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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, July 26, 2024

Opinion

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Viewpoint

SIS needs a major overhaul

The frustration associated with the Student Information System is universal for Tufts students. Students wanting to update personal information or modify their course enrollment are likely to encounter numerous technological issues.



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Biden, the ball is in your court

On Feb. 8, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a “historic partnership” with 14 professional sports leagues and player associations across the United States. The partnership features commitments to food provisioning, education and physical activity. It is part of a slate of commitments in the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities.


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Lebanon's inevitable war?

As jets burst across the sky, a residential building in Nabatieh, Lebanon was crushed, destroying the life of a family inside — history repeats itself. On Feb. 14, Israel carried out a drone strike operation in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh, a densely populated area with a population of 120,000.


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Judge Biden based on his accomplishments, not his age

We are three years into Joe Biden’s presidency, and Americans are not exactly happy about his performance so far as a chief executive. His approval rating has been consistently poor with an average of 39.8% in his third year in office, the second lowest only to Jimmy Carter for first-term presidents in the same period.


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Column

The Casual Death of Education: What is the point of public education?

I started this column to discuss the ongoing collapse of America’s educational system in the face of limited funding, lack of parental involvement and bad policies. But before we get to any of that we must address a very serious question: Why do we have a taxpayer funded mandatory public education system in the first place?



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On the importance of conservative perspectives at Tufts

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Tufts Daily Opinion Section. I have learned a great deal about journalism, made great friends and written timely articles that have resonated with many members of the Tufts community. At the same time, I have enjoyed butting heads on various issues with my fellow section members.


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What I learned in a year at the Daily

I’m not a very chatty person, but it’s here at the Daily I’ve found my voice — 500 to 800 words at a time. It’s been just over a year since my first article as a staff writer and as a senior, I can’t help but be sappy.


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Local news is dying — we can’t let it

By the end of this year, the U.S. will have lost one-third of the news publications it had in 2005. Major publications such as Time Magazine and the Los Angeles Times laid off scores of journalists last month, an event journalist Paul Farhi called “especially ominous.” Farhi himself was laid off by the Washington Post last year. Most of the defunct publications, however, are smaller weekly newspapers that are often the only source of reporting for local communities.


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Column

From Classroom to Clinic: End-of-life conversations — there’s empathy in foresight

Palliative care is a unique sector of medicine that treats patients with terminal diseases. Palliative care physicians have conversations with families to identify patient wishes, particularly when they are facing death. These physicians are equipped with training that emphasizes empathy, comfort and patient autonomy. Freedom of choice during the dying process gives patients the power to reclaim their agency amidst a process rife with uncertainty.


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Why the over-commodification of F1 leaves a shaky legacy

On many Sundays throughout the year, more than a million people tune in for the greatest spectacle on Earth: Formula 1. Crazed fans travel across continents and spend their life savings to see a nanosecond glimpse of their team’s car virtually flying on the track. Others scream in their hall’s common room when the camera suddenly pans to their favorite driver in the barriers (apologies to anyone impacted by my shrieking).


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Viewpoint

The illusion of LinkedIn

In an age marked by job market challenges and heightened student anxiety about internships and future career prospects, the familiar glow of LinkedIn pervades every corner of the university campus and the mind of every college student. The distracted kid in class, the kid bored from studying in Tisch Library and the one casually chilling at The Sink all have one thing in common: They all have LinkedIn open on their laptops.



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Guest

Op-ed: Day of Remembrance offers us lessons in reparations 82 years later

On[a]February 19th, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed the U.S. Army to forcibly relocate American civilians to concentration camps on the West Coast under the guise of national security in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned, despite none of them ever being charged or convicted of espionage[b]. Approximately two-thirds were[c]citizens, and half of them were children[d].


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Guest

Op-ed: Creative investments: The economic power of arts education in fueling innovation and prosperity

It is undeniable that the prioritization of STEM subjects exists as a global phenomenon. Most people believe that those in STEM have superior intellect, better employment prospects and ultimately greater success. Conversely, disciplines that are usually optional electives and non-core subjects, such as the arts, have often been marginalized in educational discourse. What we don’t realize is that engaging in the arts is not merely a hobby, but one of the key factors that can provide growth and development to the economy.


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Being, and being seen as, trans

There is something sacrilegious about being transgender. One sheds everything that is sacred about being woman or man: the sanctity behind living out the life blessed to one by the divine. The irony is that I write this as someone raised nonreligious. To this day, I don’t logically buy the stories of the Bible or the validity of its institutions. It’s debauched, then, that I have still chosen, either consciously or not, to impose a worldview of religious gender and sexuality on myself. But what is a logical acknowledgement does not belie the irrational recognitions we all have.


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Column

Ukraine at War: Two families killed in a Russian attack in Kharkiv

Taking a psychoanalysis class this semester brought me to a frightening realization — most of the dreams that I remember upon waking up are war-related nightmares. The dreams have a repetitive plot that always revolves around the aftermath of Russian attacks: burned-down buildings and dying family members. On Feb. 10, when a Russian drone attack caused the fire that killed at least seven people in Kharkiv, that dream partially came true.


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Mind over Musk: Keeping new tech on a short leash

We are living in an era of rapid technological growth, the dawn of remarkable innovation. As much as he is disliked, it would be disingenuous to deny thatElon Musk is, in many ways, a trailblazer[b]. But seeing what his most recent invention is capable of gives rise to an unsettling thought: Many years from today, it is likely Musk will be viewed not as a pinnacle of progress, but a man whose dangerous pursuits eventually serve as the impetus for our collective decay.


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We need to make queer media accessible to children

Beliefs about queerness being dangerous to children are not new. Ever since the gay liberation movement began gaining traction, accusations of corrupting children and pedophilia have been hurled at people in the LGBTQ+ community. Today, these boogeymen manifest in many ways, such as bans on books and drag shows, and “Don’t Say Gay” laws like the one infamously passed in Florida in 2022. It can be easy to write these issues off as disturbing quirks of deep-red states like Tennessee and Florida, but these issues can and do occur everywhere, even in more liberal states like Massachusetts.


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Viewpoint

It’s time to rethink our relationship with grass

In the U.S., we have nearly as many acres of lawn as we do acres of national parks — 40 to 50 million. Green grass lawns were first popularized in Europe, in the landscaping of elegant properties such as the palace of Versailles. These lawns were mirrored by American elites like Thomas Jefferson, who had turfgrass installed at his Monticello estate in Virginia.