally conflicting that may be.

Clara belk

Scott Geldzahler Executive Op-Ed Editor Ray Bernoff Susan Kaufman Olivia Montgomory Ruchira Parikh Keran Chen Cartoonists Ty Enos Jennifer Lien Hannah Hoang Editorialists Katie Matejcak Natasha Khwaja Bailey Werner Nicholas Pfosi Evan Sayles Caroline Ambros Sofie Hecht

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Letter from the Opinion Editor

by Scott Geldzahler Opinion Executive Editor

Why hello there. I hope you are all emerging nicely from your hibernation during the snow days, and that everyone’s respective lives are back on track.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Scott Geldzahler and I am the opinion executive editor for this semester. Truth be told, Opinion is comprised of two sections: Editorial and Op-Ed. To explain the difference briefly, the Editorial page represents the views of “The Tufts Daily” and the editorial board, while the Op-Ed page consists of opinion pieces written by contributing writers and students interested in publishing their views.

As is always the case, anyone can submit an Op-Ed piece to the Daily as long as it conforms to our policy for acceptance (nearly every submitted article does). Yet, when submissions lack, we’ve published a large amount of content from other school papers — labeled in the print edition of the paper as Off-the-Hills — about issues echoed in the discussions occurring on our campus. While Off-the-Hills certainly have their place, and can be

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

quite relevant to our community, they are not actually the words of Tufts students, the primary voices we wish to publish.

So, this semester, we are making some changes to the way we fill the Opinion section.

The Daily has hired seven fantastic Tufts students to serve as Op-Ed contributors. These writers will focus on a specific topic and regularly offer their personal opinions and arguments through the Op-Ed page. To complement our (similarly fabulous) editorial staff, the submissions of the Op-Ed contributors will form a more diverse chorus of Tufts student voices, and while their work is not a reflection of the views of the Daily, they are indeed more reflective of campus views than articles from other papers. Here’s a quick introduction to the Op-Ed contributors and their “beats.”

Jamie Neikrie will be writing about the social and ethical aspects of politics at home and abroad. Zach Shapiro will discuss various issues facing the Middle East, while Diane Alexander comments more locally, presenting her view on campus life and Tufts-specific issues.

Madeline Bacchus will be writing about

feminism on Tufts campus and college culture, and Alex Dorfman takes up the sexuality and gender beat. Finally, Sam Berzok will focus on domestic politics, but with the unique perspective of being abroad for the semester.

Throughout the semester, we hope you find yourself thinking critically about what these writers choose to discuss, and the arguments they make. You may agree with them on some things, disagree on others and perhaps they may present an argument you hadn’t even considered before. All of this is excellent.

The Daily wants to hear from you. We want to publish what Tufts students think is important, and serve as a forum for a higher level of debate. If you personally find yourself outraged, miffed, disheartened or excited about anything, we can publish your views, and we want to hear from you.

Without perspective, without interpretation, framing, judgement and without Opinion, news is incomplete. Together, we can raise the level of discourse and debate on this campus. If you don’t speak up, there’s no way to be heard.

Cheers, Scott H. Geldzahler

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 2 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com.

All letters must be word processed and include the writer’s name and telephone number. There is a 450-word limit and letters must be verified.

The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length.

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

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Tufts Daily

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Op-Ed

Op-Ed

Reply All | Henry Jani

TUDS staff prove that they're basically superheroes, again

by Diane Alexander

Tufts University Dining Services, as always, has done us a great service for the past two days, with Carmichael and Dewick Dining Halls remaining open despite the doomsday snowstorm.

and shampoo to employees who choose to stay; there is no requirement for staying on campus, but as an “essential” employee it can often be the best option.

Since so many students rely entirely upon the dining halls for food – especially first-year, who are obligated to

Students have expressed their gratefulness on the Facebook page as well as on Yik Yak and Twitter.

Tufts Dining ( TUDS) informs its employees upon hiring whether or not their positions are “essential” – if so, they are required to work during emergency situations like on Tuesday and Wednesday. There is a review of this policy three times a year. Tufts also provides accommodations and basic amenities like toothpaste, soap

have the unlimited meal plan – there’s no visible alternative to keeping them open no matter the circumstances.

Plenty of people have snacks in their rooms, but plenty don’t, going to the dining halls or other TUDS options for every meal. On Tuesday, students who do not work at TUDS stepped up to help out at Carm, and this provides a somewhat feasible possibility for extreme conditions. However, given the number of times that the “essen-

Op-Ed Contributer

Jen Lien

tial employee” policy has undergone reviews and made it out intact, change probably isn’t on the horizon.

While it makes us students feel bad to know that many of the folks who serve our meals slept in Carm and Dewick on air mattresses – specifically, around 10 staffers in Dewick and six in Carm – it seems unlikely that anyone is going to do anything about it. We’re simply too reliant on the dining halls.

Even those of us who are off the meal plan should be thanking them – everyone has a meal plan for at least their first year, so all the students have benefitted from Tufts Dining’s dedication at some point or another. Tufts students have heaped praise on TUDS via social media and put up a thank-you banner on Tuesday, but it’s also a great time to more thoroughly acknowledge the work they do for us.

Leave a nice note on the noteboards – we all have our favorite meals at Dewick and Carm. If the stir-fry that night is even more delicious than usual, say so. If you dream of Dewick’s Sunday brunch every Saturday night, write it down. The staff responds to most of the notes they get, and it’s an easy way to show some love.

Besides that, there’s some other basic stuff you can do as well. Don’t leave plates and food on the tables.

Make use of the conveyor belts – they’re there for a reason. Be nice to the dining staff, because they go above and beyond all the time, and it makes a difference.

With all that in mind, this is my challenge to those of you who go to the dining halls with any regularity: Remember to do all that when we weren’t snowed in for two days straight. TUDS works hard year-round, and many of them stay past closing every night to make sure everything is clean for the next day of feeding Tufts kids. They’re the ones we have to thank for weekly brunch, every holiday feast TUDS has given us and all the Dining Around The World days. They do awesome things for us all the time, and we appreciate that, so we should show it.

Don’t reserve being a nice person to the staff for the period immediately following Tufts Dining being extra-extragreat – they’re always extra-great, so it’s your job to always be nice to them.

Respect the people who feed you.

They’re fantastic.

Diane Alexander is a sophomore majoring in political science. She can be reached at diane.alexander@tufts.edu.

OFF THE HILL | UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

America deserves more diverse Oscars

By Leigh Terry The Crimson White

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has spoken, and there is not a single good movie about women or people of color. According to the Academy’s all-knowing authority, women did not star in great movies this year, and they certainly didn’t make any. There are also zero good directors or actors of color. I guess the white men of the “Best Actor” category and the other white men of the “Best Director” category make the best movies in Hollywood, bar none. Everyone else should just go home.

While I don’t think any of the above is true, it is extremely disturbing that this is the message the Academy has sent this year. They have told us and the movie-watching children of America that there are still boys’ clubs in the country to which women and minorities need not apply, and they have done

so in spite of ample evidence that their prejudices are wrong.

“Gone Girl” (2014) was one of the most highly anticipated and highest grossing films of the year, yet the Academy felt no need to reward this movie about a complex and terrifying female protagonist with a “Best Picture” or “Best Director” nomination. In fact, only one of the women nominated for “Best Actress” is in a movie nominated for “Best Picture,” and that woman, Felicity Jones, plays second fiddle to Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything.”

In a more saddening fact, not a single person of color is nominated in an acting category for the first time since 1998.

While there should certainly be more than two Oscar-worthy movies about people of color made in a year, the fact that “Get On Up” and “Selma” were produced and snubbed is significant. These snubs are significant not just for the color of the characters and crew behind the movies, but because of the people

they depicted: strong, complex, independent men and women who left an indelible mark on history. They were not the characters the Oscars like to reward: slaves, abusive parents, maids, laborers and corrupt villains.

Nor was the director of “Selma,” Ava DuVernay, who made the movie a sweeping epic in spite of a meager $20 million budget, a member of the old Hollywood guard.

The Academy’s failings are disappointing because of the message they send about racial and gender progress in America and because of the younger generation of aspiring actors and filmmakers who will watch this year’s awards and see no one “like them.”

We deserve a better Academy, one that doesn’t see last year’s win for “12 Years a Slave” as compensation for snubbing “Selma,” and one that can find a female-led film since “Million Dollar Baby” as captivating as the public does.

We deserve a better Hollywood.

Punt Your Way to the Top

D

ear Super Bowl viewers, The biggest day for sports enthusiasts in America is soon upon us.

Beer. Wings. Yelling. Butt slapping.

Nothing brings the nation together better than this annual event of pure hedonism and steadfast rivalry. Except for people who have no idea what the hell is ever going on during football. The game of strategy just looks like a bunch of stocky men falling over and then walking around for five minutes afterwards. Janice Jackson’s nip slip will forever remain the highlight of any Super Bowl event. Since New England has made it this year, I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for the not football-inclined to entertain themselves.

It’s safe to assume that most football fans are also fans of meat. Papa John and Peyton Manning’s alarming bromance proves it: Peyton only wants the Meat Lover’s combo John! So for your own personal entertainment, invite all your favorite carnivorous, Patriot-fan friends over for a meatless viewing party. And don’t tell any of them before.

Offer all of the boys your famous burgers!

Famous wheat meat seitan reduced fat and calorie, low sugar, Free Trade certified organic burgers, to be exact. All your girlfriends will remark that the Buffalo wings taste a bit odd.

Did you forget to cook them long enough?

No silly, they’re just tofurkey flaxseed oven roasted big bites! The kids may want to go for something a bit simpler, like some grilled cheese. Surprise, no dairy for those little rascals! Fresh panini made from aged raw nut cheese with some homemade, fermented seltzer to wash it down. Additionally, zero alcohol allowed. Who wants beer when you could have a cold-pressed kale and butternut squash smoothie with curry? Dessert offerings will be farm grade horse oats for that natural fiber feel.

Speaking of farms, another option would be encouraging some livestock betting. The day after the game is often treacherous for many fans who chose to gamble on the losing team, losing egregious sums of money. Saving your friends’ souls and wallets, instead encourage a good ol’ fashion round of “the chicken drop.” Pick up some chickens the morning of the party (preferably some cage-free poultry). Give everyone a number to pick while they gasp in awe over the fact that you meant real chickens at the party instead of rotisserie.

Drop the chicken on a board with the numbers, and the number the chicken eventually defecates on wins! This is ideal for any anti-Super Bowl party, because the excitement of eggs and possible cockfights will keep everyone distracted from the game.

The winner also keeps the chicken, so you get the satisfaction of giving a gift that just keeps on giving. A couple rounds in your guests won’t even remember what a Seattle Seahawk is.

If animals don’t exactly jive with you, fret not. Turn to technology. Or should I say, turn back technology. Many of your friends will be super excited at the prospect of the Super Bowl at your house because of that absolutely gigantic plasma screen you barely snatched up during Black Friday.

Before your party, swap that modern masterpiece with a TV guaranteeing a blast from that past. I’m talking early-’70s, blackand-white dial TV. Some may think high definition is a luxury, but you’re bending the rules once again: colored picture is premium now. Also, toss your cable box for the day for a pair of rabbit ear antennas. No one will be able to even pick up the signal until the third quarter, guaranteed.

One may raise the point that these tendencies may be cruel and misguiding, false advertising of the actual Super Bowl.

Screw that. A chicken pooping is infinitely more fun.

Snaps, Henry Henry Jani is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at henry.jani@tufts.edu.

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

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The Tufts Daily

FOR RELEASE JANUARY 29, 2015

Crossword

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Comics

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis

ACROSS 1 Some portrait frames 6 Noble __ 11 Singsong syllable 14 With 15-Across, accounting unit 15 See 14-Across 16 Like some aces 17 Manage 18 Walking __ 19 Sound after a satisfying swig 20 Scotch cocktails 22 Zenith 23 “I won’t hurt you” 26 Not as deliberate 28 Toothbrushendorsing org.

29 With 31-Across, anathema 31 See 29-Across 32 Worlds 35 __ legend 37 Question about change, which hints at the hidden feature of four two-part puzzle answers 42 Blue Grotto locale 43 “Ramona and Beezus” co-star Gomez 44 With 47-Across, some receivers 47 See 44-Across 49 Set-__ 50 Malady in the 2000 film “Memento” 52 Like the best occult films 55 It’s about a foot 56 Yield figures 58 Figure under a line 59 Fife-and-drum drum 60 Two cents 64 Bardic before 65 With 66-Across, National Book Award-winning novel by Don DeLillo 66 See 65-Across 67 “M*A*S*H” titles 68 Private 69 Mount

Want to see a new comic keeping the crossword company?

Feeling artistic or creative?

1/29/15

By Marti DuGuay-Carpenter

DOWN 1 Pigs out (on) 2 Center of gravity?

3 Presidential nickname 4 Petrol unit 5 Gave up a seat 6 One of six British kings 7 Year in Tuscany 8 “Wait for me” 9 Pension law signed by Ford, briefly 10 Jordan neighbor: Abbr.

11 Gillette razor 12 Hole enlarger 13 Cleave 21 Comes to the surface 22 Harsh-sounding, to some 23 Traffic stopper?

24 Notion 25 “Elf” actor 27 Shoshone Falls river 30 Shroud city 33 Chinese evergreen 34 Zoo security features 36 Droopy-eared hound

Wednesday’s Solved Tuesday’SPuzzle SOLUTION

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

38 Wonderful container?

39 Bordeaux bean?

40 “The Dukes of Hazzard” officer 41 Tammany Hall caricaturist 44 Mortarboard frill 45 “That upset me!”

46 Speakers of Tolkien’s Noldorin language 48 Costing more

The Tufts Daily is looking for student cartoonists to write and draw original comic strips for the paper.

1/29/15

51 Corporate raider Carl 53 Jockey’s handful 54 “This __ a drill!”

57 Mechanical repetition 59 Prefix with light or night 61 “Easy as __!”

62 Wear and tear 63 Former Ohio governor Strickland

Contact thetuftsdaily@gmail.com if you’re interested!

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

The Tufts Daily

by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Unscramble these four Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form four ordinary words.

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

VEETN CYRIPE GUTORH

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

“

Yesterday’s

Level: Making the trek to Carm or Dewick in the blizzard.

-

Ans:

SUDOKU

Check out the new, free JUST JUMBLE app

NORIY

”

(Answers tomorrow) Jumbles: BYLAW ISSUE TOMATO AUTHOR Answer: When the bread factory burned down, — IT WAS TOAST

Late Night at the Daily

Tuesday’s Solution

Jake: “I actually had a great body freshman year.”

Please recycle this Daily.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

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Thursday, January 29, 2015

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15

Sports Beantown Beat | Tyler Maher

Super Bowl Showdown

A

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

The Tufts defense was stringent in a 3-1 win over Wesleyan last weekend.

Jumbos split matchup against NESCAC opponents ICE HOCKEY

continued from back

17 shots on goal and converting only one throughout the game. Trinity improved to 14-1-1 with the victory, and has yet to lose in the NESCAC, where it boasts a record of 9-0-1.

The Bantams started first-year Alex Morin in goal. Morin has allowed only four goals in as many games, all wins.

On the Tufts side, Pulde was overwhelmed in net, bombarded with 39 shots, although he flashed the leather periodically to stanch the onslaught and keep the final scoreline respectable. Pulde gave up at least one goal in each period, two of which came in the second on power plays.

Junior forward Keith Campbell scored Tufts’ lone goal, and senior forward George Pantazopoulos was credited with the assist along with Kavanagh.

Although Tufts was outgunned for the vast majority of the game, White felt that the lopsidedness of the stat sheet does not necessarily reflect how the game went. “[ We] came out strong against Trinity,” he said. “A few bounces here and there, I mean we stuck with them, they definitely didn’t look like the better team. A 4-1 game wasn’t really how it felt on the ice. We battled hard and we could definitely play against any team in the league. We’re in it every game — we just need to find a way to squeak out these wins.”

The Jumbos are primarily concerned with making the playoffs and potentially improving their playoff seed, and the win against the Cardinals helps that cause immensely.

Making the win all the more satisfying is the fact that the Jumbos were not

quite at full strength.

“We actually got a little bit of food poisoning [norovirus] that was on the team for a little while so a bunch of us had this stomach bug; I think it was like a 24 [or] 48-hour sickness, so a lot of us weren’t practicing for a while,” White said.

The virus had a substantial impact on the team, as half of the squad was affected by the sickness.

“Fourteen out of 28 guys that travel got sick,” Edwards added. “So we didn’t practice Monday or Tuesday, so we only had about two days of practice before we played on Friday, so yeah, that was a tough week.”

Like it did against Wesleyan, Tufts has an opportunity to avenge its early-season tie against Middlebury on Nov. 21 at home this Friday, which marks the start of a three-game home stand.

Jumbos end dual-meet season on a high note WOMEN’S SWIM continued from back

breaststroke in 28.08 seconds. The Jumbos probably would have fared even better had sophomore diver Kylie Reiman not gotten injured on the eve of the meet, as Reiman was favored to win both diving events. Fortunately for Tufts, the swimmers had enough success to beat Wheaton despite her absence.

Coniglio was proud of the way her teammates battled to a hard-fought victory, coming up big when it mattered most.

“It was an incredibly close meet, right up until the end, but we came together as a group and rose to the challenge,” she said. “Scarlett Hao, Anna Kimura and Amanda Gottschalk

really came in clutch with their 1-2-3 finish in the 200 IM at the end of the meet. It was a thrilling race to watch, as everyone was behind their lanes cheering. Before every meet, coach Nancy [Bigelow] reminds us that we each need to rise to the challenge and not assume that a teammate is going to do our part for us. That’s exactly what we did on Saturday, and it was a really satisfying way to end the dualmeet season.”

Tufts kicks off the championshipmeet phase of its season at this weekend’s Middlebury Invitational. For 11 Jumbos, this event will be their last meet of the season and thus their championship meet. Needless to say, they’ll all be looking to end their seasons on a high note this Friday and Saturday.

Jumbos split games over weekend MEN’S BASKETBALL continued from back

out of reach, eventually winning by a score of 64-51. Boornazian led Bates in scoring with 20 points, while sophomore center Hunter Sabety scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds for Tufts. Joining Sabety in double figures were sophomore tri-captain center Tom Palleschi and sophomore point guard Tarik Smith, who had 11 and 10 points, respectively.

“I was used to being the only big, but playing alongside Hunter has allowed me to develop an outside shot,” Palleschi said.

Despite these scoring performances, the Jumbos’ 51-point game is one of the lowest scoring games for the team, the lowest having been a 52-50 loss to Babson on Dec. 7.

“What really hurt us was not communicating in transition,” Spadaford said. “Bates was able to push the ball

on us for fast break points. We got killed in the second half because our offense got too stagnant and we didn’t play with any fire.”

The loss dropped Tufts to 3-1 in the NESCAC, which places it third behind Bowdoin and Trinity, which each have a 4-1 record in conference play.

The Jumbos, however, stepped out of conference play with a game against UMass-Boston on Thursday night.

Tufts would lead for the majority of the game on its way to an 80-67 victory, which extended its since-ended winning streak to four games. The Jumbos were led by Sabety, who went 9-9 from the field on his way to 24 points, first-year Vincent Pace, who scored a career-high 18 points and Smith, who scored 16 points. The underclassmen trio scored 58 of Tufts’ 80 points in the game, and the Jumbos shot 53.8 percent from the floor in the game.

“The [Middlebury Invitational] focuses on our kids who will not be going to the NESCAC Championships,” Bigelow said. “This is their big meet of the season and I hope to see all of them swim their best times and for the divers to get their highest point totals.”

Many Jumbos see the meet as the culmination of a season of hard work.

“We look forward to a lot of fast swims next week,” Mahoney added.

“For about half of our team, the Midd Invite is their final meet, so we hope to see some personal records. Coming off one of our best training trips, I think everyone is excited to see all their hard work pay off. Middlebury is a great rival, and we love the chance to race our competition before the championship meet.”

“I think we had great ball movement in which we were able to get everyone shots,” Spadaford said. “We are at our best when our bigs and guards are all moving with and without the ball on the offensive end.”

UMass-Boston would hang around for most of the game, but the deciding run came after a jumper from Beacons senior co-captain Carl Joseph made the score 58-51 in favor of Tufts. Two 3-pointers by Smith and another from Pace in a span of 1:20 pushed Tufts’ lead to 67-53 with five minutes remaining in the game. Tufts led by at least 11 points for the rest of the game.

The Jumbos now sit at 8-8 with key NESCAC games coming up. The team plays two home games this coming weekend against Connecticut College (7-9, 0-4 NESCAC) on Friday night and against Wesleyan (13-5, 2-2 NESCAC) on Saturday afternoon.

fter squeaking by the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional playoffs and crushing the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game, the New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl, their sixth trip since the 2001 season.

This one is different, however, accompanied by a real sense of urgency (and a stupid scandal involving deflated footballs, which I will not mention again for the remainder of this column). It’s been a full 10 years since New England last raised the Lombardi Trophy, and you can’t blame Pats for feeling antsy.

Tom Brady is 37. Bill Belichick is 62.

Soon their remarkable run will come to an end. This is probably going to be their last Super Bowl together, because sooner or later Brady is going to break down, and Belichick is going to step down, and the Patriots will become just another team.

But for one more game, at least, the Patriots can still be the best team in football. They can be champions once more.

Just don’t ask me who I think is going to win Super Bowl XLIX, because while I’m obligated to say New England, I honestly have no idea. Both teams are on incredible rolls, coming off galvanizing victories in their respective league title games. New England’s won 12 of its last 14, while Seattle’s won eight in a row and 11 of their past 12. The Pats and Seahawks have been unbeatable lately, managing to win even on the rare instances when they’ve been outplayed, as New England was during the divisional round and Seattle was in the NFC championship.

Looking back at the regular season doesn’t sway me either way. Both contestants were the top seeds in their conferences, with identical 12-4 records and the two best point differentials in the NFL. Both won one playoff game by a nose and took the other by a comfortable margin. There’s not much to glean from their history of headto-head matchups, either; they’ve met 16 times during the regular season, most recently in 2012. Seattle won that game by one point, evening the all-time records between the two at 8-8.

And while I’m confident in the Patriots, there are plenty of reasons to fear the defending Super Bowl champs (besides their incomparable swagger and uniforms). They have an outstanding coach and motivator in Pete Carroll, probably the best in the business not named Belichick. They have Russell Wilson, the rare dual-threat signal-caller who can beat you with his arm and his legs, and a beastly running back in Marshawn Lynch. Seattle’s greatest strength, however, is its terrifying defense; a ridiculously athletic and physically punishing unit that can give even the greatest quarterbacks fits (see Rodgers, Aaron). It goes without saying that Brady and co. are going to have their hands full with the NFL’s topranked defense.

Should the Patriots lose, at least this time there will be no what-ifs and second-guessing, no wondering how Eli Manning managed to beat them twice in the Super Bowl. There will be no lamenting another heartbreaking loss to a clearly inferior team. This time, there will only be reluctant acceptance. Unlike Super Bowls past, I’m not expecting the Patriots to win. Like I said, I have no clue who will come out on top. It’s an honest-to-God toss-up.

New England and Seattle are about as evenly matched as two teams can be, and Sunday’s game will decide which one is better. What happens when an unstoppable force (New England’s offense) meets an immovable object (Seattle’s defense)? We’re about to find out.

Tyler Maher is a senior majoring in economics and English. He can be reached at tyler.maher@tufts.edu.

Sports

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tuftsdaily.com

Ice Hockey

Women’s Swimming and Diving

Tufts ends road stand on high note

by Phillip Goldberg

Tufts avenged its seasonopening loss to the Wesleyan Cardinals over the weekend Assistant Sports Editor

ICE HOCKEY (6-9-1 Overall, 3-5-1 NESCAC) at Hartford, Conn., Saturday Tufts Trinity

0 1

1 2

0 — 1 1 — 4

at Middlestown, Conn., Friday Tufts Wesleyan

1 1 1 — 0 1 0 —

3 1

with a 3-1 win, but it could not duplicate its performance the following day, losing to the No. 5 Trinity Bantams by a score of 4-1. The win and loss, respectively, bring the Jumbos’ NESCAC record to 3-5-1 and their overall record to 6-9-1.

Despite the losing record, the Jumbos are showing strong signs of improvement.

They lost their season opener to the Cardinals (5-2) at home on Nov. 15 before falling to the Bantams (7-2) on Nov. 16, but two months later, the Jumbos avenged their first loss of the season.

“It was definitely a good experience, but I’m excited to get back home for a little bit,” senior tri-captain defenseman Blake Edwards said on playing so many consecutive road games. “When you’re on the road, they’re sleeping in their own beds, own dorm rooms and stuff like that. We’re at a hotel, we have to figure out meals, there’s a whole bus ride, so it’s a real struggle, but once you get on the ice it really shouldn’t [have an] impact

[on] you at all.”

Sophomore goalie Mason Pulde anchored the defense, parrying an 18-shot fusillade in the first period, ultimately conceding just one goal on a whopping 35 shots against the Cardinals.

At the other end of the ice, junior tri-captain forward Stewart Bell kickstarted the Jumbos’ offense with the game’s first point off an assist from senior forward Andrew White with 4:06 left in the first period. The goal was Bell’s fifth of the season.

Only six minutes into the second period, the Jumbos struck again. This time Edwards capitalized on a tandem assist from White and sophomore defenseman Sean Kavanagh. Subsequently, the Cardinals replaced sophomore goalie Dawson Sprigings with junior Nolan Daley, on whom the Jumbos failed to score for the remainder of the game.

It took slightly over 10 minutes for the Cardinals to respond. Sophomore defenseman Robby Harbison swooped in to seize a rebound off a shot from classmate James Kline in a period that saw only eight shots on goal from the Cardinals.

Down one with 54 seconds remaining, Wesleyan pulled its goalie to allow a sixth skater onto the ice, but it was in vain; with only 0.2 seconds left in the game, Tufts first-year forward Brian Brown scored his team-high ninth goal of the season on an empty net to put the game out of reach.

The Jumbos were unable to exert similar pressure against the Bantams, managing only see ICE HOCKEY, page 15

Caroline Ambros / The Tufts Daily

The women’s swimming and diving team triumphed at Wheaton College last weekend.

Tufts finishes dual-meet season with win against Wheaton

by Tyler Maher Sports Editor

The women’s swimming and diving team closed out the dual-meet phase of its season with a win last Saturday, topping Wheaton College 158-138. Tufts came on strong after its midseason training trip to Puerto Rico, winning two of its last three meets to finish the year at 2-4.

“We had a great meet at Wheaton last weekend,” sophomore Sarah Elghor said.

“I would say that our team’s energy and positive attitude definitely helped us win, and that we were able to score 1-2-3 in multiple events. Our

team is much stronger than last year, and since we are not rested yet, the fact that we had so many season-best times was a sign that our hard work on training trip is finally paying off.”

First-year Anna Kimura paced the Jumbos, earning three of their eight individual victories. Kimura won the 100 butterfly in 1:00.58, the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.00 and the 200 individual medley (IM) with a 2:14.66 time.

Tufts also had swimmers place second and third in the latter two events. Senior tricaptain Kathryn Coniglio and junior Sarah Mahoney also had impressive days with

two wins apiece. Mahoney notched the first Jumbo victory with a first-place finish in the mile freestyle, which she won by almost 15 seconds, and then went on to win the 500 free as well.

“Sarah Mahoney really stepped up and swam the 500 after she swam the mile,” coach Nancy Bigelow said of the difficult accomplishment of taking both events.

Coniglio also doubled, taking the 200 free with more than four seconds to spare and winning the 100 free.

The eighth Tufts win came from Elghor, who won the 50 see WOMEN’S SWIM, page 15

Men’s Basketball

Jumbos suffer first conference loss, remain at .500 for season

by Steven Hefter Sports Editor

After starting the NESCAC season 3-0, the men’s basketball team returned to action with a non-confer-

MEN’S BASKETBALL (8-8 Overall, 3-1 NESCAC) at Lewistown, Maine, Saturday Tufts Bates

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67 80

at Cousens Gym, Jan. 22 UMass Boston Tufts

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ence game against UMass-Boston on Thursday and then played on the road at Bates on Saturday. The team won on Thursday night at Cousens Gym, extending its winning streak to four games before falling at Alumni Gym to the Bobcats.

The Jumbos entered the tilt against the Bobcats in first place in the NESCAC standings after an impressive three-game win streak to start conference play. In the beginning stages of

the game, it did not seem as if Tufts would skip a beat. The Jumbos started strong from behind the arc, making four of their first six 3-pointers. Senior tri-captain Ben Ferris connected from downtown to open the scoring of the game, and after two deep balls from junior Ryan Spadaford and another from first-year point guard Thomas Lapham, the Jumbos led 14-4.

“I think since I had my first start before NESCAC play the team has come out strong with positive energy from the get-go,” Spadaford said. “We have been able to come out fired up, which was a problem in the early part of the season.”

Tufts led by as many as 11 points in the first half, but Bates fought back.

A last second jumper by junior guard Mike Boornazian made the score 34-32 in favor of Tufts as the teams headed into the locker room, despite Tufts’ 50 percent shooting from the field in the first half. The Bobcats’ defense clamped down on the Jumbos in the second half, holding the Jumbos’ offense to a significantly lower 22.6 shooting percentage. Bates led by a score of 42-41 at the 13:58 mark of the game before going on to 18-3 to effectively put the game

Evan Sayles / The Tufts Daily

see MEN’S BASKETBALL, page 15

Senior tri-captain guard Ben Ferris looks to score against Worcester Polytechnic Institute.