Spring 2010 - Issue 4

TUFTS OBSERVER APRIL 12,, 2010

VOLUME UME CXX / ISSUE 4

ONE STATE TWO

STATE

RED STATE BLUE STATE

O

INSIDE THE Evaluating Teach

for America (page 6)

What to do with $2504.84 (page 9)

A treatise on leggings (page 12)

FEATURED ARTICLES

2

feature Does America need a two-state solution?

national The critiques of the Teach for America initiative

opinions Revitalizing public education

6

20

interview The Observer interviews Freelance Whales

off campus The Observer explores Boston’s nightlife

The Observer has been Tufts’ publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

19 25

O

O

CONTENTS

EDITORS

editor-in-chief ditor-inDaniel aniel Rosen managing anaging editors e Zachary chary Foulk Eliza za Mil Mills section ction editors edit Katie Boland Meg Boland Katie Christiansen Zachary Laub Marysa Lin Cara Paley Molly Rubin Natalie Selzer Ariana Siegel Seth Stein

PRODUCTION production director David Schwartz art director Alyce Currier photography editor Elizabeth Herman lead artist Ruth Tam copy editor Kristen Barone layout director Daniel Weinstein assistant copy editors Danielle Carbonneau Kate Griffiths Carly Machlis Daniela Ramirez Isobel Redelmeier Elisha Sum Brian Wolf Zara Fishkin

BUSINESS & WEB web director Will Ramsdell assistant web director Charlotte Burger webmaster Jonathan Evans business manager Andrew McGowan

April 12, 2010 Tufts Observer, Since 1895

2 feature One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State, by Seth Stein 4 international The Sunny Side of Shade Grown Coffee, by Adam Steinbrenner 5 national Teach For America: Not All It’s Chalked Up To Be, by Will Ehrenfeld life 6 campus What Should You Do With The Next 5 Years?, by Marysa Lin and Lauren Herstik life 8 campus $2504.64, by Marysa Lin life 9 campus Forging a New Paper Trail, by Katherine Sawyer 10 culture A Treatise On Leggings, by Megan Wasson & culture 12 arts Country or Pop: What’s the Difference?, by Katie Lazarski & culture 17 arts Book Review: Where The Wild Things Are, by Katie Boland 18 interview A Moment of Frankness With Freelance Whales, by Katie Christiansen 19 opinions Renewing the Public Option For Education, by Michael Bendetson 20 national Behind the Curtains of the Healthcare Debate, by Zachary Foulk campus life 22 Psychobabble: Your Love is My Drug, by Sophia Boudoir campus 24 off I’d Tap That: Boston’s Best Beer, by Seth Stein campus 25 off Paint the Town Brown and Blue: Exploring the Bar Scene, by Chelsea Brown & prose 26 poetry The Upward Slopes of Dharavi Stories, by Ariana Siegel safety 28 campus Police Blotter, by Ruth Tam

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Bendetson Sophia Boudoir Chelsea Brown Will Ehrenfeld Suzi Grossman Elizabeth Herman

Volume CXX, Issue 4 Tufts’ Student Magazine www.tuftsobserver.org

Lauren Herstik Elaine Kim Katie Lazarski Steven McFarland Lizzy Roberts Katherine Sawyer

Adam Steinbrenner

Since

1895

NATIONAL

ONE STATE, TWO STATE, R A failing, unpopular war overseas.

Influential, radical groups seizing media attention. Minority parties using the filibuster to prevent legislation. A new, young president that embodies the hopes and dreams of the youth culture. Sound familiar? I could be talking about Afghanistan, Tea Parties, healthcare legislation, and Obama. But I could also be talking about Vietnam, hippies, the Civil Rights Act, and JFK. The political climate of the 1960s and 2000s have much in common. Both eras had a generation of Americans asking, “Are we on the verge of a new Civil War?” Not one that would be fought on the battlefield but one fought in courts and legislatures across the nation. A culture war. Welcome to the Divided States of America. Or is it? Our parents’ generation drove the two Americas apart— and our generation has the chance to bring them back together.

1968: Baby Boomers Rebel The late 1960s and 70s were largely defined by the baby boomers’ rebellion against what had become mainstream American culture. This clash may have been unavoidable, as the baby boomers were coming of age. According to the United States Census, by 1970 the baby boomers represented about 76 million Americans, out of a total population of 200 million. Their first, albeit tepid, rebellion was launched in the early 1960s.

By the late 1960s they turned radical, angered by the Vietnam War and inspired by grassroots activism. These young, urban liberals fought for equality for women, gays, and African Americans and an end to the war in Vietnam. However, their burgeoning movement was met with swift opposition from Nixon’s “Silent Majority” of those largely middle-aged and older, living in the suburbs and the countryside. The culture wars were born.

2

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

During this time, liberals and conservatives fought bitterly about the path our country should take. Eventually both sides seemed to run out of steam; the conservatives could not get around Roe v. Wade, the liberals could not pass the Equal Rights Amendment. By the late 1970s we had an uneasy ceasefire, and our politics reflected this. Relative moderates like Bush Sr. and

Clinton dominated the political landscape, working to bridge the liberal-conservative divide. Clinton in particular was the archmoderate; after the defeat of Hilarycare, he tacked to the center and did little to raise the ire of Republicans while quietly strengthening the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and focusing on brokering peace between Israel and Pales-

S ’ O in O H H W W

BLUE AMERICA

90% of BLACKS 60% of THOSE 72% of Ph.Ds EARNING 64% of THOSE UNDER $50K WITHOUT A 47% of THOSE HIGH SCHOOL EARNING DIPLOMA OVER $100K

RED AMERICA

67% of 50-53% of STRONGLY WHITE MEN & RELIGIOUS WOMEN 54% of 34% of UNION MEMBERS VETERANS

Sources: CNN, General Social Survey 2008

NATIONAL

, RED STATE, BLUE STATE

BY SETH STEIN

tine. But this period of relative peace was not to last.

2000: The Culture Wars Strike Back The contentious 2000 presidential election brought the culture wars back to the forefront of American politics. We began to view our country through the red state/blue state divide. To some it may seem that there are in fact two Americas.

Is this true?

In many ways, it is. The political bases of the Democrats and the Republicans have become increasingly segregated in the past two decades. This isolation is geographic, demographic, cultural, and economic. Caught in the middle are an ever-shrinking number of swing voters and moderates. As the healthcare debate has shown us, compromise has been dropped from our political lexicon.

What are these opposed voting blocks?

Although the red/blue divide is an extreme abstraction of political polarization, there is a grain of truth in it. Just look at a county map of the 2000 election. The cities, the Northeast, West Coast, and Northwest are fairly solidly blue. The middle of the country and the South are mostly red. Of course, this is a gross generalization—but using Illinois as an example, a more nuanced picture develops.

Using a county-by-county map of the 2000 election, we can see a divided America. Illinois has often been described as a microcosm of the nation, containing representative examples of urban/rural divide, demographics, economy, etc. So let’s look at Illinois. Chicago is a deep blue dot on the top right of the map. It is ringed by red suburbs—especially the wealthier ones. As you move down the state, the farmland becomes a sea of sparsely populated red, punctuated by a few dots of blue

college towns and small cities. To say that a private-school educated, wealthy, liberal, Jewish resident of Chicago has little in common with his downstate brethren is an understatement.

This is again an abstraction, but a useful one. In fact “Blue America” is typified by its polygot nature, which we can see by using exit polls from the 2008 election. One of the staunchest Democratic constituencies is one of America’s

“

THE HOPE...IS THAT WE LEARN FROM THE BITTER PARTISANSHIP WE SEE TODAY AND VOW NOT TO REPEAT IT.

”

poorest—black Americans, 89 percent of whom voted for Barack Obama. Democrats also draw support from the richest Americans as well (60 percent of those earning under $50K annually voted Democrat, as well as 47 percent of those earning over $100K annually). At the same time, the least educated and the most educated are core constituencies of the Democratic Party, according to the Washington Post (approximately 72 percent of Ph.Ds identify as liberal, and 64 percent of those without a high school diploma voted for Barack Obama). Another stalwart, though declining, base of Blue America are the unions—about 68 percent of union members voted Democrat in the last election. Blue America is hardly ideologically consistent either. To bring the story back to Chicago, aldermanic elections, although nonpartisan, are almost always between Democrats.

The question is, do you vote for the Daley machine Democrat, supported by the old blue-collar unions, or do you vote for

a progressive candidate? Blue America is all over the place.

What about “Red America”? It is significantly more homogeneous economically, religiously, geographically, and racially.

It is overwhelmingly white, middle class, and Christian—50-53 percent of white men and women voted for McCain. Also, between 74-87 percent of non-Christians (including nonbelievers) voted Democrat in 2008, and 61 percent of white Protestants voted Republican. Economically, about 50 percent of Americans earning more than $50K annually voted Republican. Red America is centered in the South, West, and lower Midwest regions. The modern Republican Party draws its votes from these people, while its funding comes from the business community. They benefit from clarity of message, unlike Democrats, who have to contend with a much more divided base. The message is one of social conservativism and pro-business fiscal conservativism. As long as this alliance stands, Republicans will continue to be successful at the polls.

Deadlock The biggest consequence of the vanishing American moderate is that we are losing our ability to compromise and move forward on the important issues that face our nation. In the 1950s and early 1960s, neither major political party was ideologically consistent. There were large numbers of Dixiecrats and New England Republicans. These groups brokered political deals between the parties and allowed legislation to pass.

The late 1960s, with its divisive political landscape, drove the parties further apart ideologically. More importantly, it began the long process of purging moderates from either party. It seems as if that process may now be complete.

In response to the election of Obama, the Republicans are being driven to the far APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

3

NATIONAL right, as evidenced by the vociferous anger of the Tea Parties and notable conservatives asking for a “purity test” for potential candidates. At the same time, Obama has changed the politics of the Democratic Party. Clinton represented the old guard that believed that America was a fundamentally conservative place and that electoral success could only be assured by playing to the middle. Obama, from his roots as a community organizer, begs to differ.

The Democratic Party that he has shaped stands up for its liberal ideals.

With the Democrats becoming more progressive, and the Republicans more conservative, it becomes increasingly challenging for either party to pass legislation without strong majorities in both houses of Congress. In the next few years, we are going to see the healthcare debacle repeated over and over again. Until, that is, we take the mantle of leadership from our parents’ generation.

Hope: The Echo Boom The red/blue divide may be worsening in the short term, no doubt egged on by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, but there is hope of convergence in the future.

Although our p parents’ a en ar e ts’ generation geneeraation n is back to the old culture uree war wars, rs, s scr screaming reaming about fight h in ng gay g y marriage ga marriaage at abortion and fi ghting eir kids have taken t ke ta k n a every turn, their nce on th hese divi v ssiive v progressive stance these divisive social issues.

Just like the he la llate t ’60s, te ’600s, s when n the entire boomer generation omer genera r tion nd bega g n a co olcame of age and began coln against agains n t Mom Mo om lective rebellion expe peeriienci p c ng n and Dad, we aree experiencing grap aap ph hiic bu b ubb another demographic bubpeopl p e—the ble of young people—the hateverr Echo Boom. Forr wha whatever eneratiion reason, our generation seems to be off a veryy different temperamperament than their ir pa parr ents were. Perhaps rhaps because we weren’t eren n’t drafted, our two w failing wars have not radicalized d us.

In fact, the radical dical Tea Partiers h hititting the streetss are 4

TUFTS OBSERVER ER

APRIL L 12, 2010 20

old! Take one look at a Tea Party rally, and you’ll see people that look a lot like your parents, grandparents, and their friends. A recent Gallup poll found that only 16 percent of Tea Partiers are between the ages of 18-29.

It has been reported time and time again that our generation has not been recruited as soldiers into the culture wars. There is a record level of acceptance amongst our generation, from liberal to conservative, red to blue, that we are okay with gay rights. According to a New York Times poll of Americans 17-29, 68 percent support some form of gay unions/marriage. We agree that we don’t like either of the wars going on, we think Barack Obama is MTV cool, and green energy is the way to go. At the same time, we are more likely than the overall population to support marijuana legalization, according to the same New York Times poll.

As our generation takes the mantle of leadership from our parents, many of these hot button issues will lose their ability to rally a base. That is not to say we won’t find plenty of issues to bicker about—if history has taught us anything, we will.

But what we are experiencing now is a generational shift, much like the he decades dec ecad adess after the th passage of w o en om e ’ss sufwomen’s frag age. Amo m ngst frage.

Amongst the people peop o le who h

fought over giving women the vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the issue was highly contentious. By the 1960s, only fringe radicals would argue publically that women should be denied the vote—but the new generation found a whole new batch of things to argue about. Using history as our guide, most of the issues that are so divisive now will melt away once the echo generation is in charge, only to be replaced with new ones.

The hope for our generation is that we learn from the bitter partisanship we see today and vow not to repeat it. Maybe that’s possible. But it is up to us to eschew the other hallmark of our generation: apathy. Regardless of Obama’s status as the “youth candidate”, our generation is notorious for not getting involved. Look again at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of our parents were asking, “Where’s the anger?” And that is a good question.

There is hope for America to bridge its divides and to reach a consensus on at least some of the pressing issues we will face in the future. But it falls to us to become active in our political debates, cast our votes, and challenge the wisdom of our elders. That may be the only hope we have of avoiding what The Daily Show recently suggested—a two-state solution for the United States. O

RUTH TAM

INTERNATIONAL

The Sunny Side of Shade-Grown Coffee

BY ADAM STEINBRENNER

S

fee boasts a major advantage: plants can establish mutually beneficial relationships with other organisms and an array of wildlife. The trees, shrubs, and herbs it grows alongside sustain mammals and bugs that feed on these plants and indirectly support other types of life. It’s the complete ecological package.

Concrete scientific evidence exists to validate this conclusion. Stacy Philpott, a University of Toledo ecologist who studies the impact of shade coffee on wildlife, said that separate studies show how increased coffee management leads to fewer species of birds. Birds rely on shade coffee plantations when migrating south for the winter, which provide a place for them to live, forage, and breed.

Nonprofit organizations outside of academia also support the ecology of shade coffee, including Abby Ray, an associate with the Rainforest Alliance. “By bringing back natural forest cover, you’re also bringing birds back into the landscape— birds that eat coffee borers and other insects,” she said.

Intensely managed coffee’s perceived advantage also lies in a cold, hard, economic reality. While no system can rival adding truckloads of nutrients and clearing out weedy competitors, shade coffee certifiers argue that the benefits aren’t so black and white. Modernization may increase yields for a few boom years, but the soil can erode and lose all the nutrients that keep growing coffee healthy.

One solution is to compensate shade coffee farmers

omewhere in the back of our minds we store an old biological trope—all life relies on plants. But we rarely remember this when we drink our morning cup of coffee. The drink hardly resembles the plant it comes from; a coffee bean is picked, skinned, dried, roasted, and ground to unrecognizable dust before it ever reaches Tower Café. When we sip coffee, we think of Seattle-style coffee shops, European espresso bars, and Turkish cezve pots rather than the jungle that bears it.

But coffee (Coffea arabica) is first and foremost a plant. Found in the mountains of tropics worldwide, it is surrounded by the same friends and foes as all other plant life. It is because coffee interacts with animals that we get caffeine—the defensive chemical produced by coffee to ward off insect herbivores. Fortunately it does not produce enough to poison humans, and coffee’s bright berries are thus preserved for us to enjoy. And the plant’s environmental interactions extend past predatory bugs; it houses wildlife species and contributes to ecosystems in tropical habitats.

There are two major ways to cultivate coffee. Shade-grown coffee is grown under a natural canopy of trees—banana, papaya, and other plants. In contrast, a more modern type of coffee plantation consists of rows of shrubs, meticulously cared for by men and machines, fertilizers, and pesticides—an intensive cultivation yielding the same delicious result.

A farmer’s trade-off between these two methods might seem obvious. Without the energy of full light or the crop density of dedicated fields (and with potential insect and disease pests) shade coffee may appear to produce fewer berries. But despite its shortcomings, STEVEN MCFARLAND shade-grown cof-

TH RU

M TA

for any compromise in crop size, which is essentially paying to protect biodiversity. Many different certification schemes funnel premiums paid on their coffee back to programs and often farmers themselves. Other organizations certify farms as ecologically friendly, allowing them to command higher prices in the market.

The Rainforest Alliance does just this and estimates that farmers receive 10-20% more for branding their coffee as shadecertified.

Local cooperative coffee mills will also often make sure their plants are harvested responsibly. Dr. Colin Orians, a Tufts professor who leads undergraduate biologists to Costa Rica every other year, says that this decentralized support for shade coffee profits many regions. “Shade coffee labels, while nice, are not a replacement for on-the-ground observation of practices,” she said. “You need to see the farm. There’s a human benefit in shade coffee in the reduction of human exposure to pesticide.”

As coffee consumers, we can best support this cause by making sure our coffee is shade-grown. Even chains like Starbucks are beginning to think about how their beans are grown—their “Shared Planet” program funds farmer support centers to teach sustainable growing methods.

If you brew your own coffee, you can find shade-grown beans at specialty stores, local roasters, and even some supermarkets.

Besides tasting better than wholesale bags from Dunkin Donuts, shade-grown beans support the environment in ways that buying carbon offsets or donating to Greenpeace does not.

Drinking shade coffee is as universally beneficial as it gets—for the wildlife that depends on the coffee shrub, for the rural farmers that can grow it cheaply, and for us, the exhausted temperate-dwelling masses.

Do our wildlife friends in the tropics a favor and make that next cup a shaded one.O APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

5

NATIONAL

Teach for America: Not A

BY WILL EHRENFELD

N

obody wants a pop quiz outside of class, but bear with me: what program is more selective than Harvard Law School, more popular than the Peace Corps, and pays better than most entry level positions? The answer is Teach For America (TFA), and it’s taking college campuses by storm.

Teach for America is an organization that employs recent college graduates as teachers in some of the most under-resourced schools in the country—typically within low-income urban and rural communities. The program works to allocate more personal attention to underprivileged students and combat educational inequality nationwide. It is a very popular option for college graduates, particularly at Tufts, where eight percent of graduating seniors applied this year.

Offering only around 4,000 spots for 46,000 applicants, the extremely selective TFA rejected over 90% of applicants for the 2009-10 class of corps members, or TFA teachers. But 20 or more current Tufts seniors will join over 4,000 college graduates from around the country for five weeks of intensive summer training before becoming public school teachers in September.

6

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

Teach for America: Class Notes 1. There are more than 7,300 corps members 2. TFA has reached 3 million students since it was founded in 1990 3. 50 corps members are teaching 3000 students in Boston 4. 72% of TFA members stay in education 5. 2009 TFA admissions rate was 11%, Tufts’ was 25.5% 6. In 2009 403 teachers were cut from state budget

DANIEL WEINSTEIN

Welcome to Boston Just last year, TFA began expanding into Boston, a move that has become quite contentious. 2009 saw the first group of corps members move into the Greater Boston region, which includes Chelsea, Cambridge, Revere, and Boston. This September, 75 more new teachers will arrive in the region, and 20 are headed

to Boston—the flashpoint of a serious controversy.

Richard Stutman, the president of the Boston Teachers’ Union, has publicly lambasted both the district and TFA for adding corps members to Boston’s already swelled ranks of teachers. Indeed, because of budget cuts and resulting layoffs, many current teachers will not be returning to their classrooms in the fall; instead, they will be swapped for candidates with no former teaching experience.

“We’ve had people with three years’ experience moved aside for Teach For America candidates,” Stutman said. “Most people I represent feel it’s an insult. I really can’t buy that somehow it’s better to have a five-week program [than traditional certification]; I don’t even think the superintendent thinks it makes for a better teacher…how could it?”

Josh Biber, Executive Director of TFA in Boston, rebutted Stutman’s claims:

NATIONAL

A ll It’s Chalked Up to Be “Our teachers apply for open vacancies and interview just like any other teacher candidate from anywhere else,” he said.

“At the end of the day, the achievement gap is an enormous problem that unfairly holds too many kids back.” He argued how “our corps members, through their teaching, long-term leadership, and unflagging commitment to kids…can be one important piece of the solution.”

Elton Sykes (’09) began his teaching career in Tulsa, Oklahoma last September as a high school English teacher with TFA. Like Biber, he refuted Stutman’s concerns: “I do not agree with the criticism made by others,” he said regarding Stutman’s public comments. “I feel like those criticisms are not solving the problem of educational inequality and closing the achievement gap.”

But freshman Lauren Starr, who was taught under a corps member in a K-8 school in Minneapolis, backed up some of Stutman’s hesitations. “I remember liking these teachers on a personal level,” she said. “Unfortunately, their classes were often out of control and quite frankly we didn’t learn much…they were a bit too idealistic and lacked the experience and training necessary to conduct a successful classroom.”

Adam Weldai, a member of the Malden School Committee and an incoming graduate student in the Tufts M.A.T. program, worries about the program’s impact on young teachers and students.

“Quite frankly, you need more than two years to become a good teacher,” he said.

“Sending unprepared teachers into lowperforming districts is equally as harmful to the teacher as it is to the student, a student who needs a highly trained teacher with an education background to help them thrive.”

But Robbie Havdala, a senior who will be joining TFA next year as an elementary school teacher in New York City, disagrees with Weldai’s argument. “In my opinion,

there is a certain unrecognized benefit, sometimes, of having fresh, new teachers. It adds creativity, new ideas, makes organizations more forward-thinking and challenges the status quo.”

While many disagree on how best to train teachers and reform education, everyone agrees on the need to address the achievement gap in schools. The question is how.

Is Teach For America Effective?

There are multiple ways to test a program’s effectiveness, but perhaps the best method is student testimony. Laurel Starr spoke of mixed feelings many seem to share. “I definitely sympathize with the goals of TFA and am glad that they are working towards fixing the horrendous achievement gap,” she said. “However, I feel that this program is a reflection of how public, inner-city schools are severely marginalized in our society. Why should we give our poorest students the added disadvantage of being forced to accommodate these [inexperienced] teachers? I see it as completely unjust.”

While various researchers have studied the impact of Teach for America, results have been incredibly controversial. In a 2008 study, The Urban Institute concluded that “TFA teachers tend to have a positive effect on high school student test scores relative to non-TFA teachers.” On the other hand, another study found that students taught by TFA teachers performed significantly worse on standardized tests than those taught by certified teachers (Berliner and LaczkoKerr, 2002).

While daunting, this problem of educational inequality is not completely impenetrable, according to Biber. “I deeply believe the [achievement gap] is solvable, but it will take enormous commitment from people in all levels of education and in all sectors of society,” he said.

ALL ART BY SUZI GROSSMAN

TFA stands as just one of many approaches attempting to close a widening academic achievement gap between high school students. However, there is no current singlehanded solution to this problem; lest we forget, staggering inequality continues to exist between the school performance of black and white and rich and poor. So what should we do? The immediate answer is unclear, but TFA is one of many approaches out there, and until we can find an alternate solution, it is one of the only nationwide programs making a solid effort to level the playing field for underprivileged students all over the country.O APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

7

CAMPUS Thanks to the new healthcare bill, you can stay on your parents’ health insurance until you’re 26. That means you have five years to “find yourself” before you need a job for health insurance.

To figure out what to do with your newly acquired post-grad years, first pick what you did most at Tufts:

8

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

CAMPUS

$2504.64:

The average cost of one year of health insurance for a 21-year-old in Somerville, MA (MA Health Connector).

1,204

OR

Tall coffees at Starbucks

$2504.64

One year of health insurance

Spend it on coffee at Starbucks, Happy Meals at McDonalds, membership to eHarmony.com, games of paintball at Boston 785 Happy Meals Paintball, 12 oz. sirloin steaks at Top of the Hub, SPCA adoption fees for puppies, tandem skydives at Sky Dive New England, plane tickets, burritos at Chipotle, or movie tickets at 125 AMC. O Months of eHarmony 12

Tandem skydives

71

Games of paintball

11

Puppy adoptions

8

Round trip flights to Miami

52

Prime sirloin steaks

385

227

Chipotle burritos

Movie tickets

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

9

CAMPUS LIFE

Forging a Ne w

BY KATHERINE SAWYER

W

SUZI GROSSMAN

10

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

ith its greenery and college-town looks, Tufts seems like an environmentally friendly place. But, like m most schools that rrely on printers aand copy macchines to satisfy iits hordes of p paper assignm ments, Tufts h hasn’t been so perfect. Luckily, a student initiative is seeking to combat paper waste and further environmental consciousness on campus.

Students in the Experimental College (ExCollege) class Environmental Action: Shifting from Saying to Doing, are working to change paper waste culture. The class works with campus environmental groups, including Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), the Office of Sustainability, and Tufts Recycles!, as part of its attempt to limit paper use.

“We are trying to reduce paper use by working with professors and the administration to have more documents submitted online, and we are trying to change the default printer settings in the library and Eaton,” said freshman Melissa Langer, a member of the class initiative.

Tufts certainly isn’t shy about paper when it comes to spending. The campus purchased 269,745 lbs. of paper in 2009, about 70 percent of which was virgin paper

made from freshly cut trees and not recycled, according to Tina Woolston, Project Coordinator of the Office of Sustainability and a class instructor. “The paper Tufts uses is about 2,662 trees or almost three football fields of green space,” she said.

Luckily, the movement has an answer to these proportions. The campaign hopes to reduce paper use through double-sided printing and use of online software.

“Since Tufts’ paper use has increased whereas technology continues to get better… it seems like we as a university… should take advantage of technology to reduce our use of natural resources,” Woolston said.

The campaign works to make doublesided printing the default setting for all printers in campus printing centers but has encountered some technical problems.

Two contracts manage multifunction printers: one for printers in faculty offices and one for public printers that charge a fee, like those in Tisch Library and Eaton Computer Lab. While staff printers were set to double-sided printing last year, others were set to single-sided.

The library staff supports the move to double-sided printing but first must be conscious of the needs of those who print there. Head of Library IT Support Christine Kittle cited concerns that professors would not allow or deduct points for double-sided documents.

“Tisch is committed to making the university a more sustainable environment,” Kittle said. “Unfortunately, it is not as easy as just making the switch. The largest consideration has to be the students and faculty needs.”

This point reinforces the overarching mission of the campaign—to change Tufts’ printing culture and enforce campus environmentalism.

To make the campaign a success, student collaboration with faculty is necessary. Langer has been working on the student-oriented aspect of the campaign and has helped create several ways for students to get involved.

CAMPUS LIFE

e w Paper Trail “Students can join the Facebook and event and sign the petition and talk to their professors and encourage them to reduce their paper use and the paper use for the class,” Langer said.

Although the campaign needs popular support to overcome some technical difficulties, the bigger challenge is inspiring the campus to be more attuned to environmental issues.

Students have also researched efforts at schools in the Boston area, including Harvard and MIT. According to MIT student Jason Hoch, most students submit on Stellar—MIT’s version of Blackboard—or email assignments to their TAs. Hoch feels this is not so much a policy but a practice that has become ingrained in the school.

This movement hopes to incorporate environmental awareness into day-to-day Tufts life. The Community Health and the Environmental Studies departments have agreed to participate in a trial program in which professors will accept papers online. Additionally, Tufts is in the process of finding a new educational platform to replace Blackboard Academic Suite— one that would facilitate the process of submitting and editing documents online and thus moderate paper printing.

The class hopes to not only change printing behavior on campus, but also to inspire greater environmentalism through example according to Dallase Scott, a graduate student in the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program who co-teaches the class.

“I hope it’s an each-one-teach-one idea, where students on campus learn from this movement and become interested in other environmental issues,” Scott said. “Sustainability is going to be a talking point, and there will be change on campus.

The class feels it on a personal level, and the campus sees it because it’s becoming a culture. I hope that it accomplishes giving students in this course the confidence and the competence to take on social change through social marketing and their own personal behavior.”

Tufts Executive Vice President Patricia Campbell

spoke to the class and expressed her desire to see the students pioneer the campaign.

“I think it’s such a no-brainer. It’s such an easy way to save [paper] that it will hap-ds pen. It just needs sh someone to push aid. for it,” she said. n’t “There hasn’t pibeen a champifts. on yet at Tuft I think that a champion or a leader, someone who can explain it or show a path is necessary.”

Woolston hopes that the campaign will reform the campus culture of paper waste and stir an environmentally conscious attitude.

“I hope this campaign will inspire students to act in a constructive, collaborative manner when confronted by things then consider environmental or social injustices,” she said. “I hope people will think back and remember, ‘We were able to create change on campus. It was hard and involved a lot of work, but we were able to make something happen.’”

Until a concrete shift in printing policy occurs on campus, students should remember to be environmentally conscious when printing those 20 pages of Blackboard readings in Tisch the night before an exam. Double-sided printing is easy to do and a small step in curbing the amount of paper waste on campus. O APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

11

CULTURE

A Treatise on

BY MEGAN WASSON

F

ellow Jumbos, we need to talk.

There’s a growing epidemic on campus, and I want to bring it to your awareness so that you can take the appropriate measures to protect yourself. This disease is particularly dangerous because it is easily mistaken for its innocuous cousin. That’s right. I’m talking about leggings masquerading as pants.

Tufts is clearly full of smart, interesting people, and it is time that we started dressing the part. I think we need to establish some boundaries for what’s appropriate to wear in public and what should stay hidden away in the safety of your dorm room. Now, I have nothing against leggings themselves. They can be very helpful layering tools or can add an interesting edge to an outfit. However, let’s not forget that leggings are basically footless tights.

Would you wear tights as pants? Probably not. So why are leggings becoming an acceptable alternative to pants? Pants are constructed from a thick, durable fabric that skims over all of your business. Leggings are made out of extremely thin, often sheer fabric, that reveals more than it hides, and trust me, as I’m hiking up to Olin I do not need to become that familiar with your lady parts. If I can see your panty line or if there’s some camel-toe action, it’s probably not okay to wear in public.

I know that the line between acceptable and indecent use of leggings can be blurry, so I’ve come up with a few general guidelines to help everyone avoid public exposure. After all, NQR only comes one day a year, and if your private bits are on display every other day it’s just not as special anymore.

Now, the rules are very simple. In fact, there are only three of them.

If you can get into Tufts, I’m pretty sure you can handle those three rules. I know I might sound like a crazy leggings tyrant, but I think that, as a campus, we can step it up. A lot. Why not look as awesome as we are? O 12

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

1)

you need to wear something that covers your butt with an inch or If you are wearing leggings,

two to spare. That’s it. Why does your booty need to be covered? Well, when you’re wearing leggings and your butt isn’t covered, everyone can see all the details of your behind. Don’t believe me? Check yourself out in a mirror next time before heading out and ask if that’s appropriate to wear in an environment where your 60-year-old chemistry professor hangs out. It’s basically the equivalent of wearing a bikini bottom out in public, because that’s about how much leggings hide. So, throw on a long button-up shirt or an oversized cardigan, or even a tunic. You get all the comfort of leggings with the added advantage of being able to run into said professor without feeling insanely awkward.

When wearing leggings, make sure that they’re actually opaque and not ripped or covered in cutouts. I know it sounds silly, but you’re already kind of pushing the line of good taste by pretending that leggings are pants. It’s socially acceptable now, but when you add in sheer leggings, leggings with cutouts, leggings that are full with rips and tears, you start going beyond that line. Sheer leggings are

2)

pretty much the same thing as tights without feet. Would you wear

sheer tights and a slightly oversized t-shirt out in public? That’s a trick question.

The answer should be no. The same goes for leggings that show extra skin.

Those leggings are already hugging all your curves, including some that should stay private. When you show even more skin on top of that, you start heading towards a dangerous, Pretty Woman sort of place. Julia Roberts can pull that look off, but the rest of us should leave that to the movies. As my grandma would say, it’s better to leave something to the imagination.

3)

Never, ever wear leggings with Uggs. I know, it

sounds amazingly comfy. But, leggings are inherently extremely casual, and though when they’re styled correctly they can be worn in place of pants, when you pair them with something else as casual as Uggs, it doesn’t work. Uggs are a necessity for Boston weather, I understand, but I think we can all agree that they’re only appropriate for when it’s in the 40’s or below outside. When it’s less than 40 degrees outside, why would you be wearing leggings? It just doesn’t make sense.

Exceptions to Rule #1: That’s right, there’s an exception. I’m not that unrealistic. You can wear leggings with a regular shirt when, and only when, you’re heading over to Gantcher or the track for a workout. Leggings at the gym are totally acceptable as long as they follow Rule #2. Wearing sheer leggings or leggings with cutouts to the gym is just impractical.

4)

Somerville’s Immigrant Experience through the eyes of its youth

Each summer The Welcome Project, a community-based immigrant rights organization, teaches a photography and personal history program for Somervill’e immigrant youth. The program brings together youth from immigrant families to explore their cultural backgrounds and identify issues that interest or concern them in the community. Tufts students, through the Active Citizenship Summer Scholar Program at the Tisch College, have taught the program and prepared the youth’s work for museum exhibits at the Somerville Museum and the Tufts’ Aidekman Arts Gallery.

The youth learn photography and narratvie skills to speak about issues relevant to their lives, their families integration into the city, and to the larger immigrant community.

these are

their stories.

KEVIN

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

13

MARLENE

14 KEVIN

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

MARLENE

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

15 JOEL

The Welcome Project (TWP) is a community-based organization that began in the Mystic Public Housing Development in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1987, following state mandated racial integration of the housing development.

JEIMY

Over the past twenty-three years, TWP has evolved to work with the immigrant community throughout the city, while continuing to be closely linked with Mystic Housing residents. Its overarching goal since the beginning has been to strengthen Somerville’s community life by encouraging equitable access to the city’s social and economic resources. In 1987, this goal was specifically linked to supporting the safe integration of the development.

MARLENE

MARLENE

Sample the delicious tastes from participating immigrant owned Somerville restaurants at YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City. Enjoy great music, friends new and old, at a fun and satisfying benefit for The Welcome Project at Arts at the Armory on April 30. For more information, visit

w 16

w

w

TUFTS OBSERVER

.

w

e

APRIL 12, 2010

l

c

o

m

e

p

r

o

j

e

c

t

.

o

r

g

ARTS & CULTURE E

COUNTRY OR POP:

CU RR IE R

THE DIFFERENCE?

E YC AL

WHAT’S

THE LINES BETWEEN POP AND COUNTRY MUSIC ARE BLURRING, FOR BETTER OR WORSE.

BY KATIE LAZARSKI

W

hen left without my iPod on a long drive, scanning the radio stations is always an adventure.

There are your typical “variety” stations, usually playing pop songs that just stopped being popular on the trendy stations or alternative nineties rock, your trendy stations playing “all the latest hits!,” and the country stations most people cringe at as they search for a station that will play the Black Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga. On an hour-long drive over break with nothing but my radio to entertain me, my iPod forgotten on my desk at home, I scanned the radio incessantly, growing frustrated at the lackluster selection of music.

When one station played Taylor Swift’s hit song “Fearless,” I sang along unabashedly, knowing there was no one in the car with me to judge me for my occasionally prepubescent taste in music. When the song was over, the station playing “all of today’s hits!” went to commercial and I began the scanning process once again.

The next station my radio picked up, this time a country one, was playing the same song. I quickly switched to the variety station, which was also playing Taylor Swift’s girly ramblings with the occasional vague reference to Shakespeare better known as “Love Story.” I was left wondering how one singer could be popular enough to be played (quite frequently!) on so many different stations.

The answer lies in the strange fusion of country and pop music that has occurred over the past few years, best exemplified

by Taylor Swift’s astounding popularity— enough to win the Grammy for Album of the Year— across many different musical preferences. The old distinctions between pop and country are simply crumbling away.

The stereotypical pop music, which Princeton’s WordNet defines as “music of general appeal to teenagers; a bland watered-down version of rock’n’roll with more rhythm and harmony and an emphasis on romantic love,” is now starting to include artists such as the already mentioned Taylor Swift or Lady Antebellum.

Yet these artists are also included in the genre of country, once very different from pop, which is known for its twangy Southern sound and barnyard feel.

It is difficult to pinpoint when exactly this transition happened. At some point, country concertgoers changed from middle-aged men with scruffy beards and flannel shirts to girls in bikini tops, denim shorts and cowboy boots. At some point, the likes of Johnny Cash and George Strait were replaced with overwhelmingly popular singers with more mainstream sound and lyrics about love and how much fun it is to be a girl—not far from the previously cited definition of pop music.

After a bit of research into the music industry, I realize that this strange blend of country-pop is not as new as I thought.

It actually started with Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins way back in the 1950’s, who produced an alternative sound to Rockabilly, carrying on relatively unnoticed

through the next few decades, mostly overshadowed by other genres, though occasionally producing stars such as Olivia Newton-John.

More recently, LeAnn Rimes’ hit single “How Do I Live,” released in 1997, was on the Billboard 100 for sixty-nine weeks and is fourth on Billboard’s All-Time Top 100. This preceded the smash success of artists such as Lady Antebellum, whom USA Today called a “pop-friendly country trio,” whose second album sold almost half a million copies in its first week.

As an admitted fan of both genres, I am unsure of how I feel about this overlap. Sure, I like to sing along to Taylor Swift (though I’m often a bit embarrassed to), but I can’t say that I particularly like the way she is usurping the genres of country and pop. As more artists continue to follow suit, the variety on the radio is diminishing even more. Instead of hearing the same ten pop songs and the same ten country songs, I am hearing the same ten songs, period.

I hope that the radio music industry can continue to offer an assortment of overplayed songs, or else a car ride without my iPod might become truly unbearable. O

Want to write for Arts & Culture? E-mail Kathryn.Christiansen@tufts.edu.

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

17

BOOK REVIEW

The Wild Things

2.5/5

BY DAVE EGGERS

“a noble effort... but the average reader is better left just watching the movie” REVIEWED BY KATIE BOLAND

H

ow can an abstract picture book of a dozen or so sentences be fleshed out into a 90-minute feature film, let alone a 300-page novel? And who would ever have the nerve to do so with such a beloved book as Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are? The Wild Things is Eggers’ novelization of the movie that Jonze and he envisioned, a movie that was adapted from Sendak’s version. As Eggers puts it, “The children’s book Max, is, after all, a version of Maurice, and the movie Max is a version of Spike. The Max of this book [The Wild Things], then, is some combination of Maurice’s Max, Spike’s Max, and the Max of my own boyhood.” Taking this treasured wolf-boy character, meshing it with his personal interpretation, and aligning it with the feature film? Quite the undertaking.

I must admit, I have never seen the movie; I also decided against seeing it before reviewing the book, hoping to read The Wild Things on its own terms. Though I believe Eggers is a phenomenal force in current literature, from his work with McSweeney’s to his amazing short stories, I approached his Wild Things with caution.

Unfortunately, I fear that this adaptation proves at best unnecessary and, at worst, indulgent.

The book starts wonderfully, with Eggers providing insight into Max’s home life: an apathetically cool teenage older sister, a weathered divorcee mother, and his mother’s bland boyfriend. Through these various characters and Max’s own antics, we come to learn of Max’s vague pre-adolescent anxieties and infinite sense of imagination and possibility, which is typically expressed while Max dons his beloved wolf costume. In this sense, Eggers artfully reconstructs Max’s pre-adolescent world; I was able to not only believe that Max would retaliate against his sister by pouring gallons of water into her bedroom

18

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

but also thought that, at that age, I might have too.

However, once Max runs away from home (after a particularly wolf-inspired antic), I found with Eggers’ portrayal of the all-too-well-known Wild Things and their island disagreeable. For instance, the Wild Things that inhabit the island are each given a name and a specific personality.

Eggers’ painting of each Wild Things’ personas, from Judith’s mocking pessimism to Katherine’s monk-like serenity, was fantastic—but their names! Why so Anglo?

As I was introduced to each of them, I was disappointed by how un-Wild they were.

I was only slightly satisfied by The Bull; I could believe that a creature named such would truly be a Wild Thing. But Carol?

How... suburban. I imagine a bespectacled dentist, not a leader of odd, ferocious creatures.

Nomenclature aside, I felt as though the mystique and surreal aspects of the Wild Things and their island was largely ignored by Eggers. Instead, he chooses to focus on the relationships between the Wild Things and Max, as well as Max’s personal struggles and ruminations. Thus, as Max becomes king and starts to live on the island, we are introduced to the daily habits of the Wild Things as well as their universal anxiety of, as Thing Ira calls it, “the void.” I could understand this allusion to Max’s challenges with growing up and so forth, but I just couldn’t buy it. I wanted the Wild Things to be just that—wild.

It didn’t sit well with me that such Things could clamor and squeal upon hearing indeterminate buzzings underground. Max’s difficulty with controlling and placating the Wild Things was natural (like his constant fending off their impulse to eat him), but Eggers goes a bit too far with the development of the Wild Things. Perhaps my loyalty to my childhood interpretation of Sendak’s version biased me, but I wanted to know more about the island itself and less about whether or not Carol and Katherine were ever an item.

Eggers does provide some genius glimpses into the setting of the wild rumpus: “Hills that pulsated like gelatin, rivers that changed direction in midstream, small trees whose trunks, almost translucent, swallowed the sunlight and spun it into something pink and glassine.” It is in these moments that Eggers shines; the island is in perfect alignment with Sendak’s original imaginative and utterly strange pictures. It is this island I want to explore further, but Eggers never says more than a few sentences about it. Instead, the story drags in the endless turmoil of the Max-Wild Things and Wild Thing-Wild Thing relationships.

The island itself retains its mystical quality so loved in the original picture book, but Eggers’ portrayal of the Wild Things with Max is too much; I was left without any sense of the unsettling magic or imagination of the original Things.

Though Eggers’ striking philosophical style emerges at times, The Wild Things seems to mostly be a leftover character development exercise from the movie’s screenplay. His portrayal of Max’s struggle between childhood and adolescence is magically done, but the story loses its sparkle upon the introduction of the Wild Things and their island. Though a noble effort, it seems as though the average reader is better left just watching the movie. O

INTERVIEW

A moment of music with...

Freelance Whales

The Observer recently posed some hard-hitting questions to Jacob Hyman, drummer of the up-and-coming electro-indie outfit Freelance Whales. The quintet from Queens, NY opened for Cymbals Eat Guitars this past Thursday at the Middle East in Cambridge Cambridge..

Observer: Explain your name (please!)

Jacob Hyman: The name stems from an experience that Judah [Dadone] had as a child while spending time with his father in Israel. His father lived near the Sea of Galilee, and the kids all used to have diving competitions to see who could go the deepest.

One day, Judah dove to the bottom of the sea, attempting to come back to the surface with a rock to prove his feat. The rock was too heavy, and a lifeguard noticed his plight, diving in after him. As he was pulled from the water, an old man who was sitting on the beach called him—in Hebrew—a “freedom whale.” Over time, the name evolved into Freelance Whales, which is fatefully fitting given that when we all came to New York a few years ago we freelanced in music while doing other jobs.

O: Any song on the record that you have a soft spot for? Any song you particularly like to play live?

JH: My favorite song on the record is “Broken Horse.” I just find it so dark and deep and beautiful. I think the idea of taking blame for things that we don’t normally take blame for, taking responsibility for things that may or may not even be our fault, is such a resonant one with me. It’s always something I’ve struggled with in my own life, and to hear it come through in Judah’s lyrics so vividly and eloquently is a magical experience every time.

In our performances, my favorite song to play is “Location,” which is not surprisingly another of the darker and more mysterious song on the record. The beat is so steady and so simple, but it is integral to the tone of the song. And the vocal harmonies particularly the choral chant in the chorus—are some of the most striking and original in the performance, as well as my favorite to perform.

O: How did you guys emerge from the Queens scene? What is the Queens scene like? Did you ever look longingly across the BQE at Brooklyn?

JH: We used to meet twice a week in Queens to practice in a studio under the Bakeway in Astoria. It was about six months before we had the cojones to step outside of our basement practice space and take to the other areas of New York accessible via BQE. The scene in Queens isn’t as vibrant as it is in the more venue-heavy

Manhattan and Brooklyn, but there are loads of spaces in which musicians meet and play and practice. There are an endless number of people to meet and create music within New York as a whole, and this certainly includes Queens. When we first decided to venture outside the Bakeway, I wouldn’t say that we looked longingly at the BQE, so much as excitedly. Once we were ready to play shows, both electrically and acoustically, I don’t think we much cared if it was in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Timbuktu. I think we were just longing to play music for people.

O: Top Five songs on your iPods right now. Go. JH: Fleet Foxes – “Blue Ridge Mountain” Neil Young – “Unknown Legend” The Antlers – “Sylvia” The Beatles – “Long, Long, Long” Bon Iver – “Creature Fear” O: Do you guys have a favorite venue or city? Any venue that you hope to play one day?

JH: As we speak, we are driving through Pigeon Forge, TN, and I can safely say it is the most fascinating place I’ve ever seen. There is a bear petting zoo! And an upside down mansion! And Dollywood! It’s hard to believe it even exists.

The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY is definitely our favorite venue so much so that we stole their sound guy, Jeff Neuberger, for our current tour. Their sound system is top notch, Jeff was incredibly positive and attentive behind the board, and there are “Asian Dogs” (my favorite is a hot dog in a toasted bun topped with cucumber, barbeque sauce, and pork belly) sold in the lobby of the venue.

As for venue-related goals, I can only speak for myself, but I’ve always wanted to play at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, an opportunity that we’ll have when we’re on tour with Shout Out Louds in May. Judah and I both went to college at GWU and saw dozens of shows there throughout our four years of school.

O: Anything else you want to add?

JH: The chocolate in the UK and the rest of Europe is much better than the chocolate here in the US. I think that’s unbelievably unfair.

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

19

OPINIONS FInland Hong Kong — China

Renewing the

Canada

Chinese Taipei Japan Estonia New Zealand Australia The Netherlands Republic of Korea Lichtenstein

Slovenia

Germany United Kingdom Czech Republic Switzerland Austria Belgium Ireland

Hungary Sweden Poland Denmark France

Croatia Iceland Latvia

United States Slovak Republic Spain Lithuania Norway Luxembourg

Russia Italy Portugal Greece Israel Chile

Serbia

Buklgaria Uruguay Jordan 20

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

Public Option for Education

BY MICHAEL BENDETSON

O

ver the past several weeks and months, there has been much discussion over the controversial idea of a public option for Americans without health insurance. While the merits and the flaws of such a healthcare plan have been tirelessly debated, we can all agree that it is time to breathe new life into our education system’s public option.

All Americans have the option of sending their children to public schools; we should ensure that these schools meet minimum standards.

There was a time when we challenged ourselves and the world in the field of education. Following the Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik, President Eisenhower worked to establish the National Defense Education Act. The bill invested millions of federal dollars into all levels of public education. While only 15% of Americans attended college in 1940, over 40% Americans were attending college by 1970. The president made it abundantly clear that the United States would not take a back seat amongst nations in terms of education. Instead, America planned to set the benchmark for education worldwide.

While we have set the world standard on how to bail out our banks and car companies, we have denied our children

their constitutional right of “the pursuit of happiness.” Although lawmakers deemed these large corporate conglomerates “too big to fail,” there is nothing that is more important to our economy now and in the future than the education of our children. Education is what launched the United States into its role as leader amongst nations, and, at this pace, it will inevitably lead to our demise.

As General Stanley McChrystal urged the president to rapidly increase American investment in Afghanistan to prevent the deterioration of the country, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan must offer the same urgency to Mr. Obama with regards to his own country. At some point, we must shift our concern from the youth of Afghanistan to the youth of America. The situation is in dire need of attention. Nowhere are we failing the next generation of Americans more than in large cities.

Fourteen major cities have a graduation rate that is less than 50%, including Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver, and Houston. Before we even begin discussing changes in the curriculum, attention must be given to just keeping the student population enrolled.

While graduation rates are higher outside of the larger cities, even there students are still not being equipped with the tools they need to compete in a 21st

The countries on the left are ranked by average score of 15 year-old students on science literacy scores, as compiled by the Program in Student Assessment of the OECD in 2006.

OPINIONS century economy. If we cannot stimulate the minds of our youth, no amount of economic stimulus can save the future of our economy. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranks 18th in education among industrialized nations. Students in the US rank 17th in science and 24th in math worldwide.

In reading, only a third of our students are scoring in the proficient category. By the time American students reach eighth grade, their curriculum is already two years behind that of other top performing nations. While over 200 million Chinese learn to speak English in their public schools, the United States seems content to keep their students monolingual with a failed language education system. If education is the currency of the future, we must keep borrowing from the Chinese.

How has the United States responded to this global challenge in education?

We continue to lower our standards.

While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was a major step in education reform, it has ELIZABETH HERMAN i n a d v e r t e nt l y created a system in which states continue to lower the expectations bar. In 2007, only 18% of Mississippi students scored proficient in the standardized national reading test, but 88% scored proficient in the state exam.

While Mississippi can be considered an extreme, a Department of Education report acknowledged, “state-defined proficiency standards are often far lower than proficiency standards on the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress].” Test scores have improved slightly under this system, but our students’ education levels have remained constant. As states are put under enormous pressure to show improvements in test scores, they

lower the standards, so while politicians avoid trouble, our children inherit it.

Even our once-apparent monopoly on higher education has eroded in recent years. While ranking second in the world in older adults with a college diploma, the US has slipped to eighth in the world in young adults with a college diploma.

As other countries continue to provide numerous incentives for their students to attend universities, the United States seems content to allow higher education to climb ever higher out of the reach of ordinary Americans.

China and other Asian countries have created a higher education system that is far more successful in equipping its students with the means to survive in a 21st century economy. More than 50% of

undergraduate degrees awarded in China are in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, compared to just 16% in the United States. While we are focused on creating professionals, China and our competitors are creating the entrepreneurs and engineers of the future.

Education reform is not about a single bill, but rather a fundamental shift in our nation’s mindset. Perhaps instead of focusing on the probability of vicotry in the March Madness tournament, we should focus on the probability of the team graduating. While parents, teachers, and students all express discontent with the status quo, no party truly

seems interested in tackling the necessary reforms. One necessary piece of the puzzle is expanding the school calendar.

The 180-day school year is based on the agrarian calendar, dating back to a time when children would spend summers assisting their parents in the fields. As the economy has changed in the past century, so has the need for adapting our school calendar to meeting the growing demands of a globalized world. The average European school year is 195 days, while the average East Asian school year is 208 days. It will be impossible for young Americans to create the next generation of jobs if we are not competing on a level playing field.

Educational standards must be raised for students, teachers, and parents. While this shift in our mentality is most important in reforming a broken system, financial investment will be crucial.

In too many areas across the country, school boards are making decisions based on economics and not on education. More and more schools across the country are transitioning from a five-day to a four-day school week. As the economy has turned sour, funds for education have dissipated.

One Minnesota superintendent recently complained, “There just aren’t that many places to cut anymore, We’ve cut the last 10, 12 years and there’s no place to go, so now we’d have to cut basic programs.”

If we can find money for the bankers and the auto dealers, we can surely find money for our students. As we consider legislation on expanding healthcare and creating jobs, we should consider renewing the public option in education as an investment in the long-term well-being of the nation. O APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

21

OPINIONS

Behind the Curtains of the Healthcare Debate

BY ZACK FOULK

A

s students, we should be disappointed with the way Obama’s healthcare legislation has been reported to the millions of anxious Americans watching intently. For a bill so relevant to each and every one of us living in America, whether in school or in the working world, the press has covered the hotheaded arguing and name-calling without contributing to a factual understanding of the core issues. Beyond the immediate politics, most Americans who go back and forth on this issue cannot get past the verbose, politicized arguments on television.

The real question that we as students must ask is: What are the basic elements upon which our lawmakers have crafted this new legislation? In response to the press coverage we have seen, what is fueling the points of contention between Democrats and Republicans?

In many ways, we can understand reform in the healthcare industry with one word: cost. Health Maintenance Organizations are firms trying to make a profit by minimizing costs in any way available. This is where many of the misconceptions arise.

Increasing costs are not attempts by insurance companies to filch another one out of the pockets of lower-income America.

Firms that raised premiums did so because their bottom line, the costs associated with making payouts, was growing.

How to lower costs is the central question that both parties in Congress ask. Republicans believe in the free market and making people pay for insurance. Those required to pay premiums will not abuse the system by going to the doctor for unnecessary tests and procedures, and insurers will 22

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

not have to pay for these extravagancies at the expense of everyone else. People need an incentive to engage in avoidant behavior that will minimize medical expenses, and this is not provided under a single payer or a system that guarantees insurance with low premiums. Republicans foresee that any plan that grants these conditions will lead to massive increases in healthcare spending, which the government would be called upon to cover, and disagree with any projection that shows this bill lowering costs.

The other element of cost is the difference between healthy and unhealthy people. Some of us will need more treatment throughout our lives than others and will thus incur more payouts from medical insurance. To balance out these individuals, insurance companies need healthy people who will never need a high degree of treatment. This is where Democrats come in. By requiring almost everyone to have health insurance, both healthy and unhealthy people must remain in the insurance pool and balance each other out.

Healthy people leaving insurance plans decreases income from premiums without reducing an equal proportion of payouts.

The Democrats argue that with this costcutting measure, subsidies to the poor to help pay premiums, and the banning of discrimination based on medical history, we can keep costs under control while also expanding coverage.

As students we should analyze the facts, rather than the fluff, and boil down complex arguments into comprehensible outlines. As we pass and enact this historic bill, we each need to understand how our lives as students, working adults, and Americans will be affected by new regulations and reforms. O

by the numbers

32

million Americans to be insured by the bill

26

age you can stay on your parents’ plan

133%

limit of income as percentage of poverty line for families that will be eligible to purchase Medicare

$695 or 2% of income

maximum penalty for those without insurance year that you can no longer be denied insurance for pre-existing conditions and lifetime limits on coverage are lifted

20 1 4 *Information courtesy of The New York Times and the Congressional Budget Office

OPINIONS

Your Love is My Drug

by S Sophia ophia Bo Boudoir udoir

What is it that can turn rational, well-adjusted individuals into raving lunatics after just a hook up or two? Anthropologists, psychologists, and biologists call it the addiction of romantic love, and I’m here to break it down.

Maybe you met him in the basement of AEPi and took a break from rubbing your ass up and down his body to drunkenly punch your number into his phone.

Or maybe the cutie in your stats lecture— the only thing that gets you up at 8 a.m.— finally asked if you wanted to get breakfast after class. Whatever the beginnings, there’s nothing quite like having a new boy on your radar. And when you finally hook up with him, and he follows up with an emoticon-laden text after walking you home the next morning—bam! You’ve found the one. Never mind if he has a girlfriend or an affinity for intravenous drugs. Who cares if he misspelled your name in his text or if his closest celebrity doppelganger is Shrek?

The point is that you’re in love.

Cue obsessive-compulsive behavior. You agonize over when to friend him on Facebook, you jump every time your phone buzzes, you find reasons to drive by his house daily. When you notice that a girl in your econ class is among your mutual Facebook friends, you plan a Tisch

date to desperately beg for her password so that you can stalk him. You pick your outfits for dates number one, two, and three and email pictures of his ex-girlfriend to your guy friends and insist they reassure you that you are hotter. You’re gripped, fanatical, fixated, and zealous. You convince yourself that you’ve finally found love.

What causes this drastic change in behavior and loss of rationality? Our first culprit is the hormone oxytocin. It is often referred to as the cuddle hormone, but in fact, it’s involved in all feelings of love.

Oxytocin surges when loved ones reunite, and it establishes the bond between infants and parents. If you could distill human love down to one chemical, this would be it. What makes casual sex almost impossible is that your body releases this hormone during sex, which leads you to experience strong feelings of attachment, the very reason why girls always want to cuddle afterwards. And although levels of the hormone don’t rise as much for men as they do for women, an increase is observable in both genders following intercourse. This is why neither men nor women should have sex with somebody before they know them well; it can lead us to become attached to somebody we wouldn’t otherwise be interested in.

And thus, the addiction begins. After oxytocin makes us wholly smitten with someone and an obsessive infatuation develops, our brains begin to make large quantities of dopamine and norepinephrine, neurotransmitters involved with our brains’ reward pathways. Incidentally, these are the same neurotransmitters that are affected when you do cocaine, but instead of creating them, cocaine disables the brain’s ability to dissolve them (it’s a reuptake-inhibitor) so that their effects are felt in the brain for much longer than they normally would. Drugs like Adderall, Ritalin, and some antidepressants also affect the levels

of dopamine and norepinephrine in your brain. The point is that an increase in these neurotransmitters makes you feel good, and drugs that augment their effects are both pleasurable and highly addictive. An increase in dopamine and norepinephrine makes infatuated girls behave as irrationally as crack addicts looking for their next fix—they’ll do anything and everything to get more attention from their boy. Being “in lust” is an addictive high.

Serotonin is another neurotransmitter that is affected by our lust-fueled brains.

The serotonin levels in besotted individuals drop when they’re away from their lover and resemble those found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders. So, not only does our brain chemistry turn us into craving coke addicts, it also galvanizes obsessive behavior, which leads us to ruminate, fantasize, and stalk our new hottie.

What happens if our perfect man is scared away by our psychotic, frenzied behavior and dumps us? The drop in the dopamine and norepinephrine levels makes us experience the same withdrawal symptoms as recovering cocaine addicts: agitation and restless behavior, persistent depressed and melancholy moods, fatigue, a slowing of activity, and an increase in appetite.

Aside from eating chocolate, which will help bring serotonin levels back up, there’s not much we can do to mend broken hearts. Alas, there is no rehab center for recovering dumpees. The only real cure in the long run is quitting cold turkey and indulging in self-pity until our brain chemistry returns to normal. But the fact remains that we really like our dopamine and norepinephrine, which means that even the strongest among us will succumb to the occasional ex-boyfriend “relapses” or get a cheap fix of oxytocin from our stand-by DU brother—that is, until our next Mr. Perfect comes along. O APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

23

OFF CAMPUS

I’D TAP THAT: BOSTON’S BEST BEER

BY SETH STEIN

the parts of your tongue—this allows you to pick up all the flavors.

ou might not be able to guess it from the enthusiasm of the bros knocking back Natty Light at frat parties, but there are lots of beers out there that go above and beyond the yellow fizzy water we’ve all become accustomed to. In fact, beer enthusiasts actually prefer it to wine.

But in order to transition from Natty to higher quality beer, one needs to learn how to drink a beer.

Here are a few tips from a selfmade connoisseur about how to go about drinking, (as opposed to chugging, sloshing, or otherwise consuming) a beer.

FLAVOR. So, what flavors are you

drink this way

light beers and chocolate or earthy flavors for medium to dark beers.

So that’s how you drink a beer. Feel free to impress (or annoy) your friends by talking about the floral notes in your favorite light beer. Now that you know how to enjoy beer, here are a couple of recommendations for beers that are a couple steps up from Natty:

Y

POUR.

Get the beer on draught if possible. If it’s in a can or a bottle, pour it in a glass; any glass will do. Hold the glass at a 45 degree angle and pour down the side to prevent making too large a head and losing the carbonation. If you just keep it in the container, the beer can’t breathe, and you won’t be able to smell it, thus denying it the full effect.

SMELL.

Hold the glass up to your nose and take a deep whiff. Do this a few times and try to identify the flavors. If you can’t get a good smell, try cupping your hand over the top of the glass. Remember—taste is useless without smell!

SAVOR. Take a sip as you take another big whiff. Try and get the beer on all 24

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

looking for? Beer, at its most basic, is just hops, malt, and water. Malt is usually the defining flavor—it’s the “bready,” starchy taste. Hops, the bitter fruits of climbing plants used for brewing beer, provide the bitterness—that sharp taste that may take some getting used to. Nowadays, a lot of beers are brewed with other spices and fruits. Common tastes and smells to look for are floral and fruity f o r

drink this beer Beer HaverAle Cream Ale Brewery Haverhill Brewery Location Haverhill, MA This beer is light amber and clear. The smells to look for are malt, flowers, and a light hint of cream. The taste is a little hoppy but nicely balanced by maltiness and

slightly fruity. The beer becomes sweeter as you continue to drink it, and the effect is very smooth and refreshing. Overall, this is a flavorful beer that is also light; perfect for a warm spring day.

Brewery Berkshire Brewing Co Beer Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale Location South Deerfield, MA This is golden and clear beer, with a malty, fruity smell. This beer tastes hoppy, but it’s balanced by malt. Overall, the flavor is crisp and would go well with fish or even just fries. If you get it in the bottle, this beer should be chilled for maximum effect. You can get the “Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale” on draught at Sagra in Davis Square; I definitely recommend going there to try it!

If you’re interested in trying these beers, good places to purchase beer around Tufts are Ball Square Wines and Spirits, Hillside Liquors, Dave’s Fresh Pasta, a n d

EL A Downtown INE KIM Liquors in Davis.

The best places to get a good draught are Redbones in Davis and Christopher’s in Porter. O

Note: It is illegal for people under 21 to drink beer. This review is meant for those Jumbos of age. Regardless of age, please remember to drink responsibly!

Paint the Town Blue and Brown Exploring the Boston Bar Scene

BY CHELSEA BROWN

chatting over drinks. Contrary to its name, Enormous Room is quite cozy, so get there early to grab a comfy couch, savor delectable drinks like the Pomegranate Margarita, and shake it to a great DJ. If you have a ridiculously high IQ or simply a passion for local lager you should head straight to the Miracle of Science, a favorite among MIT students. There you can order delicious food off the Periodic Table menu chalked on the wall and maybe even hear the pick up line “I wish I was DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes…”

For live music and beautiful people, check out TT the Bear’s, The Middle East, and Paradise Cafe. If you are in a dancing mood, wander over to Phoenix Landing where a fabulous ’80s music mix regularly spawns outrageous dance parties.

Across the Charles, the club scene really heats up. On the edge of the Boston Commons, near the Boylston Stop lies “The Alley,” home to several intriguing bars and clubs.

Gypsy Bar is among the chic-est spots in Boston, with a no-nonsense dress code that bans everything from “excessively baggy clothing” to “polo shirts.” Venu is a hit-or-miss dance club, more often frequented by Snookis than Giseles. Gay Latin night on Wednesday, however, would certainly fall under the “hit” category. Suite, a self-proclaimed “boutique nightspot,” features a red carpet and massive chandeliers but may also have an abundance of creepers. Estate really ups the ante o n nightlife in the Alley. It is an elegant 700 person, two-story venue, with a

wrap-around balcony that makes for superb people watching. Rumor delivers a similar ambiance, but make sure to give your wallet a pep talk while waiting in Rumor’s humungous line. If you are looking for something a bit less wanna-be-classy, mount the mechanical bull at Liquor Store and let the good times roll.

Also on the fringes of Boston Commons but closer to Park St. station lies Mojitos, which features live salsa and merengue bands on Thursdays and reggaeton and bachata on Friday. Though it borders on being a grubby pick-up pit, it is a good option for those weary of Lady Gaga’s overwrought tunes. Near Downtown Crossing lies Felt (it has pool tables, get it?), one of Boston’s greatest nightspots if only by the virtue of its impressive celebrity patronage. Anywhere Entourage star Adrian Grenier goes, I’ll go.

Having discovered so many possibilities for after-hours excitement off campus, I encourage Tufts students to venture down the hill and into the vivacious nocturnal metropolis that is Boston. Although cover charges, coat checks, and cab rides are certainly limiting, it is definitely worth getting off campus once in a while to mix and mingle with people you won’t encounter in the campus center the following week. O

LIZZIE ROBERTS

A

funny thing happened while I was studying abroad: I turned 21. I returned to Tufts gung-ho about exploring a new nocturnal world suddenly available to me. But where to begin? I had so many questions. What is this fabled “Kong?”

How expensive are cocktails in this city? And where can I meet a sexy Harvard econ major that will pay for said cocktails? With these questions in mind, I embarked upon an investigation of Boston’s 21-and-over nightlife scene.

Boston faces a peculiar identity crisis; it is both the birthplace of American Puritanism and a heady center of university-driven Bacchanalia. Some uptight council of denizens circa 1700 must have decided that the only way to subdue Boston’s lusty young folk would be to shut down the city at an unreasonably early hour. This means that the T closes at 12:30 and most bars will be mopping under your feet by 1:30.

But don’t be discouraged; start by taking baby steps into Harvard Square, where you can have your choice of swanky bar or basic pub. Rough day? Head to Om for an aromatherapy cocktail like a Lavender Cosmo and relax amidst gorgeous Buddhist art.

Another option is Noir in the Charles Hotel, which, as its name suggests, is a sultry, boudoir-like spot. If you are going for a more down-to-earth vibe, check out various Irish pubs like Tommy Doyle’s, Queenshead Pub, and Grendel’s Den. One of the most popular nighttime destinations near the square is Hong Kong, which has three floors, (restaurant, bar, and club in vertical succession).

Lightweights should beware of the Kong’s notorious “scorpion bowl,” filled with a mysterious pink liquid that groups sip with two foot straws.

Further down Mass Ave. lies Central Square, which has a fabulous selection of bars, clubs, and live music venues. Beyond the glass doors of the Enormous Room you will find a nubile crowd of bespectacled hipsters and/or Marc Jacobs-sporting socialites

ALYCE CURRIER

OFF CAMPUS

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

25

POETRY & PROSE

The Upward Slopes of Dharavi Stories

By Ariana Siegel

B

haiyya!” a work-worn voice called to me from a sunless pile on the corner of the roof. I turned to greet it. “Bhaiyya!

Hey, brother!” it said, “what do you tell them? About us?”

My eyes adjusted to the dim light of dusk and formed the contours of Sureysh, the old rag picker, sitting atop his pile of renewed rubbish: tin cans scrubbed and resealed, cardboard boxes cut and re-glued, fabrics patched and re-dyed. He himself was a pile of renewed rubbish: repaired skin, recessed eyes, torn excuses for clothing twisted and tied over a tired sack of bones.

I had come up to the roof for a breath of fresh air, a private smoke if I could manage it. But knowing how precious privacy is in Dharavi, I might have known it couldn’t be found on a breezy roof at the end of a scorching summer day.

I was trying to avoid questions. I had just finished a day of questions, and I was ready for some downward sloping sentences.

But Sureysh, he looked so simple, so tranquil, so parched for company. I relented. I submitted. I thought, why not? There is time.

Always, time.

I squatted on the trash heap beside him. A filthy breeze blew between us, tousling the wiry grey tufts over his ears, sweeping the oily black waves over my eyes. I combed my fingers through the beads of plastic on the ground, sifting my thoughts.

“Bhaiyya? What do you tell those people? I’ve seen you with them. All those words.”

“Yes, what do I tell them? I tell them…what they want to know, I suppose. What they need to know.”

“What do they need to know about a slum? From an anthill like Dharavi, what do they want?”

“Accha…” I paused, testing the waters in his eyes. They were cool and thick, grayish brown with age, and memories. “I tell them, na, about the industry, the productivity. The income and the output.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the recycling—I show them all those pens and plastics and computer carcasses, and I show them where it all gets melted down and reassembled.”

“Did you tell them I picked those pens? Each one. Did you tell them that? I searched for those computers in the dumps with my own two hands. With my two cracked hands sinking into all the dirt and mold and rot, food I

26

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

never ate fresh and tools I never used new. I picked those computers and I carried them on my back to Dharavi, from far away. Very very far I carried them, myself, alone. Did you tell them?”

I combed the plastic beads into rows, horizontally, then columns, vertically, then rows.

“Sure, uncle. Of course. I told them that.”

He grunted and his eyelids collapsed into their beds, his body sunk into a lotus-like position. The sun sunk behind his shoulder.

I couldn’t remember where he was from. Not the slums, no, somewhere north, maybe the old Rajput kingdom, or maybe the south, from the boat-lands. Dharavi had erased all traces of his story.

I was unsure whether to go on. He nodded. Another breeze, misty with evening, heavy with hunger and the stench of unwashed alleys blew thoughts from my mind to my lips.

“I show them the homes, the way we live. I show them the low ceilings, the three by ten foot rooms filled with five people, four of them sick, and one who doesn’t know she’s sick pouring sick cups of water for the others.”

“A terrible thing to say, Mohammed.”

“Yes, uncle. Terrible, I suppose.”

“These ones, these foreign ones, they are not like us.”

He means the tourists, with their sun hats and their guidebooks, and their tour guides and their digital cameras and their digital age. And their globalization. And their Dharavi-sewn, Dharavi-dyed clothing stamped made in the usa.

“No, uncle. Not like us.”

He grunted. “What else?”

I swayed on pointed toes, poised for departure.

“The streets. I show them the streets, with wires hanging so low over their heads, I tell them of the electrocutions. Tell them to avoid the puddles, to step over the cracks, to watch where the water pipes pour over cobblestones. They whisper that the water is brown.”

Sureysh issues a wheezing laugh, like wind dying over the sand. “And what color should it be?”

I do not answer. I have forgotten whether he is one of the ones who knows. Where I go now, what I do. I don’t recall if I’ve seen him, whispering the word “university” over coffee like an incantation, too powerful to be spoken at higher decibels. Forgotten, too, if I’ve caught him gawking at me, like the children do

POETRY & PROSE who wander the streets, who crane their necks over novels in tiny tuition classes with no bathrooms, or spin tops or braid their hair into two plaits or chase stray dogs until the dogs turn on them and they run. I cannot remember my relationship with this man, how it has changed, where we are on this night. It has been only three months since I began university. But I do not tell him that water is supposed to be clear. That it is supposed to be a source of life, not disease and misery, not death and despair. I press my dry lips together.

“Bhaiyya?”

I peel them apart and the skin tears a little, enough to taste blood as I utter, “Ha, Sureysh-gi?”

“What do you not tell them? Which secrets are still ours?”

I chew my lips. I chuckle. How many things I do not tell them.

How many things I never say, or answer when asked, if I’m asked.

So many things, I never thought to count.

“I never tell them that which they cannot understand. The pride of the our work, the loyalty to our streets, the love between our people.”

He nods. Nods off, maybe. I am not sure he understands.

Today I took a group of young women on a tour. I must always steady myself on a tour like this, with only women, though I think it is the Dharavi women who need to be steadied when they see them walking like that, uncovered, unmanned. Me, I steady myself before each question, to make sure I do not betray myself or Allah.

Students, they said, in America, in Boston. I have seen Americans before with their intelligent questions and their fancy electronics and their business all over their faces. For all to see. Their hands fidget in their pockets when I tell them “no pictures.” They look and try not to stare. They say it looks different than Slum Dog Millionaire. I laugh every time, though I can’t say why it’s funny.

Today I led a tour for two Americans, two Indians, all studying at the same school. They spoke back when the children followed them with “Hello!” answered them when they said “how are you!” and ran away, giggling and holding hands, leaving their questions hanging in the stale air behind them. These women dodged dogs with small flinches and stepped over urine puddles and trash heaps without hands on their noses. They probed me with questions, the American ones, and the Indian ones too, from Bombay, who in their lives had never been to Dharavi.

I decided to tell them that I live here, in Dharavi. They didn’t say “Oh,” or “I didn’t know,” or look down and shake their

ALL IMAGES BY RUTH TAM

heads mutely. They kept their eyes steady and asked, “Really, since when? Your whole life?” I said yes. I couldn’t believe it myself.

They asked if I had gone to primary school in Dharavi, and where I was studying now, and what subject. One woman, an American one, with a long brown braid and an orange scarf that did not quite cover her shoulders asked me, “Do you go out at night?”

“Well,” I said, knowing now what she meant by “going out,” since I’ve been there, to wealth. “I’m a Muslim.” “Right.” “So I don’t drink, you know.”

“I know.” She wiped a damp lock of hair from her cheek. Her fingers smeared ashy streaks on her forehead. There were pink patches on either side of her freckled nose.

“We go sometimes, actually, to the cow patch, to smoke hookah.” They laughed. I didn’t know why I was saying it, but they had honesty in their faces, truth in their demeanors. So I kept going.

“We would go to the field so our parents wouldn’t catch us, and sit among the cows.”

“Didn’t it smell?”

“Yes, of dung and shisha. The cows would come and stand near us.”

They laughed. Louder. “Hookah in the cow patch! With the cows!” they were choking. It never struck me as funny before, our secret outings to the fields to sit smoking with the cows. Stealthy maybe, rebellious. Never ridiculous. For a moment, though, I could see it. I glimpsed it between their shiny, parted teeth. The hilarity of it all. I laughed.

“What is funny?” Sureysh croaked at me.

I stopped. I had forgotten where I was. Who I was. I was a tour guide on top of a roof in Dharavi. A student. A Muslim. A native. A slum dog.

The sun had sunk below the jagged tin skyline, the slum had sunk into evening. Babies’ cries became audible as the heavy machinery slowed to a halt, ceasing to boil, brim and belch our daily drudgery.

“Life, uncle,” I said, “I’m just laughing at life.”

“The tourist life or ours?” he whispered, eyeing me from under half closed lids.

I did not answer. I rose and bid him good night, excusing myself for an early morning. I left my laughter to rot on the rooftop, and descended. I was ready for some downward-sloping sentences. But the questions had just begun. O

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVER

27

CAMPUS SAFETY

POLICE BLOTTER

Wednesday, March 17

What’s with all the townie creepers lately? At 10:10 a.m., a non-affiliate of Tufts University was arrested for disorderly conduct and trespassing in Ballou Hall. When asked for details, TUPD’s Captain Weisse said, “There’s only one kind of disorderly conduct...”

Kiss me, I’m bro-like. At 1:20 a.m., several brothers at Zeta Psi called to report vandelized property. The students said an object was thrown through a window of the Zeta Psi house and upon looking throuh the window, several male students were seen running up Packard Avenue towards the Quad.

Though the object was not found, the outside pane of the window was

28

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 12, 2010

smashed. So much for a happy St. Patrick’s Day.

At 8p.m. TUPD received a call from Medford PD about a van crash near Spicer Field. Both Medford PD and Tufts PD are still investigating the crash. As Captain Weisse put it, “Someone needs to pay for our fence.”

Wednesday, March 31 At 1:00 a.m. a male student reported stolen property from his dorm room. Amont the stolen property? An iPod, iTouch and a set of “Beats by Dr. Dre” headphones. The latter is apparently worth $500. O Written and illustrated by Ruth Tam.

APRIL 12, 2010

TUFTS OBSERVERMARLENE 31

TUFTS OBSERVER SINCE 1895

www.tuftsobserver.org TUFTS UNIVERSITY P.O. Box 5302, Medford, MA, 02155 PLEASE RECYCLE