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First they came for the French fries...

March 2

First, McDonald's rolled out new "gourmet salads." Then, it opted to use real white chicken meat in its McNuggets, instead of the congealed meat product of before. Now, the company is poised to strike down a fundamental right of American gorging -- the super size meal. In the span of a few months, many fast food chains are offering healthier options. Burger King, Subway, and Hardee's launched "low-carb" Atkins burgers and wraps. At many Wendy's outlets, patrons ordering a value meal can substitute a small salad for French fries. The moves come at a time in which the painfully obvious but overlooked American obesity problem is taking center stage. A recent report put the cost of obesity in the US at $75 billion, and a whopping 60 percent of Americans are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control. International health officials are accusing the US of exporting its obesity problem overseas through junk food. Some have taken to calling the chains "Big Food" and even envision lawsuits and settlements similar to those leveled against the tobacco industry a few years ago. A few members of the World Health Organization have even proposed advertising restrictions and special taxes. It seems like the laughable 2003 lawsuit might be at least part of the impetus behind the rapid menu changes. In the case, a man alleged McDonald's caused his children to become obese by failing to warn him the food was unhealthy. The case was dismissed but has been reincarnated this year as a false advertising lawsuit. While holding McDonald's responsible for obesity is absurd, the legal action sent a shockwave through the fast food industry. Its no wonder Big Food is nervous. But however ridiculous the lawsuits were, it is high time the fast-food restaurants critically analyze the nutrition of the foods they prepare, and at least offer healthier alternatives. Fast food, right or wrong, is a staple of the American diet. While the fact that Americans choose to eat unhealthily is by no means McDonald's fault, fast food chains have a real opportunity to help people make healthier choices. Dropping the super size option from menus may be another effective step in that direction. Studies indicate that as restaurant portions have increased, so have the servings Americans serve themselves both at home and away. Larger portions train us to eat more, and this is a clear factor in the rising obesity trends. The chains that are offering attractive options should be applauded for their efforts. Even so, the death of the Super Size menu is bittersweet. Obscene portions -- epitomized by the Super Size option -- have long been a staple of what made America great in the world. First they came for the French fries, what will they go after next?

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News

Men are from Mars?

March 2

Everyone remembers that day in kindergarten when Johnny dropped his pants, whipped out his thing -- it was the day we came to the startling realization that boys and girls were different. No longer were we able to look at each other as just other kids, we started to differentiate between little boys and little girls. What boys did for fun, and what girls did for fun. Who did, and who did not, have cooties. By the beginning of high school, ten years later, we had solidified our belief that men and women were so different that the sexes must indeed be from different planets. And nowhere were those differences more pronounced than in the way the two sexes regard sex and relationships. As girls, we're trained to break men into two categories: our fathers, and all other creatures with a penis who will do anything to jump into our panties, only to leave us feeling cheap, used, and abandoned. We are taught that guys want two things: to have sex and to stay single. Even in the face of mounds of evidence that reject these stereotypes, the belief that men are polygamous nymphos is one that many of us hold dear to our hearts. On some level, girls believe and accept that men want nothing more than to get off, but this is certainly not true. If this were the, guys would go to bed alone to jack off to guarantee himself an orgasm. If all a guy cared about was cumming, it wouldn't make sense for him to take the risk of hooking up with a girl when there is no guarantee that the encounter would include any type of orgasm inducing activity. And yet, not only are men willing to take this risk, but they go out of their way to take it. They approach us, buy us drinks, and make fools out of themselves on the dance floor. And they do this because their desire to be touched by another human being is stronger than their desire to ejaculate. For girls who are taught to believe that the penis is the axis around which men's worlds revolve, it's hard to grasp the idea that men enjoy sex because they like being touched. It's difficult to imagine that men opt for a hook up over masturbation because deep down, they just want to be spooned. We tend to assume that physical contact with another person is a strictly female need -- but it's not; it's a need that is human. Our denial that men and women have similar needs in the bedroom parallels our denial that men and women have similar needs with regards to relationships. We assume that a hook-up will end in only one way: the girl is going to look for a serious commitment, and the guy is going to strategically avoid the ball and chain that is having a girlfriend. But despite our conception that men are constantly trying to avoid relationships, studies of married couples indicate that husbands are significantly happier than their wives. And when a relationship ends, it's the men who have a more difficult time picking up the pieces. Given the pleasure that many men find in relationships, it's bizarre that we think of guys as defeated, "pussy whipped" and less of a man once they commit to a girl; as though having a girlfriend is analogous with getting neutered. But because we see men as the relationship gatekeepers, we too often settle easily and quickly for whatever guy is willing to settle down. We allow ourselves to commit to a man who, though he may lack brains, looks, or personality, is willing to commit to us. This is because we accept the belief that men that are emotionally distant, unstable, or overly jealous. And because we believe that "boys will be boys." The realization that men are people does not come easily... it's a process. But just as we learned to let go of boys in punk bands, guys in football jerseys, and other high school obsessions, I think we can let go of the notion that all men are sex crazed assholes. We should give men more credit, and recognize that many of their needs and desires are not so different from our own. This is not just to stroke men's egos, but to allow us to raise the bar on the type of man we are willing to date, and how we expect to be treated by them.

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News

Rounders for real

March 2

"You know what always cheers me up?" "Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, 'where the sand turns to gold.' Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over." -- "Rounders" This is the life of professional poker players: touring casinos worldwide, playing in tournaments with thousands of dollars at stake while calculating the odds of the strength of their hands -- all without breaking a sweat. At least, that's what the people at the Travel Channel would have you believe. The second season of "World Poker Tour" premieres tonight, when the series opens at the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City. The latest televised sporting trend is not NASCAR or Arena Football, but No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Even though the World Series of Poker has been televised on ESPN for many years, the game has become the hot craze in the past year since the premiere of "WPT." Hardly a night goes by when there isn't one card game going on around campus. Whether the stakes are nickel or dollar chips is irrelevant: no one can resist the anticipation of what will come from the shuffle of the deck. The Bravo network tried to cash in on the trend with its throwback series, "Celebrity Poker Showdown." Yet the show was never really about good card playing but more about washed up celebrities. "World Poker Tour," however, is the real thing. For two months, follow host Shana Hiatt and commentators Mike Sexton and Vincent Van Patten around the globe, to locations such as Paris, Aruba, and even the exotic Foxwoods, as they present the world's greatest poker players. Each week, "World Poker Tour" focuses on the winner's table of that episode's tournament. Amateur and professional players alike converge on the tables with pitch black sunglasses and their own assortment of visors and lucky charms. The riveting action of a normal poker table is magnified exponentially considering the massive stacks the players are fooling around with are worth tens of thousands of dollars, not your regular fifty-cent/dollar stakes. For those unfamiliar with the game at hand, the commentators do a laudable job at explaining its workings in addition to pop-up graphics explaining poker lingo. By the conclusion of just one episode, you'll be able to discuss what it's like to be "on the button" when facing the "river" and not catching your "inside straight draw." Poker will no longer seem like a ridiculous waste of a gambling addict's money; instead it will be revealed as a great game of skill and acting. The televised poker revolution was largely enabled by the introduction of tiny Bond-esque cameras that spy on each player's cards. With that information, Sexton and Van Patten can provide the odds of possible hands and read the player's bluffs or slow-plays. These two are an astonishing resource, giving tips on how to play poker like the real sharks. Travel Channel does an especially exceptional job of producing the World Poker Tour. By displaying graphics showing each player's hands, his odds of winning the pot, and the amount of many he's thrown into the middle, each television viewer knows more about the turn of each card than each competitor at the table. The network knows its audience well too - it cuts to a commercial break right before the dealer flips over the climactic card. If there's a negative about "World Poker Tour," it would be the one aspect the show can't control. Come 9:55 p.m., you know the program is about to end and a winner is about to be declared. You know who has the majority of the chips, and any drama from the eventual "all-in" raise is lost because you'll know that the poorer player cannot possibly win. Alas, not everything can be perfect in poker. Just look to your housemate who's lost $35 in poker in the last week. The game is an addiction, not to mention the show.

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News

Sumiyoshi no stranger to national scene

March 2

When you've logged the kind of pool hours that senior Mika Sumiyoshi has, the laps have to start feeling monotonous. For much of the winter, the Christmas lights that adorn the tile inside the Hamilton Pool area might provide entertainment for a backstroker, but swimming facedown strokes requires more desperate measures. For Sumiyoshi, and for many other swimmers, singing during practices has become a habit. "I definitely try to keep a tune in my head," Sumiyoshi confessed, laughing. "But I [also] always try to focus on something in my stroke, to make it better. I pay attention to my stroke a lot when I'm swimming." The more serious of these practice-time thoughts are certainly the most illustrative of how seriously the senior takes her sport. A captain, Academic All-American, school record holder in four events, four-time All-NESCAC and All-New England team member, four-year NCAA Championship qualifier, and two-time All-American, Sumiyoshi has only reached her current level of success because she has an extraordinary work ethic to match her extraordinary talent. "Mika's just a committed, determined athlete," coach Nancy Bigelow said. "Obviously she has a great feel for the water and she's very talented, but you have to have that passion. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't apply it..." Sumiyoshi, who was born in Japan but grew up in Branford, Conn., has certainly applied herself to swimming throughout her four years in Brown and Blue. She currently owns school records in the 200 individual medley (IM) (2:07.99), 400 IM (4:30.58), 100 backstroke (1:01.59), and 200 backstroke (2:08.85). Sumiyoshi is also ranked among the top three Jumbos all- time in the 500 free, 1000 free, and 200 breaststroke, and is in the top six in five other events (50 back, 200 free, 100 IM, 100 butterfly, and 200 butterfly). According to Bigelow, Sumiyoshi has swum in 70 dual meet races, and won 67 of those. However, she has never lost by much. The time margins by which she has lost add up to less than one half of a second. The most impressive aspect of Sumiyoshi's Tufts swimming career has been the incredible breadth of her success. Her versatility, best displayed in the individual medleys -- grueling events that involve swimming equal distances of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle -- has made her an invaluable team member. "In a dual meet, she can swim absolutely any event, and that is rare," Bigelow said. Sumiyoshi's outstanding collegiate campaign will culminate next week, when she travels to her fourth-consecutive NCAA Championship. According to Bigelow, who has coached at Tufts for 21 years, she has only seen about ten of her athletes manage such a feat. At the three-day competition, which will be held March 11-13 at Principia College in Missouri, Sumiyoshi will swim in the 200 and 400 IM's as well as the 200 breaststroke. With her personal records in both the 200 IM and the 200 breaststroke coming just a week and a half ago at the NESCAC Championships, Sumiyoshi appears to be peaking at the perfect time, which will make her a major threat in Missouri. "I definitely want to win if I can," Sumiyoshi said. "I don't know if that's possible, but that's basically my goal." Sumiyoshi's most realistic shot at a national championship is in the IMs, where she is seeded third in the 400 and fourth in the 200. She swam both those events, along with the 200 backstroke, in her three previous NCAA appearances, but has never swum a breaststroke event at Nationals. After racing breaststroke more often this season than in the past, Sumiyoshi opted to make the post-season switch, and enters the 200 event seeded 21st. "My backstroke hasn't been great this season, so I just decided to try breaststroke," Sumiyoshi said. "It's been going well for me." Bigelow expects Sumiyoshi to do well at NCAA's, but is most concerned with seeing her athlete leave happy. "I just want her to be pleased with her swims," Bigelow said. "I think she's already far exceeded what she ever thought she could do in the 200 IM. In the 400 [IM], she really wants to go under 4:30. I think no matter her place, if she could do that, she'd be really thrilled and happy." Sumiyoshi does hope to improve upon her past performances, though. Last year, she was named All-American for a fourth place finish in the 400 IM, and also took ninth in the 200IM. This year's field is fast but will be relatively young, she said, which makes it more unpredictable. Bigelow agreed. "There's a lot we don't know," she said. "But we do know Mika's going to do a great job, because she's a competitor. No matter what place she's in, she's going to go out and give 150 percent like she does every time. She wants to go out with a big smile on her face." Sumiyoshi's familiarity with NCAA's and her previous success at the national level may put her at an advantage over some younger or less-experienced athletes next week. "My freshman and even my sophomore years, I was really intimidated,'' Sumiyoshi said. "Now, I've gained a lot more confidence. I've learned to trust myself and my swimming a lot more. So much of swimming is mental that I think it's definitely going to affect my [results]." Bigelow called her star "focused," and said that at the NESCAC meet last week, Williams coach Steve Kuster asked her how Sumiyoshi had trained differently this year. "I told him two things: Mika was healthy this year [she suffers from severe asthma], and she didn't want to lose," Bigelow recalled. "There was really no difference in her training, but the not wanting to lose, along with the mental toughness, is what put her over the top." While Sumiyoshi certainly made a splash from day one, Bigelow has watched qualities like her mental toughness develop just as much as her swimming abilities over the last four years. This final culmination of Sumiyoshi's talent, experience, and determination could make the difference for her at Nationals next week. "I'd say Mika's grown into her swimming," Bigelow said. "She has matured a great deal as an athlete, and just finding that confidence in yourself...that's what distinguishes between someone being good or great."

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News

Shower incident disturbs lacrosse team

March 2

An unknown male allegedly exposed himself in the locker room shower after the men's lacrosse team practice last Wednesday. According to the police report, at 5:55 p.m. a student reported that an older male had dropped his towel, exposing himself. The suspect then began fondling himself. At that point the student ran out of the shower and alerted a campus security officer, who then called the police. The police interviewed another younger male who witnesses saw conversing with the suspect before the incident. The younger male, however, denied any connection to the suspect. "The field interview didn't indicate a particular reason for their connection," said Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) Sergeant Doug Mazzola. "The man claimed the two had met casually in the shower," Mazzola did, however, have reason to suspect the two were connected. After the field interview the younger man was then asked to leave and told he would be arrested if he returned to the grounds on charges of trespassing, Mazzola said. "The younger man had apparently come to the gym to use the shower," he said. The older male who allegedly exposed himself was never apprehended. Mazzola said that though incidents like this do not occur frequently, there is still a risk. "The reality is incidents like this do occur, particularly in athletic areas," he said. Because the incident occurred in a shower, Mazzola said it can be hard to distinguish between typical shower behavior and what can be considered lewd behavior. In general, this is elucidated through interviews with the victim and alleged perpetrator. "You have to be particular in how to interview the victim; it depends on what both the witness and victim say," he said. Mazzola added that there are certain indicators which help clarify an incident. He cited conversation prior to the incident, or if the alleged perpetrator approaches the victim from behind as examples of possible indicators. * Mark Philips

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News

Veteran defense returns all but one starter

March 2

After losing only one defender to graduation in 2003, the Tufts men's lacrosse team returns a core group on defense ready to improve on last year's showing. Last year, the Jumbos allowed 9.12 goals per game, good only for seventh in the NESCAC, but clutch performances in key games displayed promise for the future. Tufts' sole loss on defense was one of last year's tri-captains, Mike Morley. Morley, who appeared in 16 of the Jumbos' 17 games, starting in 15, was a defensive captain and team leader who will certainly be missed. But Tufts is looking ahead to its defensive future. Matt Malatesta, a midfielder and senior tri-captain, is well-aware of the strength of those returning this season. "Losing players always affects a program," Malatesta said. "But we have a strong nucleus to build on from last year." Among those returning is fifth year defender Dave Richman, a second-year tri-captain. Richman started in 16 of the team's 17 games last season and anchored the defense alongside Morley. The 2004 season will mark Richman's fourth as a defensive starter for Tufts. "Richman is a very important player on the team," coach Mike Daly said. "He's an integral part of our leadership and defensive presence." Returning to the Jumbo back line alongside Richman is senior Jesse Miller, who also started all but one game last season. Rounding out Tufts' trio of senior defenders is Charles Savicki, who also has plenty of experience to his name, including four starts in 2003. Richman, Miller, and Savicki have combined for a total of 128 games played over their Jumbo careers. The sight of three experienced and intelligent veterans in front of him will certainly be a welcome sight for junior goalie Luke Chicco, a returning 2003 starter. In last year's 8-7 victory over Wesleyan in the NESCAC semifinals, Chicco need to make only six saves, thanks largely to the work of his defenders. Look for more stingy performances from the Jumbos in 2004. With so many players returning for Tufts on both halves of the field, expectations are high going into their 2004 campaign. Malatesta is aware of what his team is capable of accomplishing. "We expect to play to our potential this season," Malatesta said. "We finished second last year, and you can move up or down from there. We want to move up."

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News

Griffin looks to lead team to another year of success

March 2

Bryan Griffin can only get better. Last year, the attackman garnered two of Div. III lacrosse's most heralded awards, winning both NESCAC and New England Player of the Year. He started all 17 games for the Jumbos at attack, leading the squad in all three major statistical categories with 41 goals, 23 assists and 64 total points. Most importantly, he scored game winning goals in Tufts' two playoff victories last season, a 14-13 win over Bowdoin and an 8-7 upset of Wesleyan, leading the team all the way to the NESCAC Championship game. And this was all as a sophomore. Griffin looks to come back strong for his junior campaign and try to lead the team to another NESCAC Championship game and a berth in the NCAA tournament. "We certainly have the tools this year, and as of now we're looking even better than we did last year," Griffin said. "It's just a matter of pushing each other." Griffin will be one of the team's main offensive options, and his teammates will look for him to command on and off the field. "We look to Bryan as one of the leaders on the team just because of the way he plays and how good he is," senior tri-captain Tom Mulcahy said. "We're looking for him to be one of the best attack men in the country. "He's working really hard to have a better season than he did last year, which will be hard to do after his performance last year," Mulcahy said. Coach Mike Daly agreed. "Griffin is a really great player because he is so full of leadership, so full of hard work, so full of dedication to the game," Daly said. "We don't want Bryan to do anything more than he's doing other than to maintain where he is." However, due to his success last season, Griffin expects his role on the team to expand due to opposing teams defending him earlier and with more pressure. "I think I'm definitely going to be a goal scorer," Griffin explained. "But at the same time, people have a better idea of what I'm doing this year so my passes will have to be better. I'm going to look to hit open sticks and make my teammates better because the slide is going to come earlier this year." As of now, Griffin can only improve his skills and has worked hard all throughout the off season on both his goal scoring techniques and his field sense, both of which will help him distribute the ball more effectively when defenses double team him. "Griff [Griffin] is such a hard worker, he always goes over and above my expectations," Mulcahy said. "A lot of people don't see it, but with how hard he works, I definitely think he still can improve and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he did top last year."

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News

Taylor, Clarke, Malatesta form offensive core with Griffin

March 2

The Tufts men's lacrosse team can be compared to a Happy Meal: it is fast, full of energy, well respected, takes various forms, and usually packs a surprise for its opponents. After establishing itself as one of the most dangerous teams in NESCAC, Tufts is looking to improve upon last year's success. Sophomore Bryan Griffin was the Hot Wheels toy in last year's Happy Meal as he was named the NESCAC and New England Player of the Year. No Happy Meal, however, consists only of a toy car. Senior David Taylor sizzled like a batch of fresh Freedom fries last season, scoring 28 goals with 50 points and 22 assists rounding out the deadly one-two attack up front. Taylor earned a NESCAC All-Conference Second Team selection last season and rounded out the up-front attack with Griffin. Yet Freedom fries are nothing without a good setup of ketchup and special sauce. Junior Devin Clarke and sophomore Mike O'Brien, both midfielders, were invaluable last year, and will continue to dish out delicious setups to the attackers. Clarke, last year's third leading scorer, had 36 points in 2003 on 22 goals and 14 assists. Though the deadly attack combination of Griffin and Taylor are the fireworks display up front, Taylor knows it is the whole offensive that leads to the team's success. "I feel like our offensive personnel compliment each other very well," Taylor said. "Each player brings a different type of threat to the field and really puts the pressure on the defense to figure out who to concentrate on." Senior tri-captain Matt Malatesta holds the midfield together, excelling at face-offs and scoring 14 goals last season. He also leads the team with his intense competitive attitude. "Malatesta sets the tone for us from a competitors' standpoint," coach Mike Daly said. "He is definitely the tough guy of our team." Tufts' main losses on the offensive end were last year's fourth and fifth-leading scorers, Chris Kollar and Alex Kerwin, both of whom graduated in 2003. Kollar, an attackman, had 28 points on 14 goals and 14 assists. Kerwin was one of last year's tri-captains and played midfield. He totaled 22 points on 15 points and seven assists. The Jumbos should have no problem filling the holes left by last year's departed seniors. They have three freshman attackmen and five first-year midfielders that will have plenty of opportunities to contribute to Tufts' offensive force. While Malatesta and company will certainly miss their departed teammates, they are confident in the players that remain and in the new talent coming in. "Every team is different and no matter who you lose, there is an element of personality and a dynamic you lose with it," Daly said. "Our goal is to replenish those personalities. We have a great group of seniors... I feel like our freshman class could be the most talented we've ever had."

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News

Rash of prank calls unnerve female students

March 2

Several female students may be thinking twice before they pick up their campus phone the next time. Prank telephone calls have increased on campus this year, according to TUPD. Between September 2003 and February 2004, the Tufts University Police Department received 17 reports of annoying telephone calls, an increase from last year's 11 over the same time period. TUPD currently has no leads on any suspect. Of the 17 total reports, 14 of the calls were placed from unknown male callers to female students. Only one male student reported an annoying phone call, which was placed by another male. Of the 14 reports of females receiving unwanted phone calls from unknown males, the callers pretended to know the victims eight times, according to TUPD Lieutenant Sonya Rodrigues. Many of the calls were reported in January, though the majority of the 17 incidents were reported last October, according to TUPD records. "There was a rash of [prank calls] when we first came back from semester break," TUPD Captain Mark Keith said. Several of the calls were from males who claimed to be named Brian. Freshman Katya Shevchuk said the person who called her claimed to be named Brian and said he knew her "from class." He then changed his story and said he was from Boston College and met Shevchuk's roommate at a club. "The stories kept changing [and] he gave different names to different people," Shevchuk said. Freshman Jamie Swanson, who also received a call, said "he kind of gets the classes and [your] name out of you." Swanson said the caller did not identify his motive. "[It's] not anything sexual, he didn't ask to meet up or anything. It doesn't worry me, it's just kind of distracting," she said. "I guess he just gets a kick out of talking to random people." A female freshman, who received three calls, said at first the caller did not identify himself. "He told me that I 'caught his eye' in class," she said. "I was really confused and fed him all this information, and he confirmed it. He didn't know my name." The caller eventually identified himself as Brian. The freshman female requested to remain anonymous to prevent future prank phone calls. All but two of the reported calls were sexual in nature, and callers used different schemes in placing their prank calls. "Some of the callers indicated they were from some magazine, doing a questionnaire," Keith said. Out of the 15 sexually-natured reported calls, five involved a caller who claimed to be conducting a survey for a psychology firm or Cosmopolitan magazine. While the calls proved an annoyance to some students on campus -- especially females -- there were "no actual threats," Rodrigues said. "It was pretty much harassment. [The calls] were mostly sexual in nature," said Rodrigues. TUPD could potentially take legal action against a perpetrator, but not until after the first offense. If TUPD identifies a suspect, the Dean of Students Office also can punish a student caught placing harassing phone calls. If a Tufts student is found to be responsible, the punishment will depend on the nature of what was said during the call, Judicial Affairs Officer Veronica Carter said. Rodrigues suggested that students might avoid such harassment by making "a very generic [voicemail] greeting -- one that doesn't really tell whether females live in that room or not." In order for a person to be charged with criminal harassment under Massachusetts State Law, there must be "a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress," according to M.G.L. Chapter 265, Section 43A. The reported incidents at Tufts do not fit into that category yet, according to Rodrigues. "Three or more calls is what [the department] looks for in order for a criminal complaint to be filed," she said.. According to Massachusetts law, a person convicted of criminal harassment may be punished by up to 2.5 years in prison, a fine of $1,000, or both.

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News

Parisian people-watching

March 2

My first day in Paris, I took a stroll along the Champs Elys?©es and was disconcerted to realize that everyone was looking at me. Was my fly unzipped? No, though I'm often a little forgetful in that respect. Was there something on my face? I stopped in front of the first mirrored surface to check. What I know now is that I was merely experiencing the non-stop tendency of the French to look -- full-on stares from men and women are the cultural norm here. This phenomenon became painfully apparent when I enrolled in a cross-country class on the other side of the city, forcing me to commute wearing -- ?§a, alors! -- doughty sports clothing in a city of very fashion-conscious people. And due to a cruel accident of geography, my bus stop is located on the other side of the Champs Elys?©es, forcing me to cross the street midday wearing sneakers and running pants that make a swish-swish noise when I walk. The stares of the passersby are hardly bearable -- I hurry home, eyes glued to the ground, hating the French. One of my fellow runners from Germany suggested that we wear signs around our necks saying "I just went running!" to explain our dearth of chic. Unfortunately, the French would probably not consider this a suitable excuse. "It's true, the French like to look," said Julie, one of the French members of my running team, when I told her about my predicament. "In London, you could get on the metro in your nightgown and nobody would raise an eyebrow." Such attire in the Paris metro would result in many raised eyebrows and probably some worried murmurs along the lines of, "Mais, c'est pas du tout correcte." The French like to people-watch so much that on the outside terraces of caf?©s, literally all of the seats face the street -- conversation has to be made side-by-side instead of face-to-face. These same terraces are warmed with heat lamps in the winter so that people-watching can continue unhampered by chilly temperatures. It's the French national pastime -- a sport that has no season. The particularly Parisian desire to see and be seen is nothing new -- the famously ostentatious Louis XIV created large people-watching environments in the city before moving the most interesting people to Versailles. He installed the first Grand Boulevard, a broad-sanded walk lined with four rows of trees that extended from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Parisian streets had previously been muddy messes churned by carriage wheels or stinking cobblestone alleys run over with human and animal waste. The Grands Boulevards were therefore quite an improvement. The inhabitants of Paris could finally stroll about without stepping in something vile, and ladies' dresses were much less likely to trail through the puddles common to the age before plumbing. The boulevards' popularity soon created a new social scene, dominated by the 19th-century version of ladies-who-lunch and by young dandies known as boulevardiers -- still defined in the Random House Dictionary as a "man about town." Contemporary Paris' version of the Grands Boulevards is surely the Champs Elys?©es, the wide stretch of concrete that is the site of my weekly post-cross country shaming. The Champs begin at one furious roundabout at Place de la Concorde and end at another at the Arc de Triomphe. Both are dizzying forums of automotive daring governed by the principle that he who cares least about damaging his vehicle has the right of way. But cars, buses, and scooters slow to a more measured pace on the Champs Elys?©es, where they obey the traditional signs of traffic regulation -- green light means go, red light means stop, flashing yellow light... well, I'm not quite sure, but that one seems to mean go as well. But the most exigent traffic regulation has do with not smashing pedestrians -- one often sees motorists grow panicky wondering if the ambling crowd will ever break long enough for them to clear the crosswalk. The throng is thickest on the weekends, of course, especially during the post-dinner-pre-clubbing hours when the sidewalks are literally choked with people. Standing back for a moment to people-watch ?  la Parisienne, one feels like an ornithologist identifying the different species by their call and plumage. The kids yakking noisily by the metro -- girls in tall heels and tight pants, boys in super-fashionable jeans -- are clearly here from Spain, looking for a nightclub that will probably disappoint them by closing before sunrise. The stately, well-dressed, older couples are French, on their way to see a late movie or just here for a stroll and an overpriced coffee. But the avenue really belongs to young people, today's boulevardiers and boulevardi??res, who check each other out more boldly and flirt more unabashedly as the hour grows late. Standing back, having a cigarette, and scrutinizing the Champs -- the French national pastime, accessible to all.

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News

What type of world order do we want?

March 2

When the Americans invaded Iraq, the international community wondered what type of world order we wanted for the future. It seems to me that this question still exists today, almost a year after the beginning of the war. This suggests that the Americans need to think about this question more seriously, and debate with their European counterparts over the new world order. Americans and Europeans debated thoroughly whether Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world order, and whether the best way to confront this problem was war. The majority of Americans responded "yes" to both questions. However, the European majority responded that Saddam was not a direct threat to world peace and in no way was the war the ultimate and best solution. These disagreements reflect that the debate over Iraq was about two different world visions. The differences over Iraq were over the first principles of international affairs. I believe that Americans and Europeans do not only disagree over the role of international law and international organizations, but also over the legal basis for any international action. As German Chancellor Gerhardt Schr?¶der put it, "America is very different than Europe." This reality is even more evident today. In a time when the threats and crises progress so rapidly, these differences can have horrible consequences. What happens when these differences deeply affect the transatlantic relations of the Liberal West? In the realm of international relations, the majority of liberal scholars would argue that liberal democracies do not have the motives to question the legitimacy of each other. Every conflict in the past managed to divide the West from the rest of the world, but never managed to split the West itself. In the case of the American invasion in Iraq, it is doubtful that this hypothesis is valid, since the doubt of the legitimacy of the action has divided Americans and Europeans today along with their respective visions of world order. The majority of Europeans today, for the first time since World War II, question the legitimacy of the global leadership of the United States. In my opinion, Europeans today want a more important role in world affairs and in the U.S. exercise of power. I believe that Europe -- provided that it receives this enhanced role -- can offer the legitimacy that the United States lacks. The Americans, on the other hand, do not want and cannot discard this proposition. The invasion and the reconstruction of Iraq without help from Europe have not been so far a pleasant experience, although it might eventually succeed. It is true that the United States is a hegemonic power in today's world. However, to be able to address global threats, America needs the legitimacy that Europe can provide and that Europe may deny to grant. In a world where threat comes from networks (like terrorism), and not specific countries, it is very important to maintain a common world vision between Americans and Europeans. One cannot fight against a network or an organization with the same means as against a specific country. Europe has an important role of checking and restricting the extent of an American power that is in danger of exercising more authority than it is entitled to. The contribution of Europe is important for maintaining the balance of power in the international system. Theofanis Exadaktylos is a senior majoring in international relations and economics

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News

Religion, raunch, and the Red Sox

March 2

He grooves to rappers like the Wu Tang Clan. He curses. He drives erratically. But upon entering the synagogue chapel for services, senior Joshua Pressman knows that it's time to get holy. Pressman, who is President of Hillel, the University's student-run Jewish center, has devoted himself to Judaism ever since he attended sleep-away camp Tel Noar at age ten. Pressman remembers his six summers of Friday night Shabbats at Tel Noar with a special fondness: "After dinner, there was singing, dancing, and celebrating," he says. "I felt such a sense of connection, of belonging. In those moments, I was overcome by love." As president of Hillel, Pressman aims to facilitate that sense of connection and love between other students at Tufts. While he deems religion to be a guiding truth, Pressman also recognizes that other things are important in life -- like baseball. "I eat, sleep, and breathe the Red Sox," Pressman said as he sits down to lunch at Hotung Cafe. True to his Boston roots, Pressman rolls his eyes when asked about the Red Sox's rival team, the New York Yankees. "I f*cking hate the Yankees," he says. Pressman is quick to add, however, that his animosity towards the Yankees does not extend to their fans. "I don't hate the Yankees fans," Pressman says. "Just the Yankees themselves. I get really pissed off when people don't make that distinction." "Another thing I've discovered," Pressman says, "is that my overall productivity is directly correlated with the Red Sox winning and losing streaks. For example, after the Sox lost the first game of the playoffs last season, I was so angry that I could barely function. But the next game, after they won, I got all my work done and was feeling great. I could do anything." Pressman's can-do attitude brings a breath of fresh air to his executive board meetings at Tufts Hillel. Many students assume Hillel is only for those who are very religious and of a certain orthodox mentality. Pressman's self-described "offbeat" sense of humor, however, helps to put even skeptical and reluctant students at ease. Senior and Hillel board member Laura Israel remembers Pressman playing a practical joke to set the tone for the upcoming year under his leadership. "There was a new girl on the board who had never been to a meeting before," Israel recalls, laughing. "So on the agenda, he added 'opening blessing' and called on this new girl to offer everyone her personal prayer. So we sat for a while, waiting for her to begin the prayer while the girl just sat there speechless, absolutely mortified." Pressman has been showing his playful side since his sophomore year. "He'd run around his dormitory naked on occasion," Israel adds. "One time he came into my room wearing just a jock strap. He would strut around nonchalantly, sit himself down at my computer, and start up a conversation." Though not quite as surprising as his showing up in nothing but a jockstrap, Pressman's musical taste doesn't fall within stereotypical religious leader parameters. He is an avid hip hop music fan who enjoys jamming to everything from the Beastie Boys to Q-Tip. Dressed in a royal blue ribbed sweater and wrinkle-free khaki pants, Pressman is not exactly a dead-ringer for Eminem. Nevertheless, he says that he is no stranger to the New York City night-club scene, where Pressman and his friends have upon occasion stayed out dancing and partying until dawn. "I would consider someday living in New York," Pressman says. "But then, I could never live in a place with that many Yankees fans." Pressman hopes that serving as President of Hillel and leading its 37-member board will help him in future endeavors. "In my wildest dreams, I would love to manage a multinational corporation," he says. "That's my vision -- and in fact," he adds, grinning broadly, "just today I took an online personality test which classified me as the 'executive' type." An economics and political science major, Pressman is currently researching multinational corporations and writing a thesis on foreign direct investment in South America, focusing on two regions: the MERCOSUR and the Andean Community. The concept of foreign investment first sparked Pressman's interest when he took a class on transition economies with Assistant Economics Professor Karen Eggleston. After writing a research paper about foreign investing, Pressman felt that he had found his calling. In an attempt to combine his interest in investing with his Spanish-speaking skills, Pressman decided to focus his studies on Latin American countries, and his interest grew from there. "Eventually, my goal is to take some risks and invest fairly large amounts of money in foreign corporations," he says. Pressman also plans to invest money in more altruistic ways. "My mother has impressed upon me the idea of being generous and charitable, known as being tzekek in Hebrew," he says. "Tikkun Olam in Hebrew means to repair the world." To Pressman, such ideals serve as a personal commitment. "It is sort of a natural step for me," says Pressman. "Judaism has helped me to become my own person -- now I want to give back somehow." To achieve his goal, Pressman hopes to start his own charities and, in turn, contribute as much as possible. "One day, I'd like to see the Pressman Family Hillel Center," he jokes. "Now that would be the storybook ending to my career."

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News

WMFO is an individual spirit against commercial radio

March 2

The tedium of American Idol crooners, Abercrombie pop punk, and the general teen-o-tainment dominates popular radio. In the words of Sebadoh's lead singer, Lou Barlow, "Just gimmie some indie rock." Tufts' WMFO free-form radio is here to the rescue. Broadcasting on 91.5 MHz, WMFO offers solace and refuge from the blandness of the Clear Channel radio empire. Since hitting the airwaves since 1970, WMFO has been wooing on-campus and community listeners ever since. WMFO gives DJs ultimate control over the songs and musings they play. With over eighty weekly shows for listeners to tune into, the freeform format allows for diverse sounds to reach listeners "The latitude of the freeform format allows us to basically play anything we want," Junior Alex Chassin, Training Director and Assistant General Manager at WMFO, said. "It's definitely worth a listen every time you pass it on the dial, just to see what's on, because it could be anything -- from white-boy rap to indie rock to 70's raregroove to underground dance." "Students should listen to WMFO, because we provide an awesome alternative to the drivel and dreck that is commercial radio," Chassin said. "If anyone is tired of hearing the same five songs 24 hours a day for three months, then they should listen to WMFO." Indeed, in these dire post-grunge times, we have come to realize that all a band needs to do in order to be embraced by the masses is slam a guitar and repeat the same hook over and over. That, or croon with relentless warbling ?  la the "divas" and "divos" that "American Idol" features. Tufts students and surrounding community members, however, have been fighting the good fight against bland hooks and over-exposed pop stars during their weekly WMFO timeslots. One example was sixteen year veteran Mikey Dee. His show featured live local bands that would come into the studio to play a 45 minute set and then talk on air with the him every Wednesday night from 9-12. Tragically, over the summer WMFO lost Dee when he passed away after a long illness from complications due to surgery. Another long running show, "Hardcore Heroes" on Monday nights, has been on-air for over five years. The Hardcore Hero DJs are former Tufts students, still in the area and still active with WMFO. "No U Turn" radio has been on for many years with an alternative news radio show that features speeches from people like Horward Zinn and Noam Chomsky. Other WMFO favorites aren't as easy to define. "Promethean Jazz" is hosted by Hank Faunce who, as Station Manager Emily Ryan explained, "plays jazz and tells stories about hanging out with all the musicians when they were young. He also does some hilarious political commentary." In the future, WMFO hopes to increase its power output from 125 watts to 250 watts, to grace even more enthusiastic listeners with its eclectic collection of music and commentary.

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News

MFA provides financial fodder for starving artists

March 2

In 1891, French painter Paul Gauguin, destitute and in debt, left his wife and five children in poverty to flee to the tropical paradise of Tahiti, where, by all accounts, he had copious amounts of sex with the beautiful native women there while producing some of his greatest artwork. In light of Gauguin's extended vacation, the Museum School's Traveling Scholarship Program offers a less dubious alternative to burgeoning artists looking to find inspiration abroad. The scholarship, which can be worth anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 before being split amongst the winners, not only goes far in covering travel expenses but also gives its recipients the distinct honor of having their award-winning work displayed a gallery away from Gauguin's in the MFA. Besides their artwork's physical proximity to each other, the 2003 Traveling Scholars have little in common save for a degree from the Museum School: four of the winners were once Tufts students in the dual degree program with the Museum School, while other winners received a fifth-year certificate from the art school. The works of the 2003 Traveling Scholars range from traditional-minded paintings and photographs to multimedia pieces that demand engagement from the audience. In this latter category is Maria Vasconcelos' "Quag." A commentary on "contemporary culture's obsession with beauty, pleasure, and excess consumption," "Quag" is a foot long sheet of toxic-colored plastic that drips off its pedestal onto the clean museum floor, forcing wary onlookers to tip-toe around the sculpture less they lose a foot in its fluorescent muck. Perhaps the exhibition's most ambitious piece is Mary Oestereicher Hamill's "regarddisregard." Hamill gave camcorders to homeless Bostonians and allowed them to film their world for a day. Hamill then hung the resulting rolls of film from the ceiling of her gallery space to form a prison-cell of celluloid bars. When visitors enter the cell to see what the homeless men and women have filmed, a surveillance camera broadcasts their image to a television screen on a public street frequented by the homeless. Other pieces aren't as complicated as Hamill's but are just as interesting. Riyo Hirota used her metalworking experience to create eerie, lifelike creatures out of metal plates that look as if they are about to jump to life and claw out the visitor's eyes. Speaking of ocular damage, Esperanza Mayobre's "Cleansing Vision" is a honeycomb structure filled with what look to be deflated eyeballs. Hidden on the back of one of the sculpture's cells is a small epitaph explaining the work: "Her eye began to grow and grow until it fell down. The doctor said oxycontin for the pain. Then I asked, what can I have for my soul? After a couple days the other eye fell down but there was no more money for the drugs." Heidi M Marston's photographs aren't nearly as grave as Maybore's piece. They instead are clever, quirky explorations into her place in the world. One, "Desires, Pre-Packaged" is a photograph of a model of the gallery where the artist's work is displayed, complete with miniature recreations of the other photographs on display and a toy soldier stand-in for the viewer. Boru O'Brien O'Connell's photographs are equally idiosyncratic. One, "Self-Portrait with Family", takes the theme of the family portrait and turns it inside-out with a particularly un-happy looking family and an uncanny floral pattern. There is also something equally out of place but hard to pin down about Jaya Howley's paintings. The paintings themselves look to be right out of a children's book with their depiction of nature in flat colors and thick brushstrokes. But Howley's version of nature belongs to a child's fantasy as well; in one, a mountain lifts on a hinge to reveal a village hidden underneath and in another, a tunnel of dirt snakes through the otherwise normal wilderness. David Palmer's heady swirls of thick blue paint are the exhibition's most abstract work. The paintings, all named after women, stand at the other end of the spectrum from Benjamin Draper's work: finely wrought portraits of blank-faced friends and acquaintances in the tradition of Edgar Degas and Gerhard Richter. Somewhere between Palmer's formless swirls and Draper's detailed technique, lies the work of Eirene Efstathiou and Chung Shil Adams. Efstathiou creates Polaroid-sized paintings that recall an out of focus filmstrip, while Adams combines hazy pencil sketches with fuller, more realized paints. The works of the 2003 Traveling Scholars will be on display until March 14, when presumably they will have long ago left the country to find their own Tahiti.

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News

Why Carrie Bradshaw?

March 2

Two Sunday's ago (2/22), one of the most prominent cultural icons of our era came to an end. I am referring of course to the finale of the HBO series "Sex and the City." However, the ending left me feeling greatly dissatisfied, and I would like to write this viewpoint to express my grievances. Spoiler Alert. Don't read on if you intend to watch the finale at some later date. First of all, let us look at the three supporting characters: Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte. Miranda learns that love is about making sacrifices, Samantha learns that love is not all about sex, and Charlotte learns that love is not all about appearances. While this may be an oversimplification, the point I'm trying to make is that they all learn something and grow from their experiences. Which is good. But when we come to Carrie, we discover something that is not good; Carrie remained as a static character and seemed not to move onto the future, but back into the past. She learned nothing significant from her experiences, unless one were to count the extremely superficial "oh, Petrovsky just isn't right for me" lesson. And yes, Petrovsky was meant to have been unavailable, to have guilt tripped her into missing her party, and to have accidentally hit her in the face, but these are all rather minor incidences if Carrie's feelings for him were strong enough for her to sacrifice her life in Manhattan in the first place. And thus I can only surmise that Carrie was not aware of her own lack of feelings for Petrovsky and went along with Petrovsky for reasons unknown. And then there was Carrie's long exposition to Petrovsky about how she's seeking the "can't bear to be without the other person" love. Now, this is obviously untrue. I distinctly recall an episode in an earlier season in which Carrie was dating this addict who was addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Eventually he became addicted to Carrie and was obsessed with her, but Carrie dumped him. Therefore, I suspect that there is an unsaid condition in Carrie's concept of love: "can't bear to be without the other person kind of love unless the other person is not rich or not attractive or is otherwise unsuitable as a mate." Which seems rather mercenary, no? But the thing that infuriates me the most is Carrie's lack of independence. I have always believed that in the finale Carrie would make some grandiose gesture to express her newfound independence from men. Instead, she abandons her life to be with a guy, refers to herself as a "Russian girl," and willingly abandons her own party to be at a function with a guy. Abandoning her life (Petrovsky could have abandoned his life for her instead) and referring to herself as a "Russian girl" are undoubtedly signs of her lack of independence (maybe even her lack of self-esteem). She sees herself not as "Carrie Bradshaw," but as "the girlfriend of (insert name of person she's dating)" -- not as an independent human being but as an accessory to another human being. This is similar to how when Carrie broke up with Big, one of the reasons she mentioned was his reluctance to introduce her as his girlfriend. Some people may contend that Carrie abandoned her party not because she's being dependent, but because she's being nice. To that, I must say that she could have interrupted Petrovsky at any time to ask him if he'll be fine before proceeding to her party late. Rather, it seems to me that she wanted Petrovsky to hold her hand and bring her around as if she were a living piece of jewelry he's wearing. And as a further example of her passivity, she sat on the benches to wait instead of admiring the art or introducing herself to the people there. This brings me to Big, a.k.a. John. The Big character is amazingly perfect. He's handsome, caring, rich, and always there (such a level of perfection is highly improbable). It's almost as if some higher power has predestined Big and Carrie to be together. And a higher power in the form of a scriptwriter did. The unfortunate thing is that in real life, a girl is not going to meet Mr. Super Perfect by being as passive as Carrie. Let's face it, she basically did nothing: it was Big who 'miraculously' kept bumping into her. It's like an ending straight out of a fairy tale. So I have shown my reasons for thinking that Carrie is an insecure, whiny, and clingy girl who has never grown up. But why is this necessarily bad? "Sex and the City" was a highly popular show that almost all urban and suburban women used to watch. Most of these women identify with Carrie, or even think they are Carrie. As such, Carrie's fate was of great social concern because what happens to her will subtly influence the subconscious of a lot of people. Because of this, the series' producers had a moral obligation to provide an ending that was not so detrimental to women's concept of themselves. After all, the series was supposed to be somewhat feminist and was supposed to present independent women, so it was inappropriate to have a main character who thinks of herself as a passive piece of vagina. A possible counter to my dislike of Carrie Bradshaw's objectification of herself is that I'm just a guy who is against women who are comfortable with their sexuality. However, I would like to point out that a woman who is comfortable with her sexuality is not necessarily independent. Carrie's objectification of herself is different from Samantha's objectification of sex. Nor do I see how my personal prejudices, if any, could deny the reasons I have stated above of their validity. If this is all that the series had to offer, I think "Powerpuff Girls" on Cartoon Network is a better feminist series. The Powerpuff Girls don't objectify themselves, nor are they subservient to any male (except perhaps the Mayor, but he's being controlled by Ms. Bellum). And most importantly, the girls there don't think of themselves as "the Professor's Girls." Richard Huang is a junior majoring in Quantitative Economics.

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News

Daly sports extensive success at Tufts

March 2

Men's lacrosse coach Mike Daly bleeds brown and blue. What else would explain the Tufts "T" tattoo on his leg, or why he decided to coach a sport he had never even played after dominating as a player on the Tufts football and baseball fields? Daly took the reigns of the struggling men's lacrosse program in January of 1999. Though he had never actually played the sport, Daly learned the game as a graduate assistant coach before moving up to the head coach position. Pride in his alma mater and a little bit of luck brought the then 26-year-old Daly to take the job. "I had such a great and positive experience here as an undergraduate playing sports... and fell in love with lacrosse as a grad student," Daly said. "It just kind of spiraled from there and things had a neat way of working out." The team had floundered in the two previous seasons before Daly took over, going 1-13 and 2-12, respectively, in 1997 and 1998. With little support from the administration, lacrosse was in trouble and Daly was just the man needed for the rescue. Upon taking his new job, Daly had one goal in mind. "I had such a positive experience as a player and I didn't feel strongly that the lacrosse guys were getting that experience at that time," Daly said. "I wanted to make sure our athletes received the attention they deserved and to offer them a positive experience [like mine]." Daly has since taken the program to a whole new level and gained the deserved attention of the Tufts community. With a school record-breaking 12 wins and second place NESCAC finish in 2003, the Jumbo lacrosse program finally has come together at the hands of one of the school's alumni. Daly graduated from Tufts in 1995. He won the Rudolph J. Fobert Award for most outstanding multi-sport athlete during his tenure on the football and baseball teams. Daly had 84 catches for 1425 yards and 11 touchdowns as a receiver and helped take his baseball team to the 1995 NCAA national tournament as the starting centerfielder. "Daly was an outstanding player for us," baseball coach John Casey said. "He was always a real tough, hard nose player. He's a winner and has brought that to the lacrosse program. He has always cared about Tufts and has become a very good lacrosse coach by working hard and caring about his kids." Daly has taken these winning ways and applied them to the lacrosse team. At the beginning of this, his sixth season as head coach, Daly has led his squads to 41 wins over five years. This success rate well eclipses that of the previous five years in which the lacrosse teams won just 25 games. "The fact that we have accomplished our goal of giving guys not only a positive, but a life changing experience [as well as building] a program that is now considered as one of the best in the country is my proudest moment as a coach," Daly said. In 2000, Tufts won nine games and earned an ECAC tournament berth. The team also won bids into the inaugural NESCAC tournament in 2001 and again reached the playoffs in 2002 and 2003. Daly's young career reached new heights last season as he brought his improving squad to the NESCAC championship game against Middlebury. For his efforts, Daly was voted New England coach of the year by his peers. His initial reaction to this honor was not one of joy, but of modest pride. "[Receiving the award] was very humbling," Daly said. "Something we don't really talk about as a team is individual effort. My immediate thought was that the players and assistant coaches had more than a lot to do with it." This season, Daly and assistants Pat Cain, Nate Tucker and Dan Kollar will all look to take the team to even greater success than during its school record-breaking 2003 campaign. As for the tattoo on his leg, Daly looks back to his days as a student when his Tufts pride first began. "As an undergrad, [my friends and I] were thinking about getting tattoos," Daly said. "I guess that was where my loyalties were. My dad told me I would regret it. I don't regret it."

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News

Professors' average age increased over last decade

March 2

Tufts is sprouting grey hairs. In the 2002-2003 academic year, approximately 12 percent of Tufts' tenure-track and tenured faculty were 65 years old and older, and 25 percent were over 60. Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences Susan Ernst said this year's figures are nearly identical. Trends at Tufts reflect figures across the nation. According to the Higher Education Research Institution at UCLA, 36 percent of full time faculty across the nation are 55-years old or older today, compared to 24 percent in 1989. With the possibility of professors staying into their fourth or even fifth decades, Ernst said Tufts administrators seek to find a "balance between senior faculty and new faculty with new ideas." "We are hiring new faculty every year," Ernst said. "As an evolving [institution] with new ideas, young people is part of where we're going." Simultaneously, Ernst emphasized the essential role that older faculty play at a research university like Tufts. "People can be well into their sixties -- or more -- and still be at the top of their field," she said. "The quality of teaching [and] productivity is not proportional to age. [Senior faculty] provide lifetime learning and keep alive that institutional memory a university needs." One reason for the increased number of older professors is the 1994 amendment to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 which prohibited colleges from enforcing mandatory faculty retirement at age 70. The number of tenured professors in the School of Arts and Sciences has not changed since the 1994 amendment was passed, Ernst said. Professors Sol Gittleman and Robert Gonsalves, in their 40th and 41st years respectively, are still considered two of the University's most well-respected professors. Gittleman first started teaching on the Hill in 1964 and was a member of the German, Russian and Asian Languages Department until 1981, when he was named University Provost. He remained in this position -- second only to the President -- until 2002. Today he holds the Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professorship and teaches the "Introduction to Yiddish Culture" class in addition to advising 30 freshmen and several independent study majors. Gonsalves has been a professor for 41 years -- the last 19 of which have been spent at Tufts. He first arrived at the University in the fifties and graduated in 1956 with a degree from the same department in which he now teaches: electrical engineering. Though Tufts has changed from a small New England college to a well-known research institution since senior professors such as Gonsalves and Gittleman first arrived, such faculty say they remain up-to-date on educational and technological advances by attending conferences and publishing their work. "So many of our senior faculty are so full of energy -- they are excellent researchers and good scholars," Ernst said. "They have definitely been able to evolve with the school." As Gonsalves phrased it, "an old dog can definitely learn new tricks." In 1993, a then 60-year-old Gonsalves' patented a "phase retrieval" application which helped NASA astronauts fix an optic flaw in the Hubble Telescope. Gittleman and Gonsalves do not seem worried about the increasing age difference between the self-professed "old dogs" and their students. "Today I am 51 years older than my freshman advisees," Gittleman said. "There's definitely an [age] gap but you work through it. When you spend your life with young people, you never grow up." Gonsalves, like Gittleman, feels that the widening age gap between him and his engineering students does not affect his teaching. "There is no difference in the way I connect with the students today than how I connected with them when I first started teaching," he said. Ernst agrees. "In general, senior faculty are very involved [in the University] -- sometimes even more so than their younger counterparts," she said. Gonsalves has two journal applications that will be printed this year while Gittleman is working on the third volume of The History of Tufts. However, some professors are concerned that as they age, they may not realize that their classroom abilities are gradually becoming impaired. "It's part of senility to not believe it when it's happening to you," 73-year-old Harvey C. Mansfield, Kenan Professor of Government at Harvard, told The Harvard Crimson. "Being old is not great. Things start to go wrong and you don't always notice it." Still, student feedback for Tufts' older professors seems to be positive. "I prefer older professors because they have more experience and know where they are going with their teaching," junior Jean-Baptiste Turpin said. Students gave Gonsalves the 2000 Liebner Award for Excellence in Teaching and Advising in recognition of his continuing efforts. Like the students, younger faculty also appreciate their senior colleagues for their experience. Assistant Professor of Chemistry David Lee arrived at Tufts just a year and a half ago, fresh out of his post-doctoral studies at MIT. "I really enjoy having the older professors around -- they are a reservoir of knowledge. I go to them for everything from advice, to how to set up a lab and how to teach," he said. For Gittleman, the feelings that come hand in hand with teaching are still brand new -- even 40 years later. "I still get nervous before every class," he said.

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Journalist gives firsthand experience of Iraq

March 2

After eight days of imprisonment in the outskirts of Baghdad, Newsday journalist and author Matthew McAllester had gotten closer to the war in Iraq than he ever imagined. "Unpleasant as it was, my experience didn't even scratch the surface of the suffering of the Iraqi people," McAllester said to both undergraduate and graduate students gathered in the ASEAN Auditorium at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy last night. McAllester read an excerpt from his latest book, "Blinded by the Sunlight," which described the horrific nature of the beatings he and his cameramen from Newsday witnessed while in the jail. Iraq is one of the few countries in the world that is known to openly attack foreign journalists, McAllester said. After the reading, McAllester changed the subject of the lecture to discuss the various practices of law in Iraq. The current law system of Iraq "is actually very comprehensive and focused, but its application by Saddam made it the terrible thing it was," McAllester said. The two most important forms of law to emerge in post-Hussein Iraq -- Islamic law and tribal law -- are also of concern to the United States and other Western nations. "These two law systems are meant to retard the spread of democracy and the ability of the Iraqi people to be socially mobile," he said. "Under [Islamic law], when the Grand Ayatollah Sistani says 'jump,' everyone does," McAllester said. Sistani, the leading Iraqi Shi'a cleric, recently added to the constitution a provision that women may represent up to 25 percent of the government. However, this is a greater percentage than any Western government. Tribal law uses a court process and is typically a means to settle violence and conflict between members of the various tribes. When members of one tribe have been murdered or injured by members of another tribe, a tribal court is often called, where a monetary transaction is made for crimes committed. McAllester listed many faults of the tribal court system. It refuses to represent women, who make up 60 percent of the Iraqi population. It also "rewards age over education, so a 35-year-old educated man is inferior to a 70-year-old carpenter," he said. Although tribal law is not directly mentioned in the Quran, "it is echoed throughout," McAllester said. International law and Kurdish law have more minor roles in Iraq, and McAllester described these laws as "a little haphazard." McAllester cautioned that even though there is an ongoing battle to help the Iraqi people establish a democratic government and justice system, "[some Iraqis] will say to me, 'You know, I miss the law and order,'" from when Saddam was around. He said that there is still hope, though. "In spite of all this, and despite today's carnage, [the situation in Iraq post-Saddam] has bolstered my enthusiasm because the majority of the Iraqi people seem to grasp the concept of democracy." According to McAllester, "It's not a complex ideology, and they really get the concept of voting for someone and then being able to vote them out if they don't like them." Though violence is still rampant in and around Baghdad, with two severe bombings on Monday, McAllester said the people remain dedicated to improving the safety of their city. He told a story of how he witnessed civilians beaten by Iraqi police one day, but after talking to the beaten men, he learned that they really wanted to become police officers themselves. "They told me that they wanted to help the safety of their country -- it gives a lot of hope, and I think it comes from experiencing 35 years of hell," McAllester said. "When there are more Iraqi police around, the overall representative government is much greater than in the rural areas." According to McAllester, "Very few Iraqis would say that they preferred when Saddam was there. You can't even grasp the awful nature of this, and I've been in some terrible places. This was just off the charts." McAllester said there is a growing acceptance among the Iraqi public that the American troops are not leaving soon. "The Iraqis understand, however, that the United States is here to stay, but it's no longer an issue if you're for or against the war. Everyone in the world has been sucked into this conflict." The audience reacted approvingly to McAllester's speech. "I thought it was remarkable because this was the first time I've heard of anyone from the West speak about being in Iraq." Fletcher student Dipali Mukhopadhyay said. "He seems to have a great connection to Iraq, with his knowledge of society and his friends in Iraq. He was just so articulate."

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News

Inside Fitness: The Nutrition Edition

March 2

"I've been in the weight room for a while, trying to put on some weight before next football season comes, but I just don't think I'm getting enough protein in my diet. Can you give me some pointers on what to look for when selecting protein-rich foods?" -- Jeff Smart, wide receiver, University of New Hampshire football team Great question Jeff. Many people working out a lot but fail to eat the proper amounts and types of protein to reach their weight goals. Based on current research, it is recommended that athletes (highly active people) consume between 1.5 and 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Sedentary people need less, about 0.8 g per kg of body weight. People who are moderately active should consume an amount somewhere between these two extremes. A "high-quality" protein can be described as one that provides the body with proportionate amounts of the essential amino acids (the nine out of 20 your body cannot synthesize on its own). These proteins come from all of the meats (chicken, fish, beef, etc.) as well as eggs and dairy. Basically, all proteins of animal origin are considered high-quality. A "low-quality" protein, on the other hand, lacks one or more of the nine amino acids from the "high-quality" protein category.. Examples of these proteins are foods such as grains, beans, and vegetables. Basically, proteins of plant origin comprise this classification. To get the most out of your diet, incorporate more animal protein and less plant protein. However, if you're vegetarian, it is important to select a variety of foods so that you can obtain all of the essential amino acids throughout the day. Soy protein is the best out of the low quality proteins foods. In addition, protein supplements, such as protein shakes or protein bars can be used to complement your diet. These supplements are engineered to contain all of the essential amino acids, so they can serve as a good protein source. But I would recommend doing additional research before shimmying down into those waters. In addition, I would not suggest replacing a quality meal with a protein supplement; nothing is better for your body than a well-balanced meal. "I'm living off campus this year and the food situation sucks. I'm not eating healthy and I'm lazy. What should I do?" -- Joe Schipani, class of 2005 Well, you've completed the first step: realizing that you have a problem. Trust me, it's tough living off campus, but there is usually a way to eat well even in your situation. Yeah, it's true that it's not always easy to eat well during college. However, if you're really concerned about it, you'll do what it takes to work towards eating a healthier diet. If you have a meal plan of any sort (points or meals), that's good. Living at college, you're not always going to have time to make something from scratch or even make a quick lunch for that matter. Instead of ordering out or eating a frozen dinner, take a trip to one of the dining halls or other locales and pick up something that's healthier and tastes better. If you're running around all day, stop by one of the places on campus and pick up a sandwich or a healthy snack. You'll be more apt to pick up something healthy if you force yourself to go places where there's "proper food" available. Or, if you have some time, make something at home. Drag your lazy self out to one of the supermarkets around here (Star Market in Porter Square is one option) and do some shopping. You can easily make plenty of healthy dinners in 30 minutes or less don't forget: If you have any questions pertaining to personal fitness or health, email me at Benjamin.Hagopian@tufts.edu.

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News

Portraits allows photographer to turn camera on himself

March 1

"This is what all my work is -- looking at things really close up." For photographer Gary Schneider, this claim just might be an understatement. Schneider has expanded his art by using extreme mediums of photography to capture a new form of portraiture. Exploring the themes of identity and individuality, this artist depicts the human form under the closest artistic scrutiny imaginable. Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum is currently hosting the first major collection of Schneider's work, titled "Gary Schneider: Portraits." The exhibit, which contains several works that span the thirty year career of the South-African born artist, opened on Saturday and will remain at Harvard through the June 13. Upon cursory glances of Schnenider's work, "Portraits" may seem an incongruous title. Throughout his career, Schneider has sought new methods, mediums, and ideas to convey biography and emotion through portraiture, but as a result, some of his work does not resemble the conventional conception of a portrait. Schneider's exhibit features several multi-panel installations, including his famous response to the human genome project, the 55-panel "Genetic Self-Portrait." Using microscopy and assistance from scientists, Schneider captured images of his own DNA, which he then manipulated into stunning works of art, blending biology and art into an original and provocative self portrait. "Genetic Self-Portrait" features several intimate views of the human form, including a masterfully lit black and white photograph of a single sperm cell; engaging analyses of the human eyes, ears, and face; and, most noteworthy, fascinating glimpses into the human's most basic form: DNA. Perhaps the most striking panel in the installation is a lucid look at the tumor suppressor gene. In one large black and white panel, Schneider conveys his own body's ability to fight cancer. Unlike most concept-art, Schneider's masterpiece truly evokes feeling in its viewers because of its universality; his art confronts viewers with images of controversial scientific endeavors, ranging from wonderment to personal violation. Spanning one half of the exhibit, the "Genetic Self Portrait" is an incredible work of art. Not only is it masterful concept-art, but it is engaging and beautiful, a true landmark in the world of photography. It alone is worth the visit to the Sackler Museum. For those less interested in science, "Portraits" does not revolve entirely around the "Genetic Self-Portrait." It is an indispensable conclusion to the exhibit, but fortunately not the only significant work. The first half of the exhibit is filled with Schneider's earlier work, mostly portraits of a recognizable human form. Schneider tackles portraiture with a wide range of mediums including multiple-exposure Polaroids, film, and even exposures of 19th century negatives. Schneider attempts to display multiple angles of one subject in many of his installations. This recurring approach to his art is visible throughout the exhibit and unveils Schneider's artistic predilection to the conceptual and physical dissection of the portrait. In one featured installation, "John in Sixteen Parts," Schneider portrays the image of one man across 16 panels, which enables him to emphasize more intimate angles and views of the human form. The idea of portrait dissection appears in Schneider's earliest work in the exhibit, a self portrait from 1976, which consists of several Polaroids of different areas of the body rearranged in one frame. Schneider's unique approach to photographic portraiture -- his consistent desire to see objects very close -- has led him to create intimate portrayals of the human form in art. The retrospective is very successfully displayed. The evolution of Schneider's work is apparent, and his artistic achievements are worthy of praise. In addition to the "Portraits" exhibit, viewers may hear a gallery talk by Gary Schneider himself on Sunday, March 14, in Harvard's Sackler Gallery.

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