Opinion

Guest

Letter to the Editor: Moral degeneration? Give me a break

By Justin Hong | March 8

When I read the first column in the new misCONceptions series, I was irked by it. This column’s authors surely knew they’d take a lot of heat for expressing their opinions and I admire that greatly. As much as one might disagree, they have every right to continue publishing their work in the Daily. In fact, they should continue because they’re right; Tufts students aren’t exposed to people with substantially different politics very often, and that ought to change. Studies have shown that not only are we rarely exposed to views we disagree with, but that liberals and conservatives literally do not speak the same language. We can articulate the same problems, yet describe them and their causes in dramatically different ways.

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Viewpoint

Christian nationalism is democracy’s greatest threat 

By Maxwell Shoustal | March 7

The Founding Fathers of the United States knew firsthand the dangers of religious belief dominating governmental doctrine. American colonists fled Europe to escape religious persecution, and religious freedom was enshrined as a constitutionally protected right. Of course, religious minorities, especially Muslims and atheists, have still faced discrimination in the United States. However, the goal of true religious freedom set forth by our founders is certainly worth pursuing, as freedom of thought is an integral principle of a democracy. 

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Column

MisCONceptions: Understanding people’s beliefs

By Trent Bunker, João Ribeiro, Katherine Brown and Nicholas Rishi | March 7

Editor’s note: MisCONceptions is a column with four contributors. This article was written by Nicholas Rishi.

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Viewpoint

The case for government-owned media

By Keshav Srikant | March 6

For years, Fox News, reported by Forbes as the most-watched cable news network in the United States, has attracted criticism. This stretches as far back as 2009 when the Obama administration controversially refused to refer to Fox News as a “legitimate news organization.” We now know they were right to do so. A few weeks ago, Dominion Voting Systems, as part of their defamation lawsuit against Fox News, released a trove of texts showing Fox News stars had expressed very different sentiments in private than the ones they displayed on air. For example, Sean Hannity, who called on his radio show for a special prosecutor to investigate claims of election fraud, said off air that Rudy Giuliani, who spread claims of election fraud, was “acting like an insane person.” Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, wrote that after the 2020 election, Hannity was “privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.” Perhaps the most revealing text from the Dominion lawsuit though was from Tucker Carlson, who — after a Fox reporter fact-checked a false claim about election fraud — wrote, “Please get her fired. … The stock price is down. Not a joke.” These are just a few examples of many, but they showcase how Fox knowingly spread false information about the 2020 election to maintain viewership and increase profits.

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Guest

Letter from the Editor in Chief: Responsible journalism in times of protest

By Julia Shannon-Grillo | March 3

The First Amendment ensures that every Tufts student has the right to protest through peaceable assembly. It is the same amendment that gives the Daily the right to report on any protest that may be relevant to its audience. To neglect to cover newsworthy student activism would be to disregard our responsibilities as a newspaper.

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Column

Ukraine at War: Bostonians gather to recognize a gloomy anniversary, a year of the full-scale war 

By Mariia Kudina | March 3

Despite the cold and snow, on Sunday, Feb. 26, Copley Square was decorated with Ukrainian flags along with those of the United States, Poland, Latvia and others. Almost 1,000 Bostonians gathered in front of the Trinity Church to recognize the gloomy one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. People joined in to listen to the speeches of city officials and personal stories of Ukrainian students pursuing education in the Boston area, while collecting and sending aid packages back home and dealing with very complex emotions.

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Guest

Op-ed: Join the global climate strike to end fossil finance

By Tca | March 2

“An important goal of the conversion to oil,” political theorist Timothy Mitchell writes, “was to permanently weaken the coal miners, whose ability to interrupt the flow of energy had given organized labor the power to demand the improvements to collective life that had democratized Europe.” In his seminal work “Carbon Democracy," Mitchell provocatively argues that transitions in global energy regimes are based less on inherent needs than transnational capital’s assault on democratic pressures from below. For a school that prides itself on its civic education and vast alumni network in public and international service, Tufts University has yet to take a committed stance on fossil fuels, whose contribution to climate change poses the gravest threat not only to liberal democracy but also to our very survival. With the conviction that Tufts should and is able to become a leading institution in shaping a greener future, we as Tufts Climate Action have teamed up with climate activist groups across Massachusetts to organize a climate strike on Friday, March 3, on Tufts campus at 10:15 a.m. at the Mayer Campus Center’s lower patio. We will then travel together to downtown Boston at 11:15 a.m. to join the city-wide rally.

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Viewpoint

The U-turn of corporate politics

By Toby Winick | March 2

Americans are now living in a country where corporate patronization and political affiliation become more intertwined each day. In our capitalist democracy, these two aspects are huge parts of cultural character. According to Siege Media, “Fox News” and “CNN” are up with “Starbucks” and “McDonalds” in 2022’s most Googled terms. It is no question how prominent companies and politics are in our daily lives, but there’s been a growing trend of mixing them together. 

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Viewpoint

Book bans: Unfortunately not a closed book

By Talia Wilcox | March 2

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is my favorite book. Other favorites of mine include “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding and “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. All of these books, in addition to at least hundreds of others, have been challenged, banned or removed from libraries all over the United States. A book ban occurs when a person or a group objects to the content of a book, and through successful challenge, that book is removed from libraries and school curricula.

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Column

Around the Corner: Averting the end of truth

By Asher Berlin | March 2

AI has gripped the United States, as technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney have astonished the nation with their uncanny abilities. Midjourney, an AI art generator, can convert a prompt into an art piece in around a minute, in any style or medium. It has effectively demonstrated that art, a bastion of human creativity, may fall to the machines sooner than was thought. Further, TikTok has seen another form of AI trending: deepfakes.

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Viewpoint

Jumbos, it’s time to get out of the bubble

By Justin Hong | March 1

I came to Tufts excited to be in a city with real public transportation. Coming from a Los Angeles suburb, just about anything — even the failing MBTA — was a step up from what I was used to back home. Now, I use the T all the time to get to work or just to explore, and it shocks me to see how little some of my friends use it. My exploration of the Greater Boston area introduced me to a great variety of people, ideas and places that I never would have encountered at home without a car.

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Column

MisCONceptions: Introduction

By Trent Bunker, João Ribeiro, Katherine Brown and Nicholas Rishi | February 28

America is dying. Whether you believe it is ill due to climate change, rising bigotry and predatory billionaires, or moral degeneration, family breakdown and a loss of unity may vary depending on your political ideology. However, we fear that in a time of increasing polarization, marked by the demonization of the opposing side in echo chambers found on the right and left, Americans are failing to understand what those with opposing viewpoints truly believe. 

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Viewpoint

It’s time to pump the brakes on the AI train

By Keshav Srikant | February 27

On Nov. 30, 2022, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI unveiled its brand new chatbot, ChatGPT, to the world. ChatGPT instantly gained popularity — it was the fastest new app to 100 million active users, beating out apps like Instagram, Snapchat and even TikTok — and it’s easy to see why. ChatGPT can write everything from articulate essays on any topic under the sun to songs in the style of the user’s favorite artists to slam poetry to fiction. It can also explain complex concepts to various audiences, often much more concisely and crisply than humans are capable of, to the point where ChatGPT is being floated as an alternative to tutoring for students. ChatGPT is so advanced that it is now being used by businesses, with firms using it to refine their writing and assist them with content marketing. With all the praise and popularity ChatGPT received in the months since its inception, it's easy to see why Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI, announced it would begin integrating ChatGPT’s technology into its search engine Bing on Feb. 7. Google, clearly worried that a modified Bing might pose a threat to their search engine, promptly announced it would soon be releasing its AI bot competitor Bard, integrating AI technology into its own search engine. While both Microsoft and Google’s moves are understandable and can be seen as exciting, the emerging race to integrate AI into search engines could have harmful societal impacts. 

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Viewpoint

A Super Bowl commercial’s window to medical privilege

By Julieta Grané | February 27

Super Bowl LVII prompted a wide range of emotions. Rihanna’s spectacular halftime show sparked joy and amazement, from her fantastic backup dancers to her low-key pregnancy announcement. The Chiefs’ turn-around victory in the fourth quarter enthused some and crushed others. For me, one of the Super Bowl commercials caused confusion. From headlines like “Diabetes Patients at Risk From Rising Insulin Prices,” I have learned about crises the diabetic community face. Access to insulin is scarce, expensive and often not adequately covered by insurance. Stories of people rationing their insulin have often ended in grave illness and even death. Yet a Dexcom commercial featuring Nick Jonas highlighted a wildly different diabetic reality. By promoting technology that makes life simple for those living with the condition while neglecting to acknowledge the grim reality of so many with limited insulin access, the ad was an affront to marginalized communities and a gross display of medical privilege.

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Editorial

Editorial: To the spirit of Ukraine

By The Editorial Board | February 24

When missiles began to pierce the night sky and rain down on Kyiv a year ago, we did not think we would be able to write this piece. Like many analysts, we suspected Russia’s war crimes would lead to the tragic death of Ukraine and its people. At the time, calls abounded for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to flee the country, fearing he would be killed by the Russian invaders. 

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Guest

Op-ed: Pediatric hospital bed shortages in Mass. reveal a critical public health failure

By Elizabeth Allen | February 24

Amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, another crisis bubbles just below the surface. Pediatric inpatient and ICU beds are at a critical level nationwide — capacity is strained to the brink as respiratory syncytial virus cases rise in parallel with a growing trend of pediatric hospital bed closures. From 2008–18, pediatric inpatient units across the country decreased by 19% as hospitals sought more lucrative services. In Massachusetts, children in need of an inpatient or ICU bed often wait an unacceptable length of time, or they are forced to seek care in neighboring states plagued by their own shortages.

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Viewpoint

Central Asian climate crisis and its global significance

By Dzheveira Karimova | February 24

Summers in my hometown of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan harbor joyous memories of playing under the sun with my friends and traveling with my family to our favorite vacation spot: Issyk Kul. Winters, however, have always been dreadful. It is not because of the lack of warmth and sunshine but rather due to the deadly smog that devours the entire city and keeps all its inhabitants suffocated by pollution and persistent darkness.

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Viewpoint

Tick … tick … boom?

By Talia Wilcox | February 24

Time moves forward toward the next exam, next semester, graduation, the future. Unfortunately, that future could be cut short according to the Doomsday Clock, which now sits at 90 seconds to midnight. Despite its somewhat ominous nomenclature, the Doomsday Clock is not a crazy, cultish phenomenon about the world ending, but a scientific measurement of how close we are to global human catastrophe. Scientists at the University of Chicago created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 to warn humans of the dangers of human-made technologies, like nuclear weapons. Manhattan Project scientists who helped build the first atomic bomb opposed its use against people and subsequently formed theBulletin of Atomic Scientists. The Bulletin needed a cover design for the June 1947 edition of their magazine, so they asked artist Martyl Langsdorf. Martyl was married to physicist Alexander Langsdorf Jr., who worked on the Manhattan Project. Hearing countless discussions about nuclear weapons and the risk they pose to humanity, “she sketched a clock to suggest that we didn’t have much time left to get atomic weapons under control.” The Doomsday Clock’s status is reassessed every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board and its Board of Sponsors, a group that includes 13 Nobel laureates. It provides an authoritative assessment of the world’s current risk of annihilation by human-made technologies.

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Editorial

Editorial: Before you blame ‘the media,’ read the news

By The Editorial Board | February 23

If you were an Instagram user in 2019, you likely remember an early iteration of online outrage: the Amazon rainforest wildfires. As fires tore through the Brazilian Amazon — partly due to regular farming practices and partly due to excessive deforestation — social media users were quick to direct outrage toward the news media.

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Editorial

Editorial: On a free student press

By The Editorial Board | February 23

With tomorrow marking 54 years since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines, a case fundamental in affirming the First Amendment rights of students, we write to stress the importance of a responsible free press and the important role of student newspapers in holding university leadership accountable and ensuring an informed readership.

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