Opinion

Editorial

Climate change legislation should be next on agenda

March 29

With the passage of the health care reform bill last week and today's signing of a student loan bill that will remove commercial banks from the student loan market, President Barack Obama has a lot to celebrate. With these recent successes, Obama is making some of his campaign promises real, and it is clear that his administration is able to pass sweeping reform bills through the current Congress.

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Opinion

Alcohol Task Force should try 'reentry' for Spring Fling

March 28

Tufts' Spring Fling decision is more than disappointing; it's dangerous. Spring Fling will now be a dry event; that is, no alcohol will be allowed on the premises. This is a direct result of last year's catastrophe: at least 10 Tufts students were hospitalized and there were thirty calls to Tufts Emergency Medical Services for excessive alcohol consumption, according to Ben Gittleson's April 27, 2009 Tufts Daily article, "Spring Fling leads to mass casualty incident." Although I'm sure that the new policy came out of the desire to help students and prevent the disaster of last year, I think this policy is at best useless, and at worst actively dangerous.

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Editorial

Health care coverage changes need clarification

March 28

Despite health care reform's prominence in the federal government's agenda and the public arena, the outcomes on the Tufts community of the bill recently signed by President Barack Obama remain unclear. The legislation contains significant improvements for health care coverage for young adults, such as the ability for children to stay under their family's insurance plan until the age of 26.  Despite the positive changes for students that will come out of the legislation, the convoluted language of the lengthy bill has led to confusion about how it will affect Tufts' student health insurance. Tufts students need to be properly informed of how the health care system supported by the university will be affected by the legislation.

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Opinion

The dangers of partisan history

March 28

As a history major, I often get asked questions about what practical impacts my studies will bring, as if my education is devoid of meaning without problem sets or beakers. For most students, History was a class they took in high school as a teenage version of Social Studies (or in college if they had to fill a requirement). For those who cannot sit through a lecture on the Industrial Revolution or the Great Leap Forward, I am not here to preach. I understand not everyone can share my love of history. However, the recent changes in the Texas history curriculum, decided by the State Board of Education (SBOE), are absurdly upsetting and overwhelmingly detrimental to the intellectual development of the children of Texas.

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Opinion

McCarthyite Zionism: Part three

March 17

I was concerned by Ibrahim Khwaja's March 10 op−ed regarding the supposed oppression of opposing viewpoints by "neoconservative, pro−Zionist" groups with accusations of anti−Semitism. Yes, Norman Finkelstein's views are not anti−Semitic as much as anti−Zionist. But Khwaja portrays groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Bak Shalom as paranoid suppressors; Finkelstein is the victimized seeker of truth and justice. Taking a quick look at Finkelstein's Web sites or key points from his publications reveals otherwise. This scholar is an enormously biased, disrespectful piece of work. He looks to undermine the State of Israel at any and all turns while supporting and/or conveniently overlooking the crimes of terrorist groups committed to its destruction.

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor

March 17

Dear Editor, Teddy Minch's March 17 column "Israeli Insubordination" tells the reader about an announcement from the Israeli government. He shows us how this announcement had implications for the diplomatic process in the ongoing conflict. He spends most of the piece discussing these diplomatic results. He concludes that the United States should be tougher with Israel and not allow the Israeli government to act as they had intended. So essentially, he tells us what Israel did, how the United States responded and what he thinks about that response.

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Opinion

Elisha Sum | Our Genderation

March 17

Tori Amos once sang, "Maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen well."

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Opinion

Gittleman appointment underwhelms

March 17

The announcement of Professor Sol Gittleman as this year's commencement speaker will likely inspire an array of mixed reactions and some reservations among seniors. There are undoubtedly reasons to be excited about Gittleman's selection. An engaging lecturer and professor, Gittleman's classes continue to be some of the most popular on campus, and there is no question that he is an entertaining and likable speaker. But in spite of his ability to charm and engage a crowd, Gittleman's appointment may remain questionable in the eyes of many seniors.

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Opinion

Bounded by geographical lines

March 16

Since coming to America for university, I have experienced a number of cultural quirks that took some getting used to. For example, having grown up with British English in India and England (I was not aware of how many different versions of the language there were until I heard a distinctly different vocabulary on this side of the pond), I was met with looks of bewilderment when I called the "sidewalk" a "pavement" or an Oreo a "biscuit." But these were trivial issues that only really mattered during a game of Taboo.

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Opinion

Tufts going green requires reducing paper usage

March 16

Tufts has made a considerable effort to enhance its environmental policies in recent years. From installing energy-efficient technology like occupancy sensors for lights in buildings and testing out the controversial trayless initiative, the administration and student body have firmly demonstrated their commitment to "going green." Environmental sustainability was even the theme of this year's Parents Weekend.

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Opinion

In response to Nonie Darwish

March 16

Last Thursday, March 11, Arabs for Israel founder Nonie Darwish spoke on campus about Islamic law and the Arab−Israeli conflict. After the lecture and the subsequent question and answer session, Conversation, Action, Faith and Education (CAFÉ) — Tufts' student interfaith group — felt that it was necessary to respond to Ms. Darwish's claim that her remarks support and encourage interfaith activities. On behalf of CAFÉ, while we do not question Ms. Darwish's right to speak on campus, and in fact we commend Rabbi Jeffrey Summit and the sponsoring groups for providing the audience with a time for responses, we believe that Ms. Darwish's remarks ultimately undermined the key tenants of interfaith work by generalizing and attacking the Islamic faith.

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Editorial

Proper implementation of education reform needed

March 15

President Barack Obama yesterday announced his plan to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Rather than continuing the previous act's emphasis on students passing national standardized exams for reading and math comprehension, Obama's plan will focus on preparing students for college and careers. With this goal in mind, the president will encourage schools to broaden their curricula beyond just emphasizing reading and mathematics, the areas that No Child Left Behind tracked. Obama's proposed overhaul of education policy contains many much−needed improvements. However, the Obama administration's execution and timing of this plan may end up actually hurting its goals.

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Opinion

Can Tufts pass the trayless test?

March 15

In this economy, I think all colleges are looking to cut costs. We are already experiencing a sense of conservative spending at Tufts. In addition, one lesson that seems to be emerging is that "green" campus initiatives are really gaining momentum precisely because they can help improve a university's spending efficiency.

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Opinion

A response to McCarthyite Zionism

March 14

Der Judenstaat: It's German for "The State of the Jews." More than a century later, Theodor Herzl's vision of a democratic and Jewish homeland as described in his 1896 book "Der Judenstaat" has not only been fulfilled, but also exceeded the most optimistic of expectations. Despite being one of the world's smallest countries and having to constantly defend itself against existential military threats, Israel has truly thrived. Israel has managed in 60 years to have the highest per capita rate of university degrees and museums and the third−largest number of companies in the NASDAQ Stock Market, to develop the origins of the cell phone and maintain state−of−the−art desalination capabilities, among many other miraculous achievements. In recent years, Israel has been at the forefront of humanitarian missions around the world, with journalist Anderson Cooper of CNN recently praising the Israeli−run field hospital in earthquake−torn Haiti, which is estimated to have performed 140 life−saving operations in the matter of a week.

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor

March 14

Dear Editor, I am writing to you because I feel that the ban of alcohol at this year's Spring Fling is a flawed and outdated policy. As an alumnus of Tufts, I was proud to see that University President Lawrence Bacow was a signatory to the Amethyst Initiative. The initiative, according to their Web site, "supports informed and unimpeded debate on the 21-year-old drinking age. Amethyst Initiative presidents and chancellors call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use." I was proud that Tufts was publicly at the forefront of exploring innovative ideas in protecting students from the dangers of binge drinking. I am now saddened to read that in practice Tufts is simply forging ahead with the same flawed and outdated policy that made this country's Prohibition experiment such a complete failure. A total alcohol ban is the antithesis of the new ideas that the Amethyst Initiative seeks. A ban is certainly the safe public relations move in light of last year's event. However, as last year proved, student health and safety is truly at stake. Perhaps this year public relations should take a backseat to a new policy that realistically addresses the fact that we are dealing with college students attending a four-hour concert.

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Opinion

Elisha Sum | Our Genderation

March 10

Tori Amos once sang, "We both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem."

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Editorial

Alcohol program should take new approach

March 10

Tufts has decided to take another stab at changing the drinking culture on campus by incorporating an additional program into freshman orientation. Proposals for the new orientation program include both a student presentation of personal drinking stories and a presentation by Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS). The event would be modeled after In the SACK (Safety, Awareness, Consent and Knowledge in relationships), the sexual awareness presentation held during orientation week.

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Opinion

A word from the public editor

March 9

The past three weeks — the length of my tenure so far as public editor — have given me a thorough crash course in Tufts media; an impromptu but necessary lesson in the nebulous and often factional world that constitutes our campus media.

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Opinion

McCarthyite Zionism

March 9

"Schuld" — it's German for guilt. If certain German universities don't feel some "schuld" for canceling Norman Finkelstein's lectures, it may be because of McCarthyite Zionism. Norman Finkelstein is an internationally renowned scholar of the Israeli−Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein grew up in New York as the son of two Jewish Holocaust survivors. His controversial views revolve around his idea that a "Holocaust Industry" exploits the Holocaust. This "industry" uses the Holocaust as a tool to further Israel's interests along with other profiteering purposes.

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Opinion

Teddy Minch | Off Mic

March 9

The financial mess that exploded a year and a half ago exposed the massive housing bubble in the United States that had been steadily growing for years. As a nation, we still have yet to completely recover from its violent pop. More frighteningly than the slow recovery, however, is the lack of a coherent response from the federal government to adequately address the very circumstances that allowed the housing bubble to grow as it did.

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