Opinion

Opinion

From the Public Editor | Tufts media and the economy

March 3

These are dark days for the newspaper business. Newsrooms are shedding jobs by the hundreds; major metropolitan newspapers such as The Philadelphia Inquirer have cut their foreign desks (according to The New Republic, only four U.S. newspapers now have one); and whole sections are vanishing, as evidenced by The Boston Globe's recent decision to do away with its weekly stand-alone Health/Science section.

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Opinion

Supporting Israel intelligently

March 3

During a visit to Israel yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the new American administration believes that "moving toward the two-state solution, step by step, is in Israel's best interests…But obviously, it is up to the people and the government of Israel to decide." While it is true that the onus always falls most heavily on the involved parties, Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama's administration should be wary of taking a position that negates a strong American role in the determination of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

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Opinion

A more perfect community

March 3

The financial meltdown of the past six months has changed everything from our financial institutions to the way we invest to the products we buy. The world as we knew it in early September no longer exists. Unfortunately, the economy is likely to get worse before it gets better, and we are still a long way from the bottom. However, amid the pessimism and the gloom, we as a community have an opportunity to make a profoundly positive statement and alter the life of one of our friends by contributing to the Tufts Student Fund.

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor

March 3

Dear Editor,

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Opinion

Overactive citizenship

March 2

In the 1960s, students at universities and colleges across the country took advantage of their right to assemble and held protests, fighting for civil rights for African-Americans. They proved that protesting can be an effective way of reaching out to the authorities and administrations. With well-based claims and nonviolent actions, raising awareness about issues can be attainable and supported.

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Opinion

How's this for offensive?

March 2

This is now the fourth week in a row that I've read Will Ehrenfeld's column, "Stuff Tufts People Like." Coincidentally, this is also the fourth week in a row that I've been wholly unimpressed and vaguely annoyed with said column. Last week, his topic of choice for stuff that Tufts people like was "Getting offended too easily."

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Opinion

ConocoPhillips Energy Prize

March 2

The interdisciplinary approach that I learned at Tufts is the foundation of my professional life — a 15-year career in the State Department and eight years in the energy sector. That same approach can be the foundation for addressing two of our most pressing national issues — energy security and climate change.

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Opinion

Giovanni Russonello | Look Both Ways

March 1

In April of last year, Zachary Condon posted a mystifying message on the Web site of his intercultural music project, Beirut. He cancelled the group's tour and said he was in need of a creative shift: "It's come time to change some things, reinvent some others, and come back at some point with a fresh perspective and batch of songs," he wrote. "I promise we'll be back, in some form." Now Beirut has returned -- and indeed some things have changed.

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Editorial

Internships should be based on merit

March 1

By the middle of the spring semester (or, for those who are more on the ball than the average college student, the end of fall), the pressure is on as the seemingly impossible scramble for summer jobs and internships comes to the forefront of most students' to-do lists. With the downturn in the economy, it seems that no matter how many opportunities a student seeks, no matter how good the résumé, the odds are stacked against the modern college student, even for smaller unpaid internships — and the phenomenon of the paid internship seems to have faded into myth.

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Opinion

Letters to the editor

March 1

Dear Editor,

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Opinion

Correction

March 1

A theater review on Feb. 24 ("A.R.T. revives bleak ‘Endgame'") incorrectly listed the ticket prices of a production of Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" as ranging from $37 to $110. In fact, the ticket prices range from $25 to $79 with $25 student tickets and $15 student rush prices.

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Opinion

Is Tufts better than Harvard?

February 25

We all know the answer to that question is yes! Tufts is definitely better than Harvard and now we even have the cold, hard facts to back that up (at least in the realm of recycling). From where, you ask? The results for the first three weeks of Recycle Mania have come in! What's that? You don't know what Recycle Mania is? Well, some of you may have noticed the huge, brightly colored scoreboards hanging all over campus. But in case you missed them (or didn't bother to stop and read them), Recycle Mania is a friendly, 10-week competition held each year between colleges and universities all over the country to see which school is recycling the most. It started on Jan. 23, and I hate to break the news to you guys, but our results for the first three weeks have not been too good.

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Editorial

A missed opportunity

February 25

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) was supposed to be the Republican Party's equalizer. He was supposed to exploit the weaknesses of President Barack Obama's address to Congress Tuesday night. He was supposed to step into the national spotlight in the way Obama did four and a half years earlier during the Democratic National Convention. He was supposed to be the promising young face of a party that has appeared increasingly fractured over the last few years. 

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor

February 25

Dear Editor,

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Opinion

Letter to the editor

February 24

Dear Editor,

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Editorial

A risky divide

February 24

Less than five years after political conservatives of all stripes spoke with certainty about a permanent Republican majority, the party finds itself out of power, out of influence and, arguably, out of ideas. As it wanders in the political wilderness, the GOP must begin to make some difficult choices about what it intends to stand for; whether it will purge itself of the ideologically impure, or whether it will cut a deal with the devil just to stay viable. The growing divide in the Republican Party today is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the debate about President Obama's economic stimulus bill.

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Opinion

Steroids in baseball

February 23

Alex Rodriguez came out of the closet. On Monday, Feb. 9, in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons, Alex Rodriguez admitted to knowingly and willingly taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during his tenure with the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003. This confirms what was already known through a leaked positive steroids test from 2003. This also comes in the wake of a leaked result from Barry Bonds, whose urine tested positive for PEDs. The two are now inextricably linked with Mark McGwire through the amorphous cloud that is steroids. 

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Opinion

From the Public Editor | Are campus media immune to Obamamania?

February 23

On Feb. 12, junior Alice Tomic wrote an letter to the editor taking the Tufts Daily to task for what she saw as overly sympathetic bias in coverage of street artist Shephard Fairey, whose mural now adorns the wall outside of Jumbo Express. What caught my eye in the piece was a sentence decrying a "lack of professional journalism when it comes to Barack Obama" on campus.

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Opinion

Acceptance, not condemnation

February 23

Sunday night's presentation of the Academy Awards was elegant, star-studded and epic. In other words, it was nothing out of the ordinary for an industry fueled by adoration and self-congratulation. Yet faced with a near-certain decrease in revenues resulting from the global economic downturn, the Academy did little to strengthen its bond with the American public aside from host Hugh Jackman's half-hearted joke about "scaling back" during the opening monologue.

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Opinion

Giovanni Russonello | Look both ways

February 22

Guided by Voices' milestone record, "Bee Thousand" (1994), might make you think that Pete Townshend had a crazy idea one day. It sounds like he put Sonic Youth, Dire Straits, The Modern Lovers and Neutral Milk Hotel in a room with one guitar amp, a bass amp and a drum set and told them all to plug in and start playing without much attention to planning songs or testing levels.

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