Columns

Columns

Comfort Cartoons: Mature and electrifying 'Static Shock'

By Christopher Panella | April 7

This week, we’re looking at “Static Shock” (2000–04), an influential animated series following Virgil Hawkins, a 14-year-old boy who fights crime as “Static,” a superhero with electromagnetic powers. The show is another installment in the DC Animated Universe, premiering before the culminations of the DCAU, “Justice League” (2001–04) and “Justice League Unlimited” (2004–06).

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Columns

Off the Gridiron: Justin Fields is the No. 2 QB

By Henry Gorelik | April 7

NFL Network called it “the throw of the pro day season.” There was one particular throw in Zach Wilson’s pro day that stood out to NFL scouts and Twitter alike. "The throw" had the former Brigham Young quarterback in a sprint right bootleg, rolling toward the left hash and hitting receiver Aleva Hifo in-stride 60 yards downfield, as Wilson was still drifting to his left. But when former Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields made a nearly identical throw in his pro day several days after Wilson, the NFL media was silent.

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Columns

Coffee Talk: Cafe Luna

By Casey Cummings | April 7

While I was feeling quite safe eating at Cafe Luna, I was also very excited about the menu. As a huge fan of sweet breakfasts, I was immediately drawn to the waffles, french toast and pancakes. Among this section of the menu were Nutella stuffed with strawberries waffles, caramelized bananas and pecans french toast and pancakes topped with cookie butter. The menu also had all the breakfast classics.

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Columns

Transferable Skills: Happy people aren't grateful — it's the other way around

By Marco Sheng | April 6

Whether you are a future CEO or a stereotypical slacker, whether you have a trust fund or live paycheck to paycheck, whether you are a brilliant performer or a shy mathematician, it all starts with your relationship with yourself. Because the way you judge yourself will also be the way you judge others. The way you are resilient with your own emotions will be the way you are resilient in uncertain environments. The way you love yourself will open you up to being loved, and loving someone else.

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Column

A Fantastic Voyage: ‘Fantastic Four’ #575–578 or 'The City Saga'

By Drew Weisberg | April 6

"The City Saga" really is a breath of fresh air for a superhero comic, allowing for moments of calm reflection and study. The climate feels less like our heroes are spoiling for a fight; rather they’re acting as anthropologists attempting to understand a unique pocket of their strange and wondrous world.

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Columns

Building Blocks: Standardized testing

By Elizabeth Buehl | April 6

The cost of these examinations is not the only barrier to higher education for minority students; the structure of the test also poses difficulties. The current SAT may appear vastly different, yet it remains inherently the same as the original test that was invented almost 80 years ago as an adaptation of the IQ test. The first rendition of this examination was overtly racist in practice, and sought to bolster a discriminatory college admissions system that aimed to keep minority students out of prestigious institutions through carefully worded questions and unfair structure.

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Column

Hot Take: 'Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood' should've won Best Picture

By Derin Savasan | April 5

This is where "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" comes in. Was it the most critically acclaimed film of the year? No. A lot of people liked the film, but not as much as other nominees. But like I said, universal likeability doesn’t matter here because, at the end of the day, it’s Hollywood people who get to pick the winner — not average Joes. Considering that the title of this movie has “Hollywood” in it, I was pretty confident that it would take home the Oscar.

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Columns

Keeping up with the 617: Don't count the Celtics out

By Matt Goguen | April 5

With 22 games remaining, the Cs have the potential to go on a massive winning streak and squeak into a top-four playoff seed; they play a banged-up Charlotte Hornets team twice and the scuffling Minnesota Timberwolves twice. With its relatively easy schedule to wrap up the season, Boston can build up some confidence with a handful of winnable games down the stretch.

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Columns

The Honeymoon Period: Selling the plan

By Matt Rice | April 5

Last week, the White House unveiled the American Jobs Plan, a $2.3 trillion stimulus package meant to bolster America’s infrastructure, manufacturing sector and R&D and workforce development programs. It’s an ambitious framework and it’s more than necessary, but President Joe Biden’s main challenge is selling it to fellow Democrats. 

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Columns

Tuff Talks: Exercising and bulking

By Jenny Lu | April 5

Finding time to work out with school work, clubs and whatever else you have going on is a struggle for so many students. I think the start is the hardest, but getting past that is super important because exercising will make you feel so much more productive and less lazy. It can definitely help motivate you to be better in other parts of your life. 

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Columns

Democracy in The Daily: There's a new World Bank

By Brendan Hartnett | April 2

Thus began the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s major infrastructure project to reroute global trade through China in the hopes of becoming the world’s new superpower. In this project, China provides loans to fund the creation of new infrastructure — deep water ports, high-speed rail systems, bridges, highways, pipelines and fiber-optic networks — in countries throughout the Global South. The project spans three continents and touches over 60% of the world’s population. 

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Columns

The Fast Break: The visceral beauty of the NBA's play-in tournament

By Aiden Herrod | April 2

The play-in has made playoff basketball more than feasible for a number of teams. Twenty teams will play meaningful, do-or-die basketball in May. It’s the exact wrinkle we needed to counteract the weirdness of a season shortened by COVID-19. It means the number of teams waving the white flag and opting to tank is incredibly small, amounting to only three or so per conference. It will make this final stretch of the season as entertaining, if not more so, than the playoffs themselves.

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Columns

Anthro Talks: Urbanization and urban periphery tension

By Keira Myles | April 2

Autoconstruction's constriction of Sao Paulo citizens into poor, peripheral neighborhoods, politicized the citizens and altered their notion of rights. Insurgent citizenships emerged from cramped confinements of unbearable slum peripheries, helping Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who also rose from autoconstruction peripheries, to secure the presidential victory for the Workers’ Party in 2002. His election demonstrated how, in three decades, the working class had amassed enough support to fight against Brazil’s maintenance of exclusive and unequal citizenships.

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Columns

Soundtrack to the end of the world: Ambitious and on my way to start some stuff

By Jessica Blough and Stephanie Hoechst | April 2

Hot girl music is for when you’re done feeling the feels for the day and want to walk around, mask on, like a total badass. Hot girl music makes you sweat. This is powerful lady music, this is sexy music, music for dancing in front of the mirror, music for putting on your headphones and absolutely strutting to Pax et Lox to pick up a salmon bagel.

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Columns

The Strike Zone: 'Other Worlds' and neoliberalism

By Eli Striker | March 31

Globalization, when utilized effectively, is a crucial component of the modern economy, as it allows products to be distributed across the globe, including to people who would normally lack access to key resources. However, the recent distributional blunders of key products such as vaccines and masks have demonstrated that we, as a society, cannot be completely economically reliant on globalization.

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Hot Take: Seth Cohen was the true protagonist of ‘The O.C.’

By Derin Savasan | March 31

I revisited the show during my one-day spring break (thanks, Tufts!) by binging all four seasons of it on Hulu. Needless to say, I have a few questions, the biggest of which is: Who was the true protagonist of the show? And after many years of beating around the bush, I’ve come to decide that it’s Seth Cohen — contrary to popular belief. 

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Columns

Coffee Talk: Blackbird Doughnuts

By Casey Cummings | March 31

Blackbird has multiple locations throughout Boston, including one in Harvard Square. So, if you’re looking for an excuse to leave campus (in a socially distanced way, of course), go grab a doughnut from Blackbird! In addition to the classic doughnuts that it offers year-round, its March menu includes flavors such as mint chocolate chip, tiramisu and Irish soda bread, among others. Seriously, these doughnuts put Dunkin’s to shame.

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Columns

Long Shot: Isaiah Kacyvenski and his Will Ventures

By Samuel Charlton | March 31

This week's Long Shot column is about Isaiah Kacyvenski, a former NFL linebacker. Kacyvenski played the majority of his career in Seattle, where he captained the Seahawks for three seasons, including their 2006 run to the Super Bowl. Overall, he had a wildly successful NFL career, but the projections for his success weren’t always so first-rate.

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Columns

Building Blocks: Overcrowding

By Elizabeth Buehl | March 30

Although many of the effects of overcrowding in schools are not currently visible due to virtual modalities, over enrollment in American public schools is a pressing problem that has been facing our nation for several decades. Teacher shortages, in addition to lack of funding for education, are a few of the driving forces for overfilled public schools.

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Columns

A Fantastic Voyage: 'Fantastic Four' #574

By Drew Weisberg | March 30

With the semester winding down and my number of columns growing slim, we’ll be accelerating the pace somewhat and running through a few issues in rapid succession. But first, here is one more single-issue week to transition us into a speed run of the rest of Hickman’s saga.

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