TuftsDaily04-17-2013

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THE TUFTS DAILY

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

VOLUME LXV, NUMBER 53

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

Debate Society places at national tournament by

Pooja Beri

Contributing Writer

Members of the Tufts Debate Society (TDS) placed in the quarterfinals at the Élysée Treaty Debates at Washington, D.C.’s American University and George Washington University last weekend, winning an all-expenses-paid study tour of Germany, France and Belgium.

The quarterfinalists from Tufts were President of TDS Noah Kirsch and debate team coach Andrew Husick, who had placed into the top eight teams, according to TDS Vice President Rajarshi Chatterji.

TDS was part of 32 debate teams from all over the country that were invited to the tournament by the embassies of France and Germany, in collaboration with American University and George Washington University, to debate the merits of the Élysée Treaty for its 50th anniversary, according to the tournament website. The Élysée Treaty was written to promote collaboration and peace between France and Germany, an achievement that earned the European Union the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

“We want to thank everyone who coordinated the tournament ... and we’re just incredibly honored to have been selected to compete in the quarterfinals,” Kirsch, a sophomore, said.

The trip that Kirsch and Husick won for this summer is designed to be a study tour that includes meetings with government officials, visits to historic destinations and

tourism, according to Kirsch.

This tournament was also a chance for the debate team to go outside of their comfort zone, since TDS normally debates in parliamentary style of debate, where the debaters don’t know the topics beforehand, Kirsch said.

“If [it] was a normal parliamentary debate, we’d be really optimistic; however, this [was] a different style of debate on a topic we’ve never discussed before, so we’re nervous but excited,” he said.

The tournament presented all the teams with a closed set of evidence from which to gather their data and knowledge, according to Kirsch.

“We’ve done a tremendous amount of prep, luckily the tournament gave us a closed set of evidence although it was a lot of work to pull what’s just evidence and use it to support our case by making arguments,” Husick said.

Judges at the tournament included international relations scholars and representatives from George Washington University and American University, Kirsch said.

The team also sent Chatterji, a senior, and freshman Brian Sayler to Williams College for a debate tournament last weekend, where they won three out of the five debates in the preliminary round, according to Kirsch.

“We’ve got some amazing novices, all of them are freshmen, and they’ve hit the see DEBATE, page 2

Sofia Adams / The Tufts Daily

The TCU Senate passed a resolution encouraging the continuation of student participation on a working group for the Critical Studies in Disparities and Diasporas (C2D) program.

Senate calls for student input in C2D working group by

In response to a perceived lack of transparency on the part of faculty and administrators developing the School of Arts and Sciences’ Critical Studies in Disparities and Diasporas (C2D) program, the Tufts Community Union (TCU)

Spirit awards, but no victory for Mock Trial in Washington

by Sara

Taxman

Contributing Writer

Tufts’ mock trial team competed at the American Mock Trial Association’s (AMTA)

National Championship Tournament in Washington, D.C. this weekend along with 47 other teams after qualifying for the AMTA’s Opening Round Championship Series

(ORCS) in February.

The Tufts team did not place in the championship, but it did qualify for two spesee MOCK TRIAL, page 2

Courtesy Nick Teleky

Tufts Mock Trial competed this weekend at the American Mock Trial Association’s (AMTA) National Championship Tournament in Washington, D.C.

Inside this issue

Xander Landen

Daily Editorial Board

Senate passed a resolution April 7 calling for increased representation of students on the working group.

The push for the development of an identity and diversity program in the school’s curriculum began as a student-led movement.

After over a year of student demands backed see C2D, page 2

S-Factor sings in NYC schools, churches

by Jack

Docal

Contributing Writer

S-Factor, Tufts’ seven-yearold, all-male a cappella group focusing on music of the African Diaspora, recently spent its spring break in New York City on its first-ever community service oriented tour. The tour sent the group throughout the city and was funded in part by a grant from the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University.

“It wasn’t just about going and performing, it wasn’t just about performing for free, it was about going and really working with people to build a connection through music,” S-Factor’s Business Manager Joe Philipson, a sophomore, said.

The group traveled around New York City — mainly in Harlem and the Bronx — playing at several venues, according to Philipson. The members performed at the Tremont Street Baptist Church, the East Harlem Children’s Aid Society Center, the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Public School 50 and the Fiver Children’s Foundation.

According to Philipson, the trip was made possible by Tisch College’s donation to the group. “[Tisch College] gave us a

$500 grant and some program support on the ground,” he said. “They put us in touch with some people, and gave us the resources to reflect on our service in a meaningful way.”

Alex Ocampo, a junior and member of S-Factor, said he felt the tour played an important role in the growth of the group.

It was the first trip that S-Factor has made as a group.

“It was a really wonderful opportunity to build as a group,” Philipson said. “It’s one thing to do music, sing and perform, but it really takes your performance to another level when you realize that you’re doing it for a purpose, to serve as a role model or to effect change.”

S-Factor’s community service was not limited to playing free concerts and shows. They also helped to serve as role models for New York’s youth, S-Factor member Rashad Davis said.

“At the church in the Bronx, we were told that a lot of men in the community go to jail and that the kids don’t have a lot of positive male figures in their lives who go to college,” Davis, a senior, said. “It meant a lot to us to go in and perform for the kids to give them positive male role models.”

The S-Factor group memsee S-FACTOR, page 2

Today’s sections

Dan Winslow (LA ’80), a U.S. Senate candidate, had his political start on the Hill.

‘Scandal’ shows the dirty side of Washington politics.

see FEATURES, page 3

see ARTS, page 5

News Features Arts & Living Editorial | Letters

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Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

9 10 15 Back

The Tufts Daily

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News

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

S-Factor performs community service on tour across New York City S-FACTOR

continued from page 1

Courtesy Nick Pfosi

S-Factor performed throughout New York City over spring break on its first community service tour.

Mock trial returns from D.C.

MOCK TRIAL

continued from page 1

cial awards, according to Brian Pilchik, a former captain and member of the Tufts A-team.

The A-team qualified for the Spirit of AMTA Award, which is awarded for sportsmanship and is voted on by peers, in a three-way tie.

After the tiebreaker, TMT did not win the award but earned an honorable mention.

“On the one hand, it is not the best Nationals result Tufts has ever received,” Pilchik, a junior, said.

Overall, though, it was a good year, he said.

“We won four bids out of regionals and two bids out of ORCS, and that is the most our organization has achieved,” Pilchik said.

Sophomore Mario Feola was awarded one of the AllAmerican Witness Awards by the judges.

“Tufts did not place, nor did we win any trophies,” Pilchik said. “That being said, we had a lot of fun. We were very excited to be one of the few teams there that had two teams competing.”

Both the TMT A-team and the B-team qualified for the tournament.

“Getting two teams to Nationals was unprecedented,” Pilchik said.

He added that the 48 teams were broken into two divisions of 24 teams for the tournament. The competi-

tion was made up of four rounds, each with three judges, who awarded a maximum of 12 points to each team, according to Pilchik.

Florida State University (FSU) and Rhodes College made it to the final round, and FSU, representing the defense, ultimately won the championship.

Pilchik said he was happy with the turnout from TMT. “It was great having so many people here,” he said.

“And obviously we are all really proud of everyone, especially the new members who were able to come out and make it to nationals and we look forward to great things from them in the years to come.”

Pilchik added that TMT has four graduating seniors but also many new underclassmen.

“This weekend was a really great learning experience for everyone,” Nicholas Teleky, a sophomore, said. “Our freshmen did incredibly. We will be sad to see our seniors go, but we are really, really excited for next year.”

Sara Weiss, a TMT member, said that she think TMT will continue to improve.

“It was a great experience,” Weiss, a freshman, said. “Tufts Mock Trial — we are doing good things, we are improving as a program, we gave it our all, we did it with stability and we had a good national tournament.”

bers were excited about the impact that they made on the kids, according to Ocampo.

“Kids really remember this stuff,” he said. “They had never seen anything like us. Getting them up singing, dancing and clapping to our songs, giving these easily influenced children exposure to music, early on, with a hands-on experience was exciting for us.”

Davis said that he had a deep connection with the service he provided to New York’s children.

“For me personally as black man, it was great to give back to my community and serve as a role model to the mainly African-American and Latino community that we were attending to,” he said.

“Through the group members, I hope the kids could see themselves in college and having strong futures going forward.”

Another important aspect of the tour was connecting current S-Factor members with alumni of the group, Philipson said.

“There are people in the group now who have never met the founders, and we wanted to make sure that they were still in touch with that brotherhood tradition,” he said. “The Alumni joined us in community service work and it was amazing to perform with these people and have an immediate connection over the music.”

Debate team looks forward to continues success DEBATE

continued from page 1

ground running, including Brian Sayler and Jesse Tripathi, who have won multiple novice awards,” Husick said.

TDS is excited to see where the team is going to go in further years, Kirsch said.

The next debate tournament for TDS will be held at the University of Maryland for the national championships of the American Parliamentary Debate Association this coming week-

end, according to Chatterji.

There will be approximately 40 universities present, including all of the Ivy League schools, Brandeis University and the College of William and Mary.

“Last weekend we competed against Brandeis, and one of the cases we presented was ‘Should property be reverted to the state or heirs upon death?’ and we’re going to present this at the tournament this weekend,” Chatterji said.

Kirsch acknowledges that the team is young, but he empha-

sized that the members are very committed.

“We’ve had an unprecedented amount of success this year, we’re really proud of the success of the novices and the Élysée Treaty debates shows that we’re going to be a major force on the circuit in the coming years,” Kirsch added.

“In terms of our national presence, I think we have a great shot for the future.”

Sarah Zheng contributed reporting to this article.

Courtesy Noah Kirsch

Tufts Debate Society (TDS) president Noah Kirsch and team coach Andrew Husick placed in the quarterfinals at the Élysée Treaty Debates last weekend, winning a study tour trip to Europe.

Senate resolution calls for more student voice on diversity working group C2D

continued from page 1

up by a history of activism for the inclusion of Africana studies — the study of the African diaspora — into the curriculum dating back to the 1970s, a working group on comparative race and ethnicity studies comprised of faculty and student representation was created last year. Beyond African Studies, the Critical Studies program would eventually serve as an umbrella for new majors in ethnicity, race and sexuality studies.

The resolution passed Sunday, “A Resolution Urging the Continued Representation of Students in the Critical Studies Program,” addresses concerns that the role of the student representatives on

the working group were unclear and abruptly terminated when faculty membership on the group shifted. It calls for renewed student involvement on the working group, with at least two representatives appointed

by PAA and the Senate each year.

“The resolution basically says that there will be students in the working group as long as [the] working group persists,” PAA co-president and senior senator Jameelah Morris, said. “They should be involved in every aspect. There is no more questioning of students’ roles and how engaged they are supposed to be.”

Marcy Regalado, community representative to the Senate from the Latino Center and the youngest original member of the

working group, hopes that students’ roles in the working group will be successfully redefined and that the working group will be able to come up with a clear plan for the creation of a Critical Studies program by the end of the semester.

“I hope [the working group] buckles down in the next weeks before school ends,” Regalado, a sophomore said. “A Critical Studies program would add a lot of benefit to the Tufts diploma. Tufts [wants] to compete with higher peer institutions that already have these interdepartmental programs that focus on the subjects of race and sexuality.”

The working group has worked continuously on drafting a plan for a consortium of

interdisciplinary studies of race, colonialism and diaspora, according to Professor of English Lisa Lowe, who serves as a faculty member on the working group.

Lowe supports the Senate’s resolution.

“The students’ perspective and input have been and continue to be crucial to the effort,” she said. “Student representation enriches and legitimizes the process of establishing the consortium.”

Regalado believes it is imperative for students’ voices to be heard in the creation of this new academic program.

“It’s extremely important to have a student voice present when decisions are being made,” she said. “We’re here for a reason: to get the best education accessible to us.”

Features

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tuftsdaily.com

Alexa Petersen | Jeminist: A Jumbo Feminist

Interview | Dan Winslow

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courtesy Brianna Wehrs

Dan Winslow (LA ‘80) is running in the Republican primary for the Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry.

‘My life keeps coming back in circles to Tufts’ by

Lily Sieradzki

Daily Editorial Board

Dan Winslow (LA ’80) wears many hats as one of the Republican contenders in the April 30 primaries for the open United States Senate seat from Massachussetts, current representative in the state legislature, and Tufts alum.

After graduating magna cum laude from Tufts with a degree in political science, Winslow attended Boston College Law School. He went on to serve as a judge for the Massachusetts District Court, legal counsel to Gov. Mitt Romney and partner at Duane Morris, where he was lawyer for fellow Tufts alumnus Scott Brown (LA ’81) in his 2010 Senate race.

While on campus, Winslow was heavily involved in the Committee for Student Life (CSL), the Inter-Dormitory Council (IDC) and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate. He has remained involved as a senior fellow of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, and taught a class on judicial review. Winslow spoke with the Daily about how his Tufts experience has shaped him.

The Tufts Daily: Why did you pick Tufts initially?

Dan Winslow: I picked Tufts because my grandfather, grandmother and father all went there. My father was invited to join the Korean War after his first semester freshman year, so I wanted to come back and redeem the family name.

TD: Where did you live on campus?

DW: Freshman and sophomore year I was on the second floor of Hill, left-hand side as you walk in and then senior year I was an RA on the right side of the second floor. So I didn’t get around much.

I lived in Wren Hall in what was then called the “Irish Suite,” in the 540s, my junior year. There was a housing shortage so I was happy to get anywhere I could.

TD: What were some of your favorite places to be on campus?

DW: Back when I was in college, the legal drinking age was 18. So I spent many quality evenings at the MacPhie Pub, which is now [Dewick-MacPhie Dining Hall]. It was there that I and others hatched a plan to have a campus center to link the uphill and downhill portions of campus as a social magnet.

TD: What became of that plan?

DW: It is now your campus center. That was typical of my experience at Tufts — if you can think it, you can do it. If you can dream it, you can build it.

TD: What was the process of getting the campus center project off the ground?

DW: We had a referendum on [whether] the students [would] accept an increase in their Student Activity Fee to fund a mortgage to build the campus center.

The referendum came back overwhelmingly that the students would be willing to dig a little deeper to improve the quality of student life at Tufts. That really got the attention of the Trustees, which basically allowed us to put the campus center on the list for approved capital projects for the university.

TD: What other issues or policies were you involved in as a part of CSL, IDC and TCU Senate?

DW: It was the time that Jimmy Carter was President, a time of really bad inflation.

When I first started at Tufts, it cost about $5,000 a year for tuition and by the time I left Tufts it was over $13,000 a year for tuition. The price of a college education from freshman year to senior year almost tripled. Carter had instituted what he called Voluntary Wage and Price Control. So the university had adopted all the wage freezes [for] all the professors and the staff [but] they still kept increasing the price.

We had a huge protest because we said [look], you can’t accept the wage freeze and not accept the price freeze ...we took over Ballou Hall. It was one of the most bitterly cold days of my life, my lips were frozen, but I gave somewhat of a speech.

The NBC national news covered it, the headline was something like “Never Since the Vietnam War Have So Many College Students Gathered Together in Protest.”

I mean the whole university showed up; it was fantastic. There were thousands of students assembled on the upper campus in front of Ballou Hall. It was a time of great activism and a time of great passion.

TD: What else were you involved in on campus?

DW: I was a political science student. My senior year, I did the special honors program where I had to write a thesis and defend it for honors. My thesis was a study of the Massachusetts state legislature and the role of money in politics in Massachusetts, and how it impacts democracy. It’s kind of interesting because now I’m in the legislature. My life keeps coming back in circles to Tufts.

I just always felt that Tufts is a place that’s very engaged in the real world, and has always been uniquely situated to translate academia into action. For me, that’s something that’s incredibly powerful. It’s been a gift that I’ve received from Tufts and I wanted to share it, to show that in my own way I can continue to contribute and give back.

TD: How did your academic work and political activism on campus shape your career?

DW: Everything I’ve done in my life has been very similar: basically, activism and action and problem solving. That’s all I did at Tufts — figure out a way to see a situation that needs to be improving, to reach out to the people and the allies and oftentimes even the adversaries and figure out a way to solve it.

That’s a skill that I probably [found] at Tufts and have refined it ever since. If ever there were a time in our country’s history where we had problems that needed solving, it’s now.

TD: Did being at Tufts shape your political beliefs in any way?

DW: I’m not so sure about the actual lens through which I view the world. Tufts does not generate too many fiscally conservative Republicans. But I think certainly an attitude of respect for different points of view, an intellectual curiosity about what informs other points of view, the whole notion of civility in political discourse is something that I learned at Tufts.

We used to have heated discussions about politics. It was back when people were passionate about politics, in a way that was not just slamming politics because of disgust — [it was] because they were engaged. I need to find out where those people are in my own campaign now, where are the people who give a damn. Because I know there [are] a lot of people who give a damn, I just don’t know where they are right now. And we need people to give a damn.

TD: What are some highlights of your time at Tufts?

DW: The people who were impressive then are impressive now, the university has really matured and acquired a reputation of global excellence. It’s great to be a part of that.

All of us take something from the college or university we attend, and all of us have a part in shaping that university’s reputation later in life. I hope I’ve done my part.

TD: The first Spring Fling was in 1980, your senior year. What was that like?

DW: We were a very activist-y class. All I remember is that the weather was ideal. It was the most beautiful day. It was probably just a function of the weather that the traditions continued on.

The lesson that we took was that you can’t be bystanders in your own existence — if you want to make things happen, make them happen. There’s no substitute for an engaged citizenry, whether the community is measured by the bounds of a college campus or a commonwealth or a country.

4/15/13

he trauma of Monday is on all of our minds. We’re thinking about it and trying to rationalize it. We’re wondering what would have happened to our friends who might have ran the last mile just a little bit faster or stood just a little bit closer to the finish line.

We’re wondering why we got so lucky.

While three Jumbos were hospitalized, they sustained non-life-threatening injuries. We are praying for these Jumbos and their quick recovery, and we are also saying a prayer of thanks that they are alive and that they can come home to us.

As a community, how do we move on from this? Boston is our home and our livelihood. We feel violated by this tragedy. Home is a place that is supposed to be safe, welcoming and joyful. But yesterday was none of that. It was terrifying.

Our innocence has been ripped from us, and we are left trying to put the pieces back together.

Despite our struggle, it is in light of this tragedy that we are reminded of the very reasons why we call this city home. The warm summer nights at Fenway, the picnics in the Commons, the unmatchable charm of the North End and, of course, the quarter of a million college students who share this home along with us.

Today, I am comforted by only one thing. In the midst of this tragedy, Jumbos came together for each other and for Boston. We all worked together to find every last Jumbo runner and Jumbo spectator. Jumbos helped each other, supported each other and embraced each other. In the face of an act that was meant to cause chaos and abandonment, we came to the aid of each other systematically and compassionately.

When safety breaks down — when order breaks down — and our every day life breaks down in the chaos of an unspeakable act, our community stands as the sole entity in our lives that refuses to break down. Rather, it stands strong with the resolve that every last Jumbo will be accounted for. Will be cared for.

Will be safe.

Because whichever person or group did this willed Bostonians to feel alone, unsafe and uncared for. And we refuse to accept this. We banded together. We swore to ourselves that in the face of adversity we would find each other and help each other and save each other. The marathon runners who ran the extra mile to MGH to give blood, the civilians that helped break down the barricades, and the medical and safety personnel that sprung into action proves this to be true.

The person or people responsible for this wanted us to cave under the pressure of terror. But we will not. We will rise up on the support of our community. We have, and will, act in humility and kindness, in spite of those who wished we would act in selfishness and fear.

We stand here today above the cruelty of terrorism, above the cruelty of hate, because we have chosen to fight with love. With community.

In his address to the nation, President Obama said, “Bostonians will pull together, take care of each other, and move forward as one proud city.” And no words have ever been truer.

Indeed, life will continue on for us in Boston, carefully accepting normalcy as we tiptoe back into our everyday routines. But we won’t be the same and we will never forget.

But we will also never forget the community that rose up in solidarity to bring us solace and peace. And on Monday we learned that without a shadow of a doubt, our community is more powerful than terror. Amid our grief, this fact cannot be taken away from us.

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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TV Review

‘Scandal’ depicts Washington at its worst ABC’s ‘Scandal’ wrought with predictable tension by

Lancy Downs

Daily Staff Writer

“‘The West Wing’ brought us Washington as we’d all want it to be, and this show brings us Washington as we hope it would

Scandal Starring Kerry Washington, Jeff Perry, Tony Goldwyn

Airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on ABC never be,” “Scandal” series creator Shonda Rhimes recently told Entertainment Weekly.

She couldn’t have said it better. Set in Washington, D.C., Rhimes’ latest drama has featured, among other things, a rigged election, an alcoholic president, a presidential affair with his campaign staffer, a mole leaking national security secrets to terrorists, the murder of a Supreme Court justice, an assassination attempt and torture. “Scandal” may lack the nuance and grace that defined “The West Wing,” but its breakneck pace and its ceaseless twists and turns make it irresistibly fun to watch.

The show follows Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), a no-nonsense lawyer who runs a crisis-management firm, and her team members, who call themselves “gladiators in suits.” The first season followed a “case of the week” format, in which Olivia struts around in high heels and designer suits, helping her high-profile clients out of the PR disasters they have found themselves in. She also can’t quite seem to escape her old job — White House press secretary — and often finds herself in close quarters with President Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant (Tony Goldwyn). As it turns out, she and the president have been wrapped up in a long and passionate affair which they have managed to keep hidden

Disney ABC Television via Flickr Creative Commons

Tony Goldwyn plays President Fitz on Shonda Rhimes’ “Scandal.” from nearly everybody, despite liaisons in less-than-secretive places. Case in point: the two have sex in the Oval Office, well within sight of the room’s many cameras, as a Secret Service agent later informs Fitz.

Washington and Goldwyn have intense on-screen chemistry that has proven to be vital for this show. Not only has it ignited a fan base ravenous for more Fitz-Olivia scenes, but it has also allowed this core relationship to develop and grow, lending it a certain amount of realism. This is saying something, considering there is precious little else believable about “Scandal.”

The second season springboards from this already scandalous, ludicrous foundation onto a whole new level of insanity.

“Scandal’s” second season departs from stand-alone episodes into a more serialized format comprised of a string of increasingly unbelievable calamities. For example, viewers recently discovered that the president’s closest advisors and friends rigged his election. This fraud is currently being investigated by a journalist, who just happens to be the husband of White House Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry). Fitz kills a dying Supreme Court justice after recovering from an assassination attempt, which leaves him with a bullet in his head and his ultra-conservative vice president, Sally Langston (Kate Burton), in the Oval Office. Meanwhile, at Olivia Pope see SCANDAL, page 6

Album Review

Concert Review

Kid Cudi’s ‘Indicud’ recalls rapper’s 2008 debut

Crossroads Festival brings guitarists to NYC

by Veronica

Little

Daily Editorial Board

Kanye West loves Kid Cudi — and for good reason. The Cleveland native, who burst onto the scene in 2008 with his

Indicud Kid Cudi Wicked Awesome Records, G.O.O.D. Records, Republic Records debut studio album “Man on the Moon: The End of Day,” has just released a

new album replete with tangents into his decidedly dark and melancholy life.

Kid Cudi, who moved from Cleveland to New York City in order to pursue a career in music, released a mixed tape in July 2008 called “A Kid Named Cudi.” The tape, which was released online and was a free download, quickly caught the attention of many influential music industry members, including Kanye West’s then manager. After being introduced to Cudi’s sound, West decided to sign him to his record label “G.O.O.D. Music.” West and Cudi have frequently collaborated and influenced see INDICUD, page 6

Courtesy Laurence Barnes via Flickr Creative Commons

Kid Cudi’s “Indicud” showcases solid and compelling tunes.

by

Dan O’Leary

Daily Editorial Board

This past weekend, some of music’s best guitar players descended on Madison Square Garden for the fourth Crossroads Guitar Festival, which was held over two nights this year. The festival is the brainchild of famed guitarist Eric Clapton and was created as a benefit concert for his Crossroads Centre rehab center in Antigua. It has only been held once every three years since its inception in 2004, with the 2013 festival being the first one held in New York City. Crossroads’ first night this year featured nearly five hours of music, including sets by blues legend B.B. King and John Mayer, with a headlining set by the Allman Brothers Band — the festival’s second night had a lot to live up to.

Fortunately, night two of Crossroads did not disappoint, as it featured five hours of music and performances by a wide variety of talented musicians, all for a worthy cause. Emceed by comedian Dan Aykroyd, the evening’s activities took place on a typical arena stage that had a rotating center, allowing the next act’s equipment to be set up ahead of time. Each set was roughly 20 minutes long and featured different musicians of a variety of genres and styles.

The numerous sets included ones see CROSSROADS, page 6

Melissa MacEwen | The Roaming Fork

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Shrooming

o say that I like mushrooms would be the understatement of the year. I don’t just like mushrooms — I love them. I think they’re cute. I love their weird, rubbery texture. I love their umami. I love that they’re so, so easy to cook. It therefore shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I had a ball at Chinatown’s C Mart Supermarket the other day. See, though Asian cooking might involve a lot of unusual ingredients, it also relies heavily on the basics, including pseudo-veggies like the humble mushroom (mushrooms aren’t technically vegetables — they’re actually more closely related to humans than to plants, but we don’t need to get into that). I went to C Mart in search of durians, but I came home with two additional packages: black fungus and snow fungus.

Though I had intended to cook the snow fungus first, I caved and ended up opening the black fungus box in a fit of hunger after finishing off the last of my dried pasta. It turns out that my impulse purchase was a surprisingly good one: the box boasted that black fungus — also known as Judas ear, cloud ear or wood ear — is the “king of vegetarian cuisine” and that it contains high levels of fiber, iron, selenium and phosphorus. The mushrooms are also said to promote blood circulation and to remove impurities from the body.

Not bad! I knew the mushrooms were dried, but I didn’t realize they were compressed. After I soaked them in water, my mushrooms turned from a tiny black pellet into an enormous bowl of surprisingly appealing, earshaped fungus. I made a roux, chopped up some garlic and stir-fried everything together. True to their reputation, the mushrooms remained delightfully crispy and absorbed the flavor of the garlic, salt and pepper nicely.

That night, I tackled the snow fungus. These mushrooms are often used as replacements for birds’ nests and are said to promote lung health.

Another trip to C Mart yielded the necessary ingredients — goji berries, dried red dates, dried lily buds and dried lotus seeds — for snow fungus soup, and then I was essentially done. All I needed to do was add the ingredients to a pot and let everything simmer together for four hours before adding sugar to taste. Unfortunately, I’m not sure those four hours were well spent. I did everything right, as far as I can tell.

The rock-hard lily buds and lotus seeds softened delectably, and the soup’s “broth” subtly took on the flavor of the dates and the goji berries. As a whole, though, it was entirely different story.

After four hours, the mushrooms had expanded until they physically dominated the soup, and they had turned it into a slimy, mucous-y substance that dangled clear and stringy from the spoon that I hesitantly lifted to my mouth. Stirring the soup created bubbles that never went away. I tried to enjoy it, but I could only eat about half a bowl before giving up. The dish had a fine, delicate flavor, to be sure, but I just couldn’t stomach the texture.

Still, I’m not particularly concerned that I didn’t like this particular mushroom preparation. Asian cuisine uses a cornucopia of different mushroom species and the snow fungus is the only one that I have vehemently disliked.

It is also worth noting that American cuisine includes relatively few gelatinous ingredients — Jell-O is really the only one I can think of — while Asian cuisine includes plenty. I have been perfectly happy to eat sea cucumber, seaweed and squid, but I seem to have hit a wall here. Taste is subjective, after all. Maybe the snow fungus and I will reconcile in the future.

Melissa 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, April 17, 2013

Epic Crossroads Festival rocks Madison Square Garden CROSSROADS

continued from page 5

by slide player Sonny Landreth, Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan (brother of the late Stevie Ray), rising star Gary Clark Jr., famed guitarist Jeff Beck and a headlining set by the master himself, Clapton. Credit must be given to festival organizers who arranged the lineup into sets that complemented each other so well because, yes, the concert was really that good.

In addition to these main sets, which provided the majority of the evening’s music, there were two side stages for short 10-minute acoustic sets in between acts.

Many of these were by artists who had already performed main sets the previous nights and had returned to offer support, adding to the sense of camaraderie that permeated the nights. One such artist was John Mayer, who returned to join guitarist Doyle Bramhall’s supporting set, playing acoustic guitar and harmonizing on Bramhall’s song “Change It.” But the clear highlight of these acoustic sets was a performance by a few members of the Allman Brothers Band: guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks along with lead singer Gregg Allman. The trio played a haunting rendition of Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Damage Done,” which was particularly appropriate for the evening given Allman’s struggle to overcome addiction decades ago.

They concluded with the Allman Brothers classic “Midnight Rider,” resulting in a mass sing-along from the audience.

The performance also highlighted one of the best aspects of the evening: collaborations. Nearly every artist who performed a main set invited other guitarists to join them, with many of these collaborations being one-ofa-kind moments. Detailing all of the concert’s collaborations would take up the bulk of this review, but just a few of the highlights included a display of slide virtuosity between Landreth and Trucks, a sit-in by Clapton with Los Lobos on “Tin Can Trust,” Beck bringing out vocalist Beth Hart for a buildingrattling rendition of “Going Down,” The Band guitarist Robbie Roberston sitting in with Clapton and country star Vince

Azimo via Flickr Creative Commons

Famed guitarist Eric Clapton was the headliner for the second night of the Crossroads Festival, delivering one of the night’s best performances in his hour-long set.

Gill tearing up the stage with Keith Urban and Albert Lee. But possibly the most significant collaboration was also a complete surprise to festival attendees. While the majority of the festival’s lineup was announced ahead of time, one key guest was not.

Once Clapton’s band took the stage for its headlining set, the stage lights went up to reveal legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards standing next to Clapton, triggering a standing ovation from the Garden and the biggest crowd reaction of the night. It was a special

moment for music fans, who got to see two of the most influential guitar players in rock history trade licks for “Key to the Highway” and Chuck Berry cover “Sweet Little Rock n’ Roller,” with Richards taking lead vocals on both and sounding in fine form.

After a few more guests, the concert finally closed with Clapton leading his band through a smoking set that included the Derek and the Dominoes track “Got to Get Better in a Little While” and Cream classics “Crossroads” and “Sunshine of Your Love.” Clapton’s

playing was at its usual high standard, with his solos’ power and grace demonstrating why he remains such a lauded player. The evening concluded with a group jam on “High Time We Went,” amassing roughly 20 of the night’s players for a euphoric take on the song, complete with alternating solos from each player. The jam was representative of the entire Crossroads festival as it was defined by collaboration, camaraderie and phenomenal musicianship. It tidily rounded out another memorable evening of music.

‘Scandal’ diversity distinguishing factor

SCANDAL

continued from page 5

Courtesy Laurence Barnes via Flickr Creative Commons

Kid Cudi’s newest release contains some golden tracks, including “King Wizard” and “Red Eye.”

‘Indicud’ explorative, musically sound despite predictability INCICUD

continued from page 5

each other’s music, combining Cudi’s pensive and eclectic sounds with a more brash and flippant vibe coming from West. With high-profile collaborators and growing prestige in the industry, Cudi released his second studio album “Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager” to mixed reviews in 2010, shocking fans with the announcement that his newest project would be a rock band called WZRD. Collaborating with famous producer Dot da Genius, WZRD released its first, self-titled, album in 2012. WZRD represented a departure for Cudi from his standard eclectic R&B and rapping background into a more excitable and predictable sound.

Regardless, it is plain to see that Cudi has consistently proven himself to be more than a rapper.

This brings us to Cudi’s most recent release, “Indicud.” After Cudi’s somewhat meteoric rise and fans’ desire for him to prove himself, it seems like Cudi is heading back to the drawing

board, reevaluating his sound and forcing himself to find waste and get rid of it. That is to say, Cudi seems to be expediting his tracks, making sure he is saying something meaningful, personal or new every four minutes. This is an absolutely admirable attempt, one that many current rappers and hip-hop acts should adopt. It doesn’t quite work though. Although the synth is generally tight, the drum and manufactured beats are fairly new and the tracks are easy to love, “Indicud” sounds stunted. For a Kid Cudi fan, listening to this album can most readily be compared to listening to “Man on the Moon: The End of Day” for the first time again. But whether or not you liked “Man on the Moon: The End of Day” is not really the point — the idea is that “Man on the Moon” was released in 2008, and it is now 2013. This is a hard argument to make, because on “Indicud,” Cudi is experimental and avant-garde as always. He is pushing the boundaries in the same way he did in 2008, however, and is experimenting the same way he did in 2008. After

years of experience and collaboration with the best in the industry, the hope was that Cudi would begin challenging his listeners and himself to find, explore and map new and uncharted musical lands. Unfortunately, although “Indicud” is a solid album for Cudi, it can quickly become predictable which, particularly for a rapper, is a bad sign.

Regardless, the album is solid and definitely worth listeners’ patronage.

Tracks like “King Wizard,” a halting and bouncing exploration, and “Red Eye,” which features the amazing electronic stylings of Haim, make the album supremely listenable and compelling.

The best song on the album, however, is certainly “Brothers (feat. King Chip & A$AP Rocky).” The song harkens back to the hip-hop collaborations of the early ’90s, the premier time for wily and unapologetic rapping. This song establishes the rising stars of King Chip and A$AP Rocky as the harbingers of the new generation of rap. And ultimately, Kid Cudi is right where he belongs, at the forefront of this musical evolution.

and Associates, the gladiators have their own set of issues: waterboarding, breakups, secret identities and criminal pasts.

Rhimes’ other shows, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice,” are no strangers to crazy plot twists, but with “Scandal,” Rhimes has perfected the art of show-stopping reveals. They may be ridiculous, but they’re all part of the fun of watching “Scandal.” Rhimes pushes the envelope so far that it’s easy to suspend all disbelief: when a show is named “Scandal,” it’s likely not going to be operating with any sort of subtlety. It’s perfect guilty-pleasure watching.

This aside, “Scandal” features remarkable diversity, a trait that is sorely lacking on nearly every other show on the air today with the exception of Rhime’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” which has featured several interracial relationships, samesex relationships, adopted children and other unconventional family structures.

Washington is the first black female lead in a primetime TV series in 38 years.

The cast features black, Latino and Asian actors. Jeff Perry’s Cyrus Beene is a gay chief of staff to a Republican president.

The vice president is a woman. Nobody seems to bat an eye about any of this.

There has been little press attention over Washington’s lead role, nor does anybody on the show seem to care that Cyrus is gay and Sally Langston is a woman.

Rhimes shows us a world in which each of these possibilities can exist with no fuss or commotion. The America that nearly every other television show depicts is white, straight and androcentric, but here Rhimes has built a realistic cast of characters more diverse and well-rounded than anywhere else on television.

Wednesday, April 17, 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

Editorial | Letters

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Gender reassignment surgery option in new health insurance plan important step for Tufts Tufts is in the process of changing its student health insurance plan for next year to one that will include coverage for gender reassignment surgery.

UnitedHealthcare StudentResources, the new insurance provider, was chosen for its competitive pricing, which will allow for the addition of surgery coverage without significantly increasing the cost of insurance for students. Such a choice is important for the Tufts community. The change, which comes as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Center at Tufts celebrates its 20th anniversary, is significant not only because of the anniversary but also because providing such a service is representative of what we should stand for as a community at Tufts.

Gender reassignment surgery is often

an important step for transgender people who are trying to best express who they are and feel comfortable in their own body. It allows for the fulfillment of a person such that the identity inside is matched completely with the physical nature of that person’s body. Choosing a health care plan that covers gender reassignment surgery is less like covering, say, cosmetic surgery, and more analogous to covering any number of other procedures and prescriptions that help people feel healthy and safe as themselves, such as counseling services and anti-depressants. All of these are methods that help people reach an equilibrium in which they can be happy and comfortable.

Providing a health insurance plan that covers gender reassignment surgery is part of the values that we try to

embody as a university. One of our goals as a university is to provide a safe space for everyone to be able to live freely in their own way. Though we still have a long way to go before reaching that place, covering gender reassignment surgery in the new health care plan is a bold and substantive way of continuing in the right direction. The decision also sends a message to current and prospective non-cisgender students. It lets them know that, even if they don’t choose to undergo any surgery or even sign on to Tufts’ insurance plan, their well-being is important to the university. For that reason, Tufts should be proud to join the ranks of other universities that already cover such procedures, as the Tufts community works toward truer openness and acceptance.

been approved in the university’s fiveyear Capital Plan.

The Kosher Deli will be located inside the Jumbo Express convenience store in the Mayer Campus Center. It will be constructed in the area currently used as a store room for the store and will offer a limited menu of certified Kosher meat sandwiches, entrees and sides. The designer and contractor have been identified, and will begin working together on designing the plans.

As with all construction projects, we need more information before it will be possible to promise when the Deli will open. The timeline for the construction

and start-up of the new deli will be determined by what we find when we begin work in the building, therefore we cannot promise that the space will be ready for use at the start of the fall term. However, we continue to be dedicated to this important initiative and expect to open the new Kosher Deli by mid-semester.

KERAN CHEN

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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, We want to clarify and provide an update on the information that was reported in an April 10 Daily article, as well as in the Tufts Community Union Senate resolution S.13-17.

We are very excited about the opportunity to create a new Kosher food service venue on campus with the Kosher deli.

While we very much appreciate the TCU Senate’s support for the deli and the offer to lend Dining Services the cash to begin the project, funding will come from Dining Reserves and has already

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.

Sincerely, Linda Snyder, Vice President, Operations Division Patti Klos, Director, Dining and Business Services

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Op-Ed Walt Laws-MacDonald | Show Me The Money!

F

JUSTIN MCCALLUM / THE TUFTS DAILY

Moving forward after a foreign reality hits close to home by

Nishant Saharan

Mindless violence exploded on our doorstep this Marathon Monday, launching emotional shrapnel in the form of shock, confusion, sadness and anger into our hearts.

First came the wave of restlessness and anxiety. A barrage of uneasy texts, tweets, Facebook posts and failed phone calls rained on us that afternoon. With so many of our friends running, volunteering or cheering this Marathon Monday, we found it impossible to relax without assertions of their safety.

After the placating reassurances from our friends came the wave of confusion. Like so many at Tufts, I spent much of the day trying to make sense of this wildly unexpected interruption of our American lives.

We expected this long weekend to be a breath of fresh air in our busy Tufts lives, a time to celebrate our special connection with the Boston Marathon either by pushing our physical limits or by giving the runners our support. None of us expected anything like this bombing to happen, not in Boston, not so close to our friends. This attack is perhaps the most prominent act of terror that I can recall since 9/11. It is a type of violence that is not normal for most of us; we expect to go through our daily lives expecting peace and regularity. That this form of violence is so strange and unfamiliar really is an American privilege.

While this attack caught everyone by total surprise, I cannot say the same about the Boston community’s response. From my personal connections with those providing emergency services at the Marathon, I had full and complete confidence in the victims

of the bombing would be given the lifesaving attention they needed. In Boston, we live among the world’s top hospitals and have some of the best-trained first responders.

From Buzzfeed to the Boston Globe, we were bombarded by images and stories capturing the brave actions of EMTs, police officers, firefighters, runners, volunteers and so many more. In this country, we have the comfort of knowing someone will come to help if we find ourselves under attack. This knowledge is also an American privilege.

On Marathon Monday, an eight-year-old boy was killed on Boylston Street. The same day, 32 were killed by 14 car bombs and three roadside bombs across Iraq while Syrian warplanes dropped bombs on Damascus.

The day before, 30 were killed in al-Qaeda affiliated attacks in Somalia and on Saturday a bomb exploded on a bus in northwestern Pakistan, killing nine. The type of attack we experienced on Marathon Monday is an unexpected reality for us, but not an implausible one for some Israelis and Palestinians, Indians and Pakistanis and so many others across the globe. This past year, I spent a considerable amount of time in a corner of the world where the waves of anxiety, confusion and fear that surprised us on Monday were a daily reality and virtually impossible to shake. Fortunately, my U.S. passport gave me the privilege of escaping to safety if a violent attack were to occur, away from periodic pops of gunshots, away from loud military planes and away from the endless curls of barbed wire.

This is a time for us to keep the families of those hurt and lost on Monday in our thoughts and in our hearts. It is also a time for

us to be proud of our community response to this tragedy. We should celebrate our strength and our ability to unite in the face of fear because this sense of unity is truly a privilege so many across the world do not have. As we move forward, we should keep in mind that the fear and anxiety the Tufts community and what the Boston community went through on Monday is an everyday reality in some American neighborhoods and in many countries around the globe. This act of terrorism not only brings us together as Bostonians and as fellow students, but also unites us with the many across the world who experience this violence on a regular basis. As we heal and recover from this attack, we should move forward to create not only a safer Boston but also export our sense of safety and community to neighborhoods across America and all around the globe.

This explosion of seemingly foreign and strange disease forced us to unify as citizens of the world under a common threat. As we heal and work to make Boston safe again, let’s reach out to one another and draw inspiration from the communities that are plagued by this form of violence on a regular basis. We have to remember that, as Americans, we have the power to create a safer world around us. We have the privilege to vote, to speak freely and to train as first responders and keep our communities safe. We have a voice in American military engagements beyond our borders and our country’s international relationships.

Nishant Saharan is a junior majoring in international relations. He can be reached at nishant.saharan@tufts.edu.

Off the Hill | University of Minnesota

Not so funny now

by

Matthew Hoy

Minnesota Daily

In 2009, an online poll by Time Magazine found that Jon Stewart was America’s most trusted newscaster. Simultaneous joy and horror aside, this result is telling in regard to the current state of the news media. When a comedian on a fake news show is the most trusted anchor in America, there is a problem.

This is not meant as a slight against Jon Stewart. I, like many Americans my age, get much of my news from “The Daily Show.” Rather, this observation is meant as a criticism of our more traditional news outlets: CNN, Fox, MSNBC and so on.

It is well documented that the current trend in news media is to move away from investigative journalism and toward interviews and other opinion-based segments. Ironically, in a recent segment on “The Daily Show,” correspondent John Oliver investigated why CNN had decided to eliminate its investigative journalism department. In the segment, media analyst Brad Adgate offers his explanation: This type of reporting is just not

profitable, and so it has no place in modern media.

This is the core of the issue: networks like Fox and MSNBC have shown that profitability comes from having big personalities comment on current events.

It has become more important for newscasters to have an opinion on a topic than to understand it. The result is that every story is contorted into a false dichotomy of right vs. left, liberal vs. conservative.

Take, for example, the perennial hot-button issue of gun control. Outside of the narrative, its fundamental disagreement is relatively simple: Some believe that the safety of innocent civilians is paramount; others believe that the rights defined in the Second Amendment take precedent.

There are legitimate debates to be had about exactly what those rights are and whether they are the superior method of keeping civilians safe, but people often forget that no one wants a madman to murder a bunch of children.

Unfortunately, this debate gets twisted into one between “gun nuts” and “constitutional oath-breakers,” and it leads to ridiculous events such as Alex Jones’ rant on “Piers Morgan Live” or the cur-

rent congressional gridlock taking place between Republicans and Democrats.

We ought to remember that putting a person like Alex Jones on live national television will likely end in insanity and that, of the 535 people responsible for enacting national gun laws, 288 of them — 54 percent — have received donations from the National Rifle Association.

Our news coverage broadly compounds these problems. If people are only exposed to the national discussion through the framework of left vs. right, it follows that they will participate within that framework.

All of this stems from the need for ratings. News organizations strive to create the most entertaining product so their ad revenues are as high as possible.

And it’s pretty entertaining to watch two clearly affected people scream at each other about something that, in the grand scheme of things, probably doesn’t matter all that much.

Unfortunately, its entertainment value does not correlate highly with its journalistic importance. This fusion of news and entertainment is responsible for the rapid decline of the news industry.

Stay gold, Ponyboy

inding any sense of normalcy in the wake of tragedy is comforting in a way that personal connections cannot always provide. As I rode the subway in New York on Tuesday morning, I felt a sense of calm in the hustle and bustle that I knew would not be waiting for me when I reached downtown Boston. The New York Stock Exchange held a moment of silence at 9:20, ten minutes before the market’s open ― and then it was back to business as usual.

Events like the ones that transpired Monday make us hold our loved ones a little closer, smile a little more brightly, and realize the little joys in our day-to-day lives, from cell phones and coffee to hiccups and hickeys.

So for my own peace of mind — and continuing with what hopefully has become a part of your Wednesday morning routine — let’s talk about money.

In a move that began Friday and stretched over the weekend into Monday, gold fell nearly nine percent to $1,345 per ounce. Though it certainly looks good in a necklace and glimmers in a way that my Canal Street watch never will, gold gets most of its value from its philosophical concept, as a hedge against every investor’s worst nightmare: inflation.

To spare you an economics lesson, inflation relates to purchasing power. If $1 today buys you a can of soda, but you need $2 to buy the same can in a year, we say that the dollar has “inflated” 100 percent. Some inflation — around two percent annually — is good for the economy.

Rapid inflation, however, can lead to uncertainty and lending concerns, since the growth of an investment must outpace the inflation rate to break even. Hyperinflation, as was the case in post-Weimar Republic Germany and more recently Zimbabwe, can lead to the breakdown of the entire monetary system of a country.

So what does this have to do with gold?

For most of our country’s history, the dollar’s value was based entirely on gold.

The Federal Reserve banks held — and continue to hold — gold in their vaults, and each dollar in circulation used to be able to be redeemed for a physical piece of gold.

Since the onset of the Great Recession and various Euro Crises, gold has enjoyed a wild ride, surging to an all time high of $1,921 in September 2011, but falling 28 percent since then. Though the global economy has settled down, the recent Cyprus bailout may force the Cypriot and other European central banks to sell some of their gold reserves, increasing supply and driving prices down.

Though some politicians have campaigned for a return to the gold standard — the actual gold standard, not the idiomatic sense — so-called “floating” currencies offer greater flexibility in times of rapid economic growth and decline. If the dollar were tied to gold, the price of a candy bar would fluctuate with every new mining find.

Because of its historic value — several thousand years of demand — gold is largely viewed as a safe haven and store of value within common investments. Its recent surge in value has lead to the creation of numerous gold exchange traded funds (ETFs), the sole purpose of which is to own gold. Though few investors own physical gold in a vault, many have bought into these ETFs or gold mining companies to diversify their portfolios.

Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson lost about a billion dollars from gold’s two-day move, but even such a massive sum of money pales in comparison to the importance of friends and family on a day like today. Call your parents, hug your RA, go for a long walk with that special someone, and be thankful that those who are here are, in fact, here.

And buy gold.

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

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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Comics

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Doonesbury

Crossword

by

Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

Tuesday’s Solution

Married to the Sea

www.marriedtothesea.com

SUDOKU Level: Running on Dunkin’

Late Night at the Daily Tuesday’s Solution

Lily: “Scott Brown is, like, super handsome.”

Keran: “Ooh, I like that.”

Please recycle this Daily

by

Wiley

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

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Sports

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Women’s softball

Tufts completes three-game sweep of Trinity Jumbos continue hot streak with strong games from Clair, DiBiase by

Tyler Maher

Daily Staff Writer

Tufts softball continued its NESCAC dominance over the holiday weekend with a threegame sweep of Trinity College.

The sixth-ranked Jumbos routed the slumping Bantams 11-1 in the series opener on Saturday, scoring eight runs in a sloppy second inning that featured six errors by Trinity’s defense. Junior tri-captain Jo Clair ignited the barrage with a solo home run in the top of the first, kicking off a 4-for-4 performance that also included a double, three RBIs and three runs. Bolstered by the big lead, Allyson Fournier delivered four shutout innings, allowing just one hit to prevent Trinity from gathering any sort of momentum.

Clair, who has caught every game so far this season while doubling as Tufts’ top power hitter, is building a compelling case for team MVP. In addition to leading the Jumbos in home runs and RBI, she has been a rock behind the plate as well as a leading presence.

Senior tri-captain Rebecca DiBiase called Clair a “phenomenal catcher.”

The second game of the doubleheader was far less lopsided, as Tufts scratched out a 3-2 come-from-behind win. Trinity took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third, but Tufts fought back to even the score in the top of the sixth on junior Kayla Holland’s RBI single and freshman Abby Curran’s RBI groundout. Aided by a pair of Bantam errors, the Jumbos surged ahead in the top of the seventh when

sophomore Bri Keenan came around to score the go-ahead run.

Senior Aly Moskowitz, gunning for a complete game, recorded the first two outs in the bottom of the frame but left the mound after an error brought the potential winning run to the plate. Fournier, brought on in relief, dismissed the first and only batter she faced. With the game hanging in the balance, the star sophomore kept her cool to seal the win with a strikeout.

Tufts finished off the sweep with a 6-4 victory on Sunday behind DiBiase’s complete game. Tufts drew first blood on sophomore Kris Parr’s secondinning RBI single, then added four more runs the following inning, two of which scored on a Parr double. But Trinity answered right back with four runs of their own in the bottom half of the frame to trim Tufts’ lead to one.

The Bantams seemed to have DiBiase on the ropes, but missed a golden opportunity to inflict additional damage by leaving the bases loaded to end the inning. DiBiase settled down, remained in the game, and finished what she started by closing out the game. The Jumbos provided her with an insurance run when Clair roped an RBI single to drive in sophomore Michelle Cooprider in the top of the fourth.

The Jumbos are now 25-2 on the season, including a perfect 9-0 against NESCAC opponents.

However, Head Coach Cheryl Milligan maintains that the team must take care of the little things if it is going to keep its

Sofia Adams / The Tufts Daily

The Jumbos outscored Trinity 20-7 in their three-game sweep on the weekend. hot streak alive.

“We will need to be a lot closer to perfect if we’re going to beat the best teams,” she said in an email interview. “We made three errors in the second game and obviously didn’t play our

best D. We have a lot of baserunning to work on as well. We are still a work in progress.”

On Tuesday, Tufts took its eight-game win streak into a doubleheader with Springfield and came out unscathed, tak-

ing a 4-3 extra innings win and a 3-0 victory to extend its win streak to 10.

The Jumbos will take on another doubleheader tonight as they travel to Bridgewater State University.

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Women’s Track and Field

Allen impresses at Brown, Jumbos score wins by

Alex Connors

Daily Staff Writer

The Tufts women’s track and field team traveled to Brown University for the Brown Invitational on Saturday, with the unscored meet allowing the athletes to focus on their individual performances while competing against teams from all divisions across New England. Overall, the Jumbos recorded three first-place and 13 top-five finishes.

As usual, the Tufts fared particularly well in the throwing events.

In the shot put, senior Kelly Allen placed fifth with a throw of 44 feet 5 1/4 inches, while classmate Ronke Oyekunle placed seventh with a throw of 42 feet 5 1/2 inches.

Allen and Oyekunle followed up their success in the shot put with great performances in the hammer throw. Allen placed third with a distance of 160 feet 3 inches, and Oyekunle placed fourth with a distance of 160 feet 2 inches.

But Allen wasn’t done there. Before the day was over, she earned another third-place finish in the discus, with a throw of 151 feet 5 inches, a performance that stands as the best in Div. III so far this season.

Also impressing in Providence were the freshman jumpers, including Caitlin Keenan and Mary Ellen Caruso, who placed eighth and ninth in the triple jump with distances of 33 feet 8 1/2 inches and 33 feet 6 inches, respectively. Freshman Paige Roberts tied for fourth in the high jump with a height of 5 feet 3 inches.

On the track, freshman Alexis Harrison placed ninth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.70 seconds, which meant that she did not qualify for the finals, and seventh in the 200-meter with a time of 26.25 seconds.

“I was happy that I improved my time from the meet before this past weekend” Harrison said. “My performance on Saturday gave me more confidence in the 100-meter. I know that I can do better in my 100-meter and 200-meter times.”

In the distance events, junior Laura Peterson recorded a stellar performance in the 3000-meter, placing 5th with a time of 10:21.13.

The 400-meter hurdles provided another strong showing for the Jumbos, as junior Jana Hieber placed second with a time of 1:02.78, while Sophomore Caitlin Pohl finished sixth with a time of 1:07.13,

Sofia Adams / The Tufts Daily

Junior Bethanne Goldman placed fifth in the Tufts Heptathlon over the weekend at home. and freshmen Marilyn Allen and Hanako Shigenobu placed eighth and ninth with times of 1:08.08 and 1:08.71, respectively.

The Jumbos also recorded two topfive finishes in the 3000-meter steeplechase. Senior Lydia Jessup placed second with a time of 11:43.66, and freshman Alexandra Kiesling placed fifth with a time of 12:33.34.

In the longest race of the day, the 5000meter, freshman Audrey Gould placed sixth with a time of 17:51.36.

“I was happy with my performance in the 5K at the meet at Brown” Gould said.

“I felt good and it was a good experience

for my first outdoor 5K. It wasn’t a PR, but all I was really shooting for was a good enough time to get me qualified for the post-season, so now I still have plenty of opportunities to PR.” The team will travel to MIT this weekend for its last regular-season meet before hosting the NESCAC Championships at Ellis Oval.

“We just have one more meet before NESCACs at Tufts, so next week everyone will by giving their best efforts to qualify and we’ll see who’ll be continuing their season into the championship meets.”

Gould said.

Offense carries Jumbos over UMass-Dartmouth

BASEBALL

continued from back

get the win, was the beneficiary of an impressive offensive display, as junior shortstop Scott Staniewicz and sophomore center fielder Connor McDavitt both had three RBIs. “For me, personally, I’ve been playing much more relaxed than I have in other NESCAC series,” Staniewicz said. “I think the key was just playing relaxed and treating these games like any other games.”

The Jumbos carried their growing confidence into another tight game, which found the teams knotted up at three after nine innings, when the game was forced to be suspended until the following day.

But a new day didn’t slow the squad down, and, in the top of the 10th Staniewicz, with the bases loaded, managed an infield single to score the go-ahead run and give Tufts a 4-3 lead. Sbily then came in for the bottom of the inning to close out the game and secure the victory.

“We knew that Trinity was a team

that gets down easy and loses confidence,” Sbily said. “So our confidence and our momentum kept growing with each game.”

It showed in the final game of the series, in which Tufts was in control from start to finish. Trinity was unable to mount a comeback, as the Jumbos turned a tight 4-3 game into an easy 8-4 victory thanks to a three-RBI performance from sophomore James Howard, finishing off the sweep.

“Trinity came in thinking they were going to sweep us,” Sbily said. “And although we got down at some points, we fought back, and it was great to have that experience.”

To end the long weekend, Tufts played a doubleheader against non-conference opponent UMassDartmouth on Patriots’ Day, winning both games, 4-0 and 12-4. Sophomore pitcher Andrew David tossed a complete-game shutout in the first game, while it was Tufts’ offense that carried the team to victory in the second, with five players notching multiple hits, including three-hit games from Staniewicz and junior left fielder Nate

Izzo.

“We really learned that when we play the way we’re supposed to play and the way we practice ... we can really hang with anybody,” Sbily said.

“We really control our own destiny.

After a successful weekend, Tufts now sits at second in the NESCAC East with a 4-2 record and is riding a 10-game win streak, trailing only 7-2 Bowdoin.

The Jumbos’ fate is in their own hands, as they host the Polar Bears for three games on April 26 and 27.

“Our expectation is to maintain our level of play right now,” Sbily said.

“You can call yourself a good team when you maintain a certain level of play through the season. When you look at our season this year, there have been a lot of ups and down, and you want to stay on a steady incline.”

When asked about the team’s chances at a NESCAC championship, Staniewicz was straightforward about what the team has to do.

“If we keep winning, then it will happen by definition,” Staniewicz said. “We just have to keep winning games.”

Jason Schneiderman | Stoppage Time

Stop The violence

S

ergio Aguero is not a dirty or a cheap player; the Manchester City and Argentine striker is in fact often praised for his fair play and unwillingness to go down easily. He is well-liked by teammates and fans, is one of the hardest-working players in the Premier League and does it all with a smile on his face. That’s what made his horrific challenge on Chelsea defender David Luiz in Sunday’s FA Cup semifinal so shocking.

With City up 2-1 and only ten minutes away from their second FA Cup final in three years, Aguero completely lost his head. After jostling for the ball and knocking Luiz to the ground, Aguero lunged in with two feet, catching the Brazilian in the back. The tackle clearly merited a red card and utterly marred Aguero’s otherwise fantastic performance, including his scoring of the second, eventual gamewinning goal.

Despite the clear severity of the tackle, referee Chris Foy did not have a good view, only calling a simple foul on the play. In the context of the match, no red card was an understandable decision, as referees must be absolutely sure to make a potentially game-changing call so late in an important game. He and his linesmen did not see the play properly and only gave a free kick — fine. However, the day following the game, the casual fan likely would have expected the FA (Football Association) to come down hard on Aguero, who deserved at least a three-match ban for his offense.

Not so, said the FA, who decided not ban Aguero for his tackle.

While on the surface it was very surprising, for those very familiar with the Football Association’s rules and precedents, the fact that Aguero came away with no retroactive punishment was, while disappointing, absolutely expected.

The unfortunate precedent was set one month ago, when a similar incident occurred in an English Premier League game between Wigan Athletic and Newcastle United. Wigan winger Callum McManaman went in for a challenge high and late on Newcastle left back Massadio Haidara, catching him in the leg.

Another clear red card, the extent of this foul was also missed by the officials, who again only gave a free kick for the infraction.

The FA reviewed the incident, and in a few days’ time, they decided that they did not have the authority under current rules to punish McManaman retroactively for his “horror tackle.”

Their interpretation of the rules was that if the referee failed to make a call during the game for the infraction, or if the incident was away from the play entirely, then they could retroactively ban a player. However, if an official does make a call on the field, even if the call is not severe enough for the infraction, then the FA has no power to change the call after the game and, as in this case, give a red card.

Thus, McManaman got off without punishment, and a month later, so did Sergio Aguero.

If the FA hopes to keep the spirit of soccer alive, this is not okay.

There is no room in the game for dirty or dangerous plays. The FA must make sure that they have the power to keep those plays out of, and punish those who deserve to be punished. Currently, they do not have the power, but a reevaluation of the rules this summer is inevitable and necessary.

A rule that allows dangerous plays to go unpunished is antiquated and unacceptable.

I understand soccer purists want to do everything possible to keep video review out of their beautiful game, but allowing reassessment of clear red card offenses hours later will only help keep the beautiful game as beautiful as possible.

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

Sports

16

INSIDE Softball 14 Women’s Track and Field 15

tuftsdaily.com

Baseball

Jumbos sweep two series, putting win streak at 10

by Jake Indursky

Daily Editorial Board

The men’s baseball team put their five-game winning streak on the line this weekend against NESCAC East-leading Trinity College. But with sweeps of both the Bantams and University of MassachusettsDartmouth over the long weekend, the Jumbos continued their hot streak and catapulted themselves back into the divisional title race.

Tufts was in trouble right off the bat, when they found themselves facing a 3-1 deficit entering the fifth inning of a seven-inning Saturday-afternoon game. But, unlike earlier in the season when the Jumbos trailed late, Tufts was resilient and scraped together three runs in the top of the fifth to put themselves up 4-3. They wouldn’t trail for the rest of the game.

“While we started off a little shaky, we stuck with it,” junior tri-captain Christian Sbily said. “Bats came alive, and once we got up on them that game, we kind of rode that wave of momentum to the end of that game, and through the weekend.”

From that point, Tufts was in control, tacking on five more runs for a 9-5 win. Sophomore Kyle Slinger, who pitched five and two-thirds innings to

see BASEBALL, page 15

Sofia Adams / The Tufts Daily

Sophomore pitcher Andrew David pitched a complete-game shutout against UMass-Dartmouth, carrying the Jumbos to one of their five wins on the weekend.

Men’s Track and Field

Ajayi, Jumbos bring strong showing at Brown

by Sam

Gold

Daily Editorial Board

For the second consecutive week, the Jumbos had a two-meet weekend on the docket. A few Jumbos remained on campus to participate in the Tufts Decathlon, an event spanning both Saturday and Sunday, while the remaining athletes traveled a short distance to the southwest to attend the Springtime Invitational at Brown University. And, much like last weekend, the team stepped up to the plate on all fronts.

Just as was the case at the Sam Howell Invitational at Princeton a week prior, the Springtime Invitational played host to teams from all three major collegiate divisions, which once again meant elevated competition for Tufts.

Tufts secured its lone victory in the triple jump, in which senior Gbola Ajayi earned his first win of the spring campaign, as well as NESCAC field performer of the week honor,― the first such accolade of his career, to boot.

Ajayi’s leap of 46 feet 10 inches surpassed that of Rhode Island College’s Craig Amado by only an inch, but it proved enough to top the field of 10 competitors, including both Div. I and Div. III athletes. His furthest jump of the day currently ranks seventh in the nation among Div. III athletes.

“I went into the competition trying to put down some qualifiers,” Ajayi said. “Once I did that with my first jump, then it really was about trying to win and see how well I could do. I definitely wasn’t really worried about fouling or anything like that, just working and going after it.”

Elsewhere off the track, senior tri-captain Curtis Yancy turned in a particularly wellrounded performance, finishing among the top-eight in three throwing events. He took sixth place in the shot put with a throw of 48 feet one and 1/4 inches, eighth in the discus with a throw of an even 146 feet, and eighth place a second time in the hammer throw with a heave of 161 feet 4 inches.

In yet another showing of Tufts’ depth in the throws, sophomore Brian Williamson finished a single place higher than Yancy, in both the shot put and hammer throw, launching the shot put 50 feet 4 inches and heaving the hammer 161 feet 10 inches.

The 5,000 was another solid event for the Jumbos. Juniors Andrew Shapero and Brian McLaughlin finished third and fourth respectively, with times of 15:20.58 and 15:23.67.

Both times were good enough to qualify

for the Div. III New England Championship, scheduled for the weekend of May 2.

Junior Graham Beutler, returning to his more natural event in the 400, clocked a time of 49.74 — one of just eight sub-50-second marks at the meet — to finish fourth. In the 800, sophomore Nick Guarnaccia took home eighth place in his steeplechase debut with a time of 10:12.78. Freshman Veer Bhalla finished eighth in the 800, crossing the line in 1:55.05 as one of just two non-Division I runners to crack the top-eight.

“Going out in 56 [seconds] was really comfortable for me, and I began moving up in the second lap,” Bhalla said. “Going through the 600 in about 1:25, I had more of a kick left in me and that’s what I did, [and] I think I did all I could in the last stretch. I kicked hard, going from about fifth or sixth in my heat to second.”

Back at Tufts, none of the three Jumbos who geared up for the Tufts Decathlon finished higher than seventh place, but the meet provided all three with a welcome opportunity to shake off a year’s worth of cobwebs.

Led by junior Andrew Osborne, who finished seventh individually, Tufts’ athletes combined to finish sixth of the seven teams represented. Sophomore transfer Alex Karys and his classmate Allan Yau also participated, finishing 10th and 12th, respectively.

Osborne, in action for the first time this season, accumulated 5,063 points by the end of day two, with his highest point totals coming in the 100 and the 400.

These, along with the long jump, were the only events in which Osborne breached the 600-point mark. His effort netted two points for Tufts, six behind Boston College and Colby, and eight behind first-place Franklin Pierce.

Karys finished 10th in his career debut in the decathlon, tallying 4,774 points. Karys’s best result was in the high jump, in which he cleared6 feet 1/2 inch on the way to a 661 point effort. He nearly equaled that total in the 1,500, recording a time of 4:43.55 en route to 658 points.

Yau’s score of 4,500 brought up the rear of the field. He scored best in the 400, earning 627 points with a time of 54.31. A hurdler by training, Yau fared quite well in the 110 high hurdles as well, as his time of 17.27 garnered him 596 points.

The Jumbos will hit the track next this coming weekend at the MIT Invitational, their final stop before the NESCAC Championships.

Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

Senior Vinnie Lee ran an 11.33 at Brown this weekend, as the Jumbos turned in impressive performances in a number of events.