TuftsDaily06-03-2013

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THE TUFTS DAILY

VOLUME LXV, NUMBER 29

Where You Read It First Est. 1980 TUFTSDAILY.COM

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Push for ASL to fill language requirement revived by

Patrick McGrath

Daily Editorial Board

A resolution recommending that American Sign Language (ASL) count towards the first part of the School of Arts and Sciences foreign language requirement passed in the The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate last week, reviving a perennial push for a revision to the requirement.

The resolution will now pass to the Arts and Sciences Curricula Committee for review, according to TCU President Wyatt Cadley, after which the school’s faculty will vote on whether to put it into effect.

The Arts and Sciences faculty in 2008 voted down a proposal from the EliotPearson Department of Child Development to allow ASL to fulfill the first part of the language requirement.

Cadley, a senior, submitted the resolution with junior Shaylagh McCole and Committee on Student Life student representative Kumar Ramanathan, a sophomore. McCole said Ramanathan approached her about the resolution several months ago because McCole had already helped lobby the

department for to establish an ASL minor, a proposal that is still under consideration by the department.

ASL courses can be used to fulfill the second half of the foreign language foundation requirement, but the resolution calls for ASL to be officially considered a language so that it can fulfill either part, McCole said.

The Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development currently offers three ASL classes, which, if the proposal is approved by the School of Arts and Sciences, would count for either half of the requirement, according to McCole.

“I’m hoping that this will be the first step in getting more ASL at Tufts, because not recognizing it as a language makes it very difficult to expand the program,” she said.

The resolution was passed as the department itself is in the process of reviewing its ASL courses and considering holding them three times a week instead of two, as they do now. Many language classes at Tufts are held classes three times a week, which is more conducive to language learning, according to McCole.

Audrey Michael

Daily Editorial Board

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) last semster awarded the Office of Continuing Education (OCE) at the School of Medicine accreditation with the highest honor it gives out after evaluating the office on 15 basic qualifications and seven additional criteria. The council evaluated the OCEon whether it promoted the use of higher education for social change, OCE Director Rosalie Phillips said. The additional pieces also look for collaboration between groups involved in patient care and quality improvement, she said.

“We were granted Commendation because we not only [met] all the basic requirements but we’ve also satisfied these additional, fairly new criteria to report quality improve-

see ASL, page 2

ment in health care with continuing education as one of the levers to do that,” Phillips said.

The OCE’s accreditation term will last for six years, instead of the usual four years that would have been granted without the commendationm, according to a Jan. 10 press release from the OCE to the Dean’s Office of Tufts School of Medicine.

The OCE has provided medical professionals with ongoing training for over 30 years, according to OCE Assistant Director Karin Pearson.

Phillips explained the importance of continuing education for health professionals. “Physicians, nurses, pharmacists have always been dedicated to lifelong learning once they graduate,” she said. “It is the longest period of learning for them.” see MEDICAL, page 2

by

Annabelle Roberts

Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution last week calling for the creation of two additional administrative student advocate positions to advocate for students’ rights in the university’s sexual violence judicial process.

LGBT Center Representative John Kelly and TCU Vice President Meredith Goldberg submitted the resolution, which advocates a system modeled after policies at the University of Washington and Middlesex County in Massachusetts.

The two new administrative positions, if created, would include a victim witness advocate and an accused witness advocate, Kelly, a sophomore, said. The witness advocates would be with the students involved in a sexual crime throughout the entire judicial process, serving as their voice to the administration.

The creation of the two new positions would aim to provide students with administrative representation from someone beyond the unbiased investigator, Kelly said.

M atthias

maier

Contributing Writer

Saba said. His goals include contributing to a recently-proposed push for medical amnesty in the university’s judicial process for alchohol-related offenses and a oppose one-year limit for residents of special interest housing.

Voter turnout in the election was 16.8 percent, with 226 sophomores casting votes, according to ECOM Public Relations Chair Paige Newman, a freshman.

Nick Cutsumpas ran uncontested for the junior class council vice president for academic programming position.

— by Melissa Wang

Inside this issue

“Right now, the way the process operates, everyone involved is required to be unbiased, and it makes students feel very alienated during the process,” he said.

Kelly’s opinions on the weaknesses of Tufts’ current sexual response policy stem from his own experience with the sexual assault judicial process last fall.

“Going through the process, it’s very easy to tell what needs to be changed,” Kelly said. “It was an alienating process and a traumatizing process and both of those much more so than they need to be.”

Though the process has flaws, Women’s Center director Steph Gauchel said she believes it has been greatly improved over the span of the last five years.

The resolution also calls for the formation of a panel of faculty, staff, and students to aid the hiring process of the two new positions, according to Kelly.

The panel would feature representatives from each member of the Group of Six, the Department of Health Education, Counseling and Mental Health Services, see ADVOCATES, page 2

Tufts-led study to evaluate Boy Scouts impact on development by

TCU Election results Sophomore Dylan Saba won the special election Wednesday to fill an empty sophomore Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate seat yesterday, TCU Elections Commission (ECOM) announced early this morning.

Saba beat out sophomore Abby Tresalus for the seat on the body left empty when sophomore Jessie Serrino resigned last month. He will serve on the Senate for the last four meetings of the semester. “I am excited, I’m humbled by all the support I received and I’m ready to start serving the Tufts community,”

Senate supports witness advocates in assault process Daily Editorial Board

School of Medicine awarded accreditation with honors by

Sofia Adams / The Tufts Daily

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate last week passed a resolution to update the university’s sexual assault policy to include witness advocates.

A three-year study led by child development professor and Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science Richard Lerner will examine how participation in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) impacts scouts’ development.

Lerner said he was approached by the CEO of the Cradle of Liberty Council, a greater Philadelphia section of BSA, to examine its methods and the effects they have on the chapter’s members.

“We are in the initial stage of data collection, so we don’t have any results yet, but what we’re looking at is the model of youth development used by the Cradle of Liberty Council, and our goal is to try to understand the impact

of being in Boy Scouts on the positive development of young people,” Lerner said.

Lerner added that his previous research on youth groups attracted the BSA to ask for his help.

“We just completed ten years of research on young people who are in 4-H, which is a large youth serving program in the United States,” he said.

“This work got the attention of folks in Boy Scouts of America, and they began talking with us.”

The data collection process includes survey data on various character attributes of the young people, Lacey Hilliard, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, said.

“In addition to the quantitative survey

Today’s sections

A look at forgotten traditions on the Hill, and those that have survived.

Psychological thriller “Stoker” wins on style, but comes up short on plot.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

1 3 5 8

Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 13 Back

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The Tufts Daily

continued from page 1

Health Service, the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs, Students Voices, and faculty members.

Kelly encouraged students interested in voicing their opinion on the issue to contact him.

“I’m really trying to be as inclusive as possible to make sure that anyone possibly affected by this policy in the past and in the future gets the representation they deserve and they need,” he said. “I think there are voices that need to be heard on this issue to represent students who are most directly, personally, emotionally and physically affected by sexual violence on this campus.”

Kelly said he wants the new administrative members to be licensed social workers hired from outside the university, but he is not yet sure where in the university the positions would be housed. He plans on continuing conversations with the Tufts administration to determine the details.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Senate supports push to recognize ASL

Proposal for advocates passes in Senate ADVOCATES

News

ASL

Beyond improving the current policy, Kelly hopes the resolution expands the awareness of sexual violence on campus.

“I’m hoping that any publicity or notice that the resolution itself brings will bring about a discourse regarding sexual violence on this campus that is definitely lacking,” Kelly said.

Gauchel said she encourages any effort to advance sexual violence and its prevention on the Hill.

“I think we could certainly use more education in terms of prevention and understanding the real roots of sexual violence, thinking about what kind of culture and campus do we want to have and how that impacts the ways in which people are experiencing sexual violence,” she said.

Kelly hopes the passing of the resolution will result in an improved experience for future victims of sexual violence going through the judicial system.

“If this makes one student’s experiences through this horrible process any less difficult, then I think that it’s a successful policy,” he said.

continued from page 1

If the proposal is passed by the faculty, it would likely go into effect next fall, Cadley said.

“I’m hoping that, if ... this does pass, that it will increase the demand for students who want to take American Sign Language,” he said.

Cadley said American Sign Language is already considered a high-demand course, adding that the proposal may lead to the expansion of ASL offerings in the department.

ASL Lecturer Terrell Clark explained that she has seen a constant demand for ASL during the years that she has taught these courses at Tufts.

“There have been many students over the years who have shown a particular interest in sign language and have taken themselves further than what Tufts is offering, which I think is a sort of enduring tribute for the interest that many students have had,” Clark said.

Students who studied ASL at Tufts

have gone on to other universities to take higher-level courses or incorporated ASL into their eventual careers, Clark said.

“I think the biggest thing that it changes is that ... Tufts will finally be giving American Sign Language the recognition that it deserves for the discipline,” Cadley said. “I think that is first and foremost what really matters.”

Senate support of the resolu-

MCT

The TCU Senate passed a resolution in support of American Sign Language (ASL) counting as Part I of the Tufts foreign language requirement.

Child development professor to lead three-year study on Boy Scouts of America BOY SCOUTS

continued from page 1

or questionnaire data, we have a large qualitative component, so we are interested in interviews and focus groups

and some of the more rich experiences of both the youths in Boy Scouts, but also the leaders and parents involved in the organization,” she said.

Though not a primary focus of the

MCT

Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development Richard Lerner is leading a study on how participating in the Boy Scouts of America can affect youth achievement and development.

study, the recent allegations against BSA of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation could play a role in the overall results, and the team is prepared to take a potential change to membership rules into account in the study, Lerner said.

“We will be able to look at the impact of the program as it currently exists on youth development,” he said. “Should the rules of Boy Scouting change and should that be manifested in the Cradle of Liberty Council, then we’ll hopefully be able to see if that change has any impact on the scouts.”

The study is being funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which is based out of the Greater Philadelphia area, and funding has been granted for a period of three years, according to Lerner.

“We are starting at the Cub Scout level, and we only have three years of funding, but we are hoping that we produce well enough for the foundation that they might be interested in continuing to fund us,” he said. “We would then have a longitudinal study of kids starting at Cub Scout level and how they may or may not move on across scouting and become Eagle Scouts.”

The John Templeton Foundation,

which also funded Lerner’s prior research on 4-H, has a vested interest in promoting research into youth development, according to Lerner.

“They are a very enlightened foundation,” he said. “They care a lot about character development — it is a central theme of their work.”

Lerner said that Johnson’s role as a sociologist will be important, as he will act as a consultant to Lerner’s team and bring expertise on Eagle Scouting.

“As a sociologist, he brings an understanding of organizations and a more macro-level, institutional understanding than [we] psychologists have, so it’s a great combination,” he said.

The research team also includes Rachel Herschberg, another postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, as well as a number of other graduate and undergraduate students working as research assistants in the lab, according to Lerner.

The students who are involved in the research are encouraged to incorporate the data into their own research and coursework, Hilliard added.

“We encourage the students, if there is a particular piece of interest to them, to continue to look at the research,” she said.

School of Medicine office receives accreditation with honors MEDICAL

continued from page 1

The OCE works with the Tufts Health Care Institute ( THCI), which was established in 1995, to help health professionals understand the environment in which they work, according to Pearson. “[The OCE and THCI] were started for the same reason, but we were started separately,” she explained.

The OCE serves a wide scope of health professionals, including physicians, nurses and pharmacists, Pearson said.

“Our activities are available not just for Tufts health care faculty and professionals, but nationally and internationally as well,” she said.

The OCE’s application process lasted from fall 2011 until April 2012, when the OCE filed the accreditation report with the ACCME, according to Pearson. In June, the ACCME conducted an interview with the OCE as part of the process, and the OCE officially received Accreditation with Commendation on Nov. 1, Phillips said.

Phillips explained that before any certifying body existed for continuing medical education programs, there were no standards to compare the quality of different programs.

Pharmaceutical or device manufacturers would often sponsor programs in the interest of seeing their product accepted into medical use, often designing multiple aspects of the course and paying professors to use

their products, according to Phillips.

She said that when accreditation processes first started to appear, some were skeptical about whether certain products were being pushed.

There has been a large push in the last seven years to modify the accreditation standards to ensure there are no inappropriate conflicts of interest, according to Phillips.

“Now, our accrediting bodies are really pushing us to use continuing medical education in a way that promotes improvements in the quality of care,” she said.

The ACCME introduced the 22-point accreditation, including the seven additional points for commendation, in 2006. At that time, the OCE did not seek commendation, Phillips said.

“It was voluntary at that time. Now it’s not voluntary, and you either get it or you don’t,” Phillips said.

Besides the ACCME, the OCE also received accreditation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).

“ACCME tends to set the standard, but they all have their tweaks and variations,” Phillips said.

The OCE went through all three accreditation cycles in 18 months, she said.

“On one hand, it’s a real pain in the neck, but on the other hand it’s a real chance to look back and examine what we’re doing and look at where we want to make improvements,” Phillips said.

May Woo for the Tufts Daily

The School of Medicine’s Office of Continuing Education (OCE) in November received an Accreditation with Commendation from the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

Alexa Petersen | Jeminist: A Jumbo Feminist

A Tufts telenovela

I

Nick Pfosi / THE Tufts Daily

Painting the cannon is one of Tufts’ traditions that has survived throughout the decades.

Tufts traditions attempt to unify, connect communities past and present Lukas Papenfusscline

Every university has its own unique set of decades-long traditions. Here, traditions include the painting of the cannon, kissing under Bowen Gate, Tuftonia’s Day observations, the candle lighting (or illumination) ceremony, ‘pumpkining’ and the annual Fall Ball, Winter Bash and Spring Fling events.

The university rituals Tufts observes today are different from those that existed 100, 50 or even 10 years ago, as the loss of NQR and other traditions has demonstrated.

However, the importance of traditions to shaping the identity of the student body and building relationships between students and alumni remains for some.

“Tradition is definitely important to institutions such as Tufts because it does make them unique and gives people pride in what their school represents and what their school has to offer,” Beelzebubs President Vinny Amaru, a sophomore, said in reference to the illumination ceremony.

Amaru said that traditions don’t necessarily require a particularly meaningful or storied history to be enjoyable, citing Spring Fling as an example.

“I think the Tufts community can come together in fun ways, too. It doesn’t have to be very sentimental,” he said.

The Traditions Committee within the Tufts Alumni Association takes on the job of tracking and nurturing the university’s traditions.

The committee’s goal is to “identify and celebrate the traditions and the milestones that make our school and community what it is,” according to Alexandra Dunk (LA ’08), who chairs the committee.

Members dedicate research and time to the task of delving into and preserving Tufts’ history, tapping into by

Contributing Writer

the emotions and nostalgia that some may feel regarding the university.

The Traditions Committee also teams with student groups and academic departments to celebrate special anniversaries. Similarly, the committee has been responsible for the Tufts Sesquicentennial Time Capsule, which has been housed in the Office of Digital and Archival Collections since 2002 and will be opened in the 2051-2052 school year to celebrate the university’s 200th birthday. The committee also produces “Then & Now,” a publication that provides a historical tour of the campus and examines changes that have occurred over time.

Alum Bryn Kass (LA ‘12) noted that one special aspect of Tufts traditions lies in the small size of the university, allowing a more hands-on and participatory approach than other larger universities.

According to Kass, traditions are crucial in creating the unique Tufts experience.

“It’s comforting to know that I was part of something that’s going to continue for years and years,” Kass said.

Not everyone, however, believes Tufts traditions have withstood the test of time. Some believe they’re dying out.

“Traditions? You don’t have any.

Really, the only traditions I see left are the illumination nights,” Sondra Szymczak ( J ‘59) said. Szymcak has been the chair of the Traditions Committee on-and-off for 40 years and credits the Vietnam War with the death of many Tufts traditions.

“Up until Vietnam, we were all very happy and innocent and having fun and doing dumb things. But then everybody got extremely serious.

Nobody wanted to join anything,” she said. “All the good traditions died out.

The class honorary societies went down the tube, and they were the ones that organized a lot of the activities on campus.”

Szymczak added that reviving these dying traditions is complicated, in part by drug use and underage drinking as part of the current culture of some college campuses, citing the reported rampant student intoxication at Winter Bash last month, which resulted in nearly 20 hospitalizations, according to a Feb. 19 Daily op-ed

by Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman.

Szymczak also noted that many events have been taken over by professionals with an eye toward effective fundraising.

When Szymczak was a student, she said, students were primarily responsible for organizing the traditional events and dances,, which Szymczak said were often held at least once a month.

Another reason rituals have faded is that some of the traditions are not as necessary as they may have been in the past, she said. Szymczak claimed that at one time, around 45 percent of Tufts students were commuters.

During that time, traditions were a crucial way to integrate those students into campus life, drawing students from different spheres together for enjoyable activities, Szymczak said.

“Fun was not a four-letter word then,” she said, laughing.

Szymczak has amassed a wealth of information on traditions through interviews with alumni, as well as her own memories of these events. She noted that the alumni who come back to visit Tufts are largely former members of sports teams, fraternities and those students who actively participated in traditions.

“Tufts is more than just a place to get an education,” she said.

If Szymczak is correct and traditions are dying, what’s the answer to community cohesion?

“What I would like to see students do is put down all those electronic gadgets and just talk to each other,” she said.

’m sitting here in the Rez feeling confused about what to write about, swamped in midterms and sad that Mitt Romney no longer gives me endless conservative fodder about which to squawk. All of a sudden, hark! I find my story. A Daily editorial published on March 4 titled “Spring Fling headliner choice uninspired” which stated that the Tufts University Concert Board should have “heeded — or preempted — the calls for a female headliner for this year’s Spring Fling.” Concert Board shot back on their Facebook — doesn’t this have all the workings of a Tufts telenovela? — that, “a choice to choose a woman for Spring Fling for the sake of choosing a woman undermines goals for gender equality.” A comment war ensued. The plot thickens.

Besides the joy of reading a good comment war, my favorite part of our little telenovela was when Concert Board said in their Facebook statement that, “In the end, Spring Fling is hardly the stage for political statements.” My friends, this is Tufts.

Everything is a political statement. Like it or not, people, you drank the Kool-Aid, you’re political. It happened. But this argument actually tapped into a very real and salient debate among feminists and, more broadly, among oppressed groups in general: is it okay to award privilege to the membership of an oppressed group based on the wrongs that this oppressed group has suffered?

So let’s start from scratch here. If we don’t agree on how to go about this Spring Fling woman artist thing, I think we can all agree that we’re not into the oppression of woman-identified people. If not, why would you be reading a column called “Jeminist: A Jumbo Feminist”? Moving right along, I also think we can all agree that our statistics about female performers at Spring Fling are pretty embarrassing. As stated in the original petition for a woman artist for Spring Fling, “in over 32 years of Spring Flings at Tufts University, we have had 101 performers — and only two of them have been women.”

Objectively, that’s pretty bad.

After these two basic assertions, the next part is tricky. Because it is true, what Concert Board says, that awarding merit to women solely because they have not been awarded it in the past can be demeaning and counter-productive. But it is also true, what the Daily says, that Concert Board should have given us a woman performer because that is what the student body asked for and it’s simply not that hard to find women performers. But it is also true that this issue is nuanced. Unfortunately, there is no feminist code telling us how to deal with this.

That’s the point. This stuff is complicated. What we should be talking about is why this happened. Why have we had so few women performers? Why are we subjected to so many lyrics in mainstream music that objectify or blatantly disrespect women? If Concert Board did in fact have a hard time finding woman performers, what does that tell us about the industry? We should be talking about this stuff.

Ultimately, pop culture, structures of inequality, Concert Board now and in past years, Tufts publications and many more are all in some way responsible for what’s going on. And we ourselves are also at some fault, when we buy into cultures that objectify women because we either cannot escape them or they are too engrained in our every day life for us to realize their harm.

Telenovelas are simple: there’s murder, love, jealousy and lots of hairspray. It’s clear-cut. But this stuff isn’t — it’s nuanced and complex. It’s okay if we struggle with it, because it makes us better. Like so many barriers to women’s equality, if it were simple, we would have done it already.

Alexa Petersen is a senior majoring in political science and peace and justice studies. She can be reached at Alexa.Petersen@tufts.edu.

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Arts & Living

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Movie Review

Melissa MacEwen | The Roaming Fork

Grubbin’ it

S

Courtesy Macall Polay / Fox Searchlight

Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode star in Chan-wook Park’s new psychological thriller.

Chan-wook Park’s Hollywood debut thrills

by Jack

Margolin

Contributing Writer

“Stoker” is an exercise in pacing, simultaneously brief and deliberate.

This psychological thriller walks a line

Stoker Starring Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode Directed by Chan-wook Park between becoming a wholly American movie and maintaining the Korean heritage of director Chan-wook Park’s previous films. It is a coming-of-age

story, a story about family and a character study. It is uncomfortable, beautifully shot and violent.

“Stoker” accomplishes a number of things in a span of 98 minutes, but not without neglecting certain elements.

In the process, plot takes a backseat to style, and the result is a story that feels more like a palette for Park’s strengths as a director and the talent of the cast than a gripping narrative.

Writer Wentworth Miller’s screenplay has hints of Hitchcock and plays with engaging themes, but the film is very much Park’s creation. Favoring stylistic exploration of the Stoker family microcosm was likely Park’s conscious decision, but it isn’t without consequence. The end product is fascinat-

Album Review

Indie vets Shout Out Louds turn to synths on ‘Optica’

by Jaqueline

Noack

Daily Editorial Board

Swedish indie darlings Shout Out Louds have chosen synth-pop over their previous lo-fi goodness on their fourth and newest

Optica Shout Out Louds Merge Records album, “Optica,” which was released on Feb. 26. Their 13-song, 55-minute lineup contains interesting, yet predictable tunes, with a couple refreshing and quirky beats.

Lead singer Adam Olenius’ voice has never been much above par, but this is precisely what made the band so endearing when it started out a decade ago.

The group’s cutesy lyrics and catchy tunes made for a fun debut album. Shout Out Louds have kept a very similar sound throughout the years, but seem to have made changes based on the evolution of the indie scene. Originally packed with glockenspiels and accordions, Shout Out Louds’ songs have now picked up Moogs and other synths to match the indietronica craze of the 2010s.

“Optica’s” super catchy opening song,

“Sugar,” is full of both old and new Shout Out Loud characteristics, most notably the introduction of reverb and echo effects that contrast with the minimalist sound on their 2003 debut, “Howl Howl Gaff Gaff.” Unfortunately, something in this change has made even the most uplifting and bouncy tracks on “Optica” come off as apathetic and mild.

The quirkiness of songs like “Illusions” and “Walking in Your Footsteps” is interesting at first, but quickly loses steam.

The former begins with a riff similar to Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.” and transforms into a combination of Neon Indian and ‘80s pop. The latter has a very Architecture in Helsinki sound that segues into a romantic Rosebuds tune. “14 of July” is like a dancier version of something Arcade Fire would have made circa 2010.

The fact that Shout Out Louds draw easy comparisons from fellow indie bands would not only suggest that they are referential, but also that they seem to be just a bit behind the times. This album does not sound like it was made for 2013. Not every band aims to match the contemporary sounds of its era, but every good band is able of bringing a modern and original aspect to whatever sound or genre it attempts to capture. Shout Out Louds see SHOUT, page 6

ing, but not for everyone.

Park sets this precedent within the first minutes of the film. We are presented with a series of striking images overlaid with the protagonist’s cooly delivered opening monologue. India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) describes her acute awareness of her environment and her obsessive attention to detail: “Small, faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me,” she says, mysteriously. Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung makes a parallel statement with his camera: The film’s world is presented in the same way that India experiences it, with both visuals and audio that painstakingly document see STOKER, page 6

TV Review

‘Portlandia’ provides offbeat comic relief by

Pooja Beri

Contributing Writer

As of January, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are continuing to explore the alternative universe and cultural

Portlandia Starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein Airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on IFC unaffectedness of Portland, Ore. in the third season of “Portlandia.” Much of the comedic appeal of “Portlandia” lies in stellar performances by Brownstein and Armisen as they seamlessly move from character to character, enacting sketches that most viewers stongly identify with strongly even after the episodes are over.

That seems to be the primary goal, at least, as the Brownstein-Armisen team is obviously far too cool for punch lines.

The third season continues to attract a growing variety of fans from varying demographics. One of the reasons for this fast-growing popularity lies in the characters that Brownstein and Armisen see PORTLANDIA, page 6

outh African Emperor moths are gorgeous creatures. Brightly colored and distinctively patterned, the adult moths appear each spring to mate, lay eggs and frolic in the South African sun.

But, as in both nature and other realms of reality, beauty doesn’t last — the splendid adult moths live but three to four days, after which they die. It is, instead, the moths’ 10-day larval stage that really matters.

The Emperor moth caterpillar — commonly referred to as mopane worms for the mopane trees on which they live — are an important source of food for the people and animals of South Africa. Women and children generally harvest the caterpillars from trees before squeezing them to remove their intestines and drying, smoking or brining them. In addition to being a sustainable, eco-friendly food source, the worms have more protein than beef or fish and include minerals such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron.

However, mopane worms are exceptionally difficult to come by if you don’t live in Africa. Once I decided that I needed to try caterpillars for myself, the only way I was able to get them to Boston was to first send them to my friend, Lucie, in England before she shipped them along to me.

Unsurprisingly, dried caterpillars are not the most visually appealing food in the world.

About three inches long, live mopane caterpillars are patterned in red, orange, white and black. Flattened and dried, they look like pieces of tanbark at best, animal droppings at worst, as I discovered once Lucie’s package had finally crossed the Atlantic.

Though I took advantage of my roommate’s slight entomophobia to guzzle down a caterpillar in front of her shortly after their arrival, I was actually surprised when I found myself eyeing the caterpillars as a potential late-night snack a few days later.

They weren’t exactly delicious, but they certainly weren’t unpleasant, either. They were crunchy enough that I could ignore the reality of what I was eating, and focus instead on their flavor — which was very similar to smoked fish, but with a slightly earthy undertone. The people of Botswana reportedly don’t eat the heads of their caterpillars, but I remained blissfully unaware of this fact, and I ate them whole (extra protein, yeah?). Just as sheer hunger likely drove African bushpeople to pluck the first caterpillars from trees, I found myself actively trying not to eat the caterpillars on the desk of my otherwise food-less room, as I was saving them for a stew.

But, about that stew. Guys, I don’t know anything about making caterpillar soup and I had a very hard time finding decent recipes online. Though the caterpillars’ tin suggested eating the caterpillars in a spicy peanut soup (a suggestion that was supported by my internet research), when I actually took the time to rehydrate the worms, prepare a vegetable-based peanut stew and then add the caterpillars, things didn’t go particularly well. My stew was thick and hearty, but its uniform texture contrasted strangely with the bodies of the caterpillars. The spicy nuttiness brought out the flavor of the worms beautifully, but the worms never seemed like anything more than an afterthought. Worse, once rehydrated, the caterpillars looked and felt more like, well, caterpillars. When I ate my soup, I felt dozens of caterpillar feet on my tongue — disconcerting, to say the least.

I wished that I could have eaten them with tomatoes and yam chunks or something.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t eat mopane caterpillars again — I absolutely would.

In addition to being tasty when dried, the worms would also probably be a great in a different stew, maybe one with a greater variety of textures. I just need a better recipe.

Melissa MacEwen is a junior majoring in biology and English. She can be reached at melissa.macewen@tufts.edu.

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The Tufts Daily

Arts & Living

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

‘Portlandia’s’ variety of characters appeal to wide fan base PORTLANDIA

continued from page 5

enact — Peter and Nance, Nina and Lance, Candace and Toni and versions of Carrie and Fred themselves. “Portlandia” produces a role for several circumstances and ages and gives viewers of every demographic something to laugh about and identify with.

In essence, the show seems to be centered on comedic intentions, but also with the goal of viciously over-representing the concept of an “alternate” culture.

“Portlandia” is an extended joke of minute details. Over the course of its three seasons, it has presented a heightened, exaggerated and hyperbolized view of Portland’s whole-food loving, locally grown glasses sporting urban youth.

Watching the episodes, one cannot help but note that, now three seasons old, “Portlandia” is fitting into a sort of comedy routine that proves to be consistently pleasing. The show spotlights human flaws as being far too niche-centric and puts a comedic spin — fairly accurately — on our obsession with the most banal baggage that we carry around with us. While “Portlandia” gives us the comedic escape from everyday reality that we desire from a pseudo-reality show, the series does have moments that are simply too farfetched or overplayed.

Not every sketch works, and as the show enters its third season, the recurring tagline skits like“We can pickle that!” and “Put a bird on it!” are getting old and the characters, instead of remaining the caricatures that Brownstein and Armisen made them out to be, are slowly beginning to develop into real people through the storyline. While these characters have become more sincere, in some ways their real-life counterparts have forgotten to embrace the understatement of their satirical roles.

The show remains unique in the fact that each skit is fundamentally a recycled story-line with a new ending. However, it struggles with the danger of seeming tired and used after simply a few episodes. This may dissuade those who no longer have the patience to appreciate the parody or delicate commentary.

“Portlandia” is nevertheless innovative and provides the perfect comedic respite

Courtesy Peabody Awards via Flickr Creative Commons

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen bring stellar performances to their numerous characters on “Portlandia.” after a grueling Sunday of homework.

With each season, hopefully the characters will grow while simultaneously retaining the aloofness that is representative

Shout Out Louds’ ‘Optica’ disappoints, but is not without redemption SHOUT

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may have accomplished this in their early days, but fans are left wanting more with their newest album, “Optica.”

Olenius’ fairly monotone voice makes otherwise interesting songs like “Glasgow” a little less stimulating. There are countless bands out there with “weak” lead singers — fellow Swede Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist from The Hives in particular — that pair their vocals to their sound correctly. In Almqvist’s case, The Hives play fast and fun songs that allow for his screams and scowls to be the perfect driving force behind the band. In Olenius’ case, Shout Out Louds are very hit or miss when it comes to pairing vocals to specific tracks. On the other hand, songs like “Where You Come In” have the proper balance of a high-pitched and

dreamy backdrop that allows for Olenius’ voice to shine through.

The ninth song off the album, “Hermilia,” features lyrics by female band member Bebban Stenborg. She mostly appears on backing vocals, but her song is one of the strongest on the album. Like The Apples in Stereo, the female singer’s voice is airy, delicate and beautiful, which offers a nice contrast to the male-dominated vocals on the rest of the album.

It is clear that Shout Out Louds have been doing something right during the past ten years, but unfortunately, this time around the combination of repetitive lyrics and emotionless riffs makes for a less than exceptional album. Nevertheless, no song on “Optica” goes unnoticed. After multiple listens, you might just find a small gem in this overall unspectacular lineup.

Courtesy EARLIER.at via Flickr Creative Commons

Adam Olenius weak, yet soothing vocals are hit or miss on Shout Out Louds’ new album.

of the ever-so-original “hipster” culture of Portland, or the embellished, over the top “Portlandia.” Brownstein and Armisen know their audience well, and it seems

unlikely that they will let minor comedic slip-ups determine the outcome of the rest of the show. That simply wouldn’t be “the dream of the ’90s,” you see in Portland.

‘Stoker’ fails to overcome sum of its parts STOKER

continued from page 5

the setting and action. This is sometimes immersive — as during a scene where each of India’s sips of wine is audible — and sometimes heavy-handed, as in the case of a recurring computer-generated spider and its less-than-subtle role in the film’s presentation of sexuality.

But every instance in which the film oversteps is counteracted by a number of effective and powerful cinematic decisions. Park and Chung’s collaborative mastery of composition, lighting and the creation of indelible visuals is one of the strongest points of the film, especially where the style essentially is the content.

On the note of style, “Stoker” is a strange animal. India’s trademark statement, “I am not formed by things that are of myself alone,” is as much a commentary on her own history as it is the aesthetic of the movie itself.

Park has commented in the past on his tendency to make genre films, but “Stoker” ties together elements that would otherwise seem disparate. The term Southern Gothic springs to mind immediately, as a consequence of both the film’s setting and its tone. Clint Mansell’s superb soundtrack helps to reinforce this with its sparse piano and anxious string arrangements. At the same time, Park brings his signature sleekness to the characters and the appearance of the film. India is accidentally stylish as the archetypal Goth girl, evoking Christina Ricci’s Wednesday Addams in “The Addams Family” (1991), while Charles (Matthew Goode) stands somewhere between the clean-cut brutality of “American Psycho” (2000)’s Christian Bale and the androgyny of David Bowie in “The Man

Who Fell to Earth” (1976).

All of the characters in the Stoker family are magnetic and multidimensional, but the same cannot be said of the supporting roles. The scenes of India at school are almost embarrassing. The blonde bully senselessly harasses her with cringe-worthy sexual quips; the misfit clad in leather on a motorcycle seems to empathize with her. The cultural connections that can be drawn to the Stoker family are part of what makes them so entertaining to observe, but in the case of other characters, it merely makes them cliches.

At the heart of “Stoker” is a group of themes well explored by Park’s other work. While “Stoker” is his Hollywood debut, it was his 2003 thriller “Oldboy” that first drew international attention.

The highlight of his Vengeance Trilogy, “Oldboy” was an achievement in its genre — visually stunning, brilliantly written, with a plot twist to put all of its American contemporaries to shame. “Stoker” carries its legacy of frank violence, disturbing eroticism and focus on revenge, but with a very different aesthetic.

While in many ways “Oldboy” was a stronger film than “Stoker” in terms of narrative, the latter’s thematic elements are more striking, especially alongside the talent onscreen. Matthew Goode, Mia Wakowsika and Nicole Kidman give performances that make their characters memorable, intriguing and terrifying. Coupled with the film’s atmosphere and Park’s distinctive and powerful direction, the result is an impressive amount of ability and innovation in every aspect of the film’s execution. We’re left with a thriller that’s clever, rich and captivating, but in many ways fails to become more than the sum of its parts.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

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THE TUFTS DAILY Martha E. Shanahan Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Nina Goldman Brionna Jimerson Managing Editors Melissa Wang Executive News Editor Jenna Buckle News Editors Lizz Grainger Stephanie Haven Amelie Hecht Victoria Leistman Patrick McGrath Audrey Michael James Pouliot Abigail Feldman Assistant News Editors Daniel Gottfried Xander Landen Justin Rheingold Annabelle Roberts Sarah Zheng Lily Sieradzki Executive Features Editor Jon Cheng Features Editors Hannah Fingerhut Jacob Passy Amelia Quinn Falcon Reese Derek Schlom Charlotte Gilliland Assistant Features Editors Jessica Mow Shannon Vavra Melissa MacEwen Executive Arts Editor Dan O’Leary Arts Editors Rebecca Santiago Claire Felter Assistant Arts Editors Elizabeth Landers Veronica Little Jacqueline Noack Akshita Vaidyanathan

Editorial | Letters

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

ASL should fulfill both halves of foreign language requirement Advocates in the renewed effort to bring American Sign Language (ASL) into the set of languages that are accepted by the School of Arts and Sciences toward the first half of its language requirement are justified in their request. The passage of a TCU Senate resolution last week in support of recognition should lead the Arts and Sciences faculty to reconsider this time around.

Calls for this recognition are by no means new — while ASL remains a small program, it has grown in popularity over the past few decades and ASL students for at least the past two years have advocated for its counting towards the first half of the Arts and Sciences language requirement. Even before then, in 2008, the School of Arts and Sciences faculty voted down a proposal from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development to allow ASL to fulfill this part of the language requirement.

The fact that students of ASL at Tufts can’t explore the subject to the fullest and are often forced to look off the Hill for more opportunities to do so is understandably frustrating — the faculty’s denial that ASL should be allowed to count toward the language requirement in full even more so.

The stated purpose of the language requirement, according to this year’s Academic Bulletin published by the university, is to “[provide] a basis for locating oneself within a larger cultural and international context.”

Language courses, among other requirements, “constitute the foundation of a liberal arts education at Tufts.”

While less linguistically inclined Jumbos love to hate the policy, these are honorable goals, and they’re sufficiently fulfilled by ASL. The reason that liberal arts students at Tufts are required to become proficient in a language other than English, in short, is that it is assumed to benefit us in the long run to be able to communicate with a community or culture apart from the one we are accustomed to. ASL undeniably fills this purpose, as deaf culture and the ASL community in North America is complex and nuanced.

ASL also provides the same challenges of learning a new syntax and vocabulary faced by learners of spoken languages like French or Japanese.

Opposition claiming the “American” aspect of ASL invalidates it as a foreign language has no practical basis. ASL is a unique language with its own history and accompa-

nying culture, so while it is not international it is still representative of a unique culture, making it no less qualified as a “foreign language” as the term is used to fulfill the School of Arts and Sciences’ goals in enforcing the requirement. The fact that ASL was developed in the U.S. and serves those who interact with English speakers does not make it equivalent to English. Rather, it has the properties of a unique language around which a specific and rich culture has evolved. Treating ASL as anything else, as its exclusion from Part I of the language requirement does, is a matter of disrespect that the faculty should amend should the issue come to another vote.

Sign language has practicality aside from academic purposes: the ability to sign helps doctors work with deaf patients and teachers to educate deaf students. It’s also one of the most heavily used languages in the U.S. The Senate was right in supporting this latest push for recognition of ASL as a legitimate part of both halves of the language requirement. The Daily supports the passage of last week’s resolution and urges the Arts and Sciences Curricula Committee, as well as the faculty as a whole, to do the same.

should not be news to anyone. By now all should be aware of the daily harassment, accusations of terrorism and the perpetual feeling of constantly being interpreted through a dominant society’s lens, one which associates the bodies of Muslims and other Middle Easterners with violent, irrational and barbaric behavior.

This not only demonstrates and reinforces racist and hateful structures — it also subordinates our fellow students’ voices through invective speech. In just the past year, Muslim students at Tufts have been accused of terrorism, dismissed in the classroom and slandered online.

These aggressions and microaggressions feed the larger structures that violently target Arab bodies and Muslim culture.

Last year saw rampant Islamophobic violence: the racially-charged shooting at the Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wis., the murder of a Hindu man (“They brought down the twin towers,” the killer said) in a New York City subway and attacks on mosques in Chicago, New York, California and Mississippi. This violence is intertwined in a culture that has taught us to conflate Muslim and Arab; Muslim and “terrorist;” and Muslim and Hindu or

Muslim and Sikh. These forces of oppression are ubiquitous.

After similar xenophobic generalizations were made about Islam at Tufts in 2007, former University President Larry Bacow called on “students [to] hold their fellow students accountable ... When community standards of civility and respect are violated, we should not ask those who have been unfairly attacked to respond on behalf of the community. This responsibility should be borne by all.” We remember Tufts’ legacy of Islamophobia and subsequent student solidarity against hate speech. With this at heart, we raise our voices.

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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, In response to the paid advertisement that was printed in Monday’s Daily, we condemn the sentiments which were implicitly and explicitly expressed. The advertisement, which attempted to make some ill-conceived comparison between Israeli Apartheid Week and Islam, was offensive, problematic and reinforced damaging images of Muslims and persons from the Middle East.

First and foremost, we are responding to a cultural ignorance that readily conflates Arab bodies with Islam and projects upon both identities the harmful, dangerous and damaging stereotypes published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an organization that unabashedly aims to promote these negative images and further reify xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia and hatred against Muslims. Images like this, promoted through mass media or ignorant and assaultive speech, have catalyzed hateful actions and instigated acts of violence against Muslims and individuals identified as having a relation to the Middle East.

These examples of violence perpetrated against Muslims and Middle Easterners

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

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Tufts Daily

Op-Ed

Radicals: revolution without solution by

Robert Persky

I have previously called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) a radical organization that should reconsider its operations. I would like to reassert this because of a very important point: one should not advocate revolution if they do not have a plan for how things should be run after the revolution.

Take the Iranian Revolution: before the Revolution, throngs of demonstrators assembled to protest the Shah’s continued rule and to demand his abdication. One mobilized group, made mostly of young people, recognized that the Shah was a dictator and that they needed a better government that was more responsive to its people.

However, after the Shah was taken down, a new dictator rose in his place. The Supreme Leader imposed Islamic culture on all and provided an unfavorable environment for the flourishing of democracy.

This case shows that revolution did not lead to democracy, like many supposed it would, because there was no agreed-upon plan for what to do after the revolution. By emphasizing taking down the Shah instead of how to replace him, society became more repressed rather than more free.

I compare SJP to Iranian history to stress that people should focus on solutions instead of revolutions. SJP does not offer a solution to the IsraeliPalestinian issue. Instead, they only criticize Israel. This has dangerous implications. First of all, this makes it seem like the only solution to the conflict is a one state solution with no Israel and only Palestine. Is this possible? No! Where would all the current Israelis go? It’s as if this solution is expecting them to disappear, along with the institutions and development that they established.

SJP also claims that they are informing the public and sparking dialogue.

How are they sparking dialogue when they do not offer a solution?

Instead they are reiterating their contempt for Israel over and over again.

Instead of sparking campus debate, they are sparking campus animosity.

Radicalism leads to radicalism. In the Daily on March 4 there was a one-page advertisement showcasing Islamic Apartheid Week. This, on the surface, seems to implicitly connect the Islamic religion to violence. This is another radical idea that was sparked because of SJP’s — and Israeli Apartheid Week’s — in-your-face one-sided policies.

By not offering a realistic solution and falsely claiming to motivate discussion, SJP is alienating many students, including myself. I support a twostate solution and am against Israel’s human rights abuses, but SJP’s actions make me want to distance myself from Palestinian support groups. I am angered by Israeli Apartheid Week for many reasons (I think that many Arab countries should, under this definition of apartheid, also be called apartheid states), and I once again am angry with SJP. Members of this organization need to rethink their actions or they risk increasing radicalism on this campus and alienating themselves.

The revolution they call for can produce something worse than they expect if they do not offer a solution.

Raising awareness of human rights abuses (and there is a lot of awareness on this campus) does not lead to a long term, sustainable solution. SJP is not part of the solution — they’re part of the problem.

The story of the African Diaspora’s journey from the bondages of the Atlantic to the post-racialist age of Obama is a topic of critical discussion in many anti-racist communities, a point of pride for neoliberal allies and a rallying cry for those currently pondering the efficacy of race-based remedies for problems based in historical (and present) white supremacist policies.

For me and many of my African-American peers, our history functions on an axis. It is simultaneously a painful pressure point and a source of unspeakable pride and joy.

Our histories of oppressions and strategic survival bind us together like the hermetic locks of our Ashanti, Maasai, Yoruba and Mau Mau ancestors. Each day as we live and breathe we carry with us the revolutionary rage of Nat Turner and Angela Davis, the intellectual prowess of Dubois, Douglass and Kimberlé Crenshaw, the strategic acuity of Tubman and Malcolm and the empowering love ethics of Ella Baker, Fannie Lou and bell hooks. The lesson of our histories is one of community, love, resistance and radical solidarity.

The quest for Black liberation in the United States was aided by white allies, JewishAmericans in particular. Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice and lead litigator in Brown v. Board of Education, routinely recalled the assistance and support he received from his middle-class Jewish neighbors. The history of Black Americans and Jewish Americans is storied, well documented and an important part of the Civil Rights Movement. Many young Jewish college students participated in the freedom rides down South to participate in sit-ins, marches and other demonstrations. Jewish youth routinely put their bodies and privilege on the line to stand in solidarity against the interconnected systems of racism, classism, nativism, anti-Semitism, fundamental anti-blackness and white supremacy that defined the Black and Jewish experiences in America. As a young Black male who benefited greatly from the coalitions before and during the Civil Rights Movement, I would be remiss without recounting the ways in which our Jewish brothers and sisters have assisted in our historic, shared fights for liberation and human dignity.

Just as the relationship between Jewish Americans and African Americans was based in a fundamental understanding and experience of racial and ethnic subordina-

tion, so too is the relationship between the African and Palestinian diasporas. Our lives are similarly defined, redefined and experienced through the systemic maldistribution of material resources and inequitable access to sociopolitical power(s). Our ancestors have both experienced the traumas of violent, forced immigration from lands we have historically called home. Palestinians continue to exist through deep resistance in what Angela Davis has called the “largest open-air prison” in the world. They are policed, profiled and subordinated through terroristic, violent lessons of racialized comportment. According to Alice Walker, “Going through Israeli checkpoints is like going back in time to [the] American Civil Rights struggle.” As a Black man, in the present age, I will never understand the physical and psychological traumas of a Palestinian brother at an Israeli checkpoint. However, my experiences with police and racial profiling and the real threat of being assassinated for walking while black, or wearing a hoodie, or appearing too aggressive allow me to retain a deep empathy for his experience.

As I mourn the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, I must also grieve for the lives Samir Ahmad Abdul-Rahim and Mohammed Salayme. For too many young men and women of color, survival itself is a revolutionary act of resistance.

To be born Palestinian is to be legally marked as inherently violent, indisputably dangerous and a necessary gudgeon for the peace and calm of “civilized” society.

Put simply, the Palestinian body has been constructed as the threat to Israeli society, creating a state of vast acceptance and normalization of the current state-sanctioned system of racial apartheid that has displaced millions of Palestinian bodies. Just as nearly 600,000 Black and Latino young men are routinely harassed by police under the pretenses of New York City’s “stop and frisk” policy, millions of Palestinian people are terrorized for drifting too far from the walls of an open-air prison. In both cases, data shows that the “threat” is rarely material but, instead, psychological. These systems of racial “othering” continually create imputed images of people of color as inherently threatening and dangerous. This internal logic equates Black and Palestinian existences. This logic paves the way for violent and strictly enforced racist policies. In short, these policies enhance, benefit and reify the power and humanity of one racial group at the expense of the other.

Herbalife Battle Royale

T

Let me be clear, however, my criticism is not one of hate or malice toward individual Israelis but instead a critical analysis of the powers and effects of settler colonialism, racial subordination, Zionism and controlling images that allow such bloodshed to continue unabated. The issue here is not the rational fear of the Israeli man or woman who recalls the horrors of their history, but instead the ways in which state policies have perpetuated racial subordination and violent trauma through the molestation of the bloody chronicle of Jewish death and survival, all in the name of peace and safety.

We cannot protect ourselves, our essence, or our humanity from systemic violence with systemic violence. Instead, we must adopt a critical love ethic of universal liberation from cyclical and systemic violence and oppression.

We are called to remember that our willful participation in such systems, regardless of our intentions, taints the humanity that our ancestors lived and died to achieve. It has been said that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” This is indeed true, because it is through the utilization of the tools of oppression that we become both the (material) oppressor and the (spiritually) oppressed. In order to move past these cyclical patterns of violence and trauma we must look deeply and examine the oppressor within, dare to love those who we see as threats or “other” and question whether the threat is real, imagined or internal. This is a call for a human solidarity across and beyond racial differences and an ethic of love that first acknowledges our shared humanity and endeavors to reify that shared notion.

Distinct from mere alliance, solidarity calls for a recognition and dismembering of the systems that throughout time have crushed us all by guaranteeing the safety of some at the cost of death for others. Solidarity recognizes that our humanity and survival are eternally linked with the dignity and lives of those deemed least among. Without solidarity, there can be no love and without love there can be no peace or justice. For these reasons I stand with love and solidarity with the people of Palestine and all those whose lives and humanity have been and continue to be destroyed, distorted or denied.

Tabias Wilson is a senior majoring in American studies and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. He can be reached at Tabias.Wilson@tufts.edu.

Walt Laws-MacDonald is a sophomore majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Walt.Laws_MacDonald@ tufts.edu.

Robert Persky is a sophomore majoring in international relations. He can be reached at Robert.Persky@tufts.edu.

Blackness, Palestine, solidarity: A call for a critical love ethic Tabias Wilson

Walt Laws-MacDonald | Show Me The Money!

he Gordon Gecko stereotype of finance is far from the truth these days. Huge bonuses and shiny glass buildings remain, but the public spats that gave Wall Street its gritty image in the 1980s have been largely replaced by executives begging for government aid and CEOs put on trial.

But, perhaps just for old time’s sake, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman and famed corporate crusader Carl Icahn have entered into a public street-fight for the ages. The prize?

Being right about a smoothie company called Herbalife, and probably half a billion dollars.

Herbalife sells nutrition and personal care products through representatives and sales people across the country. These salespeople make money from both selling the products, and recruiting other salespeople.

This strategy is known as “multi-level marketing,” or more fittingly, “pyramid selling.”

Pyramid selling creates an incentive to both sell products and recruit more salespeople, and has been successfully implemented by other personal health manufacturers like Avon and Amway.

Ackman, however, believes that Herbalife incentivizes the recruitment of salespeople far more than the actual sale of merchandise — essentially calling it a pyramid scheme. In a 300 slide PowerPoint presentation that would make TFG ooh-and-ahh, Ackman argued that Herbalife makes its money by selling these “distributorships,” not the actual products, leaving most distributors with few customers and little cash flow, and the company with a finite lifespan.

Herbalife, of course, has vehemently denied Ackman’s claims, noting that 90 percent of the people who buy Herbalife products are customers, not distributors, and that a pyramid scheme of this scale simply would not be sustainable for the life of the 30-yearold company.

Ackman announced in mid-December that he had put on a massive 20 million share short on the company’s stock — standing to make $1 billion if the company collapsed.

Ackman set a price target of $0 — the equivalent of bankruptcy — for Herbalife, and the stock took an initial plunge of 40 percent in the weeks after Ackman’s announcement.

But then two prominent hedge funds, Daniel Loeb’s Third Point Capital and Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises, decided to take the opposite view on the company.

Loeb believed that the market had tremendously undervalued Herbalife, and after announcing his firm’s eight percent stake in the company in January, shares skyrocketed 76 percent in just three weeks.

Icahn also saw room for a turnaround, and took a nearly 13 percent share of the company, but Icahn’s position runs deeper than the Herbalife.

Ackman and Icahn have had a smoldering feud for the past 10 years, dating back to a realty company merger that Icahn had cut Ackman out of. Ackman later sued Icahn for $9 million and won.

Both Ackman and Icahn had traded remarks through various news outlets since their respective Herbalife trades had been announced, but their battle came to a head in what Business Insider rightfully deemed “The Greatest Moment in Financial TV History.”

Icahn began the sort of unabashed quip you would expect from the 77-year-old Queens native: “You know, I’ve really sort of had it with this guy Ackman.” Over the next half-hour, Ackman and Icahn would trade investment theses and then some — Icahn compared Ackman to a bullied schoolboy, decried his investment style, and cursed multiple times on air, to which traders on the floor of the NYSE responded with lively applause.

Both Icahn and Ackman have profited from their positions thus far, but the story is far from over. Whoever is ultimately right will stand to make a profit of several hundred million dollars, leaving the other deep in the red.

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

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Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

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Married to the Sea

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SUDOKU Level: Living in a yellow submarine

Late Night at the Daily

Tuesday’s Solution

Adrian: “Maybe she’ll be a mail order bride.”

Vidya: “Maybe you’ll be a mail order husband.”

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OP-ED

Bare feet: just watch what you eat

My Op-Ed NADIA DI MARCO

I am currently sitting in the Tower Café mortified and surrounded by bare feet.

There is a girl to the left of me bobbing her head to the music surrounding her ears. She is completely oblivious to the fact that her bare, wiggling toes are less than two feet away from my face.

She’s not even comfortable. She keeps adjusting, readjusting and moving around.

Perhaps it’s a new trend? To my right there is another young girl resting her bare feet on the marble table.

On the table.

The very same table upon which this girl’s feet are splayed is one where I ate many a time last semester. I’m not alone in my repulsion; I see the girl sitting next to her eyeing her feet as well, but she’s just oblivious. That’s two people in a five-foot radius with zero consideration for their fellow neighbors.

When I sit on an airplane and the person (usually a kid) next to me has his or her bare feet on the tray table, I get the same feeling of disgust. I don’t understand why anyone

would think that it is okay to throw their feet about in public.

Do people like the thought of licking other’s people feet? (Let’s leave kinky cases out of this.) How about the thought of smelling other people’s feet? No, no, no! In our society, feet are known to be dirty, smelly and unpleasant; I mean come on, I don’t even want to be close to my own feet.

By the way, as I type, the girl next to me just moved her foot even closer to me!

Why don’t people get it? It is just plain common sense! You would think attending Tufts University would be enough to figure out that being barefoot in a café is not only rude, it’s despicable. It says, “I don’t care about anyone but me and my own comfort.”

Imagine going into work and putting your bare feet on your desk or going to a client’s job site, or anywhere else professional.

Imagine walking into your dean’s office and he or she has his or her bare feet on the desk.

It would never happen, because it’s not okay.

We are here to get ready for the real world.

Speaking from experience as a Resumed Education for Adult Learners student, you

can trust me, people: No one will take off his or her shoes in a professional atmosphere.

My rampage has turned into concern; these kids need to understand it’s not okay. When their rude habits leave Tufts, they’re in for a big surprise.

Is it that unreasonable to ask that people keep their shoes on in obvious places? Take ‘em off at the beach, at home or in a Japanese restaurant — I don’t care! But please keep them on when you’re next to the poor girl on the couch trying to concentrate.

And for crying out loud, please keep them off the table!

I came in here just to eat my lunch and read some books for class, but I got too distracted by disgust. To vent, I decided to write this piece. I’m not the type of person to say, “Can you please get your feet out of my personal space?” I’m shy, hate controversy and I can’t go around telling everyone I see with bare feet that they are rude and inconsiderate. I see enough people reading the paper that I figure if my rampage does get published, the bare feet people might read and understand what they are doing wrong.

And just in case you are someone who

All of my thoughts on the important issues on campus, like Dewick’s panini machines Obama for (vice) president

MATTHEW LADNER

On Monday, Will Ehrenfield voiced his support for Sen. Barack Obama in the coming Presidential campaign (“Obama for president”, Sept. 10). I too, at one point, supported Obama in his bid for the White House. He is an intelligent, charismatic man whose greatest political asset is indeed his criticism of the war from the start. And he may be the harbinger of great change to Washington. That’s why he’d be a great vice president for Sen. Joseph Biden.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many people are not familiar with Sen. Biden; in fact I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many people are not familiar with most presidential candidates, Democrat and Republican.

The media, in their attempt to focus on Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have allowed candidates such as Sens. Biden, Christopher Dodd, Sam Brownback, and former Ark. Governor Mike Huckabee to fall through the cracks. However, attention needs to be paid to these “also-rans,” because among them lies the best man to lead our country.

It is true, Biden did vote to authorize the war in 2002. When asked about this vote, Biden says that, as President, he too would have asked for the authority to go into Iraq. He simply would not have used it. It is also true that he voted for the special funding bill earlier this year, while Obama and Clinton did not. He explained this in a debate soon after, saying that he “knew the right political vote.” But he also knew that a large portion of that funding would be going to better equipment for our soldiers.

Biden is the only candidate with a viable, possible plan for post-Bush Iraq. N. M. Governor Bill Richardson wants to leave within 6 months of being inaugurated. Unfortunately, that’s physically impossible. There are simply too many men to be withdrawn in 6 months. If all of the troops are withdrawn right now, as soon as possible, we’re going

“I would like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever as the wind blows in this direction with God’s help. If you win it, you should read the history. We are a nation that does not tolerate injustice and seek revenge forever. Days and nights will not go by until we take revenge as we did on 11 September, God willing, and until your minds are exhausted and your lives become miserable.”

(Osama bin-Laden, January 19, 2006) If you feel a slight rumbling beneath you at this very moment, do not be alarmed. It is simply the collective reverberation of proud Americans from previous generations turning over in their respective graves.

Our nation has lapsed into a fit of defeatism and self-proclaimed declinism as our politicians and, more tragically, our citizens have forgotten the courage, values and resolve that propelled our country to greatness.

Even worse, we have betrayed our forefathers’ confidence in the righteousness of fighting on freedom’s behalf — a confidence that once instilled courage in the hearts of American revolutionaries despite the seeming impossibility of victory and later invigorated Allied forces fighting fascist enemies in Europe and Asia.

We are assured of America’s defeat daily in Iraq, not by our enemies on the battlefield, but by a growing contingent within the Democratic Party. It is this lot — led by Sen. Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Murtha and the party’s presidential candidates — who insist on the futility of U.S. military and Iraqi political efforts alike.

They insist on the rapid withdrawal of troops from battle.

They insist that staying in Iraq to fight extremism, to deter Iranian interference, to run with the current wave of military momentum and to build on popular uprisings against alQaeda throughout the country (or, what residents of the now famous Anbar province call the “Great Awakening”) is contrary to American security interests.

Sean O’Loughlin is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

Nadia C. Di Marco is a sophomore majoring in clinical psychology.

It’s time to wake up: Iraq, jihad and America’s choice

SEAN O’LOUGHLIN

to need a lot of helicopters.

Saigon told us that much. We cannot simply up and leave. But it’s clear that staying the course and continuing the surge is not working. The notion of a “strong, central, democratic” Iraqi government is simply naïve. It will not happen in our lifetime. The Biden plan is the only option.

The Biden plan is simple.

Imagine a country with a national government, but also with distinct regions, each with certain jurisdiction, that is complementary to, yet still subordinate to the national government. If this sounds familiar, you may live in the United States of America. This is also what it says in the Iraqi constitution. The Bush administration has said that for the Iraqi constitution to be implemented, the national government needs to be strong enough to enforce security throughout the country.

But as the success of al-Anbar province has shown us, security is built from the ground up, not the top down. The Biden plan does just that.

Biden was elected senator in 1972. He has served as chair of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. What our country needs most right now is foreign relations experience, and Biden’s got it. He is the best man, Democrat or Republican or Green or Bloomberg, to sit in the Oval Office.

For more info, please visit joebiden.com.

ANNIE WERMIEL/TUFTS DAILY

doesn’t notice the barefoot problem, be aware they are out there, so think twice before eating on a table on campus.

It is in this certainty of defeat, however, that the broader implications of a precipitous retreat — and make no mistake, bloodthirsty terrorists aching to extend their jihad would understand our withdrawal as nothing less — are lost. What is remarkable is how salient these consequences are, yet how obfuscated they become in the midst of political posturing and rhetorical pandering.

There is little question within American military circles, and on the streets of Baghdad, that U.S. forces are the dam preventing unmitigated sectarian violence and the Talibanization of Iraq.

To leave now, to abandon the progress that our troops have recently made on the security front, to simply throw the country into the wind, is to condemn hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to unfathomable misery. For the sake of comparison, think Rwanda, Darfur or Bosnia.

Interestingly enough, these are thoughts that seem to weigh insignificantly on the conscience of Sen. Obama, who indulgently lauds himself as a champion of hope. His hope is an audacious brand indeed.

The reality is that we are in the midst of the first great war of the 21st century. It is a war of ideology as much as it is a contest to be won on the battlefield. And whereas Iraq may not have been the frontline of this struggle in 2003, it is the theater of the conflict today.

On one end of the spectrum is the United States, defending the rights of ordinary Iraqis and committed to the creation of a stable ally in a region otherwise defined by dysfunctional government. While American-style democracy may never take root, Iraq still clings to the prospect of representative politics.

Amazingly, after four years of devastating violence, Iraqis continue to show resolve and an admirable determination to emerge from the shadows of despotism and terror.

At the other end of this spectrum are the existential enemies of human progress. Peddling an antiquated ideology of extreme Islam and preaching a virulent message of hatred, the warriors of Islamism draw on a totalitar-

ian vision of societal order that is, at its most basic level, a fantasy. Their unrelenting pursuit of a long-dead caliphate is glaring in its denial of modern political realities and the overwhelming power of the Western world. However, this delusional ideology sanitizes indiscriminate violence and brutality, deeming them obligatory within a framework of “defensive” jihad against Islam’s enemies.

In fomenting civil war in Iraq, al-Qaeda and its proxies seek to engender despair, inefficiency, insecurity and resentment — the air to their militant fire. We must realize the simple truth that just as Iraq is our frontline against terror, so too is it the terrorist’s against Western civilization.

After turning back the “effeminate superpower,” their next step is cleansing the Holy Lands of infidel blood and ousting a Saudi regime that is, unbelievably, inadequately Islamic. From Mecca to Egypt to Jerusalem and beyond, the caliphate is to be extended and its enemies destroyed. Thus, looking to those among us who frown at American military gains and find a perverse vindication of their anti-war politics in every truck-bomb that claims innocent Iraqi lives, we find a segment of our country definitively unprepared to face civilization’s enemies.

It is true that our predicament is a frightening one. Armed with a dangerous irrationality and a passion for martyrdom, the jihadists are decisive and resolute. There is no appeasing this enemy. There is no reasoning with it. There is no compromising and there is no coexistence.

Surrender or Persevere.

These are the only options and the choice is ours to make.

In choosing the path to victory, however, one thing has become increasingly clear. In November 2008, American voters will have to send the Democrats the very same message that must thunder in the ears of those extremists who dare to wage war against the United States of America: “You cannot win and you will not prevail!”

Matthew Ladner is a junior majoring in international relations.

OP-ED POLICY The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Friday. Op-Ed welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be no more than 500 words in length. Editorial cartoons and Op-Eds in the form of cartoons are also welcome. All material is subject to editorial discretion, and is not guaranteed to appear in The Tufts Daily. All material should be submitted by no later than 1 p.m. on the day prior to the desired day of publication. Material may be submitted via e-mail (viewpoints@tuftsdaily.com) or in hard-copy form at

The Tufts Daily

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All classifieds submitted by mail must be accompanied by a check. Classifieds are $15 per week or $4 per day with Tufts ID or $30 per week or $8 per day without. The Tufts Daily is not liable for any damages due to typographical errors or misprintings except the cost of the insertion, which is fully refundable. We reserve the right to refuse to print any classifieds which contain obscenity, are of an overly sexual nature or are used expressly to denigrate a person or group. Questions? Email business@tuftsdaily.com.

Inside THE NBA

Jason Schneiderman | Stoppage Time

Eastern Conference playoff race heats up by

The Manchester City project

Cameron Yu

Senior Staff Writer

The Western Conference playoff teams are still yet to be determined, but the Eastern Conference has a clear top-eight squad.

The playoff race in the East pretty much boils down to the Heat, and then everybody else.

This is deserved: Miami is currently in the middle of a 15-game win streak with no sign of cooling off. Leading the Heat is LeBron James, who is showing no championship hangover as he continues his incredibly efficient play.

More surprisingly, James may even be developing a mean streak in the fourth quarter, which became apparent in this weekend’s game against the Knicks.

With the Heat up three with about 30 seconds to go, James picked off a lazy pass from J.R. Smith, streaked down the court, and threw down a hammer dunk to silence the crowd in Madison Square Garden and ice the game. If his strong play in the fourth quarter continues, every other team in the East is in big trouble.

Most likely to meet the Heat in the first round are the Milwaukee Bucks, who continue to try and see if they can get anything out of their combination of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis.

Though they make for an electrifying backcourt, the team is convinced that it only needs one ballhandling combo guard. There were rumors that the Bucks tried to move one of the two at the trade deadline, but instead traded for J.J. Redick, who combines with Mike Dunleavy to make an excellent Duke-bred 3-point shooting pair off the bench.

Regardless, enjoy the JenningsEllis combo (and their NBA BIG commercial) while they’re still together, because at least one of them will be leaving Milwaukee in the offseason.

One team that will definitely want to avoid the Heat early in the playoffs is the Boston Celtics, who are still reeling from being eliminated by the Heat two years in a row.

In seasons past, you could expect the Celtics to start slow but find their stride at the end of the season to be a dangerous No. 4 seed, but that isn’t the case this season after the injury to Rajon Rondo. Despite that, the Celtics soldier on with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett and will hope to surprise their first-round matchup, though the loss of Rondo definitely makes them less of a threat.

The Chicago Bulls are also missing their point guard, as former MVP Derrick Rose hasn’t played since he tore his ACL in last season’s playoffs.

Nevertheless, the team’s super role players have put the team in a battle for the No. 4 seed. They’ve earned their success with a defensive minded, grind-it-out system led by Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, and even Carlos Boozer.

But their problem has been a lack of offensive firepower, something they once leaned on Rose for. There is no doubt that Rose makes this team a topthree team in the East, and Chicago is hoping that he can play in some capacity before the playoffs.

Battling with the Bulls are the sorely underachieving Brooklyn Nets. After a much-anticipated relocation and a lot of high profile offseason moves, this finally looked like the year the Nets would break through in a big way. One pleasant surprise has been that center Brook Lopez has been playing up to the big payday he received in the offseason, a move questioned by almost everyone in the league.

The Nets simply aren’t as good offen-

S

MCT

Paul George has made the leap this year, and with Danny Granger back the Pacers will look to hang on to the No. 2 seed and challenge the Miami Heat in the East. sively or defensively without Lopez on the floor. Making the playoffs with Lopez is, in fact, a big improvement for the franchise, but simply making the playoffs isn’t what Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and the rest of the team had in mind at the beginning of the season.

Johnson’s former team, the Atlanta Hawks, aren’t doing any better than the Nets, but that’s par for the course for this middling franchise over the past few years.

The team has tried to move on with Josh Smith and Al Horford, but Atlanta still seems unsatisfied, as trade rumors abound about Smith at the deadline.

Since Smith has been with the team, the Hawks have failed to get past the second round of the playoffs, which suggests that the team has peaked with this group of players.

One team that is actually having a lot of success with a boring brand of basketball has been the Indiana Pacers, who currently hold the No. 2 seed. Ever since Frank Vogel has taken over as coach, the Pacers have climbed up the Eastern Conference pecking order with great defense, and they have been able to do it this year without star forward Danny Granger.

Though Granger is back in the lineup

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now, the Pacers may not actually need him for the rest of the season and in the future because of the rise of first-time All-Star Paul George. Initially drafted as a shooting guard, he has grown into the small forward position, showing off a sweet touch from a long range as well as the ability to get to the hoop. The question moving forward is, whether Granger and George can coexist.

Last but not least, the New York Knicks currently hold the No. 3 seed.

Though their spot in the standings is a vast improvement from last year, it seems like the Knicks still can’t get over the hump.

After a ridiculous start that saw the Knicks shoot the 3-ball at an otherworldly clip, the team has followed it up with very average play from month to month. Their 3-point shooting has cooled, as expected, but more worrisome for the team is a lack of wins against quality opponent — particularly after Sunday’s defeat by Miami.

Following a dismal February, can Melo and the Knicks put it all together in time for the playoffs?

Though the playoff teams are more or less locked in at this point, the main focus will remain on the defending champions who look poised to make a strong run at a repeat.

occer is inherently biased towards the big, rich and successful teams. There is no semblance of a salary cap, so the rich stay rich, and the poor can only hope for a very moderate rise. That is, unless a team is purchased by someone willing to make an enormous investment.

Last season’s winner of the English Premier League, the most coveted prize in English soccer, was such a team. Just 14 years ago, they were in England’s third division fighting for a chance to be elevated to the second division.

Fans weren’t greedy to enough to dream about a return to the top, a pinnacle they had not seen since 1968. They just hoped for consistent improvement, and owners who held a desire to win. The blue side of Manchester got its wish and more when the team was for sale in 2008. When Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, purchased Manchester City for a rumored $237 million and proceeded to pour $892 million over four years into the club, he expected to win trophies.

However, his desires and expectations were not to win one, or two, or even three Premier League titles. His enormous investments were made with the hope of building a sustainable soccer empire that would bring in and create some of the best players on the planet, and fill up several trophy cabinets in the process.

The project started with a series of high profile purchases, the most notable of whom were Brazilian striker Robinho and Argentine forward Carlos Tevez. The next season saw more world-class players signed, including the likes of Italian striker Mario Balotelli, as well as midfielders David Silva and Yaya Toure. The purchases transformed City into an immediate title contender, but not without serious cost. In the 2010-11 season, Manchester City lost £197 million, the most ever for an English club.

Graham Wallace, City’s chief operating officer however, made clear that such rapid investment would not be regular, saying, “Our losses, which we predicted as part of our accelerated investment strategy, will not be repeated in the future.”

Their plan from the beginning was clearly not to spend hundreds of millions of pounds year after year in order to purchase the best players in the world. On the contrary, their plan was to spend the money developing the infrastructure, the name, the brand and the youth system of the club, so that they might cultivate such players themselves.

According to this plan, most of Manchester City’s heaviest spending is now directed towards its future. Construction is underway on a £100 million youth academy and training facility. Sixteen and a half different pitches, each replicating a grass length of another Premier League team’s field, are being built around the campus, alongside a new youth stadium that will seat 7,000.

Mansour’s hope is to build a facility and a brand that every youth soccer player across the globe will dream of being a part of.

Sheikh Mansour of Manchester City is beloved by the majority of City supporters, not just because he transformed the team into a domestic and European contender, but also because he genuinely cares about the wellbeing of the club.

Committing long term to a sustainable plan that will promote continued and long-term excellence is everything a fan can hope for.

Manchester City will never again be celebrating victories in the third division of English soccer. Sheikh Mansour has ensured that for the foreseeable future, the blue side of Manchester will celebrate victories in only the biggest competitions in the world.

Jason Schneiderman is a sophomore who is majoring in quantitative economics and computer science. He can be reached at Jason.Schneiderman@tufts.edu.

The Tufts Daily

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Men’s Lacrosse

NESCAC lacrosse season preview by

Kate Klots

Daily Editorial Board

As NESCAC lacrosse play opens up this weekend, here is a quick guide to who’s gone, who’s back, and who the Jumbos will have to watch in Div. III lacrosse’s most competitive conference.

Amherst Amherst made waves last season by returning more than 90 percent of its scoring, but then faltered, finishing just two games above .500 overall and a mediocre 5-5 in the NESCAC. This year, Amherst must do without graduated quad-captain midfielders Alex Fox and Will Reed, as well as attackmen Cole Cherney and Evan Redwood.

Redwood and Cherney started every game for the Lord Jeffs last season, combining for 87 points.

The loss of starting keeper Sam Jakimo is another hit — he will be replaced between the pipes by junior Greg Majno.

On the other hand, the Lord Jeffs have former NESCAC Rookie of the Year Devin Acton back for his junior campaign. In 2012, Acton led the squad in scoring with a monstrous 44 goals and 10 assists. This year, he is rejoined by classmates and capable midfielders Aaron Mathias and Duncan Morrissey, as well as by experienced defenders Danny Gold, Carl Lampe, Matt Cahn, and Tony Argibay.

At the same time, Amherst itself is the perfect example of how returned talent and scoring ability does not directly translate into team successes. While Acton has a huge amount of talent and is poised for another dominant season, the Lord Jeffs must play a more complete game and find strong play from their defense in order to help Acton win the big games.

Bates For the Bobcats, this season presents an opportunity to improve in the standings, where they have finished as one of the bottom two teams every spring since 2007. Bates notched just two conference victories last season, and finished with a dismal 4-9 overall record.

Though Bates’ leading scorer Jason Hichborn has departed, the Bobcats return their next three leading offensive producers in Kyle Starr, Rob Highland, and Jack Strain. However, this is less impressive considering that the Bobcats finished last in the NESCAC in goals and assists per game last season, and not a single Bates scorer ranks among the conference leaders. The Bobcats also posted the lowest shot percentage and highest number of turnovers per contest in 2012, demonstrating an inability to convert possessions into scores.

The departures of last year’s tricaptain defensemen Kevin Helm and Mark Murphy, pole Lucas Denning, and netminder Adam Scharff at the defensive end mean a significant hit to the team’s roster. While Scharff’s departure may open the doors for keeper Charlie Kazarian to make an impact, the junior may be faced with some tough looks as he plays behind a young and largely inexperienced defensive set.

No. 16 Bowdoin For the first time in 23 seasons, the Polar Bears will not be led by former head coach Tom McCabe. McCabe, who retired from the position after the 2012 campaign, was replaced by Jason Archbell from the University of Pennsylvania, who has immediately imposed strict regimens for his players in order to familiarize

them with his coaching style.

Bowdoin, which reached last year’s NESCAC championship game against the Jumbos, is never a squad to be underestimated, and it consistently turns out talented rosters with Div. I size. This season, the Polar Bears bring back leading scorer Billy Bergner, a senior who notched 42 points last season, and classmate Patrick Lawlor who finished his junior campaign with 31 points.

However, Bowdoin has suffered the losses of midfielders Mark Flibotte and Keegan Melhorn, as well as go-to face-off man Brendan Hughes from X. While Polar Bears return poles Dylan Hannes and Max Rosner, both of whom started all 20 games for Bowdoin, they lose their anchors in close defender Matt Egan and goalie Chris Williamson.

Despite heavy losses, Bowdoin is among the best in the NESCAC at restocking its roster. And while a new coaching dynamic can cause problems for teams, McCabe did well to recruit big talent before leaving the program, so expect the Polar Bears to shrug off adversity this season as they make a run for the NESCAC title that was almost theirs in 2012.

Colby The headliner for Colby this season will likely take the form of explosive senior midfielder and co-captain Ian Deveau. The AllAmerican returns for his fourth campaign hungry to carry the Mules deep into the conference tournament after leading the team with 25 goals and 18 assists last season.

Colby also returns senior attackman John Jennings, who was second on the team in points, and welcomes back faceoff man Bjorn Knutson, a junior who replaced legend Craig Bunker at X. Historically a short stick defensive midfiler, Knutson led the Mules in groundballs and forced turnovers last season, all while winning 55 percent of face-offs.

Senior attackman Greg McKillop, Deveau’s co-captain, finished third on the team in scoring last season and adds another asset to coach Justin Domingos’s scoring options. Together, Deveau, Jennings, McKillop and Knutson have the speed, versatility and power to wreak havoc on unprepared NESCAC defenses.

No. 19 Conn. College In New London, the Camels return their top six scorers, including two seniors, midfielder John Lyons and attackman Andrew Freedman. This must be taken with a grain of salt, however, considering that Conn.

College’s overall offensive production was far below the top of the NESCAC’s. In fact, the Conn.

College attack lacked much excitement altogether, and often drifted into a complacent, stalled style of play even in games where the Camels trailed significantly.

While Conn. College has two of three defensive starters back this year in seniors Brogan O’Connor and Mike Brennan, the Camels graduated keeper Rob Moccia and reliable pole Clay Hillyer, who led the close defensive trio with 30 groundballs and 17 caused turnovers last season.

In 2012, Conn. College finished below the middle of the pack in nearly every offensive statistical category, but Lyons and Freedman have what it takes to lead a charge toward the top ranks of the standings if the Camels’ defense can hold opponents’ scoring enough to keep them in contention. That, however, is a big ‘if.’

Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

Bowdoin’s Maxwell Rosner and the rest of the Polar Bears will look to take down the Jumbos and hold off the rest of the NESCAC this season.

Hamilton In 2012, the Hamilton Continentals’ abrupt entry into Div. III’s toughest conference was a brutal awakening, first from Tufts in a 15-8 season opening loss.

The Continentals hope to

gather themselves after last season’s disappointment, but it will be tough to do so without leading attackman Jon Leanos.

Last year’s NESCAC Player of the Year, Leanos ranked fifth in the NESCAC with 50 points, and

helped keep the Continentals’ heads above water by accounting for almost a quarter of the squad’s scoring. Nearly all will also suffer without their second see LACROSSE, page 15

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

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Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

Beau Wood will look to continue his scoring production from last season as the Jumbos look to hold on to their NESCAC crown.

Bowdoin main threat to Jumbos entering 2013 season Lacrosse

continued from page 14

and third scoring options in Luke Sadoff and Henry Burchenal.

The onus will lie on juniors Bryan Hopper and Paul Armideo, as well as senior Luke Walsh, to take the lead in offensive production. The Continentals must rebound by developing a more multi-dimensional scoring strategy if they wish to improve upon last year’s 5-5 NESCAC mark.

Although they graduated keeper Max Vaickus, the Continentals will have all three starting close defensemen back.

Chad Berger, Ed Reed, and Mike Fiacco started all 15 games for the Continentals last season, but allowed an average of above nine goals against per game.

With a year of NESCAC play under its belt, Hamilton might well present a stronger case than it did in 2012. However, it is unlikely that the Continentals will seriously challenge for a top spot.

Middlebury The Panthers have the foundation to build a solid 2013 season, but they must expand on their size and raw talent if they wish to return to the top of the NESCAC Last season Middlebury finished an embarrassing 4-9 overall and notched just three in-conference victories, all while failing to win a single contest on the road.

Despite having the tools to compete at the highest level, the Panthers consistently underperformed and played down to opponents.

Middlebury returns its stars — senior attackmen Mike Giordano and tri-captain Strew Kerr — as well as defensemen John Duvnjak, Billy Champman, and Zach Driscoll for the 2013 campaign.

However, Middlebury’s squad must lock down its mechanics and eliminate their struggles to win close games throughout the season. The Panthers led the NESCAC in groundballs per game last season, and they have played historically with a physical, gritty style to win the possession game but were still among the worst in the NESCAC at maintaining possession, averaging more than 20 turnovers per contest.

Middlebury needs to nip sloppy play in the bud and hold onto the ball in order to create scoring opportunities for Giordano and Kerr. There is no reason that a team with capable attackmen and the second-

highest faceoff percentage in the NESCAC should have struggled so mightily to get on the board, so with senior midfielder Brian Foster returning this spring, maintaining and converting possessions should be a primary focus for the Panthers.

No. 18 Trinity Sometimes the graduation of a single player leaves a team completely stripped of its identity, but rarely is it the goalie that has such a massive effect. So after losing All-NESCAC netminder Peter Johnson, the Bantams will have to find a way to maintain their form without the keeper who made tough saves and recorded a .578 save percentage his senior year.

The Bantams return their top scoring threats, including senior tri-captain Rob Nogueras, who led the team with 50 points, as well as senior midfielder Nick Shaheen and sophomore Matthew Hauck who combined for 59 points last spring.

In 2012, the scoring unit was the most efficient man-up group in the NESCAC, averaging 1.17 man-up goals per game, but the team’s .238 shot percentage certainly could be improved.

Trinity also returns junior defenseman Will Naughton and senior Chris Novick.

Despite this fact, the poles and defensive midfielders must step up their game in light of the personnel change in the cage.

The Bantams led the league in caused turnovers in 2012, averaging more than 11 per game, including 47 alone caused by graduated defenseman Alex Gottsch.

However, two long-stick midfielders— sophomore Charles Finnegan and senior Dominic Piselli—can also force takeaways.

Trinity has a lot of experience and firepower on the offensive end. For the Bantams, the main struggle will be adapting their defensive play to Johnson’s absence.

No. 4 Tufts Despite graduating immense talent at the midfield and on the crease, the Jumbos are prepared to make a strong surge for a fourth-straight NESCAC title in May. Tufts hopes to use its depth to overcome a two-game suspension for 27 members of the roster, which will be in effect for the Jumbos’ opening conference games against Hamilton and Connecticut College.

At X, Tufts loses dominant midfielder Nick Rhoads, who posted a monstrous

.591 percentage on face-offs last season, helping to control 282 out of 477 draws.

The Jumbos must also rebound from the graduation of sensational offensive midfielder Kevin McCormick and perhaps the greatest crease player in the NESCAC in Sean Kirwan, now an assistant coach for the Tufts program.

Despite heavy losses, Tufts returns a full close defensive unit, highlighted by three-year starters Matt Callahan, Sam Gardner, and John Heard. Head coach Mike Daly has a tremendous amount of options on the back-end, as sophomore Cem Kalkavan and junior Nate Marchand have played exceptionally thus far and are easy substitutes for any of Tufts’ starting defensemen.

On attack, sophomore Chris Schoenhut will get the nod alongside returners Beau Wood and Cole Bailey. The Jumbos’ strongest asset this season is truly its immense depth, which stands to serve Tufts well both for the suspension and later in the season, when fatigue and injuries often set in. Check out tomorrow’s Daily for a full preview of the Jumbos’ 2013 season.

Wesleyan Despite topping Trinity 16-6 in an unofficial scrimmage last weekend, it is unlikely that the Cardinals will claim any wins nearly as impressive once official NESCAC play begins.

Junior midfielder quad-captain Aidan Daniell, attackman Graham Macnab and midfielder Joey Porcelli are among the Cardinals’ top returning scorers, but the Cardinals will suffer from the graduation of leading scorer John Froats, as well as Teddy Citrin and Max Landow.

In light of those departures, it could be a struggle for the Cardinals to develop the depth and firepower necessary to propel them beyond last year’s 5-5 conference mark. Wesleyan finished alongside Williams and Bates at the bottom of most NESCAC scoring categories, and also among the worst in ground balls per game.

The Cardinals showed some promise at the other end of the field—they boasted a decent penalty killing percentage, and caused more than nine turnovers per game, and defensemen Elliot Albert, Lex Johnson, and Mike Robinson will bring experience down low. The trio will help to protect the cage most likely occupied by junior keeper Mark Simmons, who saw

limited time playing behind All-American keeper Grant Covington last season.

Williams The Ephs spent last season at the bottom of the conference standings, recording just a single NESCAC victory over Bates and finishing 3-10 overall. Williams averaged barely seven goals per game, and capitalized on just five of 51 man-up scoring opportunities.

In 2013 the Ephs must do without leading scorer Sam Hargrove, and will instead rely on senior Evan Dedominicis and sophomore Andy Grabowski, who put up 22 and 16 points, respectively.

On the defensive side, Williams lost two starting defensemen in David Doggett and Greg White, meaning sophomore pole John Medwick will take the lead.

Sophomore keeper Sean Dougherty will likely get the nod to start in cage, and must play well to give the Ephs any shot at winning games. Williams allowed more than nine goals per game last season, a mark lower only than Amherst’s.

The Ephs have their work cut out for them if they want to improve upon last year’s dismal NESCAC performance and will struggle with several other contenders returning more threatening offensive weapons and bringing bigger, stronger defenses to the field.

The Big Picture Several teams look poised to threaten the Jumbos as they defend their position atop the NESCAC, and will undoubtedly pose challenges to Tufts’ throne throughout a grueling regular season.

Bowdoin threatens the Jumbos perennially, and could create problems for Tufts when the two teams meet in their annual regular season finale showdown, while Colby should be able to match the Jumbos with their offensive firepower.

After those two come Trinity, Middlebury, and Amherst, who will try to make a run in the NESCAC and will have the talent to compete at any round of the NESCAC playoffs.

Finally, Hamilton, Williams, Wesleyan, Conn. College and Bates, lacking the depth and star-power to overcome dysfunction, will ultimately find the top half of the NESCAC too much to handle.

Of course this is all conjecture, by now we all know the old adage—any given Saturday in the NESCAC.

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Men’s Swimming and Diving

Jumbos finish season 4-4, send Schmidt to NCAAs by

Ross Dember

Daily Staff Writer

Going into the season, the 2012-2013 men’s swimming and diving team was, on paper, a curiosity. The Jumbos were returning national champion diver junior Johann Schmidt and had a strong group of junior swimmers, but it looked like most of the other spots would go to a group of talented-but-untested freshmen.

In the pool, however, the Jumbos proved that any worries about inexperience were for naught.

A tough dual-meet season led to a 4-4 record. All three of Tufts’ Div. III losses came to top-15 ranked teams (No. 1 MIT, No. 5 Williams, and No. 15 Keene State) with the fourth coming to solid Div. I team Boston College.

Their lone NESCAC loss was against the Ephs, and an impressive win against No. 19 Conn.

College to start off the season proved the Jumbos were ready for what would turn out to be a historically fast year in Div. III. Schmidt continued to be one of the best divers in the country, and he is the only Jumbo still competing. He won his fifth NESCAC title on the 3-meter board and placed second in the 1-meter to win his third consecutive Diver of the Year title.

Following his wins in both events at the NCAA Zone Diving Qualifier, Schmidt will head to Conroe, Texas where he looks to be the first Jumbo to win both diving events.

For the swimmers, the season ended a couple weeks ago after a fourth-place finish at

Gene Buonaccorsi for the Tufts Daily

The Jumbos’ young swimmers had a breakout season and will spend offseason improving on a strong year.

NESCACs that included six NCAA “B” qualifying times. This was a mild disappointment, as none of the “B” times made the final cut for NCAAs, but coach Adam Hoyt believes the team performed better than what most people expected.

“Given that we’re a fairly young team, I wasn’t sure how they would handle the pressure

of performing on the big stage at the end of the year,” Hoyt said. “But they all stepped up and put together some great performances.”

Freshmen Michael Winget, Anthony DeBenedetto and Cam Simko exceeded expectations. In events ranging from the 50-meter freestyle to the 200-meter butterfly, the group introduced

themselves as future stars in the NESCAC. All three contributed top-eight finishes at the conference championship meet, and Winget and DeBenedetto were each named NESCAC Performers of the Week during the season.

Junior Kyle Savidge made the switch from freestyle distance races to the backstroke despite past success in the former. The

decision paid off when he finished fourth in the NESCAC 200-meter backstroke with a “B” qualifier.

The distance swimmers were one of the less-heralded groups on the team, but they proved to be one of the strongest. junior Christian Jones showed consistency throughout the season. He and Winget were the only Tufts swimmers to have individual wins in the dual meet against MIT, and Jones concluded his season with an impressive NESCAC meet that saw a “B” qualifier in the 400-meter individual medley. Fellow distance swimmers junior Matthew Wiens and freshman Tyler Lueck added impressive performances at the biggest meets of the season.

Sophomore John Devine was one of the most improved swimmers on the team. He ended the season as a sprint specialist who found his way into nearly all of the relays that competed at NESCACs. Next year, the Jumbos will return nearly all of their top individual performers. There were only five seniors on this team, and the Jumbos will need to continue to build without their leadership.

But for the returning swimmers, next season will hopefully serve as a turning point. Next year, the Jumbos believe they have the talent and, unlike this season, the experience, to finish as a top-20 team nationally.

“The end of the season is bittersweet for everyone,” Winget said. “But in talking to my teammates, everyone is excited to keep working hard and make next year even better.”

Women’s Swimming and Diving

Jumbos’ season ends with strong finish by

Claire Sleigh

Daily Editorial Board

Women’s swimming lived up to the high expectations set by last year’s squad and the years before them by placing third in NESCACs and sending a relay squad to the NCAA Championships as they have done in past years.

Going into NESCAC weekend, coach Nancy Bigelow was hopeful that her squad would be able to place fifth, but the Jumbos surprised their coach and themselves as almost all swimmers recorded new best times for the season.

“Overall I’m more than thrilled with the season,” Bigelow said. “It more than met expectations. The fact that we were third was incredible.”

Despite losing many strong seniors after last year and suffering from some illnesses early on, the team pulled together at NESCACs for a come-frombehind win over Middlebury.

Sophomores Kathryn Coniglio and Samantha Sliwinski and seniors Christine Garvey and Elizabeth Grainger, who is also a news editor at the Daily, qualified for Nationals in the 800 meter freestyle relay, and will swim several other events at the meet. They are currently seeded tenth in the 800 after dropping almost 16 seconds at NESCACs. The NESCAC championship was a successful end to a season that showed consistent improvement for the Jumbos.

Tufts started off the season with a tough schedule and lost against topranked Div. III schools such as Conn.

College, Keene State and MIT, although they fared better against Wellesley and Wheaton during their only two home meets of the season.

Their annual winter-break trip to Puerto Rico and the hard work the swimmers put in as a team finally paid off, they said, especially in the last meet of the season. According to Bigelow, Tufts has a history of performing well at NESCACs, and this year was no letdown.

“I didn’t have any concrete expectations going into the season,” Garvey, a co-captain, said. “I wanted to get third at NESCACs but I didn’t know if it was possible because the league gets stronger every year. I was just hoping to carry through what we did last year.”

Garvey is one of four Tufts swimmers who were invited to Nationals, but there were several other top swimmers who just missed this year’s cut, which ended up being higher than in past years.

Any swimmer that makes it in as part of a relay is entitled to swim in any of their other events that make the “B” cut.

The rest of the swimmers are filled in based on time, but there is also a limit to the number of spaces.

This means that junior Jenny Hu, ranked 15th in the nation in the 100 breaststroke, will not get a chance to compete at nationals this year because the cut was moved to 12th place. The junior has had some of the best finishes for the Jumbos all year, and missed out despite winning NESCACs with a time of 1:05.15, just 1.7 seconds off from the NCAA automatic “A” cut.

But although Hu did not qualify and not many Jumbos individually qualified, the team finds itself pleasantly surprised after a strong finish to the year. They will try to continue to grow without Garvey and Grainger and climb in the NESCAC as they look to next year.

Gene Buonaccorsi for the Tufts Daily

The Jumbos finished third in the NESCAC and had an impressive overall season despite a young team.