The nation's struggle with an ever-increasing obesity rate will take center stage on Saturday at the One Health Obesity Awareness Fair at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton, Mass.
Tufts students can now put their money where their mouths are, thanks to a variety of local food programs that have recently cropped up at the university.
The word is out: If you are an offensive coordinator, your job is not safe. In the weeks prior to the start of the 2009 regular season, three separate teams fired their offensive coordinators. With the first three games of the year now in the books, Todd Haley, Dick Jauron and Raheem Morris might be rethinking their preseason decisions.
Ambassador William Luers spoke last night to a captivated audience on the necessity for engagement between the United States and Iran, offering recommendations on how President Barack Obama can best move forward as diplomacy with the Middle Eastern state continues to prove tense.
After receiving reports of four similar thefts in the past two weeks, Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) officers arrested a man just after 4 p.m. yesterday while he was breaking into a car.
Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser and Health Service Medical Director Margaret Higham on Monday announced a new system for students to report class absences due to short-term illness, encouraging them to avoid class settings in an effort to curb a potential flu outbreak this season.
Peruse the official Web site of the Obama administration and you will find an impressive array of President Obama's position statements. Each policy area includes a sub-section entitled "Guiding Principles," an effort by the Obama administration to help explain when, why and how he came to these positions. On most pages, the Guiding Principles section is rather artfully constructed and contains at least a modicum of thoughtful analysis based on objective reality. The major exception to this rule is found in the section detailing one issue for which Obama received criticism during the 2008 elections, and one which has received less and less attention over the passing months: the Obama tax plan.
The Tufts golf team continues to improve with each passing tournament.
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As her cake-baking business began piling up the catering orders, Tufts alum Lori Sharton (LA '92) knew that she either needed to expand her business and open a real bakery or quit while she was ahead and start something new.
Students left Hodgdon Hall yesterday with sugar cookies in their hands, after turning out in droves to donate blood in the first day of a five-day blood drive sponsored by the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS).
When it seems everyone has an MP3 player of some sort, it's difficult for a new product to stand out from the pack. With the introduction of Apple's fifth generation iPod Nano, however, the company has truly made its mark.
Tufts' newest Greek addition, Delta Tau Delta (DTD) fraternity, will host one of the lost boys of Sudan tomorrow night in an effort to reach out to the Tufts community in nontraditional ways.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is looking to downsize amid financial troubles, and Tufts students could lose their campus post office as a result.
Gray skies and light rain did not deter Tufts' extended family from gathering yesterday on the Academic Quad for the university's seventh annual Community Day.
"Lovely people, lovely places/ I can't remember names and I can't remember faces/ Someone next door's f—king to one of my songs." Regina Spektor's lyrics, like these from "Bobbing for Apples," are a little eccentric, but her originality and unique, rich voice brought devoted fans flocking to the House of Blues in Boston on Monday night. Regina is on tour promoting her newest album, "Far," which was released in late June. The concert opened with Little Joy, a mellow group from Los Angeles, made up of five guys and one girl. Wearing a sundress and exuding a low-key vibe, the female lead singer unleashed her golden, un-brushed locks and drank white wine in between songs. Another band member, decked out in his skinny denim jeans and T-shirt, slightly resembled Napoleon Dynamite (although his huge mustache might make him more of a mix between Napoleon and Pedro). Little Joy performed songs off of their self-titled album, and they were an excellent — no, a perfect — complement to Regina's concert. After a lengthy transition from Little Joy to the main act, Regina finally appeared on stage clad in a black burlap sack cinched at the waist with a belt. Most would resemble a monk with this ensemble, but Regina was absolutely chic. Consistent with the natural, no-frills ambience of the concert, Regina wore no make-up (besides her signature red lipstick) and let her unruly mane loose. She looked like she had just frolicked through a meadow before appearing on stage. Not one to aggressively promote her music, Regina focused on her new album "Far" but gave fair attention to older songs like "Ode to Divorce," "Hotel Song," "That Time" and her famous, semi-pop number "Fidelity." Regina was accompanied by a cellist, violinist and drummer for the first half of her concert. Unlike some ruder artists recently mentioned in the press (Kanye West), Regina introduced, thanked and interacted with her band members throughout the night. Regina played the piano during most of her sets, but also dabbled with the keyboard, a robin-egg blue electric guitar and her infamous wooden chair. To clarify, for the song "Poor Little Rich Boy," Regina simultaneously played the piano with one hand and drummed away at a wooden chair with the other. She passionately referred to her chair as "he" and revealed that "he" has always traveled with her. When Regina sang, she was an elegant, confident artist commanding each and every note. But when talking to the crowd, she transformed into a shy and humble girl, sweetly giggling "thank you" between songs. In addition to the long wait between performances, there was a technological malfunction that interrupted the concert when the speakers stopped picking up the piano. Regina felt so bad that she couldn't help but apologize to the audience at every opportunity. During the technical malfunction, someone called out for Regina to tell a story. Regina smiled, and instead chose to perform an a capella song about eye color. She effectively turned the malfunction into a welcome interruption. As the night continued, Regina became more confident and interactive with the crowd. By the end of the concert, she had completely unleashed her quirky side as she played a horn that her brother had just been given for Rosh Hashanah. After her courageous performance with the horn, she said, "And what do you do after that? Play a country song." And that she did. Ultimately, Regina's concert at the House of Blues was a refreshing, genuine performance. In a time when Britney Spears is considered an artist, Regina's wholesome voice is a gentle reminder of what music really is.
Tufts students looking to upgrade to Microsoft's highly anticipated Windows 7 operating system (OS) are in luck, as Microsoft announced last week that college students will be eligible to purchase the program for $29.99, one quarter of the normal $119.99 minimum recommended selling price. Windows 7, Microsoft's follow-up to the much-maligned Windows Vista OS, is scheduled to be released on Oct. 22. Microsoft launched the student discount promotion through the Web site win741.com, designed to promote the OS to college students. Students need only to have a valid .edu e-mail address to be eligible for the reduced price, which will be in effect until Jan. 3, 2010. Once students enter their e-mail address, they will be sent a confirmation e-mail with instructions on how to purchase the OS at a reduced price. Windows 7 comes in three retail varieties in the United States: Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. College students will be able to purchase either Home Premium or Professional at the discounted price. Sophomore Walker Holahan, a computer science major who has begun using the new operating system, believes that the upgrade to Windows 7 is a worthwhile purchase — especially if it comes at a reduced price. "Basically it strips away all the things about Vista that are bad ... but it also has a lot more features that are more user-friendly than Vista was," Holahan said. "I think [Microsoft] is really pushing for everyone to go to 7 from XP and Vista," he said. Holahan, however, is not sure college students are the ones Microsoft needs to be targeting with its Windows 7 advertising. "I worked with people who are not as computer literate as college students tend to be this summer, and a lot of them are still using XP ... because they had a very hard time switching from XP to Vista," Holahan said. Jeff Bertolucci, a writer for the information technology Web site CIO.com, argues that if Microsoft is truly driven to get XP and Vista users to upgrade, it should make the reduced price universally available. "If you're running Vista on a home PC, you'd really have to loathe your operating system to shell out $120 for Windows 7. I suspect that most consumers won't bother. As usual, they'll wait until they buy a new PC before upgrading to the newest version of Windows," Bertolucci wrote in a blog entry. Even though Microsoft would likely make less money selling Windows 7 at $30 in the short term, he wrote, "the positive buzz generated by a low-cost upgrade would help in the long run ... Good PR could go a long way." Microsoft is not the first software company that has offered a considerable discount to college students. Adobe offers large student discounts on all its Creative Suite 4 (CS4) products, such as Flash, Photoshop and InDesign. Students can also find smaller discounts on computer hardware from the likes of Dell, HP and Apple. Some believe that Microsoft's reduced price for college students is an attempt to match the price of Apple's popular new 10.6 OS, Snow Leopard. According to the NPD Group, a retail sales tracking firm, Snow Leopard sold twice as many copies as Apple's 10.5 Leopard OS and four times as many as its 10.4 Tiger OS during their respective first two weeks on store shelves. A large part of the brisk sales can be attributed to the fact that Snow Leopard launched at an unprecedented low price of $29 for a single user pack and $49 for a five-user family pack. Previous Mac operating system upgrades had been priced at $129. One has only to look at any gathering place on campus to see that Apple computers are more popular among Tufts students than their worldwide market share of about three percent would suggest. According to a 2008 report by Investment Bank Morgan Stanley (now Morgan Stanley Smith Barney), 40 percent of students polled said that their next computer purchase would be a Mac. Aside from similarities in price point, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are both seen as relatively minor upgrades to their predecessors — their main selling points are improvements to performance and usability. Still, Preston Gralla, a writer for ComputerWorld.com, points out that Microsoft and Apple have taken different approaches to their new operating systems. "[Microsoft] didn't dramatically change the under-the-hood plumbing in Windows 7; however, significant interface changes and features were added," Gralla said in an article comparing the two operating systems. "Apple, on the other hand, focused its efforts largely on internal plumbing." Students — and all other consumers — who purchased a Windows PC after June 26 will be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7 on Oct. 22. Microsoft also offered a $50 pre-order promotion during the summer. Students who use the promotion, however, will not be refunded the $20 difference. Even so, deciding whether or not to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista has a new factor to consider.
General David Petraeus, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, spoke yesterday at the Cabot Intercultural Center during a luncheon sponsored by the International Security Studies Program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. A question-and-answer session followed the talk by Petraeus, who commanded Multi-National Force-Iraq for a year and a half ending in September 2008.
As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Tufts students were hand-delivering letters to local legislators' offices, pushing for a stronger stance against Iran's nuclear ambitions. The campaign is a collaboration between students from Tufts, Harvard, Brown, Brandeis and Boston Universities to push their representatives in Congress to support a bill authorizing the president to levy economic sanctions and other penalties on foreign firms that sell, ship or insure gasoline and diesel fuel to Iran. Across these New England schools, the organizers rallied students to sign letters addressed to their political representatives. The campaign condemns the Iranian nuclear program and supports the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 (IRPSA) as a means to respond to Ahmadinejad's speech to the General Assembly. A bipartisan group of 27 senators introduced the IRPSA on April 28. The act aims to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions by implementing sanctions on all foreign entities that sell refined petroleum to Iran. A corresponding measure has been introduced in the House. "In the past, [students] would march and send a delegation to New York, but we wanted to do this letter-writing campaign as an activity with much more visible results," said sophomore Aaron Tartakovsky, who led the mobilization effort at Tufts. The chief organizers of the campaign, including Tartakovsky, met over the summer at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, D.C. and stayed in touch afterward. Last week, they decided to respond to Ahmadinejad's visit and rapidly mobilized to rally support. "We wanted to prove that a grassroots organization of students can make a big difference," Tartakovsky said. Tartakovsky and sophomore Julian Jaeger, who assisted in the effort, delivered the letters on Wednesday to the offices of Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Tartakovsky estimates that they collected more than 200 signatures from Tufts students over three days, while across the involved campuses organizers collected a total of about 2,000 signatures. The letter to Markey served as a thank you in appreciation of the fact that he had already signed on to the legislation. Junior Hannah Leshin, who also worked on the campaign, felt that the gesture of appreciation was important. "We are telling congressmen that we do listen and that we do care," Leshin said. "We are indicating that it is important to us that he signed this bill." Markey expressed his support for both the IRPSA and the students' initiative. "I commend the students at Tufts University for getting involved in an issue as important as nuclear nonproliferation," Markey told the Daily in an e-mail. "I have long fought against the spread of nuclear weapons and I believe that [the IRPSA] will help support diplomatic efforts by the United States to put compelling international pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program — a program that is clearly aimed at developing a nuclear weapons capability. I sincerely appreciate the students at Tufts for their interest in this critical issue." Kerry has yet to throw his support behind the IRPSA, according to Tartakovsky. The letters to him petitioned for his co-sponsorship of the legislation. "We are showing him that there are concerned Americans and Tufts students who want to work with Congress to ensure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons," Tartakovsky said. "The substantial number of letters make it clear that there is a very strong voice behind this. "Whenever a large constituency of students in the region you represent demands action, there's bound to be a result," he added. But senior Alex Akhavan, the vice president of the Persian Students Association, said that he has mixed feelings about the sanctions, especially when he thinks of family members in Iran. "It's a tough issue, because, yeah, I do have family in Iran, so I obviously don't want the whole economy to stumble and affect people that I care about," Akhavan said. "But I don't support the regime, and hopefully the silver lining of it could definitely be more pressure on the regime or maybe more people coming out against the regime, basically like what we saw this summer," he added, referring to the protests that followed Iran's controversial presidential election in June. James Kennedy, co-leader of the Institute for Global Leadership's New Initiative for Middle East Peace, said that sanctions are generally ill-advised and more valuable politically than economically. "I tend to think that usually Congress passes sanctions for causes like this because of domestic pressure," said Kennedy, a senior. "Going against Iran is a cause that will sell in a lot of constituencies." But even though sanctions will continue to antagonize Iran, Kennedy thinks the IRPSA's specific approach of attacking foreign businesses that deal with petroleum might prove uncommonly effective. The organizers of the letter-writing campaign were motivated by a conviction that an Iran with nuclear arms would pose a great threat to the international community and would disrupt the geopolitical balance. "It's a really big deal on an international scale," Jaeger said. Should an attempt to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons fall through, he said, "it will pose a problem not just to America and Israel, but to all the countries in the region as well." Tartakovsky added that the Iranian government's crackdown on the populace following the country's June presidential election provided further reason to impose sanctions on the regime. Leshin, Jaeger and Tartakovsky said they received very encouraging responses as they canvassed for signatures. They also saw their initiative as an opportunity to educate people. "For the most part there was pretty widespread support for it," Tartakovsky said. The three Tufts organizers considered the campaign a success, pointing to media coverage — on college campuses and abroad — and the sheer number of signatures collected. "I think it's a great outcome," Leshin said. "Students want to see Congress stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Thousands of letters were signed, which is not something that happens every day. It will have a significant impact." The trio hopes that the campaign will have served as an example of how students can exert influence on lawmakers. "People are proud to support a grassroots campaign when they see how even as students we can have such a great impact at such a high level," Jaeger said. "We are giving people a voice and a chance to make a difference. Even if they don't know much, they are very happy to learn about it."
