Columns

Columns

Center Stage: The Ladies of Essence

By Nate Hall | January 22

Established in 1994, the Ladies of Essence describe themselves asTufts’ only all-female a cappella group specializing in music of the African diaspora. Offstage, theLadies are a tight-knit community of music lovers, and onstage, they will wow you with their renditions of R&B, soul, gospel and hip-hop songs.At the inauguralRiff-Off hosted by TUSC in November 2023, the Ladiestriumphed over eight other campus a cappella groups. This past fall, for good measure, they won the competition again.

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Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Yul Moldauer’s suspension for whereabouts violations

By Sarah Firth | January 22

The biggest news of this week is certainly that 2020 Olympian Yul Moldauer has been suspended for 16 months due to three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period. As one of the top gymnasts in the United States, Moldauer is part of the USADA’s Registered Testing Pool. Athletes in this pool are required to declare their location for one hour each day between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., ensuring they are available for random out-of-competition drug testing without prior notice. Over the course of the year, testing officers attempted to conduct a test three times at the location Moldauer had designated, but he was not there on any of those occasions and missed the tests.

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Columns

Read, Write and Be Merry: ‘Someone Else’s Shoes’ by Jojo Moyes

By Merry Jiao | January 17

Every time I walk into a bookstore, there are basically four authors I always zero in on: Kate Quinn, Kristin Hannah, Jodi Picoult and Jojo Moyes. They each occupy a different niche in my brain, and for our first week of the new semester, we’ll tackle one of my most recent favorite books: “Someone Else’s Shoes” by Jojo Moyes.

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Columns

Full Court Press: The fanship conundrum

By Noah Goldstein | January 17

Have you ever yelled at a professional athlete through the TV, fully knowing they can’t hear you? Have you ever punched a wall, thrown a remote, or shed a tear after a particularly disastrous performance? Or, like a friend of mine — a Steelers fan, unfortunately — have you experienced what was described as a “depressive tailspin” after yet another playoff loss?

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Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Ana Bǎrbosu and international gymnasts in the NCAA

By Sarah Firth | January 15

Ana Bǎrbosu of Romania recently stunned the gymnastics world with her announcement that she had committed to Stanford University for gymnastics. Bǎrbosu is notable because she was the Romanian gymnast involved in the dispute with American gymnast Jordan Chiles over the floor bronze medal at last year’s Olympics. In case you missed it: Bǎrbosu and her teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea were tied in third place with a score of 13.700. 

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Column

Coffee Table Socioeconomics: I hate American suburbia

By Linda Huang | December 10

This past Thanksgiving break, I stayed at my uncle’s suburban home just outside Nashville, Tenn., where I saw life in American suburbia firsthand. The whole time I felt like I was in an “American Beauty” fever dream. To put it simply, I absolutely hated it.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Wonder

By Max Turnacioglu | December 10

This column is sponsored by wonder. Use promo code “HWJOS” at checkout to get 10% more annoying every time you start telling your friends about something random and beautiful you noticed the other day.

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Columns

Read, Write and Be Merry: ‘The Most Fun We Ever Had’ by Claire Lombardo

By Merry Jiao | December 10

How does our parents’ relationship define what we look for in a partner? How does being the youngest child of four impact our self-perception? Who gets to define a home and a family? These are some of the questions this book attempts to illustrate and answer.

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Columns

A Jumbo’s Journey: I’ll lasso the moon for you

By Ben Rachel | December 10

I am writing this column in the middle of a packed Tisch, surrounded by stressed students and working off of three Yerba Mates (I’m shaking). Even the reading room is full; I had to share a cubicle with a Fletcher student. It feels like finals season brings everyone out of their dorms to shotgun energy drinks and complain about their workloads.

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Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Ellie Black — the people’s gymnast

By Sarah Firth | December 10

Ellie Black sometimes gets overlooked by casual fans because she is from Canada, but she is one of my favorite gymnasts of all time. To be fair, I’m partial to any gymnast who does front handspring vaults, and she has an excellent handspring front full (and even a rudi at one point). I also have to give props to anyone who can rock a maple-leaf-themed leotard — I appreciate Canada’s commitment to a theme.

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Column

Ukraine at War: Music as an act of resistance

By Mariia Kudina | December 10

This year, a famous Ukrainian rock band, Okean Elzy, celebrated its 30-year anniversary. The group has become a symbol of resistance for all generations of independent Ukraine. For my parents, Okean Elzy became an integral part of the Orange Revolution in 2004 and 2005, when Ukrainians protested against election fraud, and Euromaidan in 2013 and 2014, when the citizens objected to pro-Russian governmental policies. I strongly link the band’s music with those events as well, but mainly with Ukraine’s counteroffensive and defense during Russia’s full-scale invasion. This October, Okean Elzy performed in Boston as part of its global tour. The day after the concert, I had a chance to listen to a talk by the lead singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk at Harvard.

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: It’s time for the United States to take action in Syria

By Alexander Degterev | December 9

About a week after various armed groups began to move against the Syrian government’s forces in Aleppo, the conflict is spiraling into a befuddling mess of frontlines, with some rebel groups now turning their attention towards one another.   It seems that the recent violence has been brought ...

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Columns

Full Court Press: Let’s talk about NIL

By Noah Goldstein | December 6

As I stirred mashed potatoes over Thanksgiving break, an avid reader of “Full Court Press” (and, coincidentally, a family friend) approached me, asking my opinion on the name, image and likeness phenomenon that has taken over college sports in recent years. One week earlier, superstar high school quarterback Bryce Underwood flipped his commitment from Louisiana State University to Michigan State University in one of NIL’s wildest stories yet: one that involved billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and what even conservative estimates say will be a fat $10 million paycheck.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Sunday comics

By Max Turnacioglu | December 3

Almost every Sunday, I used to strip. Of course, I mean this in the comic sense — that is, I comic stripped. Clad in pajamas, bedraggled and in desperate need of orange juice, I pored over the funny pages. These were literal pages in my youth, but later were the webpages of The Washington Post. Over Thanksgiving break, I observed the remnants of this weekly routine: Tomes and volumes of comic strips still litter my room, including the complete “Calvin and Hobbes,” “The Far Side” and “Garfield.”Moreover, the catalogue of “Peanuts” holiday specials continue to hold cultural sway over many Americans, including myself, bizarrely relishing the pathetic lamentations of Charlie Brown as he mopes through every festivity. As this print medium enjoys its tragic decline, among its brethren in physical artwork, where do the comics still lie in our consciousness? Is this goodbye, Charlie Brown?

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: Why the Tatmadaw’s usage of anti-personnel mines is an egregious human rights violation

By Alexander Degterev | December 3

It was Sept. 29, 2022, and 57-year-old Daw Khin had just recently returned to her village in eastern Karenni State after being forced to flee due to attacks by Myanmar’s military junta, the Tatmadaw. Cleaning her now disheveled house, one of those still standing in her neighborhood, she stepped on a landmine which was placed right outside of her outdoor toilet.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Eyes

By Max Turnacioglu | November 26

Look me in my eyes. Admittedly, this may be quite an ask, given that through this newspaper column, my identity is somewhat abstract. If you could look into my eyes, maybe they really would tell the full story. Eye contact improves cognition and attention, after all. For the time being, please look me in my Is, as I elucidate that endlessly entrancing, palindromic organ: the eye.

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Column

Coffee Table Socioeconomics: Let’s give corporate social responsibility more credit

By Linda Huang | November 26

I spent the entire past summer volunteering as a funder research assistant for a U.N. agency, where I researched over 300 Chinese corporations on their Corporate Social Responsibility indexes. From analyzing the key sectors of each company, I sought to identify those with the dual strengths of mission-driven goals and substantial social funding to support targeted initiatives.

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Columns

A Jumbo’s Journey: Crashing out in Tisch basement

By Ben Rachel | November 26

Like many other Chicagoans, I am a fervent Chicago Bears fan. For those of you who do not know, the Chicago Bears are an American football team located in, you guessed it, Chicago, Illinois. Those who have followed the NFL this year will understand where this anecdote is going. 

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: Making a case for DAANES governance

By Alexander Degterev | November 25

My previous article was a call to President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider his stance on withdrawing troops from Syria. However, I do not feel as if I properly made a case for the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which I so adamantly advocated for.

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Ukraine at War: Russia targets Ukrainian children and families

By Mariia Kudina | November 22

I used to count the days since the start of the full-scale invasion. It seemed that such a brutal and bloody war could not last long and that the international community would soon find a solution to make Russian forces withdraw. I stopped the daily count sometime after the images from recently liberated towns around Kyiv and the news about the bombing of Mariupol Drama Theater were released in 2022. Though the world saw the atrocities of the Bucha massacre and the attack on the theater used as a shelter by civilians, including children, the war has only become more violent since then. This week marks 1000 days since the full-scale invasion, and after approximately 3900 days of the war, Russian attacks continue to intensify, increasingly targeting entire families.

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