Bridging Differences initiative fosters cooperative dialogue on important campus, national issues see FEATURES / PAGE 3
CREW TEAMS
Jumbos show success at Head of the Charles
Boston Asian American Film Festival revisits ‘The Joy Luck Club’ 25 years after its release see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5
SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE
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VOLUME LXXVI, ISSUE 32
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Tuesday, October 23, 2018
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Students protest Tufts’ revised demonstration policies by Noah Shamus
Contributing Writer
More than 65 students gathered in front of Ballou Hall to protest changes to the Tufts student code of conduct yesterday at noon. The new policy requires protest groups expecting more than 25 people to register their protest in advance with the Office of Campus Life (OCL) and receive approval. The student protesters formed multiple groups and wrapped themselves in caution tape, never exceeding the 25 person limit per group. One of the students leading the event, junior Mauri Trimmer, criticized the university’s policy, expressing students’ fear of being silenced. “[The university] require[s] us to register five business days [before the protest],” Trimmer said. The protesters said that seeking event approval five business days in advance is not feasible for protests as the policy con-
flicts with the need for immediate action, citing protests following the Parkland, Fla. shooting and the dining hall workers’ effort to unionize. Alejandro Baez addressed the crowd through the microphone, saying “Registering our protests takes away all of our power.” Jessica Rosendorf, who was observing the protests, echoed Baez’s sentiment. “The whole point of protesting is to be spontaneous, not organized,” Rosendorf, a first-year, said. The protesters also criticized the uneven implementation of protest policies, a concern multiple student groups addressed in a letter to the Tufts administration. The letter was presented to Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon and Director of Community Standards Kevin Kraft, according to a press release shared on Tufts Student Action’s Facebook page. The letter was signed by a large contingent of campus activist groups, including Tufts Labor Coalition, Students
for Justice in Palestine, Tufts Student Action, Tufts Housing League, Tufts Progressive Alliance, Jewish Voice for Peace, Tufts Climate Action, Left Unity Project, Action for Sexual Assault Prevention, South Asian Political Action Committee, United for Immigrant Justice, Tufts Asian Student Coalition, Students Against Incarceration and Tufts Dining Action Coalition. “We worry that this policy will be used to effectively discriminate against radical-leftist and [people of color] student groups,” the letter reads. Kraft previously told the Daily that the policy is in place for logistical and safety concerns and that the registration process will not discriminate events based on their contents. “OCL [doesn’t] do a content analysis by asking questions like ‘is this event a good idea, does Tufts want to support this kind of event, is this a good use of money?’” Kraft was quoted in a Sept. 10 article in the Daily.
Kraft told the Daily in September that the policy would assist the university in coordinating police presence on campus. He cited a protest last year which resulted in blocked traffic, noting that advance warning would help with planning road closures with the Tufts University Police Department. Trimmer criticized Kraft’s notion in the press release. “A police-guided protest isn’t protesting anything. Disruption is the power of public action!” Trimmer said. The protesters pointed to demonstrations last year at Wellesley College, where feedback from students, faculty and staff prompted Wellesley College President Paula Johnson to rescind an interim policy surrounding campus gatherings and protesters. Spencer Perry, a senior, said that the policy conflicts with the nature of protesting. see PROTEST, page 2
Nobel laureate in chemistry delivers lecture on directed evolution of enzymes by Nicolas Avalle
Contributing Writer
Frances Arnold, 2018 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was presented the Tufts’ Department of Chemistry’s Max Tishler Award in the Pearson Chemical Laboratory on Thursday. Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She is the fifth woman and the first American woman to become a Nobel laureate in chemistry.
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Frances Arnold, 2018 winner of the Max Tishler Prize and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, poses for a photo.
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After a brief introduction by Arthur Utz, professor of chemistry and department chair, the award was presented by chemistry professor Krishna Kumar. Arnold delivered a lecture on her Nobel Prize-winning research regarding the directed evolution of enzymes to a packed lecture hall, with students, faculty and community members standing in the wings, before taking questions on her past work, accomplishments and future plans. The award presentation and lecture was followed by a reception in the Science and Engineering Complex, where lecture-goers were able to speak directly with Arnold. In the award citation, Kumar provided context for Arnold’s research that brought her to the attention of the Tishler Award panel. “She invented the field of what’s called directed evolution,” Kumar said. “[This] has lead to the creation of enzymes with greater stability and with the ability to catalyze reactions which are not in nature’s repertoire.” Arnold then accepted the award before delivering a lecture on the work that won her the Nobel Prize. Her work began at the University of California, Berkeley, at the beginning of what she described as the DNA revolution. Arnold spoke about her fascination in the chemistry with the natural world, and her methods of using biological processes to produce man-made chemicals.
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“Nature has discovered so much chemistry, but there’s more that’s been discovered by human beings,” she said. Arnold also discussed many of the roadblocks she faced along the way, including disbelief from her colleagues. “They’d say biology is really nice, but chemistry belongs to chemists,” she said. Despite this, Arnold’s research has already proven useful in simplifying a number of reactions once thought difficult and expanding a list of possible reactions using enzymes as catalysts. While implications of her research could prove useful in the production of biofuels and have expanded the applicability of enzymes to areas of chemistry where they had been irrelevant in the past, Arnold took digs at popular science publications that have taken her research out of context. “None of them read the paper,” she said, before poking fun at headlines claiming science fiction-esque possibilities from her findings. Utz told the Daily that the Tishler Award has been given out annually by the department since 2004. It is named after Tufts alumnus Max Tishler (A ’28), an accomplished chemist who is often considered the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Kumar, who was chair of the chemistry department when the Tishler lecture series began, also said the award recipient is chosen by a panel of faculty members in the
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chemistry department based on their achievements in the field. Since the award’s inception, the school has seen a number of impressive speakers present on their cutting-edge research. “Professor Arnold was the third Nobel Laureate to receive the [Tishler] Award,” Kumar said. “But this is the first instance we’ve invited a Nobel Laureate to speak before they received the prize.” Utz credited the higher-than-expected turnout for the event to the recent announcement of the Nobel Committee. “We anticipated after the announcement a few weeks ago that attendance would be up, so we hosted a livestream down the hall from the lecture, and had an online stream as well,” Utz said. “So I suspect we had even more people watching on their laptops at home.” While the crowd was predominantly members of the Tufts community, there were also visiting delegations of students and professors from other Boston schools in attendance, including Boston University and Northeastern University, some of whom spoke in the question-and-answer period after the lecture. According to Kumar, Arnold was chosen to receive the Tishler Award nearly six months before she was announced on Oct. 3 as one of this year’s Nobel laureates in chemistry.
NEWS............................................1 FEATURES.................................3 ARTS & LIVING.......................5
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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Tuesday, October 23, 2018
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Protesters raise objections to code of conduct changes
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continued from page 1 “I don’t really see the university’s perspective on how this [policy] benefits student life,” Perry said. “The whole point of a protest is civil disobedience and so it just doesn’t make sense to me.” Trimmer said that having multiple groups gathered to protest the same policy contributed to expressing student activists’ solidarity against the policy. “It was so exciting to see coalition-building happening because the Tufts [administration] does a very good job of pitting student activists against each other,” Trimmer said. “[Protesting together showed the university that] this policy is not good for any of us, and we will all be here together, and we will all be here together to fight
it. The students united shall never be divided.” The protest took a shift at the end when Kraft was seen observing, and protesters proceeded to follow him. He eventually made his way to his office, with protesters staying behind. Kraft reiterated the importance that protests would not be approved or disapproved based on the nature and material of the protest. “[The] new policy is less restrictive than the previous version,” he told the Daily in an email. “The [current] policy reminds students and student groups of general expectations for student behavior and events, but it no longer includes many of the special requirements for demonstrations, protests, or other gatherings outlined previously.” He acknowledged that there were some
restrictions on events, though they would be applied equally. “The new policy does include safety requirements that apply to all large-scale events, regardless of the nature of the event,” Kraft said. Kraft said that the changes to the code of conduct considered student input. “Prior to the drafting of the new policy, I met with many student activists to understand their views of the previous policy so they could be taken into account,” he said. Kraft also said that he would continue to welcome student feedback. “This afternoon, Dean [of Student Affairs Mary Pat] McMahon and I met with several of the leaders of today’s protest to hear their feedback directly,” Kraft said. “We are working with them and other stakeholders, including the Committee on Student Life, to consider this feedback.”
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Students protest Tufts’ new demonstration policies outside Ballou Hall on Oct. 22.
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continued from page 1 After the Nobel Committee’s announcement, Kumar said the chemistry department followed up with Arnold to see if she’d still have time to receive the Tishler Award and present on the Tufts campus before her Nobel lecture, which is scheduled for December.
“I was exchanging emails with her two days prior to the event,” he said. “But she kept the commitment, for which we’re very thankful.” Both Kumar and Utz were exceptionally happy with the turnout at the award presentation and with the lecture itself. “I think she presented in a way that was accessible to the entire audience,” Utz said at the reception. “Whether that
be faculty members, graduate students, undergraduates and even non-scientists.” Utz went on to express satisfaction at the wide variety of students in attendance and thought Arnold’s lecture was perfect for the occasion. “The whole idea is bring in students from all across campus,” Utz said. “It’s a little bit of science and a great chance to learn something new.”
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Events on the Hill — Week of Oct. 21
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TUESDAY “A Conversation with Morgan Jerkins” Details: Cultural critic and author Morgan Jerkins will speak about contemporary issues that she faces as a black woman in America. When and Where: 5:30–7 p.m., ASEAN Auditorium Sponsor: Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, including American Studies, and Africana Studies; the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Student Affairs; Office of the Deans WEDNESDAY “Cybersecurity Policy Talk with James Baker: Artificial Intelligence — A Counterintelligence Perspective”
Details: A conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of AI in national security with Former General Counsel for the FBI James Baker. When and Where: 12:30–1:45 p.m., Mugar Hall, room 200 Sponsor: School of Engineering, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy THURSDAY “ENVS Lunch & Learn: Preparing for the future of energy at National Grid” Details: Colette Lamontagne, director of internal innovation for National Grid, presents on changes and adaptations in the power grid. The event is part of the Environmental Studies Program’s “ENVS Lunch & Learn” series. When and Where: 12–1 p.m., Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room Sponsor: Environmental Studies Program and Tufts Institute of the Environment
FRIDAY “New at Noon: Living Patterns” Details: An interdisciplinary mix of musical composition and biological protein patterns takes center-stage as Visiting Scholar Katalin Csillagh plays an experimental concert, featuring music by both faculty and student composers. When and Where: 12–2 p.m., Distler Performance Hall at the Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center Sponsor: Department of Music SATURDAY “Vision Festival” Details: A 23-year-old social justice jazz festival comes to Boston for the first time in its history. When and Where: 6:30–10 p.m., Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center Sponsor: Department of Music
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Features
Bridging Differences initiative extends university’s mission of diversity, inclusion
3 tuftsdaily.com
Henry Stevens The Weekly Chirp
Wacky waxwings
F
COURTESY MARK CHOI
Sophomore Zachary Intrater, student representative on the Bridging Differences initiative task force, poses for a portrait in Tisch Library on Oct. 21. by Mark Choi
Contributing Writer
Bridging Differences, a university-wide initiative, was launched in fall 2017 under the leadership of David Harris, former provost and senior vice president of Tufts, with a goal “to improve understanding and engagement across divergent perspectives at Tufts,” according to its website. With the departure of Harris for the presidency of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., this summer, the university’s chief diversity officers and associate provosts Robert Mack and Joyce Sackey have become the initiative’s co-chairs, according to a Sept. 10 Tufts Now article. Through the initiative, Mack, who also serves as the associate dean for student success and advising, hopes to foster an inclusive environment where students and faculty are encouraged to grapple with perspectives and ideas that might be contrary to their own. “In an increasing nationwide polarization and division, it is important to recognize and address the impact of [the] outside world on Tufts’ community and its culture,” Mack said. “In this context, the initiative is designed to extend the university’s mission of diversity and inclusion while making sure that we remain thoughtful and respectful of each other’s differences as an institution.” Sackey agreed with Mack. “[The initiative] aims to promote greater dialogue and understanding among groups with different perspectives and lived experiences,” Sackey told the Daily in an email. “We believe learning from one another and being open to perspectives different from our own strengthens our community.” Zachary Intrater, a sophomore who is a part of the initiative as a student representative, noted that the task force is working hard to bring tangible changes to the community this year. “Last year, the task force focused largely on assessing [the] Tufts community’s
strengths and weaknesses in facilitating open dialogues across our four campuses. As it turns out, [the] Tufts community does a great job promoting dialogue within various groups. … There are over 100 discussion groups at Tufts’ four campuses, ranging from the Group of Six … to the faculty’s book discussion groups,” Intrater said. “However, many of these groups are largely stratified and there are not enough opportunities and venues for different groups to interact with one another and create understanding. The initiative will focus on bringing these different groups together by improving the inter-group communications and interaction opportunities.” As the first institutional effort to create understanding among different groups on campus, the task force crafted a recommended reading list, Mack noted. The Ginn Library’s website describes the reading list as having been “carefully chosen to encourage readers to delve deeply into the sensitive topic of diversity and to brainstorm about [questions such as]: What causes differences? Do we have a control over our differences? How can the gaps be bridged? What is the outcome of a diverse yet inclusive society?” Mack added that books found in the reading list are available at displays installed at the university’s various libraries. On top of the selection of recommended readings, the initiative also successfully co-hosted the first “Tufts Table,” a new platform organized by Provost and Senior Vice President ad interim Deborah Kochevar, with the hope to bolster civic discourse and bipartisanship at Tufts. “Tufts Table … invites members of Tufts’ community to share a light meal and discuss a wide range of complex local, national and global issues,” Mack said. “Last month, [the] Bridging Differences initiative co-sponsored this year’s first Tufts Table, which was [attended] by 65 members of our community, to learn how to engage in civil conversations on complex issues. Each table had a student who
was trained to facilitate the discourse, and the university plans on having more of these events throughout the year.” While working to increase the initiative’s visibility on campus, the task force also met on Sept. 27 to finalize the initiative’s mission statement, craft four subcommittees and allocate budgets for its future projects, according to Mack. “The meeting last month was an opportunity for us to gather as a group and examine our goals for this year and [the] future,” Mack said. “Our revised mission statement reflects our goals more clearly, and our committees are now divided into four subcommittees that are in charge of the initiative’s budget, outcome evaluation, communication and planning, respectively.” Mack added that these smaller committees will allow for more individualized focus on different areas of the initiative, especially as the initiative grows. Intrater said that the scope of “differences” the initiative attempts to bridge has expanded from its initial vision. “The initiative began primarily as a response to the increasingly divisive political discourse on campus and nationwide,” Intrater said. “However, the initiative has become much more extensive, as we try to create understanding among different cultural, social, religious and racial groups on campus. A task force of chief diversity officers, [the] University Chaplaincy, Office of [the] Provost, students, faculty and staff reflects this institutional effort.” Tufts Community Union President Jacqueline Chen, who also participates in the initiative as a student representative, noted that the differences can also include various divides on campus, especially between the student body and the administration. “Serving the student government over the past three years, I noticed that students see BRIDGE, page 4
or everyone aged 21 or above, alcohol may play a role in your life. For some, it brings out the honest version of themselves. For others, the wild crazy side unbeknownst to the general population. For most, sometimes it just helps you relax at the end of the day. In our anthropocentric environment, we tend to think we are the only species that rejoice in the luxury of alcohol. But remember — alcohol is one of Mother Nature’s natural elixirs, and while we may craft it in exquisite ways, store it in fancy bottles and drink it in unconventional ways, its pure and natural form exists throughout the world and is available to a select group of animals that can find and exploit it. Mainly, birds. My personal all-time favorite bird of New England, the cedar waxwing, is a delightful, energetic, gregarious songbird with a warm brown head, black mask, sexy crest, gray back, sulfur-colored belly and a yellow-tipped tail that frequents New England year-round. They are generally only present on Tufts’ campus from late fall through early spring. Cedar waxwings are primarily frugivorous (they eat fruits and berries), and get the first part of their name from their preference for cedar tree berries. However, some waxwings especially enjoy snacking on juniper berries. For those of you familiar with hard liquor distillation, you’ll know that fermented juniper berries are the basis for gin production. Seriously, if you go squish a juniper berry in your hand and then smell it, it smells exactly like gin. Waxwings have no berry-selection process that we know of, so they are perfectly content eating ripe or fermented berries. What happens when a songbird that weighs no more than 20 grams eats several fermented juniper berries? You guessed it. They get drunk. If you’re lucky and watching a flock of waxwings foraging at a juniper tree at the right time, you can see them attempt to take off from a branch and promptly plummet to the ground due to their intoxicated state. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt them. Well, not a lot anyway. While cedar waxwings are the primary offenders for flying under the influence — FUIs, if you will — they certainly aren’t the only degenerates around the neighborhood. Many common backyard bird-feeder birds will consume fermented winter berries when other food sources are scarce. The charismatic, enthusiastic, every-old-ladys-favorite-bird black-capped chickadee has been known to snack on fermented berries as well, and the result is equally entertaining. The relative levels of intoxication can vary among birds too — lightweights and heavyweights. A couple of absolutely hammered cedar waxwings crashed into a car over in Minnesota a couple winters ago, while other individuals most likely enjoyed just one berry and had a cozy evening in their roosting area. On a more serious note, we must all be extremely careful with alcohol consumption — birds and humans alike. While booze can be fun, it can also ruin lives. Also, please don’t read this and then go try and get drunk off juniper berries. It’s not going to work, and you’re going to look like an idiot. Love always, Henry Henry Stevens is a senior majoring in biology. He can be reached at henry.stevens@ tufts.edu. Interested in birds? Email Henry at tuftsornithologicalsociety@gmail.com.
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THE TUFTS DAILY | Features | Tuesday, October 23, 2018
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Students, administrators discuss Bridging Differences on campus BRIDGE
continued from page 3 often have [a] vastly different vision and mission of the university from the administration or the Board of Trustees,” Chen, a senior, said. “Moving forward, I would like to see the initiative inviting our community members to have difficult conversations about what [a] Tufts education means to different groups of people and try to understand where each group is coming from.” The Bridging Differences initiative will serve as an overarching institutional framework of various organizations on campus, such as Tufts Cooperation and Innovation in Citizenship (CIVIC), a non-partisan organization established in 2015 to promote open political dialogue, Intrater noted. “This year, I serve on the e-board of CIVIC as a moderator and organizer of weekly meetings. Once I knew that I would be the moderator for CIVIC this year, I reached out to Provost Mack to join the initiative’s task force mainly to learn and research how to moderate dialogues on divisive topics and engage our community with diverse perspectives and ideas,” Intrater said. “Both CIVIC and [the] Bridging Differences initiative share similarities in their efforts to encourage Tufts’ community to engage
in difficult dialogues, instead of shying away from them.” Intrater explained that between 50 to 80 students with a wide range of backgrounds and political affiliations participate in CIVIC’s weekly meetings. “One of my favorite experiences at CIVIC was last year’s meeting on abortion. We invited people to come from NARAL — a pro-choice 501 organization — and the Catholic community at Tufts,” Intrater said. “While it was a very contentious issue, both sides came with and shared their good intentions. I am not sure how much … each side appreciates that aspect, but people came to listen and we were able to have a civic conversation on a topic that the rest of the country tends to merely politicize.” On top of regular weekly meetings, Intrater added that CIVIC will host a debate on Thursday evening, where members from Tufts Republicans, Tufts Democrats and Left Unity Project will discuss topics ranging from climate change to cybersecurity and health care. According to Mack, the Bridging Differences initiative hopes to foster an institutional framework for respectful civic discourse and mutual understanding across differences. “College is one of the most critical time periods in one’s intellectual development, for it is the first time many
leave their often homogeneous community, school system and family where they have cultivated a set of ideas and beliefs that define their values and ethics,” Mack said. “We hope that Tufts University can foster an environment where students continue to hold on to their values and beliefs, but also take the opportunity to learn about other values and perspectives as well, not in a right or wrong way, but in an empathetic way to expand their worldview.” Mack spoke to the importance of listening, talking and understanding the perspective of people from a wide range of cultures and communities while also taking into account the negative influences that discrimination and biases play. Intrater similarly noted that it is important for students to carefully listen to others’ perspectives and reexamine their set of ideas and beliefs whenever necessary. “I think no one ideology has a monopoly of good ideas,” Intrater said. “Personally, coming to Tufts and engaging with other perspectives, I embraced many ideas and thoughts that I did not hold before. After all, I learned that people who disagree often have similar intentions … We all want prosperity, equality, individual liberty and security for us and the next generations. We may disagree on how to get to these goals, but we often have good intentions at our cores.”
The Bridging Differences initiative also hopes to set a tone for political, cultural, social, religious and racial dialogues on campus that can be sustained into the future, Mack said. “It is important to recognize that [the] Bridging Differences initiative will be an ongoing committee to keep our missions and visions alive, as we know that this is not an objective that we can fully meet in just one year,” Mack said. “That is, new students, staff and faculty come and leave every year, and our community changes subsequently. Given that Tufts is an ever-changing and evolving community, we need to make sure to keep pushing ourselves equally hard so that everyone at Tufts has a place here and feel safe, while also is pushed to think outside of [their] comfort zone.” Sackey said that they look forward to seeing how this initiative will unfold and influence the Tufts community. “We plan to launch community-wide activities and will be calling on all students, faculty and staff to participate,” Sackey said. “My advice is to keep an eye out for announcements regarding these community activities and get involved.” Mack also encouraged all Tufts students to engage with the initiative and share their thoughts, insights and perspectives on this growing effort.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
ARTS&LIVING
5 tuftsdaily.com
MOVIE REVIEW
Boston Asian American Film Festival celebrates 10 years, opens with ‘The Joy Luck Club’ by Ruijingya Tang
Assistant Arts Editor
Content warning: This article mentions rape and abuse. 2018 marks the tenth anniversary of the Boston Asian American Film Festival (BAAFF). As New England’s largest AsianAmerican film festival, the BAAFF is dedicated to celebrating the brilliance behind the making of Asian-American films in diverse genres and themes, including feature films, short films, queer films and political documentaries. This year’s BAAFF opened on Oct. 18 with a special 25th anniversary screening of “The Joy Luck Club” (1993), followed by a conversation featuring one of the film’s stars, Rosalind Chao, at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Mass. Directed by Wayne Wang, “The Joy Luck Club” was adapted from Amy Tan’s 1989 novel of the same name, with Tan as one of its screenwriters. Beginning with a large gathering set in San Francisco, the film tells the stories of four ChineseAmerican mother-daughter pairs. Suyuan Woo (Kieu Chinh), Lindo Jong (Tsai Chin), An-Mei Hsu (Lisa Lu) and Ying-Ying St. Clair (France Nuyen) are four first-generation Americans who grew up in China. They become friends through church and form The Joy Luck Club to meet regularly to play the popular Chinese tile game of mahjong. The daughters of the four women — June Woo (Ming-Na Wen), Waverly Jong (Tamlyn Tomita), Rose Hsu Jordan (Rosalind Chao) and Lena St. Clair (Lauren Tom) — have known each other since childhood and embark on different yet overlapping journeys of life that are intimately tied to their mothers’ past. Explaining the characters’ identity by unveiling their maternal lineage, “The Joy Luck Club” challenges the centuries-old Chinese tradition of writing patrilineal family histories. The film’s premise begins with the story of June and Suyuan: For her entire life, Suyuan has lived with the shame of being forced to abandon her
pair of twin girls in China during the Sino-Japanese War. After Suyuan’s death, her three friends from The Joy Luck Club succeed in locating her long-lost twins and inform June of the news. While overjoyed to find her half-sisters alive and at the prospect of meeting them one day, June is concerned that she will not know what to tell the twins about their late mother as she realizes that she does not know anything about Suyuan’s life. Lindo reacts to June’s confession in a voice of critical disbelief: “How can a daughter not know her own mother?” (In the novel, it was originally An-mei who said “Not know your own mother? … How can you say? Your mother is in your bones.”) On top of Lindo’s response, Ying-Ying adds, succinctly but powerfully, “Your mother is your voice.” In likening the mother to her daughter’s deepest physical interior, Tan intriguingly reverses the womb-embryo relationship in which the mother contains the daughter, while retaining its implication of the mother-daughter pair as inseparable. Ying-Ying’s comment also implies a mutually constitutive mother-daughter relationship, as June in fact lends her own voice in recounting her mother’s experience in China. The relationship between An-mei and Rose demonstrates how lasting and influential a grandmother’s legacy can be on the mother-daughter dynamic. An-mei’s mother — Rose’s grandmother — is disowned by her family after being raped by a wealthy merchant, as they are convinced that she actively sought the unwanted sexual relationship for his money; she is forced to become the merchant’s fourth and least important concubine. In the household, An-mei’s mother is sexually dominated by the merchant, now her husband, and emotionally abused by his second wife, who claims An-mei’s son as her own in order to gain the prestige as the mother of the merchant’s heir. Eventually, An-mei’s mother commits suicide on a superstitious date in order to protect An-mei from harm in the merVIA IMDB
A promotional poster for ‘The Joy Luck Club’ (1993), the opening film for the Boston Asian American Film Festival, is pictured.
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The Boston Asian American Film Festival logo is pictured.
chant’s household, as the family believed that would trigger disastrous revenge from her furious spirit. An-mei describes her mother as “not [knowing] her worth,” suggesting that her mother should not have succumbed to her abusers so easily. For An-mei, her own daughter, Rose, inherits a lack of awareness about her self-worth from her grandmother. After being racially insulted by the mother of her white college boyfriend and future husband Ted, Rose decides to behave in accordance with Ted’s will as much as possible to perform the role of a perfect wife and to remove any chances of criticism by Ted or his family. However, Ted, initially attracted to Rose’s original assertiveness, becomes tired of her gradual retreat into passivity. An-mei exclaims that, even though she tries her best to raise her daughter as someone who would bravely stand up for herself, Rose is essentially “just like [her grandmother]. Never know what [she is] worth.” An-mei’s story, again, emphasizes a mother’s power and lasting influence on her daughter. Although “The Joy Luck Club” successfully unveils the emotional heritage that the mothers in the film pass onto their daughters, it fails to realistically address
the cultural and ethnic roots of ChineseAmericans. The film’s description of 20th century China is more imaginary than factual. Ironically, as much as “The Joy Luck Club” claims to focus on telling the backstories of first-generation Chinese Americans, none of the stories told in the film are situated in specific places or years. To add even more ambiguity, the film refers to none of the mothers of the four members of the Joy Luck Club by name. In other words, the audience only comes to know these women as “mothers,” as if their identities exist exclusively within this specific familial role. This lack of narrative specificity in the film leaves some of its stories arguably uncorroborated, unfair and as orientalist pictures of Chinese poverty, superstition and exoticness. That being said, as one of the first wellknown Hollywood films with a predominantly Asian-American cast — over two decades before the recent hit “Crazy Rich Asians” — “The Joy Luck Club” remains a powerful advocate for broader media representation of Asian-Americans and Asian cultures in this country. The 2018 BAAFF will continue to host film screenings and conversations with artists every day until Oct. 28.
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THE TUFTS DAILY | Arts & Living | Tuesday, October 23, 2018
James Ray The Starving Aesthete
tuftsdaily.com
MOVIE REVIEW
‘Beautiful Boy’ portrays realities of addiction, The art of moping, lacks emotional insight the art of despair
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t’s seven on a Saturday, and after two or three hours of trying, I’ve finally managed to get a good mope going. There’s no experience so aesthetically palpable as a real good mope — lying back on the velvet fainting couch you lifted off the sidewalk, hand across your forehead, hastily cobbled-together sidecar lilting dangerously as your stomach rises and falls with your sighs. These past few years I’ve dedicated significant portions of my life to perfecting the art of moping around, and through this exercise I’ve achieved a level of zen-like ennui which would surely be the envy of many a great sage and holy man. The first thing to understand is that moping is by no means a passive activity. Of course, it bears all the standard hallmarks of passivity — slackened jaw, listless eyes, the creeping sense that somewhere in the room “The Great Gig in the Sky” (1973) is playing a little too quietly to hear. But these exterior signifiers are only a deception, pawns in a larger game the rules of which are as abstruse as they are vital to the human condition. To mope is to align oneself on the idea — no, cosmic ley line — of “why bother,” and this requires conscious effort, or to put it bluntly, sacrifice. A true-blue moper can’t be easily rousted from their perch by roommates bearing promises of Easy Mac and old Bruce Lee movies — oh no. They are resolute, dignified, unresponsive to the extravagant tableaux of love and lust which subsumes your average dormitory. If my words have moved you to despair, dear reader, of your ever achieving such a sublime and chartreuse state of being, then congratulations: You’re on the right track. Giving up is the key to moping, but one cannot give up on giving up; one must actively will one’s own undoing, to submerge themselves in the pure Ā Atman of being. Because this is the secret key to moping — it is not a state of relaxation, but a state of extreme distress. Just as Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha unites his soul with a dead jackal as it “lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, was blown across the fields,” so is moping an endless reeling from place to place. Consciousness impinges on the universe inexorably; to live is to be awash in sensuous experience, bombarded like yellowcake uranium with whizzing particulate qualia. Moping is not the abridgment or cessation of these qualia — that would be death — but their negation, the denial of their power over one’s perspective. To mope is to shut one’s curtains to the universe and to hold at a distance that which you hold most dear.
James Ray is a senior studying political science. James can be reached at james_m.ray@tufts.edu.
by John Fedak Arts Editor
Content warning: This article discusses addiction. Addiction is the ultimate disruptor, ruining not only the lives of those who immediately suffer from it but everyone who encounters it, forever snarling life’s supposedly linear path. In “Beautiful Boy,” father David Sheff (Steve Carell) is left struggling after his successful son Nic Sheff (Timothée Chalamet) falls victim to crystal meth addiction, seeking guidance through this terribly painful process. Although the movie ultimately stumbles, it is still a well-crafted narrative about the ways in which addiction corrodes even those with all the support in the world. Directed by Belgian filmmaker Felix Van Groeningen, “Beautiful Boy” adapts two memoirs: one by the real-life David Sheff and the other by his son Nic. The movie is portrayed largely through David’s perspective, focusing on his desperation as Nic’s addiction reverberates through his family’s life. “Beautiful Boy” opens with David seeking the advice of a drug addiction expert, and from there the story falls into its decidedly non-linear narrative. The movie is composed of flashbacks and flash-forwards, all designed to create a deeper understanding of the cycle of addiction: relapse, rehab, repeat. And repeat and repeat again. This cyclical structure breaks free of the standard three-act addiction narrative, driving home that there is no real beginning and no real end to the trauma of addiction. As the plot trudges onward, David’s optimism repeatedly crashes against the impenetrable wall of his son’s addiction, and the film itself never fully resolves, instead ending on an ambiguous but cautiously hopeful note. The standout of “Beautiful Boy” is Chalamet, whose nuanced acting brings Nic Sheff to life, even if he is unmatched by the film’s other actors. In the talented hands of Chalamet, Nic oscillates among emotional and reticent, playful and aggressive, beautiful and broken. Even his body language is poignant, portraying a character forever toeing the line between control and chaos. Nic is elevated far above a caricature, and Chalamet makes the disjointed narrative feel authentically human, which is perhaps the film’s biggest achievement. Carell’s acting, while also strong, fails to reach the level of Chalamet. As both a journalist by trade and a father dedicated to his son, David is committed to uncovering how to fix him, although he must come to terms with the fact that even love cannot miraculously break the cycle of addiction. While Carell’s portrayal ranges from optimism to anguish, his most serious performances veer on comedic (a la Michael Scott), and David is never as raw as Nic, but Carell’s devotion
VIA IMDB
A promotional poster for `Beautiful Boy,’ starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet, is pictured. to his character is largely a success. The supporting cast is strong yet not particularly memorable: David’s second wife Karen Barbour (Maura Tierney) provides what support she can and first wife Vicki Sheff (Amy Ryan) embodies the grief of a mother who feels as much at fault for her son’s addiction as the father. They firmly establish Nic’s family as well-off with good intentions but are limited in the overarching scope of the plot and feel more like a means to an end than fleshed-out characters. The score and cinematography of “Beautiful Boy” fall under the category of successes, with music-driven montages juxtaposing, often jarringly, against the hopeless narrative. The film is primarily centered in Marin County, Calif., where David lives, and the many stunning panoramic shots subtly contrast the inner pain of the Sheff family. Hearing melodic and beautiful songs playing over the course of the film only further contributes to a feeling of inescapable dread.
Unfortunately, the film never gets around to explaining the circumstances surrounding Nic’s addiction, and this, coupled with a failure to delve into truly emotional scenes, forces the movie to operate primarily at surface level. “Beautiful Boy” works perfectly when taken as a vignette or viewed as a snapshot of addiction, but its refusal to delve into its characters mutes the deep emotional impact it so desperately wants to impart. The movie is by no means bad, but it never reaches the lofty heights it aspires to, instead feeling trapped by its focus on unending addiction. Despite its flaws, “Beautiful Boy” features fantastic acting and well-thought out directorial choices, telling an honest story of addiction that will appeal to even the most cold-hearted. Unfortunately, it cannot escape the stagnation that plagues its characters, and because it also offers no emotional insight or conclusive answers, it rests largely in the domain of the melodramatic instead of the truly impactful.
TRASHING ONE EGG WASTES 55 GALLONS OF WATER
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THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Tuesday, October 23, 2018
F& G
tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Shim: “Press hard. Hard. HARD. HARDER. HARDER.”
FUN & GAMES
SUDOKU
LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY
Scorpio (Oct. 23–Nov. 22)
Your spotlight shines bright with the Sun in your sign this month. Energize a personal dream. Provide leadership. Use your power and confidence for good.
Difficulty Level: Not wearing an offensive costume
Monday’s Solution
CROSSWORD
Monday’s Solution
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Opinion EDITORIAL
Breaking the culture of sleep deprivation Many universities boast 24-hour libraries and dining halls. Harvard’s undergraduate Lamont Library is open 24 hours a day; MIT offers three libraries with 24-hour access. This might sound appealing for students who want access to a library during all hours of the day. Students could work late into the night without worrying about closing times or needing to move to the reading room when the clock strikes. On-campus resources such as databases, reference books and chargers would be at students’ disposal 24/7. But what is the effect of these never-closing facilities on students’ mental health? Numerous studies reveal a significant correlation between students’ sleep patterns and their success. A 2014 study by the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a number of alarming statistics. Sampling the greater population of college students, the study reports 50 percent of the respondents experiencing “daytime sleepiness” while 70 percent “attain insufficient sleep.” Furthermore, 70.6 percent of college students surveyed said they get less than eight hours of sleep on a daily basis. Many students are aware that they must strike a balance among academics, sleep, social life, extracurricular involvement and other day-to-day happenings. Yet students at a number of top-tier institutions are encouraged to either match or surpass the work ethic of their peers: an endless competition of who’s in the library the longest, who did the most practice tests, and who posted frantically on the class discussion board just past dawn. But in a world that’s speeding up, maybe we need to slow down. It’s not that students don’t understand the negative impacts of sleep deprivation. In fact, student respondents to the Michigan study ranked sleep
issues “second only to stress in factors that negatively impact academic performance.” Students are informed and aware, so why are they constantly stuck in the cycle of staying up too late and getting up too early? An article published by the National Sleep Foundation reveals that “even small levels of sleep deprivation over time can chip away at your happiness.” According to Mental Health America, “sleep combats some of the fallout of stress, and poor sleep has been linked to … greater risk of depression and anxiety.” If students themselves cannot take a step back and achieve the sleep they need, which is admittedly difficult for many, perhaps it is up to their institutions to take the lead. Tufts’ efforts to encourage better sleep habits in students are made clear in its facilities’ open hours. Tisch Library is fully open until 1 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday and late-night study remains available until 3 a.m. The nearby Mayer Campus Center is open from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays. Ginn Library, located in The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, closes at 1 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday. The latest available on-campus option for student study, Eaton Lab, is open until 4 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday. However, none of these common study spots are open 24 hours per day in a regular week. While frustrating to some, this policy serves as an asset to Tufts’ demonstrated interest in students’ mental health. The study argues “all-night study sessions are the wrong plan for improved grades and learning,” citing data that students who obtain more than or equal to nine hours of sleep per night have higher GPAs than those who obtain less than six hours of sleep per night (averages of 3.24 versus 2.74, respectively).
According to Tufts Health and Wellness Services’ webpage, “56 [percent] of Tufts students get 4 nights of restful sleep per week.” 70 percent of the study’s respondents self-reported they receive insufficient sleep. Comparing sleep habits of Tufts students to those of a population of college students at a number of institutions is uplifting. While the 56 percent statistic can certainly be improved upon, it proves impressive in today’s hyper-competitive university atmosphere. Many students complain about sleep deprivation, and perhaps some of it should be attributed to clubs, not just the university. Numerous clubs host regular meeting hours outside of class hours. Clubs may instead choose to meet on weekends, during open block or at earlier times that correlate with members’ schedules; this could contribute to a better night’s sleep for students who wish to participate in a variety of extracurricular activities. This is, of course, difficult. Balancing the schedules of many can be tedious, but it is a step toward promoting better sleep schedules for a club’s members. Tufts’ Counseling and Mental Health Services and the Department of Health Promotion and Prevention stress the importance of sleep for students on the university website and through interactions with individual specialists. The university also provides a number of resources to students, including mindfulness and stress reduction programs and access to specialists. However, only a deeper cultural shift can promote healthier sleep patterns among students. The university should engender a culture where self-care comes before getting high grades. Students, alike, should take a step back when necessary and be proactive in seeking accommodations if they are not getting sufficient amounts of sleep.
CARTOON
BY MARIA FONG The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board. EDITORIALS Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. OP-EDS The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length and submitted to opinion@tuftsdaily.com. The editors reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, space and length. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. Authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. ADVERTISING All advertising copy is subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Executive Board and Executive Business Director.
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Aneurin Canham-Clyne Red Star
They are just fascists now Content warning: This column discusses violence. he Metropolitan Republican Club in New York invited Gavin McInnes to give a speech at their headquarters where he praised and reenacted the murder of a Japanese socialist. The Proud Boys, an alt-right gang, assaulted protesters outside. The cops stood by and watched. This was one of the latest in a string of fascist assaults against protesters at Republican events. Before we go further, know that fascism isn’t rule of the stupid or the use of violence against enemy paramilitary organizations. Fascism, by some definitions, is the dictatorship of the right against the left and minorities through organized violence and nationalist mobilization. The Nazis and Blackshirts started as militant nationalists, got money and backing from traditional plutocrats and then broke the back of labor in their homelands. Before there was genocide, there was gay-bashing and anti-communist terrorism. It is not fascism to fight Nazi terrorists when the police will not, and it is not fascism to yell at senators. It is fascist to suggest we throw labor organizers out of helicopters, as some people on this campus have. I’ve seen fascists wearing “Pinochet did nothing wrong” shirts and MAGA hats beating up protesters with the police at their backs. They’re as silly and stupid as they are cruel and dangerous. The groups from Charlottesville, Va. might be underground, but Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys are building institutional ties to the Republican Party, including college Republicans. Alt-right members were found with a weapons cache on a parking garage’s rooftop ahead of a protest in Portland, Ore., and others fly around America starting riots like the one in Providence two weeks ago. The Proud Boys have committed dozens of assaults and have overlapping ties with neo-Nazi groups, like Boston Free Speech and skinhead gangs in New York. Neo-Nazi gangs have beaten protesters at Turning Point USA college events; obnoxious college Republican red-baiting is becoming red-beating. They set aside the traditional outright racism of skinheads in favor of reactionary sexism, hyper-individualism, anti-communism and patriotism, but the racial supremacy remains key to the project. Destruction of progressive forces means the entrenchment of a racial caste system. This strategy has bound the fascist gangs to the Republicans and the Republicans to them in a way that was not visible even a few months ago. Reps. Diaz-Balart and Nunes have campaigned with Proud Boys. Tucker Carlson gives them favorable press. Proud Boys shout slurs and beat up socialists at Republican events. The Republicans cannot be shamed out of this alliance, as it gives them a paramilitary wing they can use against social dissent without formal state repression. The alliance between fascists and conservatives is over a hundred years old, but the last few months of riots, attempted murders of leftists and fascist penetration into mainstream politics and Republican organizing has opened a new organizational chapter in American fascism. Only mass direct action can close it. The Republicans are becoming an outright fascist party. Only we can stop them.
T
Aneurin Canham-Clyne is a senior studying history. Aneurin can be reached at aneurin.canham_clyne@tufts.edu.
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THE TUFTS DAILY | Sports | Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Tufts crew competes in 54th Annual Head of the Charles Regatta Anika Agarwal / The Tufts Daily
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Sports
Tuesday, October 23, 2018 | Sports | THE TUFTS DAILY
Jumbos win defensive battle against Ephs, move to 5–1
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David Meyer Postgame Press
Celebrate good plays, c’mon!
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EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY ARCHIVES
Junior linebacker and co-captain Greg Holt tackles a Bowdoin player in Tufts’ 31–3 win at Homecoming on Oct. 7, 2017.
FOOTBALL
continued from page 12 just under eight minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Jumbos immediately responded. Senior quarterback and co-captain Ryan McDonald completed two chunk passes on the ensuing Jumbo drive, the first of which was a 22-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver OJ Armstrong. This was followed by a 25-yard catch by junior tight end Jack Donohue that eventually set up a 3-yard rush by senior running back Dom Borelli into the end zone to tie the game. The teams went back and forth in scoring throughout the second quarter. Following Pedrini’s touchdown, Maimaron once again led his team to the Tufts red zone. At the 3-yard line, Maimaron elected to hand the ball off to first-year running back Carter Begel, who rushed for three yards to give the Ephs a 14–7 lead. Tufts then received the ball at its own 14-yard line to start the next drive. In the ensuing minutes, McDonald methodically completed five out of his eight passing attempts on the drive, leading the Jumbos to work their way up to the Williams 6-yard line. McDonald threw a pass to Donohue in the left corner of the end zone, who was under heavy coverage. Donohue, standing at 6 feet and 5 inches, towered over the head of his defender, grabbing the ball before being forced to the turf. As Donohue was taken to the ground, he managed to retain possession of the football to once again level the score at 14–14. Both teams scored once more in the second quarter — the Ephs on a 10-yard rush by Begel, and the Jumbos on a 8-yard touchdown pass from McDonald to senior wide receiver Dan de Leon — to close out the second quarter with a score of 21–21. Whereas the first half of the game featured spectacular plays on the offensive side of the ball for both teams, the second half of play was highlighted by a dominating defensive performance by the Tufts secondary. Junior linebacker and co-captain Greg Holt was instrumental in the Jumbos’ defensive effort, leading the team with a total of 13 tackles. Additionally, with just over 10 minutes remaining in the third quarter, Holt forced a fumble from the hands of Begel at the Ephs’ own 19-yard line. The fumble was recovered for the Jumbos by soph-
omore defensive back Nolan Ostmo at the Williams 13-yard line in what was the only turnover of the game. “I just remember that I saw the ball and a couple blockers coming towards me. I started to sink inside and I saw it bounce out, so I just took off obviously, trying to make a play,” Holt said. “And then I remember hitting the guy. I didn’t know he fumbled it, I just remember trying to tackle him and get him to the ground. When I got up, all my teammates, including Nolan Ostmo, fell on the ball. All my teammates were celebrating, and I was just excited, especially for Nolan as a [sophomore] coming in, making a big play and getting on the ball.” The pivotal forced fumble by Holt gave the Jumbos a chance to score the game-winning touchdown, which they did through a lovely trick play. McDonald lateraled the ball to senior running back Dom Borelli, who threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Jack Dolan, giving Tufts its first lead of the game. Despite being held scoreless throughout the entire second half, Williams came extremely close to tying up the game with just under 12 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. After Tufts’ senior punter/defensive back and co-captain Alex LaPiana’s 30-yard punt to the Williams 22-yard line, Stola ran up the right sideline for a 39-yard punt return before being pushed out of bounds at the Tufts 39-yard line, marking a huge punt return for the visitors. Tufts coach Jay Civetti expressed his frustration with the long punt return, emphasizing how important special teams will be for Saturday’s matchup against the Mammoths. “I was frustrated with the big return on the punt,” Civetti said. “That’s not typically how things have been here, and that’s an area that I run. I need to do a better job coaching the guys up. We need to win the special teams battles on Saturday.” Taking advantage of their favorable field position, the Ephs started their drive with a 17-yard rush by Maimaron to the Tufts 22-yard line. After the first down, Begel attempted a rush but was stopped seven yards short of the first down. On the ensuing second and third down attempts, Maimaron attempted two passes to Stola, both of which fell incomplete. However, as the second ball to Stola fell incom-
plete, officials threw a flag on the play, signaling a pass-interference penalty onto senior defensive back and co-captain Alex LaPiana, placing the ball on the Tufts 4-yard line. Three rushing attempts yielded a collective three yards, forcing a fourth-andgoal situation on the 1-yard line for the Ephs. With just under 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Williams elected to go for the touchdown on fourth down. In perhaps the most important moment of the game, Maimaron snapped the ball and attempted a quarterback sneak for the touchdown. However, Holt tackled Maimaron for no gain and forced a turnover on downs with just over nine minutes remaining in the game. Following this pivotal stop at the goal line, Williams was not able to score throughout the remainder of the game, prompting Tufts to a victory with a final score of 28–21. Holt’s incredible performance on the defensive side of the ball for the Jumbos did not go unrecognized, and he was named the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Week for his contribution in stopping the Williams offense and securing the victory for the Jumbos. Holt expressed gratitude and gave credit to his teammates for helping him achieve such an honor. “I feel just really blessed and excited,” Holt said. “I want to give a lot of [credit] to my teammates. On the field, we work as a team, and they put me in positions to help me be successful and they make a lot of the other plays out there.” Civetti praised his star linebacker, saying that Holt’s attitude towards the game has helped him be successful. “Greg’s a tremendous player, I think he’s one of the best players in the league,” Civetti said. “He has a great nose for the football, he’s a true student of the game, and he’s just a remarkable young man. He was NESCAC [Defensive] Player of the Week, and he did a tremendous job with that and I’m just really proud of him and the job he does … The thing I love about Greg is that Greg isn’t going to be satisfied; he’s going to find a million different things that he could have done better, and he’ll make sure that the the rest of the team has that same mindset.” The Jumbos will travel to Amherst, Mass. on Saturday to face the Mammoths, starting at 1 p.m.
love a good celebration. Someone got a promotion? Celebrate. Someone won a competition? Celebrate. Someone is having a baby? Celebrate. But you know what pastime loves a good celebration as much as I do? Sports. And today I want to celebrate celebrations. Celebrations in sports have been around for a long time. The first NFL touchdown celebration supposedly came from Homer Jones with the “spike” in 1965. Since then, dances have evolved into full-team celebrations. The rules about touchdown dances have changed recently, allowing players more freedom. There had been complaints about the previous rules before the changes. For example, a player could flip into the end zone, but if he did not land on his feet, he was penalized for being on the ground during a celebration. The rules were so strict that Key and Peele did a sketch satirizing the rigid protocol. But now, players can more or less celebrate as they would like. Hockey has some awesome celebrations too. Soccer does it. Basketball does not quite have time to dance in between plays, but they still celebrate for sure, especially on the bench. The one question I have then is this: Why can’t baseball players celebrate? Actually, baseball players can celebrate, but there has been a recent call to attention about bat flipping. After a home run, a player might toss the bat in a show of defiance, dominance or awesomeness. The most famous example of this is Jose Bautista’s home run in the American League Division Series in 2015. People attacked him for this. They said it was disrespectful and unprofessional. To that I say: It is a super lame thing to be mad about. Every sport I can think of allows celebrations. After these professional athletes do amazing things, they should be able to celebrate. A bat flip is just as much a regular celebration as a touchdown dance. Also, it is not as if baseball players bat flip after every home run. They come in moments of importance and clutch plays, like Bautista’s homer. People got angry this year at the Cubs’ David Bote for his bat flip after hitting a walk-off grand slam while down by three in the bottom of the ninth, as the Cubs were down to their last out. As a pinch hitter. I think Bote should be able to celebrate one of the most electric moments that can ever happen in baseball. Also, his bat flip was OK’d by the players on the opposing team, so Bote apologizing was only because of non-players being angry. Just let baseball players have fun. Let them bat flip and shout and cheer and do the things that are allowed in just about every other sport — especially in a time when people are talking about MLB as slowing down and dying compared to other leagues. You know what makes people have more fun? When people watch other people have more fun. Let them celebrate.
David Meyer is an assistant sports editor for the Daily. David is a junior studying film and media studies. He can be reached at david.meyer@tufts.edu.
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Sports
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Crew teams take on world’s best at Head of the Charles
ANIKA AGARWAL / THE TUFTS DAILY
The Tufts men’s crew team is pictured during the Men’s Club Eights event at the Head of the Charles regatta on Oct. 20. by Ethan Zaharoni
Assistant Sports Editor
The Jumbos competed in the Head of the Charles regatta this weekend. The Head of the Charles is one of the biggest and most famous regattas in the world of rowing, with thousands of athletes competing across several events. Tufts competed in the Men’s Club Eights, Men’s Championship Doubles, Directors’ Challenge Women’s and Men’s Quads, Women’s Lightweight Fours, and Women’s Collegiate Eights over the two day event. This event is on a different scale than all the others that the Jumbos compete in throughout the season. Alongside the thousands of rowers competing, tens of thousands of spectators and supporters stood alongside the Charles cheering them on, raising the excitement and the level of competition. The Jumbos competed in two events on Saturday. Tufts placed in 13th in the Men’s Club Eights with a time of 15:41.555 in a race that was eventually won by Harvard. According to junior co-captain Mats Edwards, this was good enough to earn Tufts an automatic qualification spot for next year’s event. It was a strong showing for the Jumbos and was certainly an adjustment for those who were racing in the regatta for the first time.
“By design, the race puts the boats in really close proximity with the spectators throughout the entire course, which [is] usually not the case in rowing races,” sophomore Harris Hardiman-Mostow, who competed in the Men’s Club Eights, said. “Because of this, it really puts the onus on the rowers and coxswains to be in their bag and not get carried away by adrenaline or cheering fans. So for me, the effort was as much of a physical exertion as it was a mental challenge to stay focused on our own boat, and let the energy of the fans reinforce and motivate the focus rather than distract from it.” First-year Jack Batchelor and senior Tamas Takata competed in the Championship Doubles, finishing in 18th of 20 total boats in 19:34.647 plus a five-second penalty. Competing in a championship event meant that Takata and Batchelor were going up against rowers from around the world. “It was really [a] huge honor to represent Tufts in the Championship Double[s],” Batchelor said. “Tamas and I rowed against the best doubles in the nation, comprising mostly of people that row as their job. Despite the seemingly impossible task of not coming [in] last to many national level crews, we were able to survive.” Batchelor praised the work his teammate put in that led to the duo’s good performance in the event. “Tamas, the bowman and steerer of the course, put a lot of bolts on the line,”
Batchelor said. “We had the mindset that we were going to leave it all on the course. And that’s what we did. I cannot say how thankful I am to Tamas for just bolting the course with me and not caring about how great our competition[s were], but focusing on ourselves.” On Sunday, the Jumbos competed in four more events. The women’s team featured many alumni, including Caroline Ricard (LA ’14), Rachel Paterson (E ’15), Emma Peabody (LA ’15) and Emma Conroy (LA ’18). They placed 23rd out of 35 teams competing in the Directors’ Challenge quads with a time of 21:05.558. Shortly after, the men’s team featuring first-year Matias Facciuto, and seniors Takata, Rohail Rai and co-captain Isaac Mudge placed 18th in the Director’s Challenge Men’s Quads with a time of 18:59.492. In the Women’s Lightweight Fours, the Jumbos featured finished with a time of 22:08.448, earning them 11th place. Lastly, the Jumbos had two boats race in the Women’s Collegiate Eights finishing impressively in seventh and 14th places, with times of 19:17.656 and 19:46.484 respectively. Senior Bibi Lichauco, who competed in the Collegiate Eights, had nothing but praise for both the course and the Jumbos’ performance. “Being around hundreds of spectators and fellow athletes along the entire threemile stretch of one of the most beautiful
courses makes this race a very exciting and totally unique rowing experience,” Lichauco said. “The wind was pretty brutal during the race, but we moved through it together by focusing on technique and staying strong every stroke.” Meanwhile, Edwards, who competed in the Men’s Club Eights, was pleased with the performance of the team as a whole, as they put in one of their best showings at the regatta in recent years. “All in all, this regatta was a success for both showing Tufts Men’s crew as a program with a strong base in the eights, but also a squad of very capable scullers in the quad and double,” Edwards said. “We had great support this weekend from friends and family [and] are excited to head to Saratoga Springs [on Saturday] for our racing at Head of the Fish.” Hardiman-Mostow echoed Edwards’ sentiment. “In terms of place, we had one of the best performances at the Charles in recent memory, and since we finished in the top half of our event, we automatically re-qualify for next year,” he said. “The atmosphere is really unlike any other rowing event in the world, and we’re incredibly lucky to have it right here in Boston.” Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete at the Head of the Fish in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. this Saturday in what will be the final event of the fall season for the women and the penultimate event for the men.
Football emerges victorious in one-possession game against Williams by Alex Viveros
Contributing Writer
It was Parents Weekend on Saturday, and families visiting from near and far congregated at Ellis Oval to witness the Jumbos (5–1) battle the Williams Ephs (4–2) for a high-stakes football game that ultimately determined which team would take second place in the overall ranking of the NESCAC. The Jumbos emerged victorious with a final score of 28–21, following an outstanding performance by the Jumbo defense in the second half. With the win, the Jumbos remain tied for second place in the NESCAC, along with the Trinity
Bantams, the defending NESCAC champions. The only team currently ahead of the Jumbos in the standings are the undefeated Amherst Mammoths (6–0), who the Jumbos will face on Saturday. Following a crushing 38–24 defeat against the Bantams (5–1) on Oct. 13, the Jumbos were determined to secure a win over the Ephs. Both teams entered the contest with a 4–1 record, with the Ephs having suffered their only loss of the season to the Middlebury Panthers (4–2) also on Oct. 13. The teams both brought their maximum intensity as they held each other to a one-possession game throughout the entire competition.
On Saturday’s game, the Ephs were led by sophomore quarterback Bobby Maimaron, who completed 18 out of his 29 attempted passes on the day for 107 yards. Along with his impressive passing performance, Maimaron proved to be the biggest rushing threat for the Jumbos, leading the team with 135 yards rushing on 24 attempts and one touchdown. Maimaron’s single touchdown came in Williams’ opening drive of the game. Following a quick Tufts three-and-out, Williams received the ball at the Tufts 44-yard line. Maimaron effectively pushed the visitors’ drive downfield to Tufts’ 11-yard line. Initially, the Ephs had trou-
ble passing the ball in the red zone against a tough Jumbo defense, with Maimaron going 0-for-2 on two passes inside the red zone. However, following an incomplete pass from Maimaron intended for sophomore wide receiver Frank Stola, Tufts received a holding penalty. This crucial penalty on the third down prompted the ball to be placed at the Tufts 6-yard line alongside an automatic first down. Following the penalty, Maimaron made four rushing attempts for the end zone. On his fourth rush, Maimaron crossed the goal line, giving Williams a 7–0 lead with see FOOTBALL, page 11
