TuftsDaily04-04-2012

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

VOLUME LXIII, NUMBER 42

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

SALT provides students Kony survivor speaks about with financial advice experience with LRA by

Lizz Grainger

Daily Editorial Board

Student Financial Services last month extended an invitation to the entire university community to join SALT, a free membership program developed by the non-profit group American Student Assistance (ASA) to help students take control of their money and manage student loans.

SALT serves as a financial literacy and budgeting tool for current students and alumni up to three years out of school, according to Associate Director of Financial Aid Sheila Hoffstedt.

ASA created the SALT program, named after the earliest form of currency, after noticing the ongoing trend of rising student debt. ASA aims to provide a free program that encourages smart financial decisions, according to ASA Director of Marketing Aimee O’Brien-Jeyarajan.

“We don’t believe a student should have to pay for these services, and it really is designed to be a money coach for students that are in school who do have loans and

those who don’t take out loans, as well as alumni,” O’BrienJeyarajan told the Daily. “It’s designed to help them take control of their money.”

O’Brien-Jeyarajan noted that many students do not realize the significance of signing a student loan agreement and feel overwhelmed upon graduating.

“What we want to do is to start to help students speak about money, take control of their money, and make smart financial decisions from the beginning through all the transitions that they have,” she said. “And to do that, the SALT tool is designed to be simple, useful and motivating.”

The SALT website features tools to help keep track of student loans and budget personal spending money, provides tips on saving money and customizes searches for scholarships or internships. The website offers rewards to students who frequent the site, including a free MP3 download, according to O’Brien-Jeyarajan.

“The navigation of the web tool is built around three prinsee SALT, page 2

by Stephanie

Haven

Daily Editorial Board

Invisible Children representatives last night spoke about their KONY 2012 campaign to students interested in the organization’s effort to capture Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who since 1987 has abducted children as soldiers and sex slaves in Africa.

Adonga Quinto, a northern Ugandan who now serves as a New England regional representative for the KONY 2012 tour, shared the story of his escape from the LRA soon after it took him away from his family in Uganda.

He, like many other survivors who volunteer for Invisible Children, has shared this story to audiences across the country two times a day, every week as part of their campaign.

“They kicked me down and tied my arms behind my back,” Quinto told the audience, which was composed of approximately 100 people. “They wanted to kill me then and there with machetes.”

After two days in their custody, the LRA had paralyzed Quinto’s hands yet still required that he fetch them water. Because Quinto knew they would kill him if he

SomerVision plan establishes city-wide goals for 2030

by Stephanie

Haven

Daily Editorial Board

The City of Somerville at the end of February announced their long-term SomerVision plan, which lays out changes the community feels need to be implemented by 2030.

SomerVision includes goals calling for the addition of 30,000 jobs, 125 acres of open space and 6,000 units of new housing, 1,200 of which will be designated affordable.

After over 50 public meetings spanning the past three years, Somerville citizens authored the plan to reflect how they hope to see the city evolve over the course of the next 20 years.

“It’s not a top-down plan,” City of Somerville Director of Communications Tom Champion told the Daily.

“This long, collaborative process involved residents, community leaders and community groups and a lot of dialogue and iteration.”

Citizens who contributed to the SomerVision plan were divided into subcommittees based on their area of expertise and interests within the Somerville community.

For example, Mark AlstonFollansbee, executive director of the Somerville Homeless

somervillema.org somervision

The City of Somerville at the end of February announced its SomerVision plan, which calls for the addition of 30,000 jobs, 125 acres of open space and 6,000 units of new housing by 2030.

Coalition, served on the housing subcommittee, where he worked to facilitate housing in Somerville for the poor.

“We all agreed that we don’t

have enough affordable housing now, so we were going to work to create more,” Alston-

Inside this issue

see SOMERVISION, page 2

Emma oppenheim / the tufts daily

Adongo Quinto, who escaped from northern Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army, shared his story with Tufts students. didn’t do what they asked — the LRA only kept children around if they could serve their needs — he ran away as quickly as he could, Quinto said.

“Kony is fighting a baseless war,” Quinto said. “If you feel your voice is stronger than Joseph Kony, see KONY, page 2

Friedman School hosts research conference

by Jenna

Buckle

Daily Editorial Board

The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy on Saturday held its sixth annual multidisciplinary graduate research conference on the topic of “Future of Food and Nutrition.” The conference featured a panel discussion about global nutrition and feeding a growing population.

The oral and poster presentation sessions provided a platform for students from 14 different universities to share their research on any topic related to food or nutrition, ranging from domestic and international issues to policy debates, according to event cochair and Friedman School student Brooke Smith.

“One of the major goals for us at Friedman is to give graduate students and some undergraduates a chance to present their research,” Smith said.

“People have been working on a lot of interesting issues, and students don’t really get that much exposure or that many chances to share their research other than in class.”

The event kicked off with an introduction from Dean Ad Interim of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy Robin Kanarek, Smith said.

The theme of this year’s expert panel was “7 Billion Strong:

Approaches to Feeding the World.”

Speakers included Vice President of Sustainable Agriculture Policy for the Monsanto Company Michael Doane, Policy Advisor at School Food FOCUS Thomas Forster and Research Analyst for the International Food Policy Research Institute Sivan Yosef.

“We wanted [panelists] from as many different spheres as we could,” Smith explained. “It was important for us to get someone from the industry and from research. It was really just trying to cast a wide net.”

Each panelist spoke for 15 minutes about his or her viewpoint on current trends in nutrition science and policy and then engaged in a question-and-answer session during which the audience could have a dialogue with the experts, event co-chair and Friedman School student Johanna Andrews said.

Friedman School professors chose 18 students from a large pool of applicants to deliver oral presentations on their findings at the conference based on their abstract submissions, Andrews said.

“We actually had double the number of applicants this year than we had previously, so we were really excited about that,” Andrews said.

The oral presentations covered a wide range of topics — from urban food policy and planning to global see FRIEDMAN, page 2

Today’s sections

Tufts student groups are attempting to generate support for U.S. Senate candidates from Mass.

The new TV series “Touch” suffers from weak dialogue and unrealistic plot points.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Comics

1 3 5 7

Editorial | Letters Op-Ed Classifieds Sports

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News

Program aims to improve financial literacy with phone services, online tools SALT

continued from page 1

ciples ­— do, learn, and then be rewarded for it,” she said.

“One of the prime pieces [is that] when a student goes in and activates the registration they have the option of importing student loans, so if they have student loans on record they can click a button and it will all be imported into a dashboard for them.”

SALT also offers a tool that helps students evaluate the cost of living in different regions of the country and plans out a tentative monthly budget based on estimated income, Associate Director of Financial Aid Amy Piantedosi said.

“If you plan on moving somewhere when you graduate, you can put in the city and it will tell you the cost of living, or what rent might be somewhere else, and how your loans factor into that,” she said.

“I think the generic programs out there, like mint. com, are good, but SALT offers those kinds of things and is also loan-specific for each student so they can kind of customize it, and I think that’s a really good aspect of it too,” Hoffstedt said.

O’Brien-Jeyarajan emphasized that SALT is not only a web tool but also offers phone counseling to students. Over 100 representatives are available to answer students’ financial budgeting questions.

“The biggest piece of what I think makes ASA so unique is that you have access to phone counselors where you

saltmoney.org

Student Financial Services last month launched the university’s version of SALT, a free membership program which helps students control their finances. can physically call here and start to walk through with a live person what are some of the decisions you are trying to make or what are some of the options you could be doing,” she said.

Hoffstedt and Piantedosi reported that Student Financial Services expected a high number of students to register for SALT but noted that the program is still in its launch phase.

“When we first sent out the initial email, 30 percent clicked the email open. The actual return of students registering was less than four percent, which we thought was low, but according to how those kind of things work, marketing said it was good,” Piantedosi said.

Somerville residents participate in 20-year plan for city SOMERVISION

continued from page 1

Follansbee told the Daily.

“What was satisfying about the process was I felt I was heard at every step of the way and my input was valued.”

Although involvement in the subcommittees necessitated a major time commitment from each of the citizens involved in the process, Alston-Follansbee is confident that the final result made it all worthwhile.

“The way communities work best is when you’ve got both an informed and an engaged citizenship,” Alston-Follansbee said.

“It’s in everybody’s best interest to keep pushing the city to do the right thing and it’s indicative of the kind of community we have where people have shown that they really do care.”

Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone held a reception at Somerville City Hall to recognize the citizens who contributed their time toward formulating the comprehensive SomerVision plan.

“Part of the reason the whole process took so long was that as much as we would do brainstorming where everyone threw out their hopes and dreams for what could happen, we also had to try to be realistic,” Alston-Follansbee said.

“None of us expect that all of it can be achieved, but we wanted to have something that was forward looking with the understanding that there are lots of different factors that’ll come into play on a daily or annual basis that’ll affect what we’re able to do.”

For Alston-Follansbee, the creation of SomerVision was successful due to its prioritization of affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs, among several other issues. But for other Somerville citizens, SomerVision symbolizes a diversity of changes that they anticipate will transform the city.

“What makes Somerville special and what they want to preserve is the social ethic and economic diversity of the community, the richness that the density of Somerville provides to daily life,” Champion said.

“2030 is a long way out and there’s always a chance that it’ll change, but what’s powerful about this document is that it provides a roadmap for the development that can adapt over time.”

Mimi Graney, executive director of Union Square Main Streets, served on the neighborhoods subcommittee, where citizens focused on more general ideas that they hope the City of Somerville will accomplish, such as providing open space for schools and profitable businesses that provide jobs for area residents, she told the Daily in an email.

“Creating a neighborhood and preserving the character of the neighborhoods already existing was a key challenge for our group,” Graney said.

“This isn’t a master plan — the Comprehensive Plan doesn’t show us exactly what the future is going to look like — but it does lay out our values and dreams, as well as to do a list of sorts for managing changes.”

“Anything above three percent is considered a really great rate of return. We’re hoping that our next goaround will be at least four percent.”

Student Financial Services held its first financial literacy session on Monday and will hold two more in Dowling Hall tomorrow and on Monday.

“We’re having financial literacy sessions that are not necessarily directed specifically about SALT, but students will be able to come and sign up if they want to participate, and there’s going to be somebody from ASA … and they’ll get general kinds of information about loan repayment [and] also the opportunity to sign up [for SALT ],” Hoffstedt said.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Invisible Children representatives discuss KONY 2012 KONY

continued from page 1

stand up and do something with me to end this war.”

When Quinto returned home after successfully escaping the LRA, his family was overjoyed to see him.

His brother and sister also helped heal Quinto’s hands and arms, which he at the time could not raise above his head as a result of abuse by the LRA, Quinto said.

The event was organized by Tufts’ chapter of Invisible Children, which invited the representatives to visit the Hill.

“I wouldn’t want this going on in my country, so why would I let it happen in someone else’s?” Erin Miller, a New England regional representative for the KONY 2012 tour, said.

Miller first became involved with Invisible Children in 2011 by raising money for the organization.

She was originally inspired by one of the organization’s first videos, which she saw during her freshman year at Virginia Tech. But because of the shooting at her school that same year, she didn’t get a chance to volunteer until after graduation, Miller said.

“Through interacting with people like Quinto and hearing about their struggles, I knew I had to work for this cause,” Miller said. “We want to live up to the hype that the Kony 2012 campaign has created.

We need to capture Joseph Kony.”

Before Quinto spoke, the audience watched the 30-minute KONY 2012 video, which 140 million people across the world have seen, Miller said. In the video, Invisible Children Co-Founder Jason Russell outlined Kony’s war crimes, including how the LRA has abducted over 300,000 children across Africa, giving the boys guns and forcing them

to mutilate people’s faces.

Invisible Children will release an additional 20-minute video online tomorrow about the KONY 2012 campaign. This second part will go into more detail about the organization’s mission in response to complaints that the first segment didn’t fully explain the purpose of Invisible Children and the impact Kony has had in Africa, Miller said.

When Quinto finished his story, a few members of the audience asked the representatives questions about Kony’s goals in committing these war crimes as well as how Invisible Children is contributing financially to stop the war.

“Part of our mission is definitely to spread awareness,” Miller said.

“But we’ve also built 25 radio towers to create a crisis tracker that tells us where the LRA is.”

Additionally, Invisible Children is in the process of building a rehabilitation center in the Congo for children who have been soldiers for the LRA. The center will eventually house 250 children in dormitories staffed by counselors who will work to help them recover, Miller said.

At the end of the hour-long presentation, Miller explained the ways that people can get involved in the KONY 2012 campaign, including contacting their local representatives and hanging KONY 2012 posters around Boston.

Miller on April 20 will participate in “Cover the Night,” an element of the KONY 2012 campaign where members of the organization hang flyers and posters on each street of cities across the world to publicize the war crimes Kony has committed.

“I’m so happy so many people have watched this video, but we can do so much more than that to stop Kony,” Quinto said.

‘Future of Food and Nutrition’ features perspectives on global hunger FRIEDMAN

continued from page 1

child malnutrition and agriculture — that informed conference attendees, event committee member and Friedman School student Marianne Santoso said.

Santoso noted the uniqueness of this year’s presentations in light of their coverage of diverse areas of nutrition study, such as the policy of street food vending in Hanoi, Vietnam, and the development of a jackfruit industry in southern India.

The conference also incorpo-

rated an hour-long section during which an additional 14 students showcased their research on poster boards, Andrews said.

“The poster session is a little more interactive,” Andrews said.

“People [were] able to ask oneon-one questions to the poster presenters.”

The event attracted nearly 200 attendees, most of whom were graduate students. Undergraduates were also welcome to submit their work and to take part in the conference, Andrews added.

Smith noted that the confer-

ence coincided with the Friedman School open house for prospective students on March 30 and thereby allowed admitted students to attend the event.

Smith said she decided to get involved as an event coordinator after attending the conference last year as a newly admitted student to the Friedman School.

“I was really impressed and thought it reflected really well on the Friedman School,” Smith said.

“I thought they did a really good job, and the presentations were really interesting.”

MCT

The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy over the weekend held its sixth annual multidisciplinary graduate research conference, which featured panels and presentations on the topics of urban food policy and planning, global child malnutrition and agriculture.

Features

3

tuftsdaily.com

Tufts groups form to back Brown, Warren

Daily Editorial Board

Though elections to the Senate will not take place until November, campaigning has long been underway. With this in mind, a number of Tufts groups are getting involved with campaigns and debates. More educational and collaborative than competitive, these groups are primarily interested in raising political awareness.

Still, the candidates’ fight is on. On one side are those aligned with Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who was elected to the Senate in 2010 after the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. Tufts for Scott Brown — the brainchild of Tufts Republicans club leaders Brian Yi and Sinclair Stafford — aims to raise political awareness and attract people who would not usually align themselves with the Republican Party, in addition to campaigning directly for the senator.

“We thought that having a separate group from [Tufts] Republicans, Tufts for Scott Brown, would really attract people of all sorts of colors,” Yi said.

Tufts for Scott Brown sees itself as a platform for conversation both among members and with students of opposing views.

Organized debate, while helping promote the group’s views, also works to remove the stigma faced by Tufts Republicans as a minority on campus.

“Tufts Republicans aren’t scary and aren’t crazy,” Stafford said. “We’re normal people.

We just happen to have different views.”

Stafford added that while people may identify as conservative, they do not necessarily have conservative views on every issue from social policies to foreign affairs.

To raise support for the campaign, the group has been collaborating with a variety of campus organizations whose interests align with Brown’s, such as Tufts Friends of Israel. In addition, Brown (LA ’81) was a member of Zeta Psi at Tufts, and his former fraternity has been active in fundraising by

Melissa MacEwen

Jasmin Sadegh | Engin-nerd

The tales of a welder

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Kyra Sturgill / The Tufts Daily

Senior Sinclair Stafford and sophomore Brian Yi are the co-founders of Tufts for Scott Brown. efforts. Yi and Stafford have also spoken with the youth coordinator of the campaign, Ross Hemminger, about the volunteer opportunities available to students such as internships, phone banking and weekly college nights at the campaign’s headquarters in Boston.

In addition to agreeing with Brown’s views, Stafford and Yi were impressed by the senator’s dedication to his causes, regardless of the standard Republican opinion.

“He just seems very pragmatic — that’s the thing that appealed to me the most about him. He’s not an ideologue,” Stafford said. “On most issues that I know about, I agree with Scott Brown. It seems logical for me to support him.”

Tufts for Scott Brown has already held successful, discussion-based meetings.

According to Yi, a two-on-two debate with representatives of the Elizabeth Warren group on campus is in the works

MCT

Senator Scott Brown (LA ‘81) is running for a second term in the U.S. Senate.

for the near future.

Elizabeth Warren of the Democratic Party will be running against Brown this fall. A Harvard law professor and author of several books, Warren has won followers with her support of women’s health issues and intelligent economic policy.

In addition to participating in Tufts Students for Elizabeth Warren, sophomore Jennifer Wang is looking forward to the opportunity to intern for Warren this summer, even if her duties are not particularly glamorous.

“As an intern I’m anticipating [doing] a lot of phone-banking, data compilation and canvassing,” Wang, a political science major, said.

Although Wang was disappointed by Martha Coakley’s defeat in the last election, she has a good idea of what Warren can do better in the future. “[Coakley’s campaign] ultimately proved what a lazy campaign accomplishes,” Wang said.

Though she has no plans of running for office herself, Wang hopes that her internship will help to further her political career. Wang was an intern for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), Pro-Choice Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood while in high school, in addition to founding and serving as president of her school’s feminist alliance.

She credits her politically minded sister for her youth activism.

Whatever their political affiliation, Wang urges students to get involved.

“It’s extremely important for students to be politically aware,” she said. “You should really be aware of how people in structures of power are influencing you and shaping your life and the way you live it.”

She added that learning about personal issues that have become political in nature is a good way for students to start shaping their views and becoming politically active, adding that college is an ideal place to start learning about controversial issues because of the culture of conversation and openmindedness.

Like Stafford and Yi, Wang agrees that Brown’s politics are relatively moderate, which saves him from alienation in a mostly blue state like Massachusetts. She also points out that Northeastern conservatives are hardly as extreme as those of the South or Midwest. Still, Brown’s politics do not always perfectly align with hers.

“I was never really displeased by Senator Brown’s voting pattern up until his voting on the Blunt Amendment,” Wang said, referring to the proposed amendment to allow any employer or insurance company the opportunity to refuse health care coverage on a moral or religious objection, which was ultimately shot down by a Senate majority.

Wang understands why Brown was elected — she believes it was partially due to backlash against Obama — but thinks Warren has the capacity to attract a wide variety of groups.

“As a supporter and someone who will be working on her campaign, I find Warren universally appealing to many different types of [voters],” she said.

was only about a foot tall when I heard the ambulance take my neighbor. They found her finger in the blender. I heard it was reattached at the hospital.

I still avoid blenders, but I’m relatively comfortable with power tools and other finger cutting devices. So, I was looking forward to constructing steel at Santini Bros. Iron Works last week to assist the Steel Bridge Team.

When there wasn’t much to do, I watched Santini and the other ironworkers craft huge pieces of I-shaped, square-shaped and tubeshaped pieces of steel. With ease, they lifted the pieces with cranes and cut, sanded and welded them.

A welder came up next to me as I was cutting steel on the table saw. This welder drew my attention to his left hand, which had one finger shorter than the rest. The shorter finger had been sliced off in the process of cutting steel, operating the machine I was just using. He looked around the room, and pointed out the other guy who had fallen to the same fate. In fact, the other ironworkers had also lost at least one finger each while operating other machines. Taking advantage of a short pause in his storytelling, I passed the rest of the uncut steel member to my partner, who worked with a noticeably more focused face.

Apparently those stories were just an appetizer. I nervously smiled as he vividly recalled his experiences with coworkers who had had their scalps ripped off, been dismembered and had fingers smashed by various impact machines. To his credit, he was an excellent storyteller. I was grateful that I hadn’t fainted or vomited when he was done.

Losing a finger was a reality from working on this model, 23-foot steel bridge, but ironworkers have faced greater danger on larger construction sites. Lewis Hine took a great photograph of eleven ironworkers taking a smoking break on what looks like a long bench during the construction of the Empire State Building. Did I mention that the bench was a freestanding steel beam, elevated high enough to see New Jersey? And not one of them had a harness.

Ironworkers were also highlighted in Steven Spielberg’s short series called “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero.” With the unique ability to operate around large pieces of steel, ironworkers were among the last to clean up Ground Zero and search for survivors.

The series shows how the ironworking business has changed with the increasing number of regulations and insurance precautions. During the building of One World Trade Center, very few men are allowed to work without harnesses. The construction site even has a net to protect workers from falling down the tall heights. But there is reason for the flood of construction precautions. Don’t trust my stats, but you can trust that a large number of people suffer either crippling injury or death per year doing ironwork.

Surprisingly, one of these horror stories encouraged Mike O’Reilly to return to ironworking for the construction of the new World Trade Center. O’Reilly’s father, Thomas O’Reilly, was paralyzed after falling during the connection of steel beams for the original Seven World Trade Center building. When Mike O’Reilly saw the Twin Towers fall on Sept. 11, he felt an immediate obligation to honor his father and the victims of the tower by working on the new building.

The stories of the ironworkers who construct the steel for skyscrapers in a shop like Santini’s or onsite like the O’Reillys inspire honor and bravery. For me, I am encouraged to try mincing some onions in a blender and to get better at rock climbing at MetroRock, but probably not at the same time. I look forward to sharing my own stories at Santini’s next year.

Jasmin Sadegh is a junior majoring in civil engineering. She can be reached at Jasmin.

Sadegh@tufts.edu.

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TV Review

Unbelievable premise, underdeveloped characters tarnish ‘Touch’

Ever since the huge success of “Lost” (2004-2010), major broadcast networks have been working to find another science by

Dan O’Leary

Contributing Writer

Touch

Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Mazouz Airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox -fiction drama capable of garnering the same type of acclaim. The past few years have seen numerous attempts at shows with overarching, complicated plots and interconnected storylines, including ABC’s “FlashForward” (2009-2010) and NBC’s “The Event” (2010-2011). The series that came closest to replicating such levels of success was “Heroes” (2006-2010), which fizzled out gradually after a successful first season. Now, the creator of “Heroes,” Tim Kring, returns with another serial television drama, the new Fox series “Touch.”.

“Touch” features Kiefer Sutherland as Martin Bohm, the father of a mute boy with autistic tendencies and an obsession with numbers. Martin is a widower whose wife died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and he struggles to balance his job as an airport baggage handler with raising his son, Jake (David Mazouz). Jake’s narration of each episode’s opening and closing monologues ironically reveals that he has never spoken a word but can use numerical patterns found in nature to predict events and understand how people will interact.

In the series premiere, Martin encounters a social worker named Clea (Gugu MbathaRaw), who informs him that Jake must be institutionalized so that the state may

Lestudio1.com via Flickr Creative Commons

Kiefer Sutherland plays Martin Bohm, a man whose young son can predict future events using numbers. evaluate him. Shortly after, Martin seeks out the advice of Professor Arthur Teller (Danny Glover), a specialist in numerical clairvoyance, who informs Martin that his son is trying to communicate to the world through his use of numbers. From this point on, the three main adult characters attempt to decipher Jake’s messages and figure out who he is trying to help.

The first two episodes of the show follow a similar plot setup, giving the show a procedural-like feel to its events. Jake communicates a specific set of numbers to Martin — typically a phone number or a

significant date. Martin then takes this info and blindly follows the resulting trail of clues until he runs into the particular person that Jake “intended” him to find, whether that is a man attempting to commit suicide or a man simply starting a fistfight with someone over the use of a pay phone. This one action usually creates a chain of events that tie up the episode’s secondary storylines into one convenient ending for all the plot threads and characters involved.

One of the major flaws of the show is see TOUCH, page 6

Music Review

Time travel, hard-hitting vocals grace High on Fire’s ‘De Vermis Mysteriis’

Three years of touring have prepped High on Fire for its latest album, “De Vermis Mysteriis” (2012), in all the right ways.

Frontman and founder Matt Pike describes by

Kate Griffiths

Daily Editorial Board

De Vermis Mysteriis High on Fire E1 Music the release as a concept album; the running theme throughout is that Jesus had a twin who was a time traveler. The more detailed explanation is too complicated to reiterate, but the basic gist of the album is that it allows Pike to nod to such authors as H.P. Lovecraft and steal concepts from “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993).

Still, “De Vermis Mysteriis,” or “The Mysteries of the Worm,” is an album that barely needs this concept to make it a solid, cohesive effort. High on Fire has new producer Kurt Ballou to thank for the walloping sound Des Kensel exhibits with his drumming, and the perfectly grainy roar of Pike’s voice is another testament to the album’s great production.

The opening song, “Serums of Liao,” starts with an intense drumbeat that Kensel continues in the background for its duration. The mere fact that Kensel starts the album off is an indication of how important the drumming is on this album. With High on Fire’s brand of stoner metal, the repetitive, thick riffs need to be complemented by this monolithic, ceaseless drumming to achieve their full effect.

“Bloody Knuckles” has the rhythmic

Rich via Flickr Creative Commons

Matt Pike perfected his growl for “De Vermis cadence of a machine that powers on nonstop, and “Fertile Green” is another track that relies heavily on the percussive elements provided by Kensel. Anyone trying to listen to the lyrics in order to follow Pike’s convoluted story can try their hardest, but distinguishing them isn’t necessary to just sit back and enjoy the music. In any case, Pike has developed a perfect midpoint between the higher-pitched scream that he overused on “Snakes for the Divine” (2010) and his earlier growl.

The next song, “Madness of an Architect,” is a throwback to Pike’s days as the guitarist for the stoner metal rock group Sleep. The

Mysteriis.” intro is a slow, thick and textured homage to doom metal, and here, once again, the prominence of the drums is irreplaceable.

Pike’s singing on “Madness” is also his clearest growl on the album, almost melodic in a sense, especially when the main guitar chorus kicks in and the song explodes out of its buildup.

“Samsara” is an instrumental exploration of Pike’s guitar skills, but it is essentially a filler song as the bluesy guitar hardly fits in with the album’s otherwise sludgy atmosphere. (Unless, of course, this is the see FIRE, page 6

Elizabeth Landers | Campus Chic Report

‘Mad Men,’ mad clothes

A

s with other things in my life, I was attracted to “Mad Men” purely on a style and fashion basis. The addiction to the plotline followed shortly after. Despite the rampant misogyny, racism, xenophobia, drug use, philandering and alcohol abuse, the ad men of Madison Ave. and their whirling social sphere execute all of the above with stylish panache.

Costume designer Janie Bryant rose to the top of everyone’s uber-stylist list after just the first few episodes of “Mad Men,” and for very good reason. The clothes, impeccably sourced, help define the roles of the characters, from Betty’s icy blue silk dresses to Sal’s slightly flamboyant suits.

The “Mad Men” style was so popular that Bryant created an exclusive capsule collection with Banana Republic and churned out press hype and style kudos with classic looks for men and women. General “Mad Men” style influences even began cropping up on the runway.

Fashion critics noticed around 2009 that trends in women’s wear began gravitating more towards demure lengths for skirts, silky blouses and generally more feminine, work-appropriate looks. When the economy started tanking, even the women in the top spending brackets felt the need to make more economical and timeless purchases.

There is something gauche about sporting a trendy, $15,000 fur coat when families are being evicted from foreclosed homes.

One could say that the boozy style of the 1960s sobered up post-millennial fashion.

Cue kitten heels and pocket squares. “Betty Draper Style” cropped up as a spring trend in New York Magazine’s February 2012 edition, and one would be remiss not to notice the striking similarities between the most recent Louis Vuitton prim and pastel ads and the 1960s housewife uniform.

Obviously a literal interpretation of the costume design would look too dated, but I think many elements for women and men can be incorporated into everyday wear.

Take, for example, the low kitten heels worn by Betty and the women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s looming office. A sucker for anything over five inches, I have found these low alternatives to be more practical.

I can vaguely articulate that the men of the show simply look damn handsome.

Specifically, the tailoring on their suits is a little more angular and a lot more meticulous, with shorter hems on pants showing off leather dress shoes. Of course, there is something rakish and intriguing about a man in a fedora, and in the ’60s it was in the most un-ironic way possible. Even within style hubs like New York or London, hats are just not commonplace any more.

Besides individual articles, part of the design brilliance of the show comes in the form of grand party and vacation scenes where the fashion transforms the mood.

Two excellent examples of this are episodes like “The Jet Set” and “My Old Kentucky Home.” In an interview, Bryant reported that “Kentucky” required the most styling of any show, and the work certainly was evident. Everyone was positively glowing with spring, even down to the band in the background with its red-and-white striped suits and flat-top hats. If the “Kentucky” episode highlights refined bourgeoisie dress at its finest, “Jet Set” portrays a moneyed bohemian crowd where the women have an all-or-nothing (quite literally) approach to fashion. Sweeping chiffon caftans, coral pink nail polish and arms full of bangles adorn ladies’ arms; the men wear navy-trimmed white blazers with no shirts underneath.

The sheer abundance of colorful clothing, accessories and fine jewelry conveys the wealth and ridiculousness that the producers want to make sure we don’t miss.

The clothes certainly made the (Mad) men.

Elizabeth Landers is a junior majoring in political science. She can be reached at Elizabeth.Landers@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

6

Arts & Living

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Strange premise, gritty tunes elevate ‘De Vermis Mysteriis’ FIRE

continued from page 5

Lestudio1.com via Flickr Creative Commons

point in Pike’s narrative where the time-traveling protagonist hits the ’70s).

“King of Days” is the most progressive song on the album; it shows a willingness to experiment that proves High on Fire is a band of many skills and musical techniques. Pike’s rough vocals here are barely a growl, but he manages to keep on a level with the colossal guitar that powers through the entire song like a bulldozer. The guitar solo here, in contrast to that in “Samsara,” does not seem out of place because behind it, Jeff Matz’s bass refuses to relent.

The title track, “De Vermis Mysteriis,” exhibits a dominant snarl from Pike that overshadows the instruments in the song.

“Romulus and Remus” explodes

fittingly for an album that has been constructed through the use of heavy guitar riffs and percussive elements before signing out with a guitar solo that makes up for the otherwise unexceptional song.

The finale, “Warhorn,” is a solid song that showcases Pike’s singing sans instrumental backup for the first time on the album. Incidentally, it is also the first time his lyrics are exceptionally clear, though this adds little to the overall effect. When the instruments kick back in, the thrashing and overwhelming guitars draw the album to a close with a wail.

“De Vermis Mysteriis” is a new step for High on Fire in terms of production and will undoubtedly be considered one of its finest releases.

A thin premise and stilted writing plague ‘Touch.’

‘Touch’ suffers from one-dimensional writing TOUCH

continued from page 5

simply how ridiculous the premise is. Given how early it is in the show’s run, perhaps some mythology will be explained in later episodes to account for Jake’s inexplicable clairvoyance. But for the time being, the show uses the logic that, since Jake can see numerical patterns that constitute our universe, he can predict all future events and interactions.

While the idea of utilizing a science-fiction ability is not bad in and of itself, the show’s execution of Jake’s ability is extremely vague regarding the limits of his “power.” Even some of the smaller inconsistencies plague the show:

how can a ten-year old boy escape from a heavily locked and guarded institution three times in the span of two episodes?

“Touch” also suffers from a lack of character development that essentially reduces most supporting roles to basic plot devices. Save for Martin and Jake, viewers have little to no background knowledge on the rest of the characters, nor any insight into their motivations. As a result of featuring such thin characters, the show is left to manufacture emotional payoff in scenes rather than allow such payoff to occur naturally.

A perfect example of this fabricated sentiment is showcased when Martin stops a man whom he has only met once from jumping off a

bridge. Martin’s argument to coax the man to stop is that he will volunteer to be his friend, and his speech is replete with some rather contrived lines of dialogue.

Not all is bad about “Touch,” though. Sutherland delivers a convincing performance as a father who is desperate to connect with his emotionally distant son and will do anything to achieve that connection. His tender role is a far cry from his famously aggressive character, Jack Bauer, from the series “24” (2001-2010). While the show’s premise does have potential to create an intriguing story, poorly developed characters and a weak script prevent “Touch” from being an engaging drama.

Victhor Viking via Flickr Creative Commons

On the band’s seventh studio album, High on Fire is still going strong.

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

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THE TUFTS DAILY

Inexcusable ignorance

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Editorial

Daniel J. Rathman Editorial

Editorial | Letters

It can be difficult to facilitate an environment of civil discourse in an online arena. Anonymity, impulsive posting and low barriers to entry mean that even conversations about complex issues can quickly devolve into heated flame wars full of personal attacks with little bearing on the subject at hand. Likewise, online anonymity can make it easier for individuals to engage in cyberbullying without fear of repercussions.

The government of Arizona isn’t having any of this, as the state legislature last week passed House Bill 2549, which makes it “unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.”

The bill is currently awaiting Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R-Ariz.) signature.

Put simply, the fact that the bill was passed is unbelievably stupid and makes one question if Arizona’s lawmakers have even a basic grasp of technology or constitutional law.

While preventing cyberbullying is an

admirable goal, this law is an overly broad, flagrant violation of the First Amendment and will almost certainly be shot down in court before it goes into effect.

Anyone who has ventured onto all but the most civil online forums has likely encountered or been the target of speech in violation of this law. Indeed, anyone who has “trolled” someone else online has likely violated this law.

As the First Amendment-defense group Media Coalition pointed out in an open letter to Brewer, “Speech protected by the First Amendment is often intended to offend, annoy or scare but could be prosecuted under this law.”

The bill’s passage is indicative of a troubling trend: Lawmakers inherently unfamiliar with technology continue to pass laws regulating and restricting it. This is no more acceptable than gray-haired male politicians acting as if they’re the most qualified individuals to be deciding on reproductive laws chiefly affecting young women.

The technophobic atmosphere in congress and state legislatures is what led to the awful Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online

Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and allowed them to advance through the legislative process as far as they did.

It wasn’t until more tech-savvy voters let their voices be heard over the special interests promoting those bills that SOPA and PIPA were effectively killed.

As college students, we might find it funny when our older relatives struggle with things as second nature to us as Facebook and texting.

However, we should not laugh when someone like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says, as he did in a 2008 interview, that he struggles with basic web browsing and email. Considering the primary role technology plays in the economy and American society itself, we should be horrified by these revelations, and we should let our votes reflect this.

McCain has since created a Twitter account and amassed more than 1.7 million followers. We can only hope that more politicians follow his lead. Politicians don’t need to be technological experts, but they should be have a basic, personal understanding of the technology that is driving our world before they attempt to regulate it.

Ethics Policy, the author of the column, sophomore James Barasch, has been suspended indefinitely. Barasch’s column will be terminated immediately.

The April 3 column will be deleted from the Daily website as soon as possible.

Plagiarism, intentional or otherwise, is one of the most serious offenses a journalist can commit. The Daily takes journalistic integrity very seriously and adheres to a strict zerotolerance policy for members caught using others’ work without properly

crediting the original creator.

The Daily’s Ethics Policy may be viewed online at tuftsdaily.com/ about-us/ethics-policy-constitution.

Please contact me by email at editor@tuftsdaily.com if you have any questions about the decision to suspend Barasch or the Ethics Policy.

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Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, The April 3 “Barasch on Books” column titled “Faceless man” contained text taken directly from a previous review of the Masha Gessen biography “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.” That review was authored by Barnes & Noble writer Graeme Wood and printed in Salon magazine, among other publications, on March 5.

In accordance with The Tufts Daily’s

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Correction P.O. Box 53018, Medford, MA 02155 617 627 3090 FAX 617 627 3910 daily@tuftsdaily.com

The April 3 News standalone “The silence of the Lamb” incorrectly stated that University of Kentucky guard Doron Lamb is a freshman. In fact, Lamb is a sophomore.

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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Tufts Daily

9

Op-Ed

BDS: Undermining peace by

Mario Feola

In the past few months, the Tufts campus has seen its fair share of debate about the Israel/Palestine issue. On Friday, Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) brought University of California Berkeley professor and antiZionist advocate Judith Butler to speak.

Excluding the content of her speech, her self-identification as an anti-Zionist calls into question her legitimacy as an impartial advocate and her fairness as a speaker. Zionism is simply support for the Jewish right to self-determination in the Jewish people’s historic homeland free from anti-Semitic persecution. Butler’s stance as contrary to a national group’s self-determination merits a closer look at what she actually stands for.

Butler advocates a movement called Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) — calling for universities and people around the world to boycott Israeli products (and American products used in Israel). Additionally, BDS promotes the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. While this certainly seems like an admirable goal, this call represents BDS’s support of a one-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Since the UN Relief and Works Agency has stipulated that all descendants of Palestinian refugees are refugees (no matter where they live or have settled), this number is hugely inflated, to nearly 5 million Palestinian “refugees” (approximately 700,000 Palestinians left Israel following its 1948 declaration of statehood). Instead of two states for two peoples, a return of 5 million “refugees” would mean a majority Palestinian state, with its attendant dissolution of the Jewish state of Israel.

But don’t take my word for it; according to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1961, “If refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.”

While the United States, many European countries, the UN Security Council and leaders around the world advocate a two-state solution for two peoples, the BDS movement clings to this concept of a one-state solution.

BDS condemns realistic peace policies and discussions between Israeli and Palestinian educational institutions.

BDS denounces peace talks between the two governments, labeling them “collaborationist.” This rhetoric makes compromise impossible. Butler, instead of calling for open dialogue, supports a hijacking of academic freedom to support her own political ends. Radical discourse won’t solve the conflict.

Additionally, the BDS movement represents a larger problem — the unfair singling out of Israel. First, the movement is extremely tenuous legally. Second, it is based on a misleading premise that instigates discrimination.

In July 2009, the European Court for

Gaelx via Flickr Creative Commons

Human Rights ruled that the boycott of Israeli products in the BDS campaign was not protected freedom of expression. While people certainly have a right to criticize Israel’s policies, the court ruled that a boycott constitutes “incitement to an act of discrimination.” The boycott singles out Israel in a way that is designed to inflame rhetoric and bend the truth in order to bolster anti-Israel claims. While advocates of BDS may not be discriminatory in purpose, their actions certainly are in effect.

Since BDS’s inception in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, the movement has gained little traction. Advocates have called on universities around the world to divest, or shift money in their endowments away from Israel.

Resolutions calling for divestment have been defeated nearly universally, as universities around the country have come to realize the illegitimacy of BDS. BDS proponents are quick to point out that being anti-Israel does not constitute anti-Semitism. In a way, this is true. In an ideal world, we could openly criticize any nation without fear of reprisal. We’re lucky enough to live in a country that allows political dissent and free speech. However, criticism crosses the line when it is noncontextual and represents a clear double standard. My question: Where is the BDS

movement against the Assad regime in Syria, which has murdered thousands of its own citizens? Where is the BDS movement against Hamas, which condones rocket attacks into Israel and openly calls for its destruction? Where is the BDS movement against China’s human rights abuses in Tibet? The BDS movement disproportionately singles out the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in which women and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT ) community have equal rights, the only country in which anti-government demonstrations are not only accepted but also encouraged.

So the question as it relates to Butler’s talk: Why single out Israel? Why deny the Jewish right to self-determination while supporting that same right among other groups? In short, because it is easy to criticize Israel. Butler could catch a flight to Tel Aviv tomorrow and hold signs saying she hated the government and its policies. This irony seems lost on Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian founder of the BDS movement, who regularly equates Israel and Nazi Germany. He also regularly calls for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, yet Barghouti is currently studying for his master’s degree at Tel Aviv University. When asked about this choice, he responded “no com-

ment.” No other country in the Middle East allows this degree of freedom of speech, yet people turn a blind eye to abuses around the world in order to ostracize Israel. Butler denounces the occupation of the West Bank, but Barghouti’s words indicate that the campaign has more to do with ostracizing Israel. In his own words, “If the occupation ends . . . would that end support for BDS? No it wouldn’t — no.”

Imagine if a Berkeley professor called for the termination of black self-determination, or even Christian self-determination. Such an injustice would not stand, but Butler has made an exception for Israel. Again and again Israel is singled out and criticized. The Jewish state is being targeted as the victim of a media campaign to demonize Israel and to deprive Jews of a national home.

There are 21 Arab countries and 25 officially Muslim countries, 9 of which sentence death for blasphemy. There are 18 Christian countries and 5 officially Buddhist countries. However, there is only one Jewish state. Israel stands alone but nonetheless grants full and equal rights to all its citizens.

There remain challenges in healing socio-economic gaps and a long history of ethnic tension, but minority groups have had great success pursuing justice through the Israeli democratic system itself. The Israeli government has even granted personal jurisdiction in legal matters to Muslims, Druze, Christians and Baha’i. However, in spite of its unprecedented respect for other religions and cultures, Israel remains besieged. Palestinians in Gaza shoot rockets from preschools and hospitals. Academics like Judith Butler call for the end to Jewish selfdetermination.

One of Butler’s main points was “Global Responsibility.” We as students have a responsibility to approach global issues without prejudice and to hold all countries to the same standard.

We are fortunate here at Tufts to have several educational groups (such as New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP)) committed to creating safe spaces for dialogue and an administration that supports us with resources to help us learn. BDS is neither the only option nor the best way forward. I urge anyone interested in these issues to be proactive, attend more events and draw your own conclusions. Israel isn’t perfect, but neither is any country. Singling out Israel for a misguided boycott campaign is both unfair and counterproductive. In the words of President Obama, “when there are efforts to boycott or divest from Israel, we will stand against them.”

Mario Feola is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

Tufts Student Fund begins spring campaign by

Alec Schilling

As many Tufts students are painfully aware, tuition is a heavy and growing burden to bear in exchange for a college education. Over half of our student body receives some sort of financial aid, and President Anthony Monaco has mentioned numerous times how important the issue is to him, personally and professionally. When working on the budget for 2012-2013, he cited financial aid as a critical area of investment and speaks often of his gratitude towards Princeton for their help.

“Without that help, I probably never would have become a scientist,” he stated, “and I certainly would not be standing before you today.”

The Tufts Student Fund ( TSF) was established in 2008 for two primary purposes: to educate Tufts students about the importance of philanthropy and to raise money for financial aid in

the face of a recession.

“The overarching goal of the Student Fund is to get students involved with and educated about the funding side of the university,” senior Alyse Vinoski, the director of philanthropy education, said. “I joined because my student worker position in the Annual Fund has shown me just how much giving back matters, and I want others to know what their contribution means.”

Indeed, TSF often values participation over amount, emphasizing that every gift counts. They are assisted in this endeavor every year by generous and often anonymous alumni, who challenge and match student contributions. This year, every dollar donated by a student will be matched with $25, so a $1 contribution is actually $26, a $2 gift is actually $52, and so forth, up to the donor’s limit of $50,000. Last year, TSF saw a 23% participation rate, which this year it hopes to increase to 25 percent, a quarter of

the student body. This is steady growth from TSF’s first campaign, which raised $7,605 from 21 percent of the student body.

Aside from raising money, TSF believes in the importance of philanthropy and hopes to instill this belief in students.

All too often, students are unaware of how directly their lives are impacted by alumni donations, which go towards everything from Safe Rides to financial aid. “It’s true that Tufts has an endowment, and that our tuition goes towards everyday matters of the school,” Vinoski says, “but the help from donors is really what makes this university run.”

To that end, TSF hosts several awareness events through the month of April.

Tuition Runs Out Day marks approximately how much education one year of tuition pays for; every day afterwards is funded by alumni contributions. There is also a “thank-a-thon,” giving students the opportunity to per-

sonalize a thank-you to alumni for their donation, and a campaign focusing on the “human” side of giving.

TSF is also hoping to encourage donations by increasing the ease of giving.

Volunteers will be tabling at the Meyer Campus Center, Tisch patio and various major events throughout the month of April, accepting donations in the form of cash or JumboCash (donations can also be given online).

Tufts Student Fund kicked off its 2012 campaign on Monday, tabling on Tisch patio, and will continue to collect donations and educate students until the campaign closes on April 27. Stop by to learn more about the Student Fund, have your donation matched and give back to your school!

Alec Schilling is a senior majoring in English. She is the co-chair of the Tufts Student Fund.

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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in performance-based bonuses.

That’s a lot to live up to, but still a cut below what the Angels’ newly-acquired Albert Pujols will make: $25.4 million per year. Pujols is widely considered to be the best hitter in the majors, and his new salary is rivaled only by Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez and his $32 million-per-year deal. While Rodriguez has arguably not quite earned his salary, if anyone is likely to be worth all that money, it’s King Albert, who is the epitome of consistency in the MLB. The three-time MVP has never batted below .299, has hit at least 30 home runs each season and has never reached triple-digit strikeouts in a year. Four players — including the aforementioned Dunn — had fanned 100 times by last year’s All-Star break. As if that’s not enough, in 2006 Pujols hit 49 homers and struck out just 50 times, nearly becoming only the second player in history to hit 50 homers with fewer than 50 whiffs in a season. In an age where a player can be considered an exceptionally efficient power hitter if his home run total is one-third his strikeout total, Pujols has broken new ground.

The 10-year deal Pujols signed may seem like a bit much for a 32 year-old, but the Angels feel he has more than a bit left in the tank. For now, Albert is still King.

While Pujols and Fielder offer big names and big contracts, a pair of young guns hopes to become the next generation of

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Highly touted rookies could make immediate impact continued from page 11

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

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INSIDE MLB

Sports

power-hitting superstars. Yonder Alonso is already being talked about as a potential Rookie of the Year candidate, before he has even made his big league debut.

As of now, the biggest thing Alonso has going for him, other than his tremendous bat, is his job security as the San Diego Padres’ starting first baseman. Without the need to fight for playing time, he will get more at-bats and, consequently, more chances to develop his ability. Playing for the offensively-challenged Padres, Alonso will most likely find himself in the fourth or fifth spot, giving him ample RBI opportunities as well.

There’s even more pressure on Yoenis Cespedes, who was playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic in 2011. Now, based on no more than one month of public exposure, he has signed a 4-year, $36 million contract with the Oakland Athletics and is one of the most talked about players in the game. Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane is certainly a believer. “He’s got no fear whatsoever,” Beane told ESPN recently.

Despite all of the buzz, Cespedes does have one widely known weakness: breaking pitches. But many scouts believe that flaw can be overcome, especially when you have the bat speed and strength that Cespedes does. He is so powerful, some say, that he will hit some home runs this year by accident. So, pitchers be warned: Even if you fool Cespedes and get him out in front on a curve, don’t be surprised if he still manages to lift it out of the park.

Knicks continue to make do without injured stars Stoudemire, Lin

INSIDE the NBA continued from back

or defensive system forces the team to rely on star power, youth and athleticism. This works to the Clippers’ advantage when they manage to go on big winning spurts, but it will ultimately hurt them come playoff time when teams can focus in on stopping their unoriginal schemes.

Trending: Down

Boston Celtics, 4th in the East The Celtics’ campaign has played out very differently from the seasons of many of the older teams in the NBA. Midway through the season, they looked left for dead and destined to miss the playoffs amid trade rumors and injuries. But the Celtics waited for the perfect time to make their playoff push, and they currently hold a top-four seed in the East. They have realized that their success depends on two things: one or two of the Big Three excelling each night and Rajon Rondo controlling the game. During the month of March, Rondo averaged 12.9 assists per game and, unsurprisingly, the Celtics were 12-5. The importance of a pure point guard has been immeasurable this season, and if the Celtics continue this solid play with Rondo leading them, they’ll be a dangerous team to meet in the playoffs.

Trending: Up Dallas Mavericks, 5th in the West One of the hottest teams heading into the All-Star break, the Mavericks have become

a shell of their former selves since then.

This is particularly worrisome because it seemed like reigning NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki had finally played himself into game shape and the team was just starting to gel. Their defense is surprisingly still playing at a high level even with the departure of Tyson Chandler in the offseason, but outside of Nowitzki and Jason Terry, no one else on the roster has produced consistently enough for the offense to take advantage of that stellar defense. They still have shown the ability to beat good teams, but not with the consistency one would expect to see from the defending champs.

Trending: Down New York Knicks, 8th in the East The Knicks find themselves in one of the most precarious positions in the league, which is surprising given that a month ago they had seemingly endless potential. Now, their season has been thrown off course by the firing of coach Mike D’Antoni, Amar’e Stoudemire’s lingering back spasms and the official end to Linsanity. Sitting in the eighth and final playoff spot, the Knicks will likely float into the postseason, bow out early and gain a good position in a loaded draft. The question is, can the Knicks ride on the coattails of Carmelo Anthony, interim head coach Mike Woodson and Baron Davis? They would sure have you think so, as they’ve only dropped two games so far while playing without D’Antoni, Stoudemire and Lin. Trending: Up

Men’s Lacrosse

Jumbos bounce back against Beavers

ALL STUDENTS APPLYING TO MEDICAL, DENTAL OR VETERINARY SCHOOL IN 2012 Must Register with our Health Professions Recommendation Committee by April 2nd.

! ! ! !

The men’s lacrosse team handled Babson easily on the road last night, 13-6, just three days after enduring a crushing overtime loss to Trinity.

No. 12 Tufts was in control from start to finish, going into halftime with an 8-3 lead. In the third quarter, the Jumbos scored the first three goals to go ahead 11-3 and put the game completely out of reach for the unranked Beavers.

Tufts lost the faceoff battle 12-11 — a rare occurrence given senior faceoff man Nick Rhoads’ prowess in that department this spring — but controlled almost every other aspect of the game. The Jumbos outshot the Beavers 45-35, scooped up 50 ground balls to the Beavers’ 40 and were 26-for-33 on clears.

Sophomore midfielder Beau Wood scored a game-high five goals on eight shots, and freshman attackman Cole Bailey added three assists. Sophomore defenseman Dan Alles picked up six ground balls on the night.

Babson’s six goals were the secondlowest total for a Tufts opponent this season. The Jumbos’ only superior defensive effort came in a 9-4 victory over the Colby Mules on March 23.

With the win, Tufts improved to 6-2 overall.

The Jumbos will return to conference play tomorrow when they travel to Middlebury. For complete coverage of last night’s game, see tomorrow’s Daily.

--by Aaron Leibowitz

If Spanish was part of your family life…

If your schooling was in English…

If you always wanted to know more Spanish…

Information packets, recommendation forms and the registration sheets are online at

Then you are in luck!

Intermediate Spanish for Heritage Students (Spanish 005)

http://uss.tufts.edu/hpa/ApplicationProcess/

is especially designed for students just like you!

This course reviews Spanish grammar and spelling, expands your vocabulary and develops reading and writing skills. Designed for students who were raised speaking the language at home but lack formal education in Spanish.

NEW this Fall 2012! !

K-Lr block

Prof. Juliana Berte

The Tufts Daily

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

11

Sports

Inside MLB

Sam GolD | THe OT

Big bats, big expectations by

Linsanity strikes again

G.J. Vitale

History has proven that large offseason contracts often have a negative effect on the recipients.

Last year, we witnessed the downfall of some of MLB’s best, with no clear explanation in sight. Carl Crawford had a horrendous first season in Boston after signing a seven-year, $142 million deal, and while it could be explained away by a wrist injury, don’t try telling that to a Red Sox fan.

Jayson Werth penned a seven-year, $126 million contract and repaid the Washington Nationals by hitting .232 with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs. Adam Dunn, under a four-year, $56 million deal with the Chicago White Sox, approached mental instability as he hit .159 with 11 home runs and an on-base percentage of .292, the first time in his career it has dropped below .300.

It seems as if players who win the mega millions can only aspire to Dan Uggla-like seasons. After signing his five-year, $62 million contract with the Atlanta Braves, Uggla hit just .173 through Independence Day. The following day, he began a 33-game hit streak, the only player in the modern era (since 1900) to accomplish a 30-plus game streak while still batting under .200 for its entirety. Although he finished the year with career lows in batting average (.233) and on-base percentage (.311), he managed to make the most of his hits, racking up a career-high 36 home runs.

The reasons for the above players’ struggles are not clear, but one cannot help but consider the increased pressure that comes with living up to the expectations of a new contract. Sure, there are a number of examples of players responding positively to the big bucks, but there Daily Staff Writer

L

mct

After signing a 10-year, $254 million deal this offseason, Albert Pujols will need to do more than just sign autographs to keep Angels fans happy. are just as many who do not. This year, the baseball world will be watching to see if two of the game’s best power hitters, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, collapse under the weight of two of the biggest contracts in MLB history.

Fielder will be a Detroit Tiger, which immensely increases the team’s World Series potential. Detroit has an ace in 2011 American League Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, as well as the one-two punch of Fielder and third baseman Miguel Cabrera in the middle of their lineup. The Tigers will almost certainly make the playoffs in a weak AL Central division, and plenty of experts have them winning it all.

For Fielder, the ballpark change may not be a factor, since his average home run distance is 409 feet. Still, it’s worth pointing out that since 2009, left-handed hitters have knocked 209 homers at Fielder’s old home, the Brewers’ Miller Park, while they have hit just 191 at the Tigers’ Comerica Park. Regardless of his power numbers this year — which will most likely be just fine — Fielder will make one-third as much as the entire Kansas City Royals team. His $23.8 million per-year salary will make him a guaranteed total of $214 million over his nine-year contract, and he can make an additional $1.25 million see INSIDE MLB, page 10

Underclassmen win Tyrell Trophy at UConn SAILING

continued from back

Jumbos a cumulative score of 95.

At UConn, the Jumbos competed in three other races. Freshmen Dan Nickerson, Jamie Maffeo and Grace Olsen represented the Jumbos in the Southern Series Two, with Nickerson and Maffeo scoring 35 points in the A division while finishing in the top five in six of their eight races, including three victories.

Olsen, who represented the B division, padded the Jumbos’ score, finishing with 32 points. Cumulatively, the group tied for first

place with Roger Williams, but lost a headto-head tiebreaker, placing second in the 20-team pool.

Also at UConn, sophomores Solomon Krevans, Eliza White and Cameron Barclift and freshman Mara Rettig dominated in the Tyrell Trophy competition, securing first place overall with a 22-point total. Krevans and White won five of eight races in the A division for 13 points, while Barclift and Rettig nearly swept all eight B Division races, placing second in only their last race, for a total of nine points.

Finally, in the team races, the co-ed A

Division sailors saw action at the Southern New England Team Race at Conn. College, while the B team held its ground at home at the Mystic Lake Team Race. The A team ultimately placed seventh out of 12 teams, and the B-team was perfect in 14 races at home, going 9-0 in the first round and 5-0 in the third. “[We’re] way better than last year,” coach Ken Legler said.

With a strong string of performances in both the fleet and team races this weekend, it seems the sailing teams are primed to make a splash in qualifying for nationals.

DAILY DIGITS

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Margin by which the men’s lacrosse team outshot the Trinity Bantams in a 9-8 overtime loss on Saturday afternoon, with the shot totals standing at 54-33. This season, Tufts has outshot opponents 308-243 and outscored opponents 80-60. Senior co-captain Kevin McCormick leads the NESCAC in shots, averaging 11.43 per game, while sophomore attackman Beau Wood is third in the conference, averaging 8.71. On Saturday, though, Trinity senior keeper Peter Johnson made 19 saves to keep Tufts’ offense at bay and secure a Trinity win.

Current hit streak for freshman infielder Wade Hauser, who is leading the 12-3 men’s baseball team in nearly every offensive statistical category. Hauser boasts a teamleading .471 batting average, .627 slugging percentage and 20 RBIs and has scored 14 runs on 24 hits. During his streak, Hauser has had five three-hit efforts, including a three-game span over spring break during which he had nine hits and 10 RBIs. Before yesterday’s 2-for-4 effort against Brandeis, Hauser had scored in five straight games and driven in a run in six straight.

Rebounds posted by Kansas forward Thomas Robinson in the Jayhawks’ 67-59 loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in the Div. I NCAA Basketball finals on Monday evening. Robinson was the only player on either team to post a double-double, notching 18 points and five offensive rebounds. Kentucky star forward Anthony Davis managed 16 boards but just six points, but Kentucky nonetheless came out on top. The win vindicated coach John Calipari, who captured his first title after decades of fielding strong tournament teams but coming up short.

28.1

$225,000,000

11

Value of the 10-year extension signed by first baseman Joey Votto with the Cincinnati Reds on Monday. Votto was named NL MVP in 2010, a year in which the Reds won the NL Central title. Last season, Votto batted .309 and knocked in 103 RBIs, while also securing a career-high 185 hits. The massive value of the contract continues the trend of huge deals for first basemen, after Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder also signed mammoth contracts this offseason. Should Votto get injured, the small-market Reds could be on the hook for years.

4 2

Points per game this season for Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant, a league-high number. So far in April, the 6-foot-6 Bryant is averaging an astounding 40 points per game, while his Lakers currently stand in third place in the NBA’s Western Conference with a 33-20 record. Bryant also leads his team in steals per game, and has helped guide the Lakers through a turbulent season that has included fighting between the players and new coach Mike Brown as well as the trade of popular guard Derek Fisher.

17

Strikeouts that freshman pitcher Allyson Fournier earned through five innings of the No. 23 softball team’s home opener against Bowdoin on Friday at Spicer Field. The rookie allowed just one hit and no runs in her NESCAC East debut and added seven more strikeouts over the rest of the weekend while improving on her conference-leading 0.78 earned run average. Overall, Fournier has struck out 71 batters this season, with opponents hitting just .125 against her.

insanity has all but gone by the wayside. Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin had one of the best opening fourgame stretches in NBA history, and then, all of a sudden, he shrunk back into relative oblivion and has since been forced — like every other professional athlete in New York — to endure the bipolarity of the city’s media and fans.

Lin, who is out for the season with a torn meniscus in his knee, might very well be a trailblazer for future Asian Americans with aspirations to play professional basketball, and that’s great, especially because nowadays people obsess over diversifying absolutely everything. But he’s too turnoverprone and streaky to be a starter in New York, and let’s face it, Knicks fans — the most fastidious, mercurial bunch in all of sports — don’t even lavish some starters with positive attention, much less the bench players.

The dirge for Lin’s departure from newspaper headlines rings hollow for many fans who just want the Knicks to make the playoffs. Even as a cultural phenomenon, however, Linsanity was relatively short-lived.

Both the shock value and dazzling performances are gone, and the excitement generated within the Asian community has mostly fizzled out, too.

It was an interesting spectacle, though, sort of like an unplanned social experiment.

And in many ways, it was important — in the way that solidarity and rallying around a cause are important.

An alternative view is that Linsanity’s immediate wake proved the harbinger of a more troubling social trend. While it did not polarize the American public, Linsanity demonstrated how rapidly certain occurrences can gain serious traction. That rings a bell, doesn’t it? It should. It’s Kony2012.

None of us should have been surprised at the fact that the Kony2012 video went viral.

The proliferation of social media has given rise to the technology-age pulpit, a platform from which myriad individuals voice their sometimes ludicrous and pharisaical opinions. So, when Kony2012 took the Internet by storm, these expert ethicists lapped it up and proceeded to lecture everyone else about its gravity.

The same people who professed their concern about the atrocities committed

by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army also, unfortunately, neglected to do research on the nature of the video. It would later come out that Invisible Children, the sponsor of that infamous video, has mismanaged donations and that the video blatantly ignored many of the ongoing human rights abuses in Uganda.

Blind activism certainly isn’t anything pernicious. To some extent, though, the failure to probe beneath the surface reflects a lack of critical thinking that has pervaded American society in more substantial ways.

If you don’t believe me, watch a Republican presidential debate.

That being said, our susceptibility to appearances could very well provide a powerful tool for people who try to advance a particular cause with a partial or complete disregard for the truth.

Jeremy Lin is a basketball player. What he accomplishes or fails to accomplish over the course of his career will likely not influence the framework of American society. Still, his meteoric rise to stardom offers a perfect case study for something like Kony2012.

Even when he began to put up numbers characteristic of a backup point guard, Knicks fans continued to back Lin because of his great story. Even when the ugly truths about the Kony video surfaced, people still supported the “cause” because, well, how could someone possibly lie about that?

It’s difficult to stomach, but the prospect of an America ensnared by putative “good” causes is very real, since our collective inclination to examine events thoroughly and hear opposing views has attenuated drastically with the advent of technology.

I believe very strongly that Kony should suffer for his actions, but the truth — the whole truth — should not be sidelined for simplicity’s sake.

Sam Gold is a freshman who has yet to declare a major. He can be reached at Samuel_L.Gold@tufts.edu.

Sports

12

INSIDE Inside MLB

12

tuftsdaily.com

Baseball

Sager the savior as Jumbos walk off in home opener by

Alex Prewitt

Daily Editorial Board

Throughout Tuesday’s home opener against Brandeis, the dugout heard the same basic tenet from coach John Casey: BASEBALL (12-3 Overall, 3-0 NESCAC) Huskins Field, Tuesday

R H E Brandeis 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 — 4 6 0 Tufts 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 2 — 5 11 2 Stay behind freshman Kyle Brenner’s fastball and drive it into the opposite field.

It took the Jumbos seven innings to comply but, once they did, they finally took off.

Senior co-captain shortstop Sam Sager hit a bases-loaded, walk-off double to left-center that scored freshman left fielder James Howard and sophomore pinch-runner Eric Robinson and sent Tufts to a wild 5-4 victory at Huskins Field yesterday afternoon.

Down 4-1 through seven innings, the Jumbos got a two-out, two-run homer from junior right fielder Eric Weikert, the reigning NESCAC Player of the Week, in the eighth that cut the Judges’ lead down to one. Weikert, hitless to that point in the game, blasted one into his power alley in left-center field to bring home senior co-captain Matt Collins, who had singled earlier in the inning.

Once freshman closer Willie Archibald got around a leadoff single by notching three straight strikeouts in the ninth, the stage was set for Sager’s heroics.

James Howard singled to lead off the ninth, then moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by junior first baseman Tom Howard. Pinch-hitter Max Freccia, who made the team as a sophomore after getting cut his first year, singled to right field. Freshman Connor McDavitt walked

Scott Tingley / The Tufts Daily

With the bases loaded, two outs and Tufts trailing Brandeis 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth yesterday, senior co-captain Sam Sager attacked the first pitch he saw and lined it into leftcenter to give Tufts the walk-off win. to load the bases, and after junior second baseman Scott Staniewicz flied out to center, Sager calmly stroked a first-pitch fastball into left-center, pumping his fist after touching first and entering a sea of brown jerseys.

“Going into the at-bat, I was looking to stay back and hit it hard somewhere,” said Sager, who went 2-for-5 with three RBIs, including a groundout that scored freshman catcher Nick Barker in the third to put Tufts on the board. “I got an outside fastball and got a good swing on it.”

The Judges gambled by keeping Brenner in against the NESCAC’s top offense, allowing the freshman to work into the ninth without even the slightest scurry in their bullpen. Heading into the eighth, Brenner had retired 13 of his previous 15 batters faced on the afternoon, a surprising accomplishment considering that

he had struggled coming into the start, coughing up 11 runs in his past 13 1/3 innings pitched entering Tuesday, including six runs on 10 hits against Western New England on March 29.

But for the most part, Brenner threw strikes that resulted in weak ground ball outs and left Casey displeased with his team’s performance.

“We didn’t have good at-bats all game, and I thought we were flat coming out today,” said Casey, who added that the Jumbos were the “flattest” they have been all season. “Some guys, when they have success, they start assuming and that’s a very dangerous thing. Guys have bad games, but being part of a team means your teammate picks you up. For us, today, everyone was flat. That’s not us.

And that’s on me. I obviously didn’t have them ready.”

Casey sent seven different pitchers to the mound in a midweek staff day.

Freshman Dean Lambert started and went two innings, striking out the side in the first; senior Kevin Gilchrist worked a perfect third on his way back from what Casey called “tightness” and Archibald picked up the win, the first of his career for a unit that carried a no-hitter through 4 1/3 innings.

Brandeis plated three unearned runs off freshman Joe Harrington in the seventh, aided in large part by a wild pitch.

Classmate Tom Ryan allowed a fourth in the eighth inning after senior Kenny Destremps doubled, advanced on a balk and scored on a sacrifice fly. The Judges fell to 5-20 with the loss.

Freshman third baseman Wade Hauser went 2-for-4, extending his team-best hitting streak to 13 games. Weikert finished 1-for-4 with two RBIs on the homer, atoning for weak grounders in his previous at-bats.

“I was struggling at the plate today, so I had to try to shake off every bad at-bat,” Weikert said. “Baseball’s a mental game.

I was thinking stay back and swing hard.

Coach always preaches going the other way. When I’m hitting really well I’m able to put the ball out there.”

Eighteen of the Jumbos’ 25 outs, however, were infield ground outs.

“We’ve been slowly getting ourselves out a lot,” Casey said. “We’re swinging with our body, not the bat. We’re taking good pitches then getting worked up and trying to go after others, which is a sign we’re not feeling good at the plate.”

Things have indeed tapered off for the Jumbos after a blistering spring trip, but they are still sporting an eight-game winning streak heading into a critical three-game series this weekend against the Trinity Bantams. Once the paragon of NESCAC greatness before Tufts won the past two conference championships, Trinity is 3-0 in conference play so far after sweeping Colby this past weekend.

Inside the NBA

Sailing

Superstars look to carry their teams into postseason by

Cameron Yu

Contributing Writer

cOURTESY kEN lEGlER

The co-ed and women’s sailing teams competed throughout New England this past weekend, with races at Tufts, Brown, UConn, Conn. College and BU.

Sailing squads finds success across busy weekend by

Andy Wong

Daily Staff Writer

Tufts’ co-ed and women’s sailing squads, ranked No. 8 and No. 12, respectively, in Sailing World’s latest bi-weekly coaches’ poll, had a productive weekend with fleet and team races at Brown University, BU, UConn, Conn.

College and at home.

For the women’s team, sophomore Sara Makaretz and junior Natalie Salk of the A division joined junior Mariel Marchand and sophomore Polly Murray at Brown University in the Dellenbaugh Women’s Regatta. The group finished with a cumulative placement of 11th out of the 18 competing teams over the three-day, 24-race event. Despite the finish, the group showed promise — Makaretz and Salk finished sixth in the A division and notched three top-five finishes and a thirdplace finish during the fifth race for a total of 89 points. Meanwhile, Marchand and Murray secured a top-four finish in the fourth race of the B division, earning 136 points to give both divisions a cumulative score of 225.

“Our A boat right now is really good and

lighter [than before],” Makaretz said. “I think our women’s team is getting better in every year.

We’re just trying to get a lot of good practice in before the Atlantic Coast Championships.”

For the co-ed team, a strong showing by the A division and promising results from their B division culminated in a third-place finish at the in-conference BU Trophy competition. Competing against 17 other teams in eight races, the A Division squad, manned by freshman sailors Alec Ruiz-Ramon and Kate Levinson, highlighted the day with a victory in their sixth race to go along with three other top-four finishes, finishing with 43 points.

The B division team, initially anchored by freshman Duncan Swain and sophomore Julie Pringle, competed in the first six races, managing three top-five finishes, including a second-place finish in the third race.

For the last two races, a sophomore duo of Charlie Proctor and Tori Porter took over, and the pair went on to finish the day with a victory in the final B Division race, closing out the afternoon with 52 points to give the see SAILING, page 11

With the NBA season heading into its final month, a few things are clear: Chicago and Oklahoma City have a stranglehold over their respective conferences (despite the absence of reigning MVP Derrick Rose for Chicago), San Antonio continues to defy critics with its boring yet consistent style of play, and Miami, despite all the criticism, will be just fine with one of the top seeds in the Eastern Conference.

However, for the rest of the teams in each conference, what will determine their success heading into the postseason is the all-important X-factor: momentum.

Because the NBA is such a star-driven league, the teams with the biggest stars have the greatest potential to shake up the league for the remainder of the season and the playoffs.

Here’s how some of the teams with the biggest stars are faring: Orlando Magic, currently 3rd in the East After sleepwalking through the first two weeks of the season, the Magic have climbed on the back of their all-star center, Dwight Howard and ridden him all the way to the third seed. Since Howard has “committed” to the team, though, the Magic have won only three of eight games, with a loss Sunday night when Howard was sidelined with back spasms.

The injury is only a minor concern, as Howard has previously proven durable.

The Magic’s remaining schedule looks like an even dose of playoff teams and scrubs, and Howard should dominate every matchup if he is healthy. But his

recent injury and losing funk has the team going in in the wrong direction.

Trending: Down

Los Angeles Lakers, 3rd in the West It has been difficult to get a good read on the Lakers this season because, much like the Spurs, they are a team that simply will never go away. While boring to many, the Lakers are in the exact position they want to be in, especially after acquiring point guard Ramon Sessions at the trade deadline. Sessions gives the Lakers the quickness and penetrating ability that former co-captain and Lakers legend Derek Fisher failed to provide this season, and he has shown a knack for knocking down open jumpers. The Lakers, who have had trouble with the West’s elite, will play mostly contenders to close the season, and that schedule will serve as a good test for them.

A bigger concern might be that center Andrew Bynum sprained his ankle Sunday night; his health, as always, will determine where the Lakers end up, and luckily for them this injury doesn’t seem too serious.

Trending: Up Los Angeles Clippers, 4th in the West After racing out to a hot start, the Clippers fell flat after the All-Star break. They had probably the most grueling stretch in the NBA: five sets of back-to-back games and one stretch of three games in three days all occurring in a span of three weeks. The result was a 6-8 lull. The team was rumored to have quit on coach Vinny Del Negro, and it’s easy to see why. Del Negro’s inability to successfully implement an offensive see INSIDE THE NBA, page 10