The Tufts Daily - Tuesday, October 28, 2019

Kero Kero Bonito brings unique show to Paradise Rock Club see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 4

RESEARCH

Lantagne Lab seeks global water sanitation solutions

Women’s soccer drops 2nd game of season see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE FEATURES / PAGE 3

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T HE T UFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXXVIII, ISSUE 37

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

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Dining workers praise new contract, say problems remain

Arts and Sciences in surplus, but TUSM, SMFA remain in deficit

by Alexander Thompson and Bella Maharaj

by Alexander Thompson

News Editor and Assistant News Editor

Dining workers across campus say they are very pleased with the benefits, rights and protections they won in their first collective bargaining agreement with Tufts, which was finally signed by university officials on June 7. Since that time, workers have filed numerous grievances against the university, saying the problems with managers and scheduling persist.

The contract includes substantial wage increases, new healthcare options and robust provisions protecting against harassment and discrimination — the issues that sparked the workers’ movement to organize.

Lead Dining Customer Service Assistant Grazia DiFabio, who played a leading role in the contract campaign, was succinct when describing why she is pleased with the new contract.

“Life is better. I’ve got more money,” she said while swiping ID cards in Dewick MacPhie Dining Center.

The agreement, which came within days of the strike in the fall, caps off more than a year of negotiations between the UNITE HERE Local 26, the union that represents the dining workers, and the university. Union negotiators and university officials cited economic provi-

sions as the key sticking points last spring as both sides prepared for a strike.

When the agreement was finally reached, the wage increases and healthcare benefits were considerable.

Workers received a wage increase of $1.25 per hour upon the ratification of the agreement in April and will see raises of 95 cents an hour next summer and $1 in both 2021 and 2022.

During rallies and marches last spring, workers often spoke of annual raises of a couple cents under the old merit pay system.

As for healthcare, the contract stipulates that in January 2020, workers will be able to switch from their current Tufts Health Plan insurance offered through the university to a plan run by Local 26, which many workers say will substantially reduce their healthcare costs. That reduction comes in large part because the contract requires Tufts to pay 75% or 85% of contributions depending on which plan workers select, and these rates will increase to at least 85% and 95% by 2023.

Dahlia Rudavsky, a partner at the Newton, Mass. firm Messing, Rudavsky and Weliky, which specializes in labor law, analyzed the Tufts Dining workers’ contract for the Daily

News Editor

see CONTRACT, page 2

After three years of million-dollar deficits and austerity, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences James Glaser said that the School of Arts and Sciences (A&S) is projected to run a small surplus in the current fiscal year.

However, every one of Tufts’ other schools is projecting a deficit for this fiscal year.

The School of Engineering, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA) and the School of Medicine (TUSM) will all likely run deficits; the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine had more minor deficits last fiscal year, according to Thomas McGurty, Tufts’ vice president for finance and the university’s treasurer.

The A&S, Tufts’ largest constituent school in terms of enrollment and revenue, ran deficits of $2.2 million in the last fiscal year that ended in June, $2.4 million the year before and $1.6 million in fiscal year 2017, Glaser wrote in an email statement to the Daily.

Glaser wrote that surpluses are projected to continue this year through fiscal year 2024.

The crux of A&S’s budget woes came from several building projects ranging from the Science and Engineering Complex and

be fed. That’s just the safe thing to do,” Iyra Chandra, a senator from the Class of 2022 and an ALBO member, said.

The Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) is holding an event at Rosa Mexicano in Boston for about 70 people. They asked for $3,090 to pay for the venue, and TCU Senate approved this amount.

The annual conference organized by Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) is growing, and the organization needs more money than they did in past years. They asked for $2,402 to cover speaker costs, plus $4,700 for food, which includes catering from various stores and restaurants as well as meal tickets for on-campus dining halls.

TCU Senate granted the full $7,102.

TCU Senate made an exception to the usual six-person cap on off-campus event funding for The National Society of Black Engineers, which will attend a regional conference in Niagara Falls.

“We told them about the six-person cap and we asked why they want to send more and they said it’s a very individual event where they grow as individuals rather than just learning something they can bring back, so they want to

benefit as many individuals as possible,” firstyear Senator Sarah Tata said.

The National Society of Black Engineers requested $6,488 to cover transportation, lodging and registration. ALBO recommended a figure of $5,840, which was then granted by TCU Senate.

Children of Cultures of Africa (COCOA) needs new costumes for its performances this year.

“They have a theme for their shows every year, which is why costumes are within their annual budget rather than within five years.

They’re very specific to whatever theme they’re doing. I think last year they had a very modern theme, but this year they want to do a more traditional African theme,” Associate Treasurer and ALBO member Insiya Naim said.

Additionally, TCU Senate reviewed COCOA’s entire budget, which included the funds needed for its spring general interest meeting, team activities, competition fees, transportation for competitions and performances and renting Cohen Auditorium for its spring showcase.

They requested a total of $2,480 to cover these events, and TCU Senate gave them $1,772 since the organization is currently unsure of the exact

KELVIN MA / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Dean of Arts and Sciences James Glaser poses for a portrait at Ballou Hall on June 12, 2014.

the Collaborative Learning and Education Complex to renovations of residence halls and Barnum Hall as well as rising financial aid costs.

Glaser also cited the new union contract with Tufts Dining workers’ union as a source of financial strain.

However, Glaser said that the sorry state of Tufts’ buildings was hamstringing faculty and

TCU Senate hears 12 supplementary funding requests

by Madeleine Aitken Staff Writer

Members of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate met Sunday evening in the Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room to discuss Allocations Board (ALBO) funding.

There were 12 supplementary funding requests from clubs and organizations presented, discussed and voted on by senators. All requests passed, with some amendments to monetary amounts. In all, TCU Senate allocated $22,882 to those who requested funds.

The Crafts Center was granted a total of $553, $250 of which will go to repairing five pottery wheels and a pug mill, and the rest of which will be dedicated to replacing equipment.

The Tufts Dance Collective (TDC) requested an additional $750 for pizza for its dancers between performances in its spring show to match funding for previous years.

“The way that the shows are set up, which is not really negotiable, is that there’s a show at 4 p.m. and a show at 9 p.m. the same day, and so the dancers have to stay there from 4 to 9, essentially, and they need to

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see BUDGET, page 2

amount of money needed to fund its events.

The International Club had previously been granted funds for a pumpkin carving event, but after deciding to change it to a Día de Los Muertos Celebration, they asked for more money. They plan to use the money previously allocated to them for decorations, and requested $285 for food and $250 for activity supplies.

Students for Environmental Awareness is holding a forest cleanup event in the Middlesex Fells on Nov. 3 and requested $100 for transporting people to the location. ALBO, however, recommended $90, which TCU Senate granted.

“We were trying to contemplate different transportation methods in order to avoid having them take Ubers, but I personally thought that taking Ubers is probably the most acceptable way for students to actually participate in this event, because not everyone will be able to drive themselves or walk to the Fells,” Naim said.

Senate also allocated a total of $2,560 to performing groups, in line with ALBO recommendations. ALBO and TCU Senate both approved the Tufts Observer’s request for $120 for an RSS feed, as well as Tufts Financial Group’s $470 request for alumni gifts.

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

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

2

THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, October 29, 2019

THE TUFTS DAILY Jessica Blough Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL Ryan Eggers Justin Yu

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Dining workers welcome new grievance process CONTRACT

continued from page 1 and said that she sees this kind of union health plan frequently in other contracts.

Rudavsky added that while employer contributions would have been much higher 20 years ago, the rates in the Tufts contract are “within the realm” of today’s contracts.

Paul Rudolph, a culinary production chef at the central kitchen and bakery and a union steward, estimated that his healthcare costs would be cut in half under the new plans.

“It’s only been four, five months, but for everyone it’s getting better,” he said. “Things that should’ve been fixed 30 years ago are getting fixed now.”

All temporary workers who were previously employed on short-term contracts, which had to be renewed every year and offered few protections, were converted to full-time employees contingent on their work spanning six months after the contract’s passage.

These provisions do come at a cost to the university and were cited by James Glaser, the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, when he justified this year’s tuition increase.

However, Thomas McGurty, the vice president of finance and university treasurer, told the Daily that the university has carefully planned for the extra costs and that they will not be a significant drag on the university’s budget.

Two other big areas that stood out to Rudavsky, the labor lawyer, were the portions of the contract pertaining to sexual harassment and immigration.

Rudavsky said that these provisions show that Local 26 worked to tailor the contract to the specific needs of workers in the food services industry.

“It’s obviously negotiated by people who know what they’re doing,” she said. “There are a few articles that all pertain to sensitivity, to a type of discrimination that their particular workforce may have experienced in the past.”

The contract contains a language provision, whereby workers are protected in communicating in non-English languages of their

choice. It maintains that managers and the university must be sensitive in communications with employees whose primary language is not English.

Notably, the contract also includes immigration protection provisions, which ensures that the university will not take adverse actions against workers undergoing immigration or documentation proceedings. The university will meet and work with the union if problems arise in documentation status.

“The immigration provisions and the sexual harassment and the languages provisions show a level of sophistication that was brought to these negotiations that I’m happy to see,” Rudavsky said.

The contract establishes explicit sexual harassment protections for workers, including a detailed provision on required sexual harassment training, which is to occur every two years.

Harassment by managers was the catalyst for the workers’ push to unionize in the fall of 2018. However, workers say problems remain in this area.

Melinda Smith and Zahra Warsame, two second cooks at Carmichael Dining Hall, both praised the contact but recounted their continuing problems with managers during a break on Friday afternoon.

Warsame said that managers seem to be “testing the limits” of the contract’s protections and frequently cited the Management Rights section of the contract, which establishes that any rights not addressed by the contract are retained by the university.

Smith is currently in the grievance process, the formal way for employees to file complaints under the contract. The contract provides workers with more absences; however, Smith claims that managers have been questioning why she is taking so many sick days.

“I’ve been going through some stuff, and so I’ve been calling in sick. The managers keep asking ‘Why are you calling out sick?’ and saying it’s excessive,” Smith said. “They are

trying to find the little dips where they can and claiming it’s part of manager’s rights.”

Smith and Warsame said that the grievances show the strengths of the contract, not its weaknesses.

“The benefits are great. The number one is accountability,” Warsame said. “The contract is good, but it’s not perfect, and the grievance process can fix those things that come up.” b Smith recalled meeting with upper man-S agement about her grievance, something she never would have been able to do before E the contract.

“I looked them in the face and said that Iw would not be an example,” she said. “I neverd h felt like I had power before.”

Other workers in different dining halls toldL the Daily that they have filed grievances asa well, but did not want to discuss them witht s the Daily.

Patrick Collins, Tufts’ executive directors of public relations, confirmed that multiple grievances have been filed against the univer-p sity since the contract went into effect, but het declined to comment on the specific numbero s or the content of the complaints.

“We’re implementing the contract accord-p ing to its terms, and any disagreements raisedt by the union have been or will be resolvedr according to the agreed-upon processes,” het wrote in an email to the Daily.

Some student groups have also criti-a cized the university’s implementation ofa r the contract.

A vague Oct. 18 Facebook post by TuftsL Dining Action Coalition, the activist groupt that organized student support for the din-r ing workers last year, alleged that “the TuftsA administration isn’t holding up its end of thed bargain.”

The post was widely shared online and hadl garnered 51 student signatures by press time. n While grievances do indicate that individ-o ual workers believe their rights under the con-i tract have been violated, they are a part of theh system established by the contract, not a sign that the university is violating the agreement. o g

University sees surpluses even as schools run deficits BUDGET

continued from page 1 student recruitment and that investment was critical.

“Your high school had better biology teaching laboratories than Barnum Hall had by a long shot,” Glaser told the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate in his Oct. 6 appearance before the body.

Paying for the upgrades required what Glaser dubbed a “period of austerity” during his talk with the senators.

Deepen Goradia, a TCU senator and chair of the administration and policy committee, raised the question of deficits with Glaser and expressed concern over the effect of the austerity measures on faculty hiring.

“Tufts is known for our academic prowess, mainly our professors, so two [new hires] is kind of sad,” Goradia, a sophomore, said.

Meanwhile, A&S is meeting its targets to increase undergraduate enrollment by 400 from 2018 to 2021, a strategy that has irked some of Tufts’ neighbors who say the influx of students will drive rents up.

Of all the schools, however, TUSM is deepest in the hole, having run a $7.3 million deficit last fiscal year and projecting a $6.4 million deficit this fiscal year.

The school does not operate a hospital as other medical schools do and thus does not employ practicing doctors who could bring in revenue and “philanthropy from grateful patients,” according to Harris Berman, the dean of the School of Medicine.

Berman wrote in a statement to the Daily that the major teaching hospitals which collaborate with the medical school, like Tufts

Medical Center — which, despite the name, is not operated by the university — do not pay the school.

Lacking these revenue streams, the medical school is forced to rely on tuition and fundraising, which have not been able to keep up with costs.

Berman explained that the school has employed a series of austerity measures to get a handle on mounting expenses including reducing overall salaries and benefits, delaying merit pay increases until Jan. 1, 2020 and cutting two under-performing masters programs including the controversial Pain Research Education and Policy program that had close ties to opioid maker Purdue Pharma.

Berman also said that TUSM is also launching new online master’s programs in an effort to drive up revenues, which are far cheaper to operate than traditional courses.

When Tufts took control of the SMFA from the Museum of Fine Arts in 2016, it brought the SMFA’s chronic deficits with it.

Tufts originally planned to have the financial situation at the SMFA under control by this fiscal year, but Glaser said that target has now been pushed back to 2022 as the school struggles with lower-than-expected enrollment and higher-than-expected financial aid and facilities costs.

In total, the school lost $5.5 million last fiscal year and is projected to lose $3.9 million more this year, according to Glaser.

Glaser said that the SMFA is still working to get enrollment back to capacity and to cut back on non-compensation expenses.

The School of Engineering, which balanced its books last fiscal year, is now pro-

g e jected to fall back into a $3.4 million deficit this year, according to a statement providedo to the Daily by James Sarazen, the school’sp executive administrative dean. g Sarazen wrote that the particulars of the agreement between the School ofg Engineering and the A&Ss regarding enroll-b ment and cost-sharing are largely responsi-d ble for the deficit.

D He added that securing grants and newy online programs are key parts of the administration’s strategy to put the financials backc on solid footing. a The budget deficits are caused in partw by the university’s financial structure, ing which a vast majority of the revenue comesd in through the constituent schools. The schools are then “taxed,” as Glaser explainedg it, to contribute to the budget for univer-s sity-wide services like the Tufts Universityw Police Department and Tufts Technologyn Services. n About 15% of the A&S’s revenues go to thei university budget, Glaser told TCU Senate.

“Tufts is actually even more decentral-p ized than other places,” Glaser told the sena-h tors. “And it means you can have the univer-t sity with a really tiny surplus and the schoolst with deficits.” s In fact, the Tufts’ overall budget has beenn in the black, at times narrowly, since at leasta the 2009 fiscal year and is projected to climb from $5.7 million this year to $28.9 millionm in 2024, according to a presentation Tuftsb University President Anthony Monaco gavep on Oct. 25. f Despite this, McGurty said that the uni-t versity expects all of the constituent schools1 to balance their budgets.

L

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Features

Lantagne Lab researches tropical diseases, seeks global solutions

by Colin Kennedy

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Alice Yoon and Madeleine Schwartz Bite-Sized Stories

Andrew’s matcha cheesecake

Staff Writer

On the third floor of the Science and Engineering Complex, researchers work with water, and sometimes strains of deadly diseases, in pursuit of global humanitarian solutions. The Lantagne Lab, housed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, investigates infectious disease control by studying the effectiveness of water and sanitation.

According to Daniele Lantagne, the principal investigator and founder of the lab, the Lantagne Group focuses on humanitarian and emergency water sanitation. The researchers concentrate projects on questions that come from the field: Lantagne said much of her research has been inspired by conversations she had while traveling.

“I’ve been in over 50 countries and all these people … asked me questions, and they’re like, what amount of chlorine should I add to treat this water?”

Lantagne said. “That’s an easy one, and then they asked me, should we use chlorinated water to make therapeutic milk?

And I’m like, I have no clue. We should do a lab study on that.”

According to Lantagne, one of the lab’s key responsibilities is disseminating its findings to a wide range of organizations and people who work to improve water quality, sanitation and hygiene. “[Our findings] go to donors, they go out in manuscripts, they go to emergency responders, they go to the people implementing, they go to host national governments, they go into national cholera response plans,” she said.

Lantagne said that her work stands out because it blends students and professors from interdisciplinary backgrounds like her own.

“I have an interdisciplinary background. I was trained as an engineer, but my Ph.D. is in infectious tropical diseases, and I worked at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years before I came to Tufts,” she said.

According to Mustafa Sikder, a Ph.D. candidate who studies water supply and infectious diseases throughout the world, this diversity of academic backgrounds and experiences is part of what drew him to the Lantagne Lab. “One of the things I like about this group and working with Daniele is that she’s also an engineer by training, but the work she does is not just focused on engineering. It’s a mix of public health engineering and so many other fields, even international development,” he said.

Lantagne said that her lab’s research primarily focuses on places that don’t have water infrastructure. These locations of interest can vary from places in the process of developing water infrastructure to places where conflict or natural disaster have decreased people’s access to these systems.

“It’s part of this sustainable development goals to get people on-plot water, but there are places in the world where people are losing access. Syria went from greater than 90% access to pipe traded infrastructure water to less than 10% access in seven years of conflict,” Lantagne said.

3

A NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

Daniele Lantagne, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Lantagne group’s primary investigator, is pictured on Oct. 18.

For example, Sikder researches how humanitarian emergencies impact water supply.

“We’re looking at different water supply interventions, starting from shortterm interventions that are normally implemented right after the crisis.

When there is no existing water system or the system is not working, some of those short-term interventions are water trucking,” Sikder said. “And then we also looked at some of the long-term emergency responses such as the work that UNICEF is doing in Syria, which is a seven-year-long response; it started right after the crisis.”

His current research encompasses multiple countries and focuses on different aspects of water supply and infectious diseases, including Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bangladesh.

“UNICEF has this thing they call multiple indicator cluster survey. It’s a very comprehensive survey looking at water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities in urban rural areas. It’s a large data set and looks at all these different parameters, so it will have indicators on people’s reported diseases, water quality parameters,” Sikder said.

According to Lantagne, many of these water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects require quick, creative solutions at the local level, particularly in places where infrastructure water is unavailable.

“What do you do in the interim? How do you do how do you do WASH projects?

Do you teach people to treat their water at the home with a filter or chlorine? Do you teach people to have a latrine so their feces isolated from the environment? Do you teach people to wash their hands? These kinds of WASH interventions often go down to the household or community level,” Lantagne said.

She discussed how the Lantagne Lab focuses on creating guidelines for resilient interventions, which essentially means that they limit the risk of any human and environmental errors while treating water.

One project they are currently working on is proving whether a field intervention technique commonly used in cholera outbreaks is actually effective.

“There’s a particular intervention that’s done in cholera outbreaks where you put someone sitting next to the water source

for the community, and as people collect water, they use a syringe to squirt chlorine into the water,” she said. “The idea is to stop transmission of cholera because cholera is super susceptible to chlorine.

But no one’s ever actually tested it in the field or the lab because it’s a tradition.”

In order to conduct these tests, the lab works directly with cholera strains, mixing it with different chlorines to see which are the most effective.

“So, we have cholera in our lab, and we make different types of waters. We see what different types of chlorine reduce the cholera. We show, okay, across these types of waters, you get this much reduction of cholera over time,” she said.

According to Lantagne, the lab has many different students who do research there, from undergraduates to post-doctoral students. Yarmina Kamal, a junior studying environmental engineering, said that she has been working with the Lantagne Lab since last fall, and that she ran two projects in the lab this summer.

“I started just doing transcriptions and data analysis for her and then moved on to more of a specific lab project at the end of last year,” she said.

Kamal explained that though undergraduates are not allowed to work on projects with cholera like the one above, her summer project involved testing the efficacy of safe water storage containers or jerry cans.

“Jerry cans and any safe water storage container containers will have biofilm or micro particles that aggregate on the inside of it. People often will collect water that’s already been cleaned, but then the biofilm on the inside of the jerry can will re-contaminate this water because you can get E. coli and other bacteria back into it,” she said.

Kamal said one of the reasons she values her time in the lab is because it has taught her technical skills in research and has the right balance of learning and independent work.

“I feel like I have frequent interaction with the post-docs and Daniele Lantagne, and I’m able to learn a lot from them. But then I’m also alone doing the research and the data analysis, essentially applying what I learned from them. So, it’s not completely independent, but it’s not just someone telling you what to do,” Kamal said.

ndrew Wang hasn’t made a traditionally “easy” pastry in the last five years, except for one classic Costco-boxed brownie mix. He is usually up for a challenge when it comes to baking, making everything from nutty Mont Blancs to a variety of decadent mousse. His classic, go-to recipes, which would be an adventure for most, are speculoos mousse and crème brûlée, in which he makes that crisp caramel topping with the blowtorch he brought to campus with him.

Andrew, however, is not only compelled to bake by the sweet and rich flavors of his desserts. He explained that baking is also a way for him to engage in many of his academic interests. Having taken courses in Spanish, German, French and Chinese at Tufts (not to forget English 1), Andrew sees baking as an opportunity to explore and appreciate different cultures and their various desserts and flavors. It is also a way to reconnect with his once lost but not forgotten chemistry major, for each bake is a little new science experiment.

Today’s experiment was matcha cheesecake. He began with the crust, smashing graham crackers and then mixing them with butter and brown sugar. The crumbly mixture was packed tightly down onto the bottom of one of his two springform pans, with the crust caving into the middle. He then popped it into the oven without the filling for a blind bake, which helps give it a crisp bite.

As the smell of buttery brown sugar filled the air, Andrew began making the filling. With his hand mixer, he stirred together sugar, matcha, a bit of sour cream and, of course, tons of cream cheese. Once the crust had gotten a nice golden color and cooled down, he poured in the batter. He began gingerly tapping the pan because, as he explained, it is important to get all the air bubbles out of the cheesecake after pouring. This can be helped along by gently running a knife along all the bubbles that rise to the surface, taking care not to agitate the crust too much. A creamy mix of sour cream and powdered sugar was then dolloped onto the top, running a knife through to make an intricate swirl on the top of the cheesecake.

While Andrew has always been passionate about baking, he said that he hasn’t always excelled. In fact, when he was in sixth grade he took a self-imposed five-year ban from baking after he forgot to put sugar into his brownies. Beyond that dry spell, he has come to learn through trial and error, taking on pastries and pies that most would never dare to bake. This recipe, while seemingly simple, requires the batter to cool and settle for an entire day. Good thing he could enforce the recipe, because not many would have the self-control.

After the entire day had passed and the suspense grew, it was finally ready to eat.

While the top got a little too brown for Andrew’s liking, the inside was a delicious and velvety pale green, the matcha and sour cream adding a subtle flavor and tang.

Alice Yoon is a senior studying chemistry.

Alice can be reached at alice.yoon@tufts. edu. Madeleine Schwartz is a senior studying computer science and political science.

Madeleine can be reached at madeleine. schwartz@tufts.edu.

4 Tuesday, October 29, 2019

ARTS&LIVING

Devina Bhalla Bhallin’ with Books

K tuftsdaily.comP

Glitter, grunge collide at Kero Kero Bonito concert

by Yas Salon

Adam Rippon’s ‘Beautiful on the Outside’

I

received the most wonderful surprise last week. After arriving at the Wilbur Theatre to cover Adam Rippon’s book talk on his new memoir “Beautiful on the Outside” (2019) for the Daily, I walked through the extravagant doors to see a table covered with hardcover copies of his memoir on it.

A free book! (Technically not free but included with the price of the ticket).

This gift has continued to give, and I immediately started reading it while waiting for Rippon to take the stage. I had to reread the first line three or four times, “The first time I went ice skating I absolutely fucking hated it.” It shockingly and hilariously sets the tone he continues throughout his memoir right from the beginning.

The book is fast-paced and moves constantly forward. It rings true to how Rippon lives his life and how he talked during the event: he never slows down.

The reader gets to know him, whether they want to or not. He tells his story with ease. Rippon had a very successful skating career, becoming the first openly gay American athlete to win a medal in the Winter Olympics in 2018. He is an inspiration to so many other athletes and people in general.

It is not skillfully or poetically written by an experienced author, but that is not what you’re expecting either. Unlike the other books I have been reading for this column, this book did not put me in awe of the way language can be used. It is conversational, which is a welcomed change in style.

Rippon is unashamedly unapologetic in his memoir. Though I admire him for this, I also think that he doesn’t care what lines he crosses. Towards the middle of the memoir Rippon jokes about the first man he had sex with giving him herpes. Getting an STI from a partner is a serious thing. It changes people’s lives in an instant and can be extremely difficult. Joking about getting an STI from a partner brings nothing to his narrative other than a joke.

Understanding that many comedians use these types of lines to create humor, perhaps I should let him off the hook for this. However, Rippon is a retired U.S. Olympian and I read his memoir through that lens. My attitude towards him and the book in general lessened significantly after a few of these instances and it actually made this column harder to write.

In many parts of his memoir you are laughing, and it is extremely entertaining. Problematic areas aside, it is completely and utterly Rippon’s voice.

However, it is important to not just consume every book you read blindly. I do think that Rippon has an important story and I am glad he tells it, but I wish he was more thoughtful about the potential harm he could be doing with some of his attempts to be humorous.

Devina Bhalla is a sophomore studying sociology and English. Devina can be reached at devina.bhalla@tufts.edu.

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Arts Editor

There’s no simple way to describe Kero Kero Bonito. The three-piece outfit isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen or heard before. The best summation (which still doesn’t begin to do the band justice) is a band with the lyrical style of a “Sesame Street” (1969–) song, the glitter-fueled grunge aesthetic of Ke$ha circa 2010 coupled with the bright, fun neons of a carnival and the sound of — well, this is where words are especially futile. Somewhere in a strange Venn diagram of post-punk, J-pop, synth-pop and dancehall exists Kero Kero Bonito.

If you’ve been on the internet at any point in the last few years, you’ve probably heard one of its infectious tunes.

Its most popular (and most memed) song, “Flamingo” (2014), has been a staple on TikTok. But even long before the days of this app amalgamation of see KKB, page 5

YAS SALON / THE TUFTS DAILY

Kero Kero Bonito performs at the Paradise Rock Club on Oct. 11.

m a

FILM REVIEW

K a l o t i u f L

Ang Lee’s ‘Gemini Man’: A revolutionary film experiment or a Waterloo?

by Elaine Gao

Contributing Writer

Three years after he introduced High Frame Rate (HFR) technology with the war drama “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (2016), Taiwanese director Ang Lee comes back with his new actionpacked thriller “Gemini Man” (2019).

Aside from its extensive use of technology, the movie boasts a strong veteran cast including Will Smith and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Furthermore, it brings some of the best contemporary screenwriters, including David Benioff, who has been known for his work on “Game of Thrones” (2011–2019). “Gemini Man” tells a basic Hollywood-style story with a near-future, sci-fi setting. Smith takes the role of Henry, a skilled but aging government assassin, who is being hunted

by Junior, the 23-year-old cloned version of himself.

Although “Gemini Man” appears to be a breezy action thriller different from Lee’s previous works, the director does use some familiar themes from his old movies. The major emotional backbone in “Gemini Man” is the complicated father-son dynamic between Clay Varris (Clive Owen) and his cloned son Junior.

Not knowing that his father cloned him based on the assassin and designed him as a weapon to kill, Junior faces a complicated moral dilemma after finding out the truth from Henry. The scene when the naïve, heartbroken Junior confronts his strict and authoritative father mirrors Lee’s early “Father Knows Best” trilogy (1991–1994). Lee portrays the figure of a strict, authoritative and emotionally-muted father and the image of a young son who struggles to express his doubts and love.

However, the plot and script of “Gemini Man” are far from perfect. The screenplay lacks depth and does not match up with Lee’s talent shown in his previous works. Critics have been disap-

pointed by the movie’s underwhelming camera work and its major issue with the premise. They certainly have a reason.

Lee ends “Gemini Man” abruptly with an easy way out: The good guy kills the bad guy and the cloned young Junior returns to college under the loving care of his newfound father figure Henry. Compared to “Blade Runner 2049” (2017), a dystopian film which also has a near-future, scifi setting and addresses a similar moral dilemma with cloning, “Gemini Man” does a poorer job exploring questions related to identity, faith, technology and modernization. With all of its shortcomings considered, the movie currently holds a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Beside problems with the screenplay, Lee’s ambition for technological innovation is at the center of the controversy.

In fact, Lee started his bold visual experiment all the way back in 2012 with “Life of Pi”. Lee shot the movie around the three hardest-to-shoot elements — children, animals and water — with extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). The experiment was a great success and won four Academy Awards including Best Director. After “Life of Pi,” pure CGI could not satisfy Lee, as he moved on to experiment with HFR technology in “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” Like “Billy Lynn,” “Gemini Man” is also created using HFR. Lee abandons the conventional 24-frames-per-second for the quick succession of 120 images within the span of a second to create a more detailed texture. At five times the frame rate, there is very little motion blur, which closely reflects the vision of human eyes. Lee sees the future of films in HFR (what he calls “the promise of digital cinema”), as he believes movies made with HFR can instantly give the audience a unique immersive feeling.

The hyper realistic style of HFR movies also gives more intimacy to the movie, as in “Gemini Man” the audience can see more clearly how sweat and tears

VIA IMDB

A promotional poster for ‘Gemini Man’ (2019) is pictured.

drip down from Henry and Junior. It is striking to see the landscape with every detail as Junior moves quickly during a motorcycle chase scene or the texture of water with every shade of blue as Henry falls into an underground spring in a catacomb. However, HFR does not work for everyone and some of the audience must think it’s too much to be forced to see every detail in every scene.

The feedback from film critics is extremely polarized and mostly negative.

Even at the age of 65, Lee has never been a director who plays it safe. With his bold experiments, however, it is hard to turn his ambition and sincerity into a box-office smash. Lee said during an interview with Deadline, “What we’re chasing is the next medium. Should we take baby steps or take the risk of a giant leap?”

Indeed, should technology serve the film or should the film serve technology? It is time for us to rethink the relationship between art and technology.

Arts & Living

Tuesday, October 29, 2019 | Arts & Living | THE TUFTS DAILY

Kero Kero Bonito plays sick beats at Paradise Rock Club KKB

continued from page 4 Vine and Music.ly, Kero Kero Bonito (referred to endearingly by fans as KKB) has maintained a cult following since its 2013 debut mixtape “Intro Bonito” and subsequent first full-length record, “Bonito Generation” (2016).

It’s not hard to see how the group’s fans have not just drunk, but chugged the KKB Kool-Aid. At its show at Paradise Rock Club on Oct. 11, dozens of fans could be seen milling about with glitter under their eyes, an homage to frontwoman Sarah Midori Perry’s signature look.

Accompanying KKB was opener Negative Gemini, a fun but otherwise unremarkable synth-pop performer. Her stage presence was slinky and engaging and her vocals smooth and echoey — your standard nostalgic indie pop singer. Regardless of how ‘safe’ her music was, she still pulled off a solid opening set.

After her set ended and the audience packed in so close to the stage it was practically impossible to move, the moment everyone had been waiting for arrived. Kero Kero Bonito, in all its bubbly glory, took the stage.

Of course, it wouldn’t do for Kero Kero Bonito to just step onto the stage and just play its first song. No, a band like KKB calls for theatrics in the form of Sarah Midori Perry stepping onto the stage in an oversized parka, obscuring her face from the crowd, and triumphantly waving an oversized white flag during its opening number, “Battle Lines” (2019), which is surprisingly fun

despite being about humankind’s proclivity for war and tragedy. Even while Perry sings the words “I see blood in my dreams, a beaten face, a gas, the streets,” the electronic track still feels catchy.

It parallels Grimes’ “We Appreciate Power” (2018) and “Violence” (2019) in its brutal imagination of an apocalyptic future set to dance-y, synthy tracks.

The entire show consisted of a whopping 24-song set, with songs ranging from five years to five days old. Old favorites, like the much lighter “Lipslap” (2016) and aforementioned internet favorite “Flamingo,” were obvious crowd-favorites; during these tracks, glitter-adorned 20-somethings belted out every word alongside Perry.

The diversity of sound, both within and between the many songs, was one of the most compelling aspects of the show. Buoyant pop tracks like “Flamingo” flowed into heavily distorted, borderline harsh songs like “Only Acting” (2018). Even during songs, Perry would start in with pure pop vocals and flow into metal-esque screams. This interplay between playful pop and edginess is a trademark of KKB; Perry fluctuated between coyly telling the audience her Hogwarts house — Slytherin— and pretending a stuffed dog was alive, to covering straight classic rock bands like U2 and Boston in the encore.

One of the most quintessential factors in Kero Kero Bonito’s success is its complete, wholehearted uniqueness — who else is rapping about shrimp in Japanese over flute backing? In sum, much like the band, this tour is one of a kind.

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Tuesday, October 29, 2019 | FUN & GAMES | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Deeksha Bathini Looking for Life, Destroying Life

The case for gender equality in global health

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BY NASRIN LIN

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ealthcare systems are complicated, fragmented and difficult to navigate.

There is no perfect delivery system, and countries around the world have explored many possibilities: single-payer, market and socialized. After spending my entire undergraduate career so far studying healthcare, I, too, do not have a solution to the disaster that is healthcare delivery. But I sincerely believe that there are novel approaches that can be taken to improve healthcare overall that have nothing to do with doctors, hospitals or health insurance. Gender equality, for example, has been shown to be positively correlated with better health outcomes.

Kerala, India is a southwestern coastal state of about 33 million people. As an Indian myself, I have heard my parents speak of the area. I know it was relatively impoverished, however, after much development, the state currently boasts health outcomes that are on-par with high-income countries. It is no coincidence that these health metrics are accompanied by high levels of female empowerment and free family planning services, which include education on breastfeeding, nutrition, immunization for children, prenatal care and more.

In fact, the entirety of India has battled with overt sexism for years. Female infanticide is commonplace, and as a result, India has a sex ratio skewed towards men. Kerala is the only state with a gender ratio that is favorable to women. Additionally, the state has a matrilineal form of inheritance, which means that all wealth and property is passed through the female lineage. Also, much of the economy in Kerala is rooted in agriculture, and women take up a larger portion of the state’s workforce than elsewhere in India. The social norms are different there. As a result, people are healthier and more educated (India’s overall literacy rate of 65% pales in comparison to Kerala’s 92%). Now coined as the “Kerala Model of Development,” it is evident that even countries with broken healthcare delivery systems can in fact achieve positive health outcomes by engaging women in the community.

In public health, we heed attention to social determinants of health (SDH). SDH are the conditions in which humans work, live and play. They have enormous impacts on the health of individuals. Examples of these determinants include race, access to healthcare, health behaviors (e.g. smoking, exercising) and, of course, gender. Gender plays a consequential role in health outcomes. I bring up this point to emphasize that being a woman can quite literally define whether or not you will be healthy. And it’s all related! Healthy women mean healthier populations because focusing on reproductive health yields fewer overall birth complications.

Gender equality should be incorporated into all public health decision-making. And, until we do this, we will not be able to achieve what Kerala has already done. A paper published in Health Promotion International actually shows that “health promotion policies that take women’s and men’s differential biological and social vulnerability to health risks and the unequal power relationships between the sexes into account are more likely to be successful and effective.”

Deeksha Bathini is a junior studying community health. Deeksha can be reached at deeksha.bathini@tufts.edu.

SPORTS

8 Tuesday, October 29, 2019

David Meyer Postgame Press

Tanks for no memories

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not-so-great film father figure once said: “If you’re not first, you’re last.” I wondered about this quote recently as I pondered the Chicago Bulls. In the NBA, a league built on superstar talent that seems to have more and more “superteams” popping up, is it better to be just under first, or the worst?

In the NFL, when a team needs a quarterback and it seems like a fantastic one may go first in the next draft, and your front office traded many of your players for picks so you are having one of the historically worst starts to a season ever, is the goal to lose so much that you get the first pick and that quarterback?

Back to the Bulls (sorry, Dolphins fans). The Bulls have had the outrageous luck to pull from the NBA lottery system the No. 7 pick rights for three straight years. What they have done with those picks has been pretty good for what they have been given, but some fans wonder if committing to tanking harder is a solution.

Of course, tanking is not technically allowed. Intentionally losing games is certainly against the rules and players do not train their whole lives to not try to win in the pros. Yet, there are ways organizations have dedicated themselves to the tank, whether by trading assets away or doing semi-subtle moves to tank. The NBA has addressed tanking concerns by changing the lottery system and its odds.

Meanwhile, the NFL still has a standings-based draft system. The first pick goes to the worst team, meaning these teams know what they are getting if they can manage to keep losing. The Washington Redskins played the Miami Dolphins earlier this year in what was cited by a sports index Field Yates as the lowest quality matchup ever in the NFL. The team that lost this game was semi-guaranteeing their team the first overall pick. Do I get investing in the future? Absolutely. With that, though, they have become a painful team to watch for the present. Once again, I get it. I would do it too, as the quickest way to the top may well be by going all-in a few years in the future, as opposed to being painfully mediocre as some teams have been. This should change, though.

There should be a way to disincentivize tanking in the NFL, just as the NBA did. It simply makes the league more competitive if the fourth-worst team can get similar odds to the first pick as the worst. With a system such as that, the teams can at least provide some entertainment while still not staying perpetually mediocre. Although, I do say this as a Bulls fan who may be stuck with a perpetually mediocre team because of the lottery. That is unless one of our 7th picks becomes a superstar. Hey, it could happen. The odds are almost as high as getting the No. 7 pick four years in a row.

David Meyer is a senior studying film and media studies. David can be reached at david.meyer@tufts.edu.

tuftsdaily.com

Women’s soccer suffers 1–0 loss to Middlebury, snaps unbeaten streak

by Liam Finnegan Sports Editor

On Saturday, women’s soccer faced off at home against the Middlebury Panthers. The game was a fierce battle for the No. 1 spot at the top of the NESCAC, as Middlebury entered 5–1–2 and Tufts entered 6–1–1 in conference play. The two were even close in terms of national ranking, as Tufts was ranked No. 10 in the nation while Middlebury was ranked No. 12. Ultimately, the Jumbos fell to the Panthers 1–0 due to a late goal from Middlebury, ending the Jumbos’ 11 game unbeaten run since a loss at the Williams Ephs on Sept. 7.

The Jumbos started the game with a heavily attacking mindset. Junior forward Liz Reed spearheaded the Jumbos’ attack, managing three shots in quick succession in the first 12 minutes of play, and a total of four shots in the first half. She almost managed to score for Tufts when she rounded the keeper, but cannoned the ball off the post. As a team, Tufts applied heavy pressure to the Middlebury back four when they had the ball and moved the ball fluidly through their midfield.

Senior midfielder and co-captain Izzy Moore said the strong midfield play was a big part of the team’s strategy in the game.

“I think we try to play our game the best we can,” Moore said. “We may make small adjustments for individual teams, but do the best when we cater our play to our strengths. We were having the most success in the [Middlebury] game when we were playing quickly to feet, winning 50/50 battles and connecting through our midfield.”

Despite Tufts outshooting Middlebury 8–3 in the first half, the two teams went into halftime scoreless.

The second half continued right where the first half left off, with the two teams at a bit of a stalemate, unable to find a way to best the opposing team’s goalkeeper.

The game-deciding goal came late in the second half when Tufts conceded a free kick near the sideline with just over two minutes left on the clock. Middlebury defender Ellie Bavier whipped in the free kick, which found midfielder Virginia Charman, who launched the pass past Tufts first-year goalkeeper Hayley Bernstein to make the score 1–0. With only two minutes left to play, the Jumbos did not have enough time to respond to the goal, and the game ended at 1–0.

The loss to Middlebury ended Tufts’ lengthy 11-game streak without a loss, but the Jumbos are not letting the disappointing results put a damper on their dominating season.

BEN KIM / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES

Senior midfielder Ashley Latona prepares for a pass in a game against Lesley on Kraft Field on Oct. 17, 2017.

“The loss against Middlebury definitely left a sour taste in our mouths, but I think it’s important to remember that sometimes we can play well for the majority of the game and still not get the result,” Moore said. “It showed us some little things we may need to work on or tweak, but overall, we’ve kept our heads high and still have faith that this is a championship team.”

Assistant coach Julia Rafferty echoed Moore’s optimistic sentiments.

“It’s always disappointing to lose, but we are proud of our effort and execution,” Rafferty said. “We move forward as a team and begin our preparations for our final conference matchup against Bowdoin.”

One thing the team can work on going forward is being more consistent throughout the game, according to Rafferty.

“Moving forward we will continue to commit to the game plan with the goal of playing as consistently as possible for a full 90 minutes,” Rafferty said. “We will continue to get better both individually and as a unit.”

The team next faces off against Bowdoin at home today at 3 p.m. This game will be the last game of regular season play before the NESCAC tournament begins on Saturday. Currently holding the No. 2 seed in the NESCAC, the Jumbos are guaranteed a home seed in the NESCAC quarterfinal.

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