In what is a massively unsurprising turn of events, within the past month, long swaths of the Green Line Extension between the Medford/Tufts and Lechmere stations have forced trains to move at three miles per hour. What has the MBTA’s response been? Empty pacification.
Since announcing his run for president in April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has drawn criticism from the very party his family once dominated. His anti-vaccine stances, claims Democrats are censoring him and the praise he has garnered from right-wing pundits such as Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have earned him the title of “Conservatives’ favorite democrat”. Perhaps it’s no surprise that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries referred to Mr. Kennedy as a “living, breathing, false flag operation.” Kennedy has ignored the majority of the Democrat base, opting instead to play to conservatives with appearances on Joe Rogan’s podcast and double down on his belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
As Republicans vie to earn their party’s presidential nomination in 2024, the lack of an incumbent president means there is a wide-open field with many candidates trying to assert their superiority. In this campaign cycle, Republicans are turning to new avenues to relate to voters and gain national appeal.
On Oct. 5, the Biden administration finally acknowledged a problem it has long denied and made the strategic decision to construct 20 miles of border wall in and near Starr County, Texas. According to the report written by Alejandro Mayorkas, United States secretary of homeland security, announcing this initiative, the “Rio Grande Valley Sector is an area of ‘high illegal entry.’” In fiscal year 2023, the Border Patrol encountered more than 245,000 entrants attempting to cross the border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Already, though, there is a disjointed message coming from the White House about the motivation behind this construction: Mayorkas says that the wall is necessary while Biden has claimed that the money cannot be reappropriated.
College students in the U.S. have certainly had an interesting education experience: Many current students attended school through a global pandemic, navigating virtual classes and adjusting to a new version of socialization. The U.S. took drastic actions to combat the economic impact of the pandemic. The country is now starting to feel a series of economic aftershocks, particularly affecting students, which I believe is due to actions of both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Early on Sept. 11, two dams built 50 years ago in Libya broke due to large amounts of rainfall from Storm Daniel. One of them, the Derna dam, held 4.76 billion gallons of water. Much of Derna was positioned within the water’s path of destruction, leaving as much as a third of the city destroyed. This catastrophic event has led to the deaths of over 11,300 and left more missing. Many Libyans are now left completely stranded without food, water and shelter.
Earlier this year, the Connecticut Supreme Court passed down its ruling concerning the immunity of rape victims in Title IX cases on campus. Title IX is the law that governs how sexual assault cases are supposed to be handled on college campuses. In a 7–0 vote, the court concluded that due to certain lacks of fairness, full immunity could not be extended to a Title IX victim of rape at Yale, and that a defamation case against her could continue.
On Jan. 18, 2023, just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, an environmental activist named Manuel Terán, known to most as Tortuguita, was shot 57 times by police officers. Police claimed that Tortuguita, who died on the scene, had shot and injured an officer immediately before his death. However, a subsequent autopsy showed that Tortuiguita had likely died sitting cross-legged, with his hands (which contained no gunpowder residue) in the air. Additionally, police body cam footage contained audio of an officer saying that the injured police officer was wounded by friendly fire, not Tortuguita.
Last week, reporter Clare Malone published a New Yorker article that exposed the lies that litter comedian Hasan Minhaj’s popular Netflix specials. At first glance, this appears to be a nonissue. Why should we expect truth from comedians? In fact, comedy idol Jerry Seinfeld has said that all his jokes are made up. Comedians are not journalists, activists or educators. And yet, Minhaj has fashioned himself as all three.
It’s not that hard to build a nuclear bomb. Get your hands on some uranium and materials for enrichment, and you’re golden. While that’s a gross oversimplification, I was able to learn the steps to build a nuclear warhead by spending two hours with a YouTube lecture; and in 1999, two University of Chicago students built a working nuclear reactor in their dorm room. For a weapon with unimaginable consequences, that’s a frightening statement to be able to make. In fact, the U.S. has spent the last 78 years tailoring its international security policy to ensure that other countries can’t take advantage of widely available information on how to construct a nuclear bomb. Specifically, the U.S. has focused on keeping nuclear weapons out of high-tension areas, including the Middle East.
In Jordan, the satire page “Al-Hudood,” which literally translates to “borders” or “limits” in Arabic, did what almost every political comedy group has done at one point — they released cartoons poking fun at the grossly rich. Al-Hudood’s cartoons and articles centered on the recent Jordanian royal wedding, a display of opulence in a country pervaded by wealth inequality. One comic replayed the dynamics of the wedding but in the context of Jordanian social division whereby the wedding guests, clad in rags, threw their last pieces of bread to the new couple. But it seems the only people who found it funny were the Jordanian public. Unsurprisingly, the rich and powerful friends of the newlyweds looked askance at this humor. Within days, “Al-Hudood” was shut down and journalists were arrested.
In media reports on China’s political and economic matters, we can observe a growing fear and animosity toward the nation as its power expands to create an increasingly bipolar world. In my experience, this has created an emotional atmosphere for discussions surrounding U.S.-China relations, where deviations from this mainstream view on China are often taken as an existential threat to American liberalism, democracy, national security and prosperity.
Dining halls are one of the most quintessential parts of a college experience. Many first-years especially will be getting their meals through campus dining halls rather than cooking or eating out — a phenomenon more pronounced at Tufts, where first-years are required to purchase the premium meal plan. As a result, the quality and accessibility of student dining is often a significant factor in college decisions, and something that Tufts and other universities appear to actively advertise and pride themselves on.
The University of Pennsylvania will host internationally condemned antisemite Roger Waters during the Jewish High Holidays. Waters, a former member of the rock group Pink Floyd, is scheduled to speak at Penn’s “Palestine Writes Literature Festival.” Celebrations of literature and culture, especially those of marginalized groups, are an important initiative on college campuses across the country. But let’s be clear — supporting one community cannot take place while employing violent language against another.
Massachusetts is one of only around a dozen states that has a market for electricity. Even though there are three electric utilities that control the power grid — Eversource, National Grid and Unitil — state residents can choose who supplies their energy: the electric utility, a municipality or a private company (so-called “competitive suppliers”). This well-intentioned policy was meant to protect consumers by giving them more choices, instead, it has let companies trample consumers’ rights.
Joe Biden has not exactly excelled in his role as President of the United States over the past couple of months. Most recently came Biden’s “no comment” from Delaware, where he appeared to brush off questions about the death toll of the tragic wildfires in Maui. Once he finally made it to Hawaii, he compared the devastation to a bizarre and self-centered story about an insignificant kitchen fire, later departing after spending a mere six hours assessing the damage.
For Hawaii, minor earthquakes — a 3.0-3.9 magnitude range — are considered typical, with locals habitually holding onto their free-standing lamps and chairs until the shaking concludes. Yet, on Sept. 8th, Morocco was struck with a magnitude 6.8 earthquake which killed over 2,900 people. Just a month prior to these earthquakes, Maui was engulfed in wildfire flames. Moreover, about a month ago, wildfires spread through swathes of North America, floods collapsed Libya’s dams and flash flooding exacerbated China’s monsoon season.
As the new year of college begins, especially for those beginning their first year at Tufts, it may be helpful to remember Peterson’s principle of the importance of cleaning your room. He doesn’t exactly mean it literally; it’s meant to be a metaphor for taking control of your life. Before you solve any larger issues plaguing you, you can start by simply cleaning up your room.
“History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.” — Karl Marx “According to housing director John Darcey … the university looked seriously into housing freshmen in nearby HOTELS (i.e. Sheraton Commander in Cambridge), or possibly purchasing new CONDOMINIUMS for the overflow. ...
The world has changed a lot in the last four years. Over the course of the Class of 2023’s tenure at Tufts, the state of the undergraduate experience changed tremendously. Tufts is in a unique position due to the issues that have arisen from its character and quality as a university.
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