Students at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy recently brought the economic recession into the classroom after spending significant time in Boston's communities investigating the downturn's effects on the people with which they regularly interact.
A recent call by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to ban a Japanese computer game in which players stalk and rape women on subways is drawing attention to cultural differences between the United States and Japan as exhibited in computer and video games. As several Web sites, such as Slate.com and LATimes.com point out, efforts to ban the game are largely moot, as the game, RapeLay, is not available from American retailers and is not listed on Amazon.com or eBay.com. However, one can find a download of a translated version of the game in seconds on Google.com. RapeLay is part of a genre of games in Japan known as eroge, or hentai. The games are more part of the pornography industry than the video game industry at large. A Slate.com article noted that eroge games are "usually sold alongside glossy comics, figurines, and animated smut in shops that cater to a common fetish for animated women; they don't share shelf space with Super Mario and Halo." Although many would find the sexual violence in RapeLay repulsive, the gory violence present in Western games is likewise not very acceptable in Japan. Although the highly violent action game Gears of War 2 sold 1.4 million copies on its first day on American store shelves, Microsoft chose to not release the game in Japan. In Gears of War 2, enemies often explode when shot with powerful weapons, which often results in blood and gore spraying the camera. One weapon frequently used is a chainsaw bayonet, which can cut enemies clean in half. Even extremely violent games developed in Japan might not see the light of day in their country of origin. The Japanese game MadWorld, hailed as "blood-soaked action for the [Nintendo] Wii" by its publisher Sega, was recently released in the United States, but has not yet come to Japanese stores. And according to Sega, it may never. Junior Ron Laidley believes that the difference between the violence in Japanese and American games is a matter of realism. "Having played a lot of Japanese games, they are less violent than Western games when it comes to realism. With Western games, like Gears of War, you get very realistic, detailed deaths. Japanese games tend to depict less realistic violence but trade it for more disturbing images and perverse themes," Laidley said in an e-mail to the Daily. "Western games, whether violent or not, always try to be realistic, while many Japanese try to be more artistic, often throwing reality to the wind." Laidley noted, however, that many Japanese games still have ample amounts of extremely graphic violence. Although RapeLay is part of a fringe industry, it does exemplify the greater amount of sexual content in mainstream Japanese video and computer games than in Western games. "Western games just simply throw in sex to be seen, not interacted with … However, there are a fair number of sexual games released in Japan, not including the simulation game genre, based solely on pornographic material," Laidley said. Laidley noted the popular Dead or Alive series of fighting games as a prime example of the prevalent sexual content in some Japanese games. The games are known not only for their solid game play mechanics, but also for their underdressed female characters. But even relatively moderate amounts of sexual content in Western games can result in controversy. The 2007 game Mass Effect drew massive controversy after Fox News reported that the game had a "graphic" sex scene. In response, Jeff Brown, Electronic Arts vice president of communications said in a statement, "Sex scenes in Mass Effect are not graphic. These scenes are very similar to sex sequences frequently seen on network television in prime time." Mass Effect is rated M for Mature, which means that the game is not recommended for users under age 17 by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. Although gamers and non-gamers alike might find perverse sexual content in games like RapeLay repulsive, many in other countries find just as offensive the images of limbs being severed and heads exploding that are so common in many popular Western games.
For seniors, this time of the year is bittersweet. We are filled with a variety of emotions ranging from happiness to sorrow, relief to joy. Perhaps more than anything else, this is a period for reflection as we transition from students to alumni. With so many big issues in our lives as seniors, why should we care about something as seemingly small as the Tufts Community Union (TCU) presidential election?
Freshman Daniel Foster admitted on Friday to making racial slurs toward, threatening to kill and spitting at a group of Korean students, as part of an apology in the framework of an agreement between him and the 13 members of the Korean Students Association (KSA) whom he accosted during the early-morning hours of April 9.
"The Green Line is coming!" announced several posters around campus. Groups of students traversed the campus holding posters with lines of poetry on the mixed effects of the Green Line extension on the Somerville community, talking to interested and admitted students as they marched. "The green line is coming, but riders beware," one read. "What works best for you is not always fair." On Thursday in the campus center, the members of the "Environmental Justice and U.S. Literature" English class turned out in green shirts and formed their own "green line" through the center of Tufts. They began a group social-action project focusing on the intersections of environmental justice in the Tufts community. The central issues were the impending arrival of the Green Line in Somerville and the implications this will have on Tufts and the surrounding areas. On a broader scale, the aim was to raise awareness among Tufts students about what the environmental justice movement is (a political struggle for equality and fairness for all people in terms of environmental hazards and benefits) and how it relates to issues that affect all of us. It is really important that we as Tufts students become familiar with this term, as it holds the most potential for the future of the evolving environmental movement. Increasingly, grassroots organizations are raising awareness about the need to remedy injustices relating to access to our environment and exposure to environmental hazards with adverse health effects. The Green Line is an environmental justice issue because it raises the possibility of pricing longtime residents out of their homes and increasing T fare; it may fail to incorporate community input in the execution of events which adversely affect disempowered or low-income communities. People are central components of our environment, and they need to be the center of focus when examining the pros and cons of many development proposals. Transportation inequality can also become an issue if the extension mainly benefits Tufts and not the entire community. The event in the campus center featured baked goods distributed for a suggested donation among posters and pamphlets bearing pros and cons related to the Green Line. The donations will go to a local organization such as Groundwork Somerville, which is involved in community social activism. The main goal was to raise awareness and educate students on the fact that the Green Line is a more complex issue than it appears. Yes, it will add a T stop conveniently right on campus, so what's not to love for Tufts students? However, we need to take the interests of our surrounding community into account, as the reaction in Somerville is mixed. The gentrification and takeover of community land is not a fair price to pay for some. Many students stopped and expressed interest in learning about the Green Line debates and received pamphlets along with "Green Line" cupcakes for their time. Common questions asked of students were "How do you feel about the Green Line?" "Are you in favor of it?" and "Is it good or bad?" As a class, we abstained from giving our opinions, as we hoped to present the facts from both sides and allow students to form their own opinions. Once they are informed about the effects on the community, both positive and negative, they will not only be more considerate of those with whom we share a community but, like me, become less ignorant about how the Green Line extension can cause so much debate and controversy. This is the case with any development project, but we need to establish a precedent for just social interaction with our community by taking what they have to say about the Green Line into account. Our reputation for active citizenship in social justice issues means that we as Tufts students have an obligation to be well-informed about environmental justice and proposed solutions in our backyard. We can go a long way toward improving our image as an institution if we take a leading role in educating our students on environmental justice; the class action project hoped to begin this dialogue.
As I've spent this past week campaigning, going to events and meeting students, I've heard again and again that they feel that the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate can't do much of anything. While the TCU Senate can't control tuition bills or build new dorms, it can, and should, be active in improving student life. As a senator for the past two years, that's what I've been doing, and I'm the only candidate who has done something to fix the issues which students care about most: expanding wireless in West and Haskell, improving West, Metcalf and Carmichael common rooms and making Tufts safer. As TCU president, I would continue to put students first by making realistic and tangible progress in the areas that matter most to them. While I am the only candidate who voted against the Trips Cabin, I don't know if I've made it clear enough exactly why I voted this way. I always thought the recovered funds had the potential to revolutionize life at Tufts. That's why Brandon Rattiner and I originally both supported a proposal to use the recovered funds in their entirety as a gift challenge for a new campus center — because it would revolutionize student life. As the economy collapsed and it soon became clear that Tufts would not be building a new campus center any time soon, I changed my priorities to reflect the new reality and began to look for other ways we could make a similar impact. Taken in this light, expanding the Loj really won't revolutionize life at Tufts. It might allow a few more groups to go on retreats each year, but the simple fact is that an off-campus retreat center already exists. What does have the potential to revolutionize life at Tufts is the Senate's recent decision to eliminate most on-campus ticket costs. This project has the potential to foster a more cohesive community by allowing students to go out and support their friends and experience more of what Tufts has to offer without having to worry about spending $10 or $15 a weekend when increasingly, every dollar makes a big difference. Unfortunately, there are many questions about how long this experiment will be able to last, and $230,000 could have gone a long way toward making the elimination of ticket costs more sustainable. Quite simply, putting students first means putting all students first. I think it's important to highlight these differences among the candidates. Elections are about choices, and as voters, you deserve to know the facts. You deserve to know what makes us unique, you deserve specifics over buzzwords and you deserve transparency over secretiveness. That's what I've been doing on this campaign, and it's how I hope to act as president. Throughout this campaign, I've listened to students, answered their e-mails and taken their suggestions. Many of these suggestions have ended up in my platform. I'm not foolish enough to think that I can do this job alone — the help of the student body is my greatest asset. Election Day is today. By the time you read this, some of you may have already voted, and I applaud that. We pride ourselves on active citizenship and political awareness, and voting, even in a TCU election, is the hallmark of both of those tenets. Whether you support me or not is secondary to voting. Please vote. Please take the time to think about the candidates, read their platforms and make a decision based on substance. You deserve a TCU president that puts students first, but in order for that to happen, you have to make your voices heard.
The three candidates for Tufts Community Union (TCU) president took part in the second and final presidential debate last night, taking advantage of a less formal debate format to speak more frankly about issues that had been brought up two days before in the first debate. Before an audience in Barnum 104 largely made up of their campaign staff, the presidential nominees fielded pre-submitted questions from undergraduates. Many of the candidates acknowledged a perceived disconnect between the TCU Senate and the student body, a topic that many of the questions underscore. Senator Samia Zahran, one of the candidates, said it was important not to dismiss the questions regarding why certain senators decided not to run for reelection this year and instead work on projects outside student government. "The student body doesn't feel that the Senate is connected to them," said Zahran, a sophomore who did not serve on student government this year, which she says has given her a fresh perspective derived from being outside of an insular Senate. "One of the things that I want to get done is expand the [Senate's] Student Outreach Committee so that it includes students who are not on Senate and brings people to the Senate and brings the Senate to the people." Senator Chas Morrison, another candidate, said the Senate is an effective force for change on campus, just as students working outside student government could be. But the Senate is specifically charged with voicing student concerns, he explained. "We're basically a group of students that go out and lobby and get stuff done on behalf of the student body, to the administration," Morrison, a sophomore, said. "So in a sense, we're people with fancy titles, but otherwise, we're students just like you." Morrison and Senator Brandon Rattiner, also a candidate, addressed the idea of accessibility. "The best thing that I can do is actually manage people," Rattiner, a junior, said. "The most important thing a leader should be is … relatable and approachable. I'm not going to pretend that I'm some little administrator that has all of these dreams and all of these aspirations and is trying to change the world." But Morrison took time out of his next response to criticize Rattiner's self-decribed "chill" managing style. "Brandon keeps attacking me for being a ‘little administrator,'" Morrison said. "I'll take that as a badge of honor." "Don't you want a TCU president to go out and actually get something done? Do you want a president that is ‘chill' when it comes to advocating for student interests?" he continued, drawing laughs from the crowd. Meanwhile, the candidate's descriptions of their policies highlighted their different views on campus unity. Zahran said she hoped to better represent groups at Tufts whose concerns are not usually heard, while Morrison and Rattiner both outlined plans to be more receptive to minority groups. But the latter two saw most of campus disunity as coming from a disconnect between underclassmen and upperclassmen. Morrison reiterated his goals of bolstering on-campus activities and bringing back school traditions. Rattiner, emphasizing his perspective as a rising senior, said that students want better programming off campus, noting his vote in favor of allocating $230,000 of the recovered funds to build the Trips Cabin at the Tufts Loj and a proposal of his for the Senate to give grants to groups that want to hold off-campus programming. "It's not about bringing people into Hotung [Café,]" said Rattiner, in an implicit reference to Morrison's plans to better utilize the facility. "It's about bringing people into Boston." The candidates were also given an opportunity to ask the others one question each. Rattiner responded to a question from Morrison about not recusing himself from voting on the Trips Cabin by reiterating his previous arguments that he saw the building as benefiting a large portion of the student body, and not just Tufts Mountain Club members. Zahran used her chance to ask her opponents questions to emphasize her accessibility to underrepresented groups on campus, asking Rattiner how he would lead and represent minorities and women, and Morrison how he would lead and represent people who hold views different than his. "Truth be told, I don't think these problems can be solved on the Senate floor," Rattiner said. "I think that it's … the Senate's job to figure out ways to empower the communities and figure out ways to enfranchise the people and use our leverage with the administration to make sure the communities can directly help themselves with [my] help." Morrison asked Zahran if she would have voted for the Trips Cabin, had she been on Senate this year. "I think I would have voted ‘no' just because of the large amount of money that I feel shouldn't go into one project," she said. "Before I would've voted for anything, I would have asked people. I would have found some way to poll the general population."
Students voting for presidential candidates on Monday will have the option of voting for two referenda and one "non-binding referendum question" in addition to their preferred presidential candidates.
At first glance, it seems as though the Pre-Law Society at Tufts is a popular organization. The Pre-Law Society e-list has over 200 students on it, according to Co-President Tony Carucci.
The April 2 article "Two senators consider TCU presidential run" incorrectly stated that junior Brandon Rattiner was an active member of Tufts Mountain Club. Rattiner is not, in fact, a dues-paying member of the group, but he considers himself closely linked to it. The April 13 interview with Jacqueline Novogratz gave the wrong date on which the interview occurred. The interview actually took place on April 9. The April 17 article "Rally goers: We will not be silenced" misstated the name of the student who at the rally chastised University President Lawrence Bacow and his chief of staff, Michael Baenen. The student was not sophomore Jennifer Kim; it was actually junior Jenny Lau. That article also misstated the name of the student who co-authored a Daily op-ed with senior Sofia Nelson. The student was not senior Jen Bailey; it was actually senior Sarah Robbins. Yesterday's article "Rattiner: Focus on the ‘here and now'" misstated Rattiner's major. He is majoring in both political science and philosophy, not just political science.
Associate Professor of Child Development Calvin Gidney yesterday afternoon delivered the second-annual Lerman-Neubauer Lecture, in Cabot Auditorium. Gidney, who spoke about the complex nature of humor in children's cartoons, humor that often exceeds the developmental capacity of its young audience, previously received the Lerman-Neubauer Award for excellence in teaching and advising.
An administrative hearing will convene today to examine the allegations of racism and details surrounding a fight in Lewis Hall earlier this month.
April Open House (AOH) will enter its third and final day today, as current high school seniors accepted to Tufts continue to explore the Hill, many trying to make up their minds as to whether they will return as full-time students next year.
The pursuit of a liberal arts education has been a historically lauded endeavor. The acquisition of knowledge for knowledge's sake and a keen interest in esoteric debate have usually been taken as indicators of students' intellectual ambition and scope, marking them as potential great leaders and civic thinkers. Of late, however, the humanities seem to be entering a bit of a crisis.
Sophomore Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Chas Morrison aims to "put students first" if elected to the TCU presidency next week.
As Ludacris has been a controversial choice to headline Spring Fling this Saturday, some students might be surprised to find that the rapper may well have more in common with Tufts' ideals of "active citizenship" than it would seem at first glance.
Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator and presidential candidate Brandon Rattiner has focused his campaign on building community within the student body, calling himself a voice for students "here and now."
"It's time for a new face for Tufts," Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator and presidential candidate Samia Zahran told the Daily in an in-depth interview.
The appeal of the game show is easy to see: The ability to make big bucks with relatively little work, the prospect of seeing one's own face on television, and the potential bragging rights of becoming a winner all make becoming a contestant widely attractive. And it's certainly not unusual to hear avid viewers make grand statements about how well they would perform on the show while watching any trivia-related program.
It seems like the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate only ever catches people's attention when money's at stake. Hands up who can remember a TCU Senate resolution! Thought so. I voted for the all-controversial Trips Cabin expansion, but I did so based on a slightly different perspective than that of the other senators. I have never bought the idea that the recovered funds belong to "us," the current student body. The vast majority of it was embezzled from alumni, who had the reasonable expectation that the money would be spent during their tenure at Tufts. I spent the fall semester torn between the nagging belief that the money didn't belong to us and the surety that senators would never return what was now their "precious." My compromise logic involved the good the money could do beyond simple entertainment, which is why I advocated for financial aid. A refund program would have been voluntary. I am certain that many alumni would have chosen to refrain from requesting a refund in the interests of students in need. But they deserved to choose. My greatest regret is not making this position clearer — both to myself and to other senators — prior to the Dec. 7 vote. Although it went unreported, my final recovered funds proposal last December included a clause to look into refunding up to $300,000 to the alumni whose student activities fees were embezzled. The Senate deemed this unworthy of consideration — even separately from my rather extreme financial aid proposal. The response of one executive board member when I broached refunds was, "Why don't we just send a stick of gum to all the alumni?" Hand-in-hand with its paternalistic desire to make a decision on its own — hence why referendum proposals were shot down — the Senate was unwilling to consider means of providing redress to wronged alumni. The Trips Cabin was — and I believe, would have continued to be — the only proposal which offered tangible, permanent benefits for alumni, particularly those who were embezzled. The expanded Loj will be available to all, whether they choose to make use of it or not. Although it may appear to only cater to a certain element of the community, the Tufts Mountain Club (TMC) — which I have no affiliation with — seems a very inclusive organization to me. It isn't their fault if others fail to take advantage of their facility. I expect them to be extremely forthcoming in reaching out to students, groups and alumni who have not previously used the Loj; maybe they'll even offer a deal to those alumni who attended during the years that Jodi Neally (allegedly) embezzled the money, since this expansion is entirely thanks to their fees. This solution isn't perfect. The sort of "outdoors" culture espoused by the TMC does not speak to every Jumbo, or perhaps even a majority. I won't beat around the bush with political correctness; we've spent $230,000 on stuff white people like (whereby white stands more for a certain subculture — I'm talking to you, North Face fleece wearers — than necessarily skin color). But considering Tufts' fractured community, the TMC's propsal seemed like one of the least bad options as inclusive student organizations go. It's down to all of us, alumni and students, to make use of Tufts' own holiday resort of sorts. The Trips Cabin is permanent, both as a student venue and as a lifetime benefit for Jumbos. On-campus events, an expanded coffee stand — to me, none of these options appeared to offer feasible benefits to embezzled alumni. Only a limited amount of proposals were viable within the framework of the Senate's desires. A considerable majority of senators have made it very clear to me that they are most comfortable with the Senate as a glorified party planning committee and any major expenditure had to reflect this prioritization of luxury and entertainment. Although I would have preferred something more goody-two-shoes, I didn't expect any such proposal to pass a vote. The TMC proposal could, and did, offer at least some long-term benefits for alumni as well as the remaining students whose money might have been stolen. Whether the Senate's desires reflect the priorities of the broader community remains to be seen, especially in light of the fact that, once again, there weren't enough candidates for next year's Senate to warrant an election for juniors and seniors. Who knows how representative senators are? Hell, I was a senator, and I'm about as representative of your average undergraduate as a rabbit wearing Uggs and a baseball cap. The indignation with which some senators have responded to post-decision criticism certainly paints us in an arrogant light. Yet the student body reaction to the decision so far indicates to me that the broader Tufts community sees no problem with committing over a quarter-million dollars to more coffee in a glitzier campus center and more beds for a mountain retreat at a time when the university has fired staff, cut sponsorship, ended need-blind admissions and raised tuition for middle-class families that are financially overcommitted. The question seems not whether we should pay for luxuries, but what luxuries we should pay for. That's the Tufts Bubble. With refunds looking less likely than ever, my hope as an outgoing senator is that the loan repayments from the tarting up of The Rez will be allocated to some sort of "goalkeeper fund," which provides money to enable students to engage in life-altering activities, such as national tournaments, research and service trips, when all other funding sources have been exhausted. With Tufts funding opportunities slashed and even students from affluent families lacking cash for anything but the bare minimum, this fund will be sorely needed in the next few years and would actually change lives rather than just provide bands and beer. Since this is in the hands of the TCU Senate though, I'm not holding my breath. How we got ourselves into a position where the Trips Cabin seemed like the only viable option is something I'll leave for another debate. But I doubt we'll have that particular discussion, since we would dredge up much of what's flawed in both the TCU Senate and us, the Tufts community at large. I don't believe Tufts has either the desire or the stomach for that.
