The Russian region of Chechnya has a volatile history, and while President Ramzan Kadyrov has brought stability to the region, he has failed to promote human rights. In the past few years, attention has turned to the restrictions placed on women requiring them to wear Muslim dress in public. Such controls ...
The Players' Tribune, a first-of-its-kind media platform whose writers are exclusively current and former professional athletes, aspires to bring "fans closer to the games they love than ever before." They're lying.Gone are the days of journalistic meddling, of careerism, when writers ...
“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (King James Version, Gen. 3.19). This phrase, taken from the book of Genesis, was recited in a multiplicity of languages to me and millions of Christians worldwide two weeks ago, on the occasion of Ash Wednesday. As I heard these words and received ...
Ever since my middle school days, when I was compelled to watch “Leprechaun in the Hood” by what I now imagine must have been near-Clockwork Orange-tactics, I have had a slightly biased vendetta against all of cinema.Although I seemed entrenched in my anti-cinematic ways to friends and family, this ...
A few Fridays ago, several friends and I decided to stop by Gare Montparnasse,a train station that happens to have a public piano available to anyone who wants to play. With one pianist and several singers in our group, we figured we’d mess around for a little while before heading off somewhere else ...
Apparently, ramen burgers are a thing now. I won’t be talking about them. Let’s get back to the no-nonsense roots of bun, burger and toppings.Boston Burger Company (colloquially and hereafter referred to as BBC) provides a startling array of burgers. The Davis Square mainstay has so many, in fact, ...
The non-fiction essay is an oft-forgotten genre, one that doesn’t have its own section in a bookstore or a list of bestsellers. It doesn't fall directly in line with the short story or the biography, instead treading a grey area between fictional writing and personal memoirs. It isn’t a genre ...
Dear mental sanity,Wintertime. Being constantly surrounded by myriads of people. Eating “curried tofu surprise” for the third day in a row at the dining hall. During this time of year, it can understandably be difficult to escape from the bubble that a college campus can create. The state of isolation, ...
“If LeBron can go home, why can’t I?” asked an aging star on a Brooklyn Nets roster that never seemed to click despite high expectations at the beginning of the 2013-2014 season. Kevin Garnett is returning to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise he so deeply loves and never wanted to leave ...
As you may remember from last semester, one week I was feeling uncharacteristically magnanimous and used this column to explain one of my trademark secrets about how to decode someone’s personality from their coffee order (patent pending). While this is probably one of the most important life skills ...
Rebecca:I have a bone to pick with Tufts 2019. For the most part, any Tufts student can get added to a Facebook group for a Tufts class year. My request to join Tufts 2019, however, has been left pending for an entire week. The group has 600 members and multiple administrators; all of them have ignored ...
Levers switch, gears churn and bolts slide. The mechanical clicks of Arthur Ganson’s unique creations fill the exhibition space. Differing from the eerie stillness of a typical museum setting, the MIT Museum is infused with an atmosphere of kinetic activity. I found myself entranced by the feats of ...
Last week, I wrote a column about the politics of population control. Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, this week I read the most heartbreaking article about forced sterilizations that took place in North Carolina between 1929 and 1974. During that time, 7,600 North Carolinians were sterilized. Eighty-five ...
This February, President Obama met leaders from over 60 countries in Washington for a global discussion on how to combat extremism in light of continuing attacks around the world. While talks about terrorism often revolve around military action, Obama’s speech linked oppression and extremism, indicating ...
Red Sox pitchers and catchers reported to Fort Myers, Fla. for spring training last Friday, which means it's time to assess the team's active winter.While I wasn't crazy about the splashy Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval signings, I'll readily admit that Boston's lineup is much ...
Whether taken from religion, deep philosophical reflection or (god help us) enrapturing television programs like Game of Thrones, unique moral codes guide us through ambiguous and sticky situations. How else would we know how to act when vying for free rooms in Eaton? Why else would we stop stealing cups from Dewick?
What do you have buried in your basement? During my childhood, my basement always represented a mixture of the known and unknown elements of my life, the familiar and the scary. It was where I played ping pong with my dad most evenings, and where I could play with my Legos and building blocks. But that ...
There is a phrase in French -- beaucoup du monde -- that literally means "a lot of the world." You use it to describe whenever there are a lot of people out and about; for example, il y a beaucoup du monde dans les rues aujourd'hui, which means, "there are a lot of people in the streets ...
When Jose Mourinho was christened "The Chosen One" during his first stint at Chelsea, he must really have internalized the sobriquet, evident in the way he now metes it out quite liberally, a modern King Midas, having convinced himself -- and trying to us -- that not only he, but the teams ...
Dear sad boys/girls/non-gender binary conforming friends,Sometimes you just get rad sad. Maybe you were happy thinking about the Boston Olympics, but then remembered this is the city where you can fall into a snow bank and then eventually be birthed from it a few days later. I’ve personally entered ...
