Spring 2010 - Issue 1

INSIDE THE

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TUFTS OBSERVERTUFTS OBSERVERFEBRUARY 8, 2010FEBRUARY 8, 2010

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VOLUME CXX / ISSUE 1VOLUME CXX / ISSUE 1

Between IRAQ — a n d a —

HARD PLACE

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FEATURED ARTICLES

O! e Observer has been Tu! s’ weekly publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we o" er insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and sports. # rough poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tu! s community to e" ect positive change.

$%&'()%# e hardships of * nding a new home

+$$ ,&-.(/Unique Valentine’s gi! s for the romantically creative

&)'/Our favorite mandators start the semester o" right

01'%)1&'0+1&2Tu! s brings interactive relief to campus

1&'0+1&2Did Martha Coakley lose, or did Scott Brown win?

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CONTENTS

!"#$%&"Iraq and a Hard Place, by Lauren Herstik'#$()'#*Banks Audit the “Well-Endowed,” by Madeline Christensen +#,-%.Jumbo’s Facebook Feed, by Marysa Lin+#,-%.Gay and StraightForward Solutions, by Marysa Lin('$"&'#$()'#*Interview: Aiding Haiti, by Marysa Lin('$"&'#$()'#*On Your Newsfeed: Global Technology Transforming Haiti Relief E/ orts, by Katherine Sawyer & Lauren Herstick'#$()'#*Seeing 0 rough the Punditry, by Seth Stein'#$()'#*An Open Letter to Organizing for America, by Seth Rau"1%+#$()'In Defense of English Majors, by Ariana Siegel#&$.0 e Independent’s Manifesto, by Alex Kahn#&$.A Date with Dan(ny): New Beginnings, by Danny Weiner & Dan Rizzo)!! +#,-%.Ticket to Ride, by Ruth Tam)!! +#,-%.Cupid Gets Creative, by Chelsea Brown-)"$&2 3 -&)."On the 0 erapeutic Potential of Remaining Fluently Silent in Arguments, by George Kolev-)"$&2 3 -&)."To Be Straight With You, by Melis Aker+#,-%. .#!"$2Police Blotter, by Ruth Tam

Melis AkerChelsea BrownNora ChovanecLauren HerstikAlex KahnGeorge Kolev

Seth RauDan RizzoKatherine SawyerDavid SmytheDanny Weiner

EDITORS!"#$%&-#'-()#!*Daniel Rosen+,',-#'- !"#$%&.Zach FoulkEliza MillsWill Ramsdell

/&%"0($#%' "#&!($%&David Schwartz

,&$ "#&!($%&Alyce Currier

.!($#%' !"#$%&.Katie BolandMeg BolandKatie ChristiansenZachary LaubMarysa LinCara PaleyMolly RubinNatalie SelzerAriana SiegelSeth Stein

/)%$%-&,/)1 !"#$%&Elizabeth Herman

(%/1 !"#$%&Kristen Barone

,..#.$,'$ (%/1 !"#$%&.Danielle CarbonneauKate Gri4 thsKarrie LarssonCarly MachlisCara PaleyDaniela RamirezIsobel RedelmeierBrian Wolf

2!," ,&$#.$Ruth Tam

2,1%0$ "#&!($%&Charlee CorraDaniel Weinstein

30.#'!.. +,',-!&.Andrew McGowan

OEDITORSEDITOR!"#$%&-#'-()#!*"#$%&-#'-()#!*Daniel Rosenaniel Ros+,',-#'- !"#$%&.,',-#'- !"#$%&.Zach Foulkch FouEliza Millsiza MWill RamsdellWill Ramsdel

/&%"0($#%' "#&!($%&/&%"0($#%' "#&!($%&David SchwartzDavid Schwartz

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CONTRIBUTORS Since18

February 8, 20090 e Observer, Since 1895Tu5 s’ oldest publication

Volume CXX, Issue 1Tu5 s’ Student Magazinewww.Tu5 sObserver.org

95

2 THE OBSERVER FEBRUARY 8, 2010

INTERNATIONAL

BY LAUREN HERSTIK

Getting Out

Prior to and throughout the Amer-ican-led invasion and subsequent oc-cupation of Iraq, a vast number of Iraqi nationals were employed by a wide array of public and private US-based entities to aid and assist in all manner of e! orts and endeavors. A great many of these individ-uals were hired directly by branches of the American armed forces and played highly public and visible roles in said operations. As such, a substantial number of these past and present Iraqi employees have been identi" ed as traitors and targeted by groups hostile to America and American foreign policy. # ey now face threats of violence or death. # ey fear for the lives of their friends and family, deemed by many violent and extra-state entities to be complicit by association. Many are forced

to leave Iraq for neighboring Syria or Jor-dan where they " nd themselves in limbo, denied mobility in an equally hostile en-vironment but unable to return to Iraq.

In an e! ort to honor the sacri" ce of such Iraqis, Kirk Johnson started the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. It’s a long list of Iraqis who worked as translators and interpreters, civil society experts for and employees of United States govern-ment agencies and a$ liated organiza-tions. Around 3,000 names are on the list, and ever more Iraqis are waiting to be added. Many potential candidates for the list have heard about Johnson’s project by word of mouth, email, or online news sources, and contact him in any and ev-ery way possible, attempting to get their names on this list.

Fady Mekhaeel, 24, had been working as a translator and a liaison to American forces for the Mosul Public Safety Acad-emy for about a year when, in 2004, life

changed in Mosul, Iraq. # e city fell into the hands of insurgents and soon a% er, two of Fady’s friends—both employed by American forces—were kidnapped and missing for over a month.

Fady looks at his hands, gently turn-ing a pen in his " ngers. His voice is con-trolled, quiet. “Unfortunately they were decapitated. # ey were " lmed. # ose " lms were sent to my home as a warning that I would be next unless I quit my job. So at that time I had to quit; otherwise, I would lose my life or my family members.”

# e List Project " rst aims to help the thousands of Iraqis on the list make the trip to the United States; once they arrive, the project then serves to support Iraqis in the o% en-di$ cult resettlement process. With its o$ cial launch in 2007, # e List Project partnered with three law " rms—Holland and Knight, Proskauer Rose, and later, Mayer Brown—to provide le-gal counsel to Iraqis navigating the long

application process necessi-tated for entry into the United States.

Getting In

Refugees who do manage to navigate the labyrinthine resettlement process face a whole host of new challenges upon arrival. # eir cases get passed on to one of ten vol-untary resettlement agencies (VOLAGs) around the coun-try, non-pro" t/state entities that cooperate with the State Department to provide basic services to newly arrived refu-gees.

For Ihsan Yaqoob, 54, such aid and assistance in this

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di! cult process wasn’t forthcoming. He arrived in the US in November 2008 af-ter a tumultuous journey through Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. He and his family " ed in 2007 a# er insurgents began following him home from the Abu Ghraib prison, where Yaqoob worked as a translator.

“$ e agencies are supposed to help me, but because I speak English, they don’t come near me. $ ey don’t think about me,” he said.

Yaqoob came to the US on a Spe-cial Immigrant Visa (SIV) as opposed to obtaining refugee status. $ e VOLAGs didn’t even know he was here.

“Special Immigrant Visa. What’s so special? You get nothing,” Yaqoob fer-vently lamented.

Navigating the “Byzantine” Process

In 2007, a# er " eeing Mosul for a small Christian village an hour and a half away from home, Fady’s and his mother’s hardships had only just begun.

His voice remains steady as ever. He is quiet, almost calming. “I got another threat letter by email from Al-Qaeda in Mosul. $ ey knew my whereabouts. $ ey were going to % nd me and kill me. A# er receiving that letter, there was no chance for me to stay in Iraq. I moved to Syria,” he recounted. Once in Syria, Fady regis-tered with the UNHCR.

Christopher Nugent, a Senior Coun-sel with the Community Services Team of Holland & Knight in Washington, DC leads a full-time pro bono team of 125 attorneys and 25 paralegals who guide Iraqi applicants through the pro-cess he describes as, “Byzan-tine and complex.”

To qualify for refugee status, an Iraqi like Fady must % rst permanently leave Iraq under the impetus of a “well-founded fear of being persecuted.” Refugees are subject to an extensive inter-view process with the UN-HCR, the International Of-% ce of Migration (IOM), and the US Department of State,

as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

$ e List Project’s team of lawyers and paralegals assist Iraqis throughout the process. A paralegal helps each Iraqi compile all of the documentation veri-fying that each applicant worked for the US government and/or associated enti-ties. Potential bene% ciaries also % ll out a con% dential questionnaire, which forms the framework for their responses in the coming interviews. Remarkably, many of the very paralegals that help facilitate this process are refugees who themselves were successfully aided and resettled the pro-gram. Lawyers join in on the cases once the required dossiers have been compiled, parsing through the responses and paper-work to generate a cohesive and—most importantly—consistent narrative. $ ese polished and vetted narratives then be-come training tools for the Iraqis, used extensively to prepare them for each and every interview.

An Unforeseen Complication

Given the dizzying array of bureau-cratic inroads between agencies to be navigated, the interview process is time consuming, potentially dangerous, and riddled with cracks and " aws. Yaqoob’s experience proved this much.

He had his % rst UNHCR interview in Syria on June 26, 2007. “I thought I had to

persuade them to push my case quickly, so I told them about my job. I showed them some documents to prove that I had worked for the Americans,” he recalled. “Ten days later, two men came into my house; one was the landlord.” Claiming to need to speak with Yaqoob about the terms of his lease, the men took him to what he assumed was an o! ce—it wasn’t. Unexpectedly, Yaqoob found himself de-tained in the headquarters of the Syrian secret police.

“$ ey knew—from me—that I had worked with the Americans. $ e Syr-ian interviewer at UNHCR was a double agent. $ ese men thought I was a spy. And in Syria, ‘spy’ means you are—” Yaqoob drags his thumb across his throat.

“Dead.”$ e secret police held Yaqoob for 23

days. “23 days in hell,” he recalled. Eight days were spent in solitary con% nement; the rest, in a nine-by-nine foot room with 35 other men, one small toilet, and two buckets marked for washing, drinking, and eating.

“All the kinds of insects that you’ve imagined in your life, they were there,” he said with a short, dry laugh.

When at long last released, on the basis of his registration as a refugee with UNHCR, Yaqoob returned to Iraq and, with his family, proceeded to " ee to Tur-key, where they entered into the entire application process, forced to start at the


INTERNATIONALbeginning of this tedious and convoluted maze once more.

Time, Transparency, and Redundancy

! e period between initial registra-tion with UNHCR and attaining security clearance from the DHS can take any-where from eight months to " ve years. Yaqoob and Mekhaeel and their fami-lies, whose cases were both processed in Turkey, each waited almost two years for completion.

! e process is so extensively pro-tracted because “it’s not transparent and it’s lacking accountability,” according to Nugent. ! e UNHCR Resettlement Handbook explicitly identi" es and pro-motes transparency as a safeguard, especially with regards to the jus-ti" cation of decisions made in each individual resettlement case.

Mekhaeel never experienced said, man-dated transparency. He was put through six or seven interviews with UNHCR; unusual, con-sidering most cases re-quire but one. He was never given any reason for the repeated inter-rogations even though he had provided exten-sive contact informa-tion for past employers and cooperated in good faith throughout the process.

Nugent addressed the lack of transparency summarily with regards to the appeals process, concerning the procedure in the event that an appli-cant is denied the recommendation to an interview with the United States by UN-HCR. Because interviews are conducted abroad, Iraqis are o# en e$ ectively le# on their own. ! ough they have the right to counsel in the UNHCR process, it is usu-ally received remotely and is frequently of little immediate help.

In case something goes wrong, “we’re forced to speculate what went wrong in the interview. [Interviewers] are sup-

posed to tell applicants why they’re being denied, and that’s not happening,” Nugent said. It makes the appeal process in" nitely trickier.

An all-too-evident % aw in the system is that of redundancy, speci" cally in back-ground checks and security clearances. Nugent identi" ed the procurement of se-curity clearance as the longest and most needlessly di& cult of steps in the pro-cess. ! is need not be the case, though. ! e lion’s share of Iraqis who worked for the US government or the military have already been screened and vetted, and many have taken polygraph tests. As such they have essentially gone through the security clearance process once already, and yet they’re now again subjected to the

time and resource consuming screening procedure, involving up to 24 di$ erent databases.

! e lack of accountability becomes apparent in cases in which Iraqis are le-gally proscribed from discussing their employment by the very US-linked agen-cies that employed them, severely limit-ing their ability to gain security clearance from di$ erent agencies. ! is ultimately puts the Iraqis in an impossible and o# en unreasonable situation. ! e very job that initially quali" ed these people to enter into the resettlement process becomes a

liability and massive hurdle in success-fully navigating it.

In regards to this emergent % aw in the system, Nugent said, “we’re trying to create a paradigm shi# in the preparation, representation, and advocacy for refu-gees. ! e status quo doesn’t distinguish between populations like these Iraqis. ! ey gave their lives to the US; now this is what we’re putting them through.”

Where Are ! ey Now?

Fady has largely been able to help himself since arriving in Boston two and a half months ago. Between his estab-lished relationship with Catholic Char-ities—his sponsoring agency—and his

excellent English, Mekhaeel has been able to " nd success in his new home. Mekhaeel has been working with Net-roots Boston to " nd a full-time job, and in December, said Catholic Charities began paying him, part-time, for work he had been doing for free.

As for Yaqoob, a year-long job search here might soon yield tangible results. Since his arrival in the US, Yaqoob’s part-time work has amounted to just 18 hours per week. His determi-

nation to " nd a decent, steady job may yet pay o$ ; Yaqoob recently passed a test to become a full-time employee at Logan International Airport. Still, a# er so many failed attempts at " nding work, he re-mains skeptical.

“We have a saying in Iraq: you don’t say anything unless you eat it. I haven’t eaten it yet.”

His tone, while darkly cynical, is radiated under the glimmer of hopeful, charming eyes, hinting at the presence of a frustrated but not yet defected man of bright thoughts and ironclad resolve. O

For the many cases like Yaqoob’s, ! e List Project has cre-ated the Netroots website, a forum for volunteers who can step in where the Voluntary Resettlement Agencies fall short. ! e Project provides a comprehensive approach to taking responsibility for people that might otherwise be considered collateral damage to the war e" ort in Iraq.

Ben Dunay, 28, hopes to bring the Boston chapter up to speed with more organized chapters, like Andrew Free’s at Vanderbilt. Net-roots Boston currently is made up of 54 loosely connected volunteers signed up in the Boston Group on the Netroots website, with Dunay as the de-facto leader.de- ! e group is noti# ed when new Iraqis arrive in the Greater Boston Area, and the volunteers aid the new arrivals as best as they can.;

To # nd more information and help Netroots and the List Proj-ect, visit netroots.thelistproject.org.


NATIONAL

BY MADELINE CHRISTENSEN

In the wake of the economic crisis, peo-ple have been keeping a close eye on their pocketbooks. Corporate giants

have crumbled, and millions of jobs have vanished. ! ri" y is the new name brand, and no couch cushion has been le" un-turned in the search for loose change. What hasn’t disappeared has at least de# ated. In the wake of this anxiety, the loss of sizeable portions of school endowments has stirred up increased scrutiny about universities’ ac-countability for their budgets.

! e Internal Revenue Service is now concerned with how tax-exempt schools are using their money and is taking a close look at private universities’ $ nances. In an e% ort to understand tax-exempt institutions, the IRS sent surveys to 400 schools and univer-sities in October 2008 inquiring into how they manage taxable operations and how they invest and use endowment funds.

! e IRS then chose 40 schools for fur-ther auditing this year, including Boston-area Su% olk and Harvard Universities. ! e questionnaires delved further into the in-ner workings of schools’ $ nances than ever before, with unusually detailed questions about compensation of upper-level employ-ees and business activities. While the univer-sities were not required to respond to these questionnaires, not responding would put them at greater risk of an audit. ! is year’s

impending audits will look at how schools invest their endowment and compensate their employees, as well as how they report and classify exempt and taxable activities. ! e audits are modeled a" er a similar in-vestigation into hospital funding that began in 2006; the scrutiny of the health care sys-tem led to audits, legislative hearings, and stricter tax-$ ling requirements.

Many speculate that the IRS audits are a long-overdue look into university invest-ments. While Harvard is tax-exempt, it has been suspected that its wide range of invest-ment activity might not be entirely related to its educational mission. ! e audits came as Harvard made plans to sell $480 million in tax-exempt securities to pay for an ex-pansion of the law school and other capital as well as to re$ nance debt, according to the Boston Globe. In 2003, a Harvard alumni group criticized the Harvard endowment, known as Harvard Management Co., for paying its six in-house managers a com-bined $107.5 million in 2002.

Headlines have been pointing $ ngers at Su% olk University for its president’s as-tronomical salary. ! e university president’s $2.8 million income made him the highest-paid private college administrator of 2007, though university o& cials say that the amount included deferred bonuses. Never-theless, he still made second on the list in 2008, when he earned a nominally more modest $1.5 million.

Tu" s Economics Professor John Straub noted that this is not the $ rst time the gov-ernment has looked to universities and even hospitals to cushion the blow of the $ nan-cial crisis. Pittsburgh, a city rich in hospitals and higher education, made headlines in late 2009 when the mayor # oated the idea of taxing nonpro$ t universities and hospitals. Ultimately, the institutions agreed to pay a one-time “voluntary contribution” to avoid the permanent tax.

“It’s pretty clear that there’s not a lot di% erent in terms of the $ nances of these hospitals and universities from 10 years ago; it’s just that the cities, states, federal government are in a di& cult revenue situa-

tion right now,” said Straub. “So they’re just looking for lots of ways to raise money.”

Straub said he believed the audits are mostly politically motivated. “I think it’s pretty much straight-up that governments are running low on cash, and this is some-thing that they’re trying,” he said. “To me it’s kind of analogous to legalizing gambling or something like that, instituting lotteries. 25 years ago, there weren’t many lotteries. Now every state has a lottery. It was just a way to get more money without raising taxes. So I think it’s more of a political phenomenon than an economic phenomenon.”

Straub said that universities had long been expected to inform the government of their business. “It’s already been the case for a long time that nonpro$ ts of all types sub-mit a form to the IRS,” he said.

Higher education is very important to Massachusetts, where colleges and uni-versities pump $23 billion into the state’s economy annually. While these institutions have long been a source of stability in rocky economic times, there are visible e% ects of the $ nancial crisis across campuses. Many colleges are facing a slowdown in building projects, which has repercussions beyond the limits of campus.

Whether the IRS audits are a needed check on university spending or a political scheme to salvage drained state economies, one thing is certain: the audits embody the $ nancial crisis and highlight the growing need for $ scal responsibility across college campuses. O

Banks Audit the �“Well-Endowed�”

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President Bacow sent Adele Bacow a gift: romantic dinner in Carmichael.

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The Tufts Daily published an article: �“Tufts professor accused of sexual harassment.�”

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CAMPUS

Underlying the headlines about the recent crisis in Haiti are complex issues of international relations,

aid, and the road ahead. ! e Observerconsults Professor Margaret McMillan and Junior James Dillon, Jr. about international aid and development in Haiti.

Tu! s Observer: How would you charac-terize the international aid reaction to the recent earthquake?

Margaret McMillan: ! e US has sent food, water, medical supplies, transportation equipment, and people to Haiti…! e logis-tical challenges appear to be enormous.

! ere is a tendency to blame Haitians for creating this mess…I think this is outra-geous. People who take this position need to step back and remember what we (the US) have done in Haiti.

In the early 1990s, we imposed a trade embargo on Haiti to bring about democ-ratization…

! en, under the Bush administration, we (the US) brazenly froze all foreign aid to

Haiti and tricked Aristide onto a plane.

O: ! ere have been debates about the ef-ficacy of international aid— could you elaborate?

MM: For the most part, foreign aid from the US government is politically driven with very little regard for development outcomes. ! e largest recipients of US foreign aid used to be Israel and Egypt. Iraq is currently in " rst place. Clearly, these are decisions mo-tivated by geo-political concerns.

O: From a development perspective, what are some of the major obstacles Haiti faced before the earthquake? Was it a lack of aid?

MM: No country has become rich because of foreign aid. I don’t think the root of Haiti’s problems is in too little foreign aid. ! e root of Haiti’s problems lay in foreign exploita-tion to a large degree.

James Dillon: ! e country has a history of extremely violent and corrupt governments that exist solely to extract as much money out of the country that they can for the

short time that they are in power (they are “predatory states”).

A lack of any type of stable or trustworthy government has led past foreign aid to be ine# ective. [For example] when the Duva-lier family ruled Haiti, almost all aid given to the country was stolen.

O: Now, what are the best forms of aid to help Haiti develop rather than just re-cover?

MM: Je# Sachs has proposed a Haiti Re-covery Fund that would receive emergency donations from the US and other donors…to rebuild Haiti once the emergency is contained. It would be like a Marshall Plan for Haiti…! e only problem with Sach’s proposal is that he is saying that we should " nance it by taxing Wall Street bonuses.

JD: The country has extremely low hu-man capital …[and] foreign aid could be bene" cial if directed at schooling where supplies are scarce and teachers uneducated … reforestation without education would lead to farmers quickly depleting the land again. O

Dear Gay/Straight Guy:I recently found some compromising pictures of myself on the In-ternet. I was pretty crazy when I was 16. But, I have a girlfriend now, and I don’t want her to see. What should I do? –“No longer confused”

Gay Guy: Send pics.

Straight Guy: Don’t worry about it, man. We’ve all been there at some point in our lives. I mean, who hasn’t had one of those crazy nights that end-ed up online? ! e best thing you can do is accept your wild and crazy past and move forward. ! at said, you should never under any circumstance let your girl-friend see them. Contrary to the Bible’s teachings, the truth will not set you free; it will only get you dumped.

Lie ‘til you die. O

Interview: Aiding HaitiInterview: Aiding Haiti

Gay& StraightForward SolutionsDear Gay/Straight Guy: My boyfriend is always busy playing videogames with his “bros” and he never answers my texts. What should I do?

– “<3 4 ever ”

Gay Guy: Let me level with you. ! ose video games were there before you, and they’ll still be there a$ er you. ! ink of his copy of Halo or FIFA the same way you’d think of your favorite Longchamp bag or UGG slippers—they’re equally expensive safety blankets, and you just have to learn to cohabitate. So, instead of getting upset, use his “video game” time to go to the gym.

! at way, when you walk in front of the TV, his friends will at least compliment your butt.

Straight Guy: Don’t think of his videogames as competition, be-cause you’ll lose. As long as you don’t acknowledge the problem, there won’t be one.

8 THE OBSERVER FEBRUARY, 8, 2010

INTERNATIONAL

BY KATHERINE SAWYER

In the a! ermath of the massive January 12 earthquake in Haiti, sites like Twitter and Facebook facilitated aid to friends and

family of earthquake victims in order to " nd missing loved ones.

As the earthquake wreaked havoc on the small island nation, it took out phone lines and Internet connections, making it di# cult for survivors to send word that they had survived. And then something in-teresting happened: tweets and Facebook updates swi! ly became the most direct and instantaneous news source of the developing crisis in Haiti. While many news broadcasting networks did not start full coverage of the earthquake until Wednesday, January 13, those following Twitter received immediate word of the quake and could watch as the disaster unfolded.

On January 12 at 2:20 p.m., CNN Breaking News (cnnbrk) tweeted, “A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck 10 miles from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, the USGS re-ports.” Many other updates quickly followed this message, including news of the a! er-shocks and the collapse of the UN headquar-ters in Haiti. ! e New York Times tweeted at 2:50 p.m., “#Haiti Quake Brings Hospital Col-lapse http://bit.ly/6Xn5Rb” with a link to more information. Because news organizations could use Twitter to immediately post small fragments of information as they received it, Twitter was instrumental in breaking news of the Haiti earthquake to the public.

Social networking sites, like Facebook, also played a key role in locating missing friends and family who had been in Haiti during the catastrophe. $ e International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) started

a Facebook group called Earthquake Haiti, where people could post photos of friends and family and request information in the hopes that someone could give them news. $ e group is now using the Facebook page as a forum to promote “legitimate relief organi-zations” and list organizations to contact for help in " nding missing friends and family.

Facebook allowed individuals in Haiti to quickly send word to all their friends and fam-ily that they were safe. Sopho-

more Danielle

Cotter found out

via Facebook that a Tu! s friend of hers was safe a! er another friend got in contact with the girl’s family and used online resources to communicate her friend’s safety. “She updated her Facebook status to let every-one know that a member of my friend’s family had con" rmed that my friend and her family were okay,” she said.

Now that the focus of relief has shi! ed to helping survivors and rebuilding the country, Twitter and Facebook play a key role in fund-raising e% orts. $ ere have been thousands of Facebook groups and events created to help raise funds and supplies for the relief e% ort. At Tu! s, the $ eta Chi Haitian Earthquake Relief Fundraiser event already has over 600 people

attending which, according to sophomore and $ eta Chi brother Chris Liu, will include the selling of bracelets and a comedy event fund-raiser at Hotung. “$ eta Chi means 'helping hands,’ so it's in our philosophy to help out,” said Liu. “We have an alumni from Haiti, and I can only imagine how he's feeling right now, so we thought we'd take the initiative to do it.” Facebook has provided $ eta Chi the mecha-

nism to publicize these e% orts across cam-pus and mobilize students in response

to the Haiti disaster. Shortly a! er the earth-

quake, Twitter began to play a large role in the relief e% ortas well. $ e Red Cross’s texting fundraising campaign was

heavily advertised on Twit-ter on pages like the White House Twitter account. Sending the word «Haiti» in

a text message to the number 90999 automatically charges

a $10 pledge to the individual’s phone bill, which has so far raised

over $25 million for Haiti. According to a Twitter tracking program called

Sysomos, the phrase “90999” was found in 189,024 tweets between January 12 and 14. $ e word “Haiti” or “Red Cross” appeared in 2.3 million tweets in the same period.

Never before has the world been con-nected in such a way. Just hours a! er such a massive disaster, people could receive word from a complete stranger that their loved one had been identi" ed via a photo uploaded to the Internet. A short time a! er the earthquake, people could check their Twitter accounts, see a post from the White House, and send one text message that would instantly donate $10 to relief e% orts on the ground in Haiti.

As new technologies continuously sur-face, rendering our world smaller and smaller, perhaps there is a very bright silver lining is revealed. Perhaps social networking sights show promise that, in times like this, that it is possible to come together and act as a con-scious, caring, global community. O

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BY LAUREN HERSTIK

The energy in the halls of the Fletcher School basement pulse within the glow of institutional lighting. Workers pace

from one room to another, dodging the com-puter boxes and the half-eaten dinners strewn about. ! is is the center of the Ushahidi Haiti relief e" ort, where random information from the disaster zone is translated into something that aid workers can use on the ground. Pat-rick Meier is multitasking on a Mac while pre-paring for an interview.

Meier is a Ph.D student at Fletcher and is the Director of Crisis Mapping and Stra-tegic Partnerships at Ushahidi, an e" ort that provides an interactive online platform to map out information and streamline relief. Ushahidi, Kiswahili for “witness,” is the name of a website created in response to the 2007 Kenyan election controversy. Initially, the site gathered information via text-message and email to chart violence. Now, the so# ware is available to use in response to other major cri-ses, including natural disasters. Ushahidi has enhanced the usefullness of satellite imagery by embedding news taken from Twitter, Fa-cebook, and SMS feeds from people on the ground in Haiti.

! e initial installation of the Ushahidi platform went up at 8 p.m. on the night of the disaster. Meier set to work, inputting infor-mation that he collected from online sources connected to organizations on the ground. By Wednesday morning, it be-came clear that Meier

wouldn’t be able to handle the incoming feeds on his own.

! e e" ort has been transferred to the basement of the Fletcher School, windowless nooks $ lled with Macs, maps, and fractions of pizzas. ! e Fletcher campus “Situation Room” handles about 50% of incoming information nearly 24 hours a day. ! e other 50% is han-dled by the Ushahidi team and other volun-teers, including Fletcher alumni in in Wash-ington DC, Geneva, and London.

“! e past ten days have literally revolu-tionized humanitarian aid,” Meier said in ref-erence to the use of a technique called crowd-sourcing to streamline the aid e" ort.

Crowdsourcing is the practice of out-sourcing tasks generally appointed to em-ployees of an organization to a crowd through an open call. In this case, the process utilizes social networking sites and takes advantage of the accesibility of text messaging and email.

“! anks to this crowdsourcing e" ort, the actor best placed to respond to a particular event will do so,” Meier explained.

! e Ushahidi team at the Fletcher School has reached out to Tu# s undergraduate volunteers, as well as members of the Hai-tian

community in the area. ! e team is working with partners at Lesley

University to create 10-minute online training videos, which

would allow anyone to join in the crisis mapping

e" ort. He marvels at the opportu-

nity Ushahidi has provided to synthesize an connection with the people still working on the ground in Haiti.

“Several days ago, it was just before mid-night and it was snowing outside my window. We were on Skype live with a team that helps to coordinate the search and rescue opera-tions on the ground in Haiti. ! ey were on the tarmac at the airport down there. ! ey re-quired the GPS coordinates of seven very ob-scure locations in order to coordinate search and rescue to identify potential survivors by 6 a.m. the next morning,” Meier began. Luck-ily, Anna Schulz (a Fletcher Ph.D) was able to $ nd the seven coordinates.

With calls coming in from organizations like the Coast Guard, FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Red Cross, Ushahidi is known for providing the most precise information and GPS locations. ! is case was no di" erent, and Meier set out to $ nd the exact coordinates of the seven locations.

Around 1 a.m., they hit a snag— one of the locations was nearly impossible to $ nd. ! e team had only a name, “Au Bon Prix,” a bookstore in Port-au-Prince. A volunteer sug-

gested posting for the location on Twitter.

“We got a tweet back from a stranger, a poster we’d never heard of before,” Meier said. ! e poster gave the name and phone number of a former

employee of the bookstore, living in New York. At 2 a.m., Meier and his col-

league called the number and obtained the exact location of the bookstore. ! ey sent the information to rescue teams, who were able to go and $ nd survivors trapped inside the building.

“! ese are the kind of things that have continued to happen over the past ten days,” Meier said.

! e success Meir describes embodies the very essence of the Ushahidi movement: the ability to save countless lives from miles and miles away within the con$ ned walls of a clut-tered Fletcher School basement. O

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NATIONAL

BY SETH STEIN

How did Scott Brown win Massachusetts, and what does that mean?

It is hard for many to believe that “'Ted Kennedy's Seat”' could be lost to a Republican. But it wasn't Ted

Kennedy running—he would have sailed to an easy victory. It was Martha Coak-ley. ! at wasn't the only thing that won the day for Scott Brown. He ran an ex-cellent campaign, which allowed him to control his political branding and appeal di-rectly to independent voters. National mood is also a factor; by winning control on a national level, voters are expect-ing Democrats to deliver on their promises, which they have so far failed to do.

Martha Coakley was probably her own worst enemy. She can run a successful political cam-paign, such as winning the four-way democratic primary. However, she assumed that the seat was hers a" er the primary. ! ink of it as “pulling a Hillary,” except that unlike Hillary, Coakley didn't have the drive and eloquence to close it. In-stead she went on vacation and # ubbed about the Red Sox. In any other year that may not have sunk her entire campaign; Massachusetts hadn't sent a Republican to the Senate in 29 years. And if she had been up against an equally unexciting Republican challenger, she still could have won. Unfortunately, she was run-ning against Scott Brown.

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Scott Brown and his campaign as a whole was the second major factor in his victory. Mr. Brown appealed directly to independent voters, by far the largest voting block in any state. His campaign ads hadn’t mentioned the “hot button” social conservative themes many Repub-licans endorse. Instead, he focused on the economy with themes such as job cre-ation while playing up his local roots and strong work ethic. His campaign website reads more like that of a blue dog Dem-ocrat than a red state Republican—he

shies away from gay marriage and focus-es on “abortion reduction,” not banning abortion altogether. He also distanced himself from the Republican Party as a whole, emphasizing at every turn that he is a “people’s candidate,” in an attempt to raise himself above the all-too-pervasive partisan bickering in Washington. ! is message proved potent for a well-orga-nized campaign with an energized base, a strong $ eld campaign and e% ective use of netroots. In fact, if you drop Brown's

politics and message, his campaign is an heir to Obama's.

Another factor whose impact is hard to determine is the e% ect of the health-care debate. Voters on both sides of the aisle are weary of the drawn-out $ ght for or against reform. Wouldn't they be even more weary when they already have uni-versal healthcare in their own state?

! e $ nal element of the Scott Brown victory was the 2008 Democratic sweep. By attaining the strongest Senate major-ity that any party has held since 1977,

when the Democrats held 61 seats, the Democrats will be held accountable to voters. When health-care is delayed and wa-tered down, when unem-ployment stands at 10% and rising, and when we are still bogged down in Afghanistan—the same exact factors that won 2008 for the Democrats in the $ rst place—the Dem-ocrats themselves will get blamed. Not that this is necessarily fair; some would argue that these are huge problems that can-not be solved easily and are the direct product of

the Bush years. Either way, the majority party almost always loses seats in an o% year election, and this year will be no dif-ferent. In fact, it will probably be worse.

Simply put, Mr. Brown's victory was threefold: Democrats weren't terri-bly excited about Coakley, Republicans were exceptionally excited about Brown and independents were turned o% by national Democrats, and Coakley's cam-paign, with her # ubbing and apparent lack of interest, was self-destructive. O

Seeing ! rough the Punditry

ART BY RUTH TAM


NATIONAL

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BY SETH RAU

Organizing for America (OFA) is an ad-vocacy group dedicated to advancing the president�’s agenda. It is the extension of his campaign aparatus, Obama for Amer-ica. Seth Rau was an intern for Martha Coakley�’s Senate campaign and exam-ines the aws in her campaign with an eye toward learning from this election�’s mistakes so that they are not repeated in the mid-term elections.

Dear Organizing for America,

One year ago we celebrated the inauguration of a new president in Barack Obama. I stood in the

frigid cold in the silver section at the top of the National Mall as hope and opti-mism rained down on our country. ! e president, however, struck a cautious tone on that fateful January day, which served as an appropriate beginning to his " rst year in the Oval O# ce.

! at tone was more than deserved because our nation did not have the best year in 2009, and the beginning to 2010 has not been much better. What most concerned me was the victory of Scott Brown over Martha Coakley this month in the Massachusetts Senate Special Elec-tion. While OFA eventually turned out to support the Massachusetts attorney general, it was done far too late and inef-fectively. I interned on Martha’s primary campaign and did some consulting work for the general campaign, so I got to see the problems " rsthand. Let me lay out our problems now so that we can learn from them to better support candidates that share our president’s vision in Novem-ber’s midterm elections.

First, OFA must integrate itself into the campaigns of all Democrats running

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for Senate and in competitive House races across the nation. Once our party settles on a nominee, OFA should in-stantly start sending sta$ members into the campaigns. ! is process would al-low OFA to be directly coordinated with each campaign to make the integration more natural. Otherwise, we would have the problem of having to separate cam-paign structures, as occurred in the " nal days of the Coakley campaign in which the OFA people reported to each other and the Coakley people to their original bosses. As a result of the lack of commu-nication, groups of the Get Out the Vote e$ ort missed essential groups of people, which made a Coakley victory impossi-ble. ! ese mistakes cannot happen again, or there is no way President Obama will have congressional support to carry out his agenda.

I hope our supporters understand what is at stake in the coming November election. ! is defeat here in Massachusetts has already cost us a shot at real health care reform, and we need to move on to even more essential parts of our agenda. We must focus on creating new jobs " rst. If the economy does not improve, then nothing really matters because Ameri-cans put their checkbooks before all else. ! e stimulus plan was a good start, but we need to keep continuing to create all types of jobs, especially eco-friendly ones, a sector in which we could be a global leader in this crucial emerging " eld of the coming decades. Our future depends on pushing these aspects of the agenda, or else our “change” election in 2008 will achieve nothing.

We have plenty of ways to move ahead with our agenda to separate our-selves from the Republicans and the emerging populist Tea Party, especially by capturing the anger of the moment to

push towards our goals. ! e recent rul-ing by the Supreme Court to allow all types of corporate funding into politi-cal campaigns gives us a large opening. We should take a stand on this issue by prohibiting corporate funding for Demo-cratic candidates. While this ban on cor-porate funding would somewhat hurt our party " nancially, this can di$ erenti-ate Democrats from Republicans and the Tea Party. Rejecting corporate funding would " t perfectly in line with President Obama’s campaign themes and governing philosophy.

Lastly, we need to recapture the spirit and the urgency of 2008. We still have majorities in both the House and the Senate, which will allow us to pass some legislation despite Republican objections. ! ere is no need to pursue a far-le% pol-icy, but some center-le% reforms aimed at improving the economy will hopefully energize our base. ! e last days of the Massachusetts Senate race proved that we could mobilize ourselves to working toward a common goal. We can continue this fundraising and organizing e$ ort for the next nine months and beyond. If we stick to this plan, 2010 will not be another 1994, and Obama will have a far better second year in o# ce than his " rst. O

Sincerely,Seth Rau

An Open Letter toOrganizing for America

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...or did Scott Brown win?

Sincerely,Seth Rau


EDUCATION

In Defense ofn Defense of

BY ARIANA SIEGEL

The thin, blue-jeaned Kashmiri shopkeeper leaned his elbows on the counter, his hazel eyes wide at

the word “American.” ! ough he was not much older than myself, the experienc-es that had led us to that moment were vastly di" erent; he had # ed Kashmir along with other shopkeepers before $ n-ishing high school, while I was travelling with friends around India on our winter break. Without common backgrounds to guide the conversation, he asked us the usual questions.

“What school do you go to?”“Tu% s University,” we replied in concert.

He hadn’t heard of it but nodded kindly.“In Boston,” I added, as I usually do

when people haven’t heard of Tu% s, but that seemed to make little di" erence to him.

“And what do you study?”“Well, I’m an English major, and she’s

an economics major,” I said, pointing to my friend who was mid-bargain.

A% er a pause, my other friend added, “And I’m an engineer.”

“An engineer, really? Wow!” the shop-keeper replied, suddenly becoming more interested. He began to relate the story of an uncle who had saved money his entire life to send his sons to school and was now proudly overseeing their engineering education at Texas University.

As the Kashmiri man’s smile grew, mine faded. ! is was perhaps the $ % h conversation I had had in my two weeks in India in which the announcement of my English major was met with a sad smile, an awkward joke, a change of subject, or otherwise no response at all. My friend, the engineer, however, was met with approving nods and excited inqui-ries into his course of study and prospects. I myself was beginning to laugh it o" , as if my education were some kind of joke, but then suddenly I would be jolted back to the memory of $ nals period during which I spent

every waking hour of every day, including weekends, studying and writing what would ultimate-ly amount to 42 pages. And then I would stop laughing. Was my choice of major truly laughable? Would four years of hard work really amount to little more than a life’s sup-ply of condescending remarks and pitying smiles?

I was not fooled into thinking that this was a consequence of speaking with Indians rather than Americans. I have witnessed the same reactions at home, although the dif-ference is that sometimes the people react-ing were or are English or liberal arts majors themselves. ! ough I gathered from my Ara-bic professor that Eastern cultures are espe-cially deferential to scienti$ c over humanis-tic courses of study, the universal consensus seems to be that students of science merit more respect than students of humanities.

I am sure that many Tu% s students have encountered such reactions and wondered what was to become of the numerous tuition dollars and hours spent, and more frighten-ingly, what was to become of their future. But as I thought more about it, I realized the skills and the knowledge liberal arts students ac-crue are as integral to life as is science. Politics and economics govern our society as much as physics and biology do. Words and language are as critical in our daily functioning as are the technologies we use. We cannot spend a single day without contemplating philosophi-cal decisions, using psychological processes, and experiencing social phenomena, just as we cannot spend a day without acting in ac-cordance with the laws of science. Why, then, should it be any less important to study one over the other? If there were no expertise in

matters of language, politics, economics, sociology, or philosophy, would the world

run as smoothly? Would life be as inter-esting? I contend that it would not. And

if I am right, then discouraging the study of these subjects is truly a dangerous enterprise.

In the $ nal days of my trip in India, I stayed in Bombay and spent

time with a diverse mélange of friends I had made along the trip. One of these

friends is an anthropology major at Tu% s who was spending three weeks in Bombay doing research for EPIIC on the Dharavi slums. ! e work she was doing was so fas-cinating and our discussions about it so in-vigorating that my faith in humanistic study was revitalized. If this student could derive such an incredible wealth of experience and knowledge from her studies, then so could I. Later on I spoke to Geet, a friend I had met in Bombay, who was studying commerce at H.R. College in the city. Upon hearing of my course of study, she con$ ded that English was her favorite subject in high school, but the option of continuing to study it wasn’t avail-able to her. Our conversation made me real-ize how fortunate I was to be given the choice to study liberal arts, for in many countries such programs are o% en not available, or are almost never encouraged. Valuing it as such gave me the con$ dence to reply with dignity and enthusiasm when people asked me what my major was, rather than muttering a half-hearted reply.

On the plane ride home, I sat next to a woman from Bombay who, to my surprise, had heard of Tu% s. Heartened by her aware-ness of a college outside of the Ivy League, I told her enthusiastically that I was an English and possibly Peace and Justice Studies major. She smiled and said, “Well that’s wonderful!” and continued to talk to me about it for half an hour more. “! at’s one for the liberal arts majors,” I thought a% erwards and smiled as I began the journey back to another semester of humanities education. O

E n g l i s h Majors

ALYCE CURRIER


IMAGES AND WORDS BY NORA CHOVANEC

corn

Seven thousand years ago Mexican farmers domesticated the maize plant, turning it from a simple grass into an edible grain. Since then corn has provided vital nourishment for the Americas, eventually spreading throughout the world and becoming a staple crop of the farming industry, which produces 880 million tons of corn yearly. Yet the industry is wrapped in a myriad of issues�—rising costs of food production, confrontations with seed companies, obesity and malnutrition, the loss of the family farm, economic autonomy, developments in fuel production, and global warming,to name a few. And while it is necessary to take note of all of these points of contention, understanding can only take place upon the recognition of the space between the issues�—the space between the people, the animals,and theland behind the industry.At best, these pictures are brief conversations, perhaps, food for thought.


Alicia Navarrete Monroy, Atlacomulco, MX

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NATIONAL

BY MICHAEL BENDETSON

In arguing in favor of a surge in Afghanistan, President Obama cited the importance of investing in the country’s infrastructure as a mecha-nism for strengthening democracy. Our commander-in-chief has current-ly approved the pouring of billions of dollars into Afghani schools, clin-ics, roads, and bridges. In addi-tion, the United States has currently added “hundreds of US advisers including agricultural specialists, en-gineers and lawyers.” Yet in light of recent events, I urge our president to bring home our money, our resources, and even our engineers.

The United States is falling apart. No, I am not talking about our leadership or our standing in the world (although one could make a good case for either). I am talk-ing about the physical infrastructure of the country. While other countries such as China and India have invested billions in creating 21st century in-frastructure, America has grown con-tent with the progress made under the Eisenhower administration. The les-sons learned from the devastating col-lapses of both the levees in New Or-leans and the Mississippi River Bridge in 2007 have all but disappeared with talk of the bank and auto bailouts.

What we had speculated about for years has finally been articulated in the extensive American Society of

Civil Engineers report on the state of infrastructure in the country. Our re-port card is on par with that of a third-world country; our GPA a d d e d up to a s o l -

id D .

Maybe in-stead of discuss-

ing the correlation between Afghani infra-

structure and Middle East safety, we should talk about the relationship between America’s infrastructure and American safety. We do not need ter-rorists to destroy our infrastructure; we are doing it for them.

For any student, these grades would warrant a parent-teacher con-ference. Let’s just take a moment to address some of these failings. In re-gards to aviation, our airports and,

more importantly, our air traffic control systems, are clearly outdated which not only carries financial costs in delays but also a potential for hu-

man costs. The ground is not much safer as over one in four bridges are “either structurally deficient or functionally obso-lete.” The question is not if we will have another bridge col-lapse in the United States but when. Our roads are in even worse shape; one in three are deemed to be in “poor condi-tion.” Even the most precious resource of clean water has come in jeopardy. Our drinking water systems are decades old and in dire need of repair. Many

fail to comply with current wa-ter safety regulations, never

mind meeting the demand of a growing 21st-century population.

Yet attention to these important issues of infrastructure seems to have disappeared during the Great Reces-sion. Contrary to what Congress may believe, government spending is not a zero sum game where money is either allocated to economic recovery or in-frastructure. Infrastructure can and should play a critical role in turning our economy around. While tax cuts are important, money needs to be al-lotted for public works projects that benefit both the workers and the com-munity. There is no better example of the role that public works can play in economic recovery than that of treat-ment of areas that have been contami-

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ART BY ALYCE CURRIER


�”�“

NATIONALnated by hazardous waste known as brownfield land. The redevelopments of brownfield land in the past five years have produced a staggering 191,338 jobs and extra $408 million in annual revenue for localities. However, there are currently 188 U.S. cities awaiting federal funds for brownfield cleanups. Uncle Sam needs to allocate public funds not only for brownfield cleanups but also for all other types of public works proj-ects that will both create jobs and improve com-munity life.

The Milken Institute re-cently re-l e a s e d a re-port c i t -i n g t e n s p e c i f i c national in-f r a s t r u c t u r e projects that could create in ex-cess of 3.4 million jobs. As Congress dis-cusses economic recovery, it simultaneously needs to be focusing on developing our in-frastructure. Yet despite the present evidence, Congress seems to be mov-ing in a different direction. As Senator McCain wisely diagnosed long ago, “The problem is that most members of Congress don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”

The House’s $825 billion current proposal for a new jobs bill fails to comprehend the nega-tive con-s e q u e n c e s of faltering i n f r a s t r u c -ture and the positive ex-ternalities of improved infrastructure. Less than a third of the bill’s spending is dedicated to addressing our infra-structure crisis. The actual percentage of investment being allotted to “con-

Improve Yourself. Improve the World.

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crete” infrastructure projects is even less, as much of the money is being directed to peculiar areas such as the development of a health record data-base. The rest of the bill focuses on tax cuts, state aid, and expanding the already large financial safety net.

This approach feels fundamentally flawed as a mechanism for creating

jobs and even keeping America safe. Wayne Klotz, the president

of ASCE, notes, “Our leaders are looking for solutions

to the nation’s current economic crisis. Not

only could invest-ment in these

c r i t i c a l f o u n d a -

t i o n s have a pos i-t i v e

i m -pact. If

done re-sponsibly, it

would also pro-vide tangible ben-

efits to the American people such as reduced

traffic congestion, improved air quality, clean and abundant

water supplies, and protection against natural hazards.”

President Obama deserves credit for addressing the need for investment in our failing infrastructure during his State of the Union address, a topic that went seemingly unnoticed during the Bush Administration. However, Obama failed to articulate both the importance of the issue and a strong

plan to deal with the cur-rent crisis. Investing in i n f r a s t r u c -ture is not about com-peting with

China to build the fastest train, but rather, a belief that all Americans should feel comfortable driving on our roads, flying in our airports, and drinking our water. O

Uncle Sam needs to alloco ate eee publicunddds not only for brownfield leanups but also for r all otherypes of public works projjj-cts that will both createobsssss and impmprove com-

munity lifi e.Thhe MiMM lken

nstitute re-ently re-e a saa e d

rer -orti t -n g e n

p e c i f i cational in-r a s t r u c t u r erojects thatould create in ex-ess of 3.4 million obs. As Congress dis-usses economic recovery, t simultaneously needs to be ocusing on deeveloping our in-rastructure. Yet despite the presentvidence, Congress seems to be mov-ng in a different direce tion. AsA Senator

flawed as a mechanism for creatingjobs and even keeping America

safe. WaWaaynyyyyy e Kllotz, the presidentof ASCE, notes, “Ouruuuu leaders

are looking fof r solutions to the natioon’s current

economic criisis. Notonly could invest-

ment in these c r i t i c a l

f o u nn d a -t i o n s

haveee apos i-t i v e

i m -pact. If

done re-sponsibly, it

would also pro-vide tangible ben-

efits to the American people such as reduced

traffic congestion, improveddair quality, clean aand abundant

water suppliesssssssss, annnnnd ddddddddddddddd protectionnnnagainst natural hazardds.”””””””””

President t Obama deses rves credit for addressing the nneed for investtment

Our report card is on par with that of a third world country;

our GPA added up to a solid D.

ART BY RUTH TAM


TICKET TO RIDETICKET TO RIDEOFF CAMPUS

BY RUTH TAM

Adventure is said to be found in “the great unknown,” but sometimes it can hide in

our own backyard. Just one stop away from Tu! s’ closest T station lies a world of restaurants, shops and activities to spice up your Saturday. Check out a few of the places we loved; we’ll leave the rest for you to discover!

LITTLE JAPAN! ough Tu" s is nearly 10,000 miles from

the country of Japan, “Little Japan” is only two miles south of campus. Con-veniently lo-cated in Lesley Univers i ty ’s University Hall at 1815 Mas-sachusetts Av-enue, “Little Japan” or, as it is o# cially labeled, ! e Common Mar-ket, is home to

a number of a$ ordable restaurants and quaint shops. From Tapicha Bubble Tea, to Masa’s Sushi Bar, to Shisheida Cosmetics, ! e Com-mon Market has everything a Tu" s Japano-phile could wish for. Our recommendations? Try Ityo’s half and half deal that combines rice and a side with your choice of noodle soup. For dessert, Ityo’s mochi ice cream; this re-freshing and delicious treat consists of green tea, red bean, mango, or strawberry ice cream encased in a Japanese rice cake and served cold.

JOIE DE VIVREJoie de Vivre is the ideal toy store for

adults. Not to be confused with an “adult toy” store, Joie de Vivre is a charming little busi-ness at 1792 Massachusetts Avenue that sells of number of playthings for creative children (slide whistles, Etch-A-Sketches) as well as adults with unique taste, including whimsi-

cal jewelry and various collectibles including a collection of Tintin trinkets. Joie de Vivre is full of treasures that may seem frivolous if bought for oneself but could make the per-fect gi" for a friend. Look out for Barraud-inspired salt and pepper shakers and metal license plate bags,.

NOMADA nomad is generally described as a per-

son who has no % xed home and moves from place to place. Nomad, the vibrant store locat-ed at 1741 Massachusetts Avenue, is similarly boutique with no % xed specialty and features items from an abundance of places. With en-tire shelves devoted to Frida Kahlo, corners % lled with African statues, and walls of hand-woven curtains from India, Nomad is a fun way to “travel abroad” without all the hassle of customs. Run by % rm supporters of fair trade, Nomad supports international artists by purchasing items directly from the artisan. Don’t forget to explore the store’s basement and peruse its online calendar for upcoming cultural events. One last suggestion: check out the Afghan rings on sale for $6.

L.A. BURDICK’STrust us when we say L.A. Burdick’s is the

place to defrost when February’s chill strikes. A quiet chocolate shop located at 52-D Brat-

tle Street in Harvard Square, Burdick’s brings new meaning to your preconceived notion of chocolate—this is no ordinary Valentine’s Day junk. According to the shop’s website (and from our personal experience), Burdick’s chocolate “is not candy … [it] is a signi% cantly bene% cial health food.” While L.A. Burdick’s owners are eager to explain the healthy aspect of their chocolate (high in antioxidants and food value), their sweet c r e a t i o n s taste sinfully rich. A small shot-s ized serving of hot choco-late can eas-ily warm two people on cold day. While L.A. B u r d i c k ’s also has a restaurant, we recommend popping in for a more a$ ordable cup of hot chocolate and a pastry. One especially delicious choice is ! e Burdick: layers of almond wafers and rum ganache topped with white chocolate and pistachio.

HASTY PUDDINGAll Harvard University vs. Tu" s Univer-

sity jokes aside, Harvard does has one thing that Tu" s does not: an annual musical star-ring men in drag. Every February, Harvard puts on its “Hasty Pudding” show. Written, composed, and performed by students, each show combines witty pop culture references with burlesque humor to create one of the funniest performances in the area. ! is year’s production involves a spoof of the American suburbs during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Key characters include “Doug Out,” the “star ball-loving ball player,” “Marlin Monroe,” a “sexy-but-% shy starlet,” “Bobbie Sox,” a “Pink Lady-turned-Pinko Lady,” “Wes Sidestory,” a dancing rebel, and “General Dwight Suprem-acy,” a “Dwight-loving activist.” Order your tickets for this year’s show, “Commie Dearest” at hastypudding.org.O

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FEBRUARY 8, 2010 TUFTS OBSERVER 25

TICKET TO RIDEOFF CAMPUS

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BY CHELSEA BROWN

Starting December 26th, millions of schmaltzy greeting cards are churned out and endless heart-shaped choco-

late boxes begin to crowd grocery aisles in anticipation of the Valentine’s Day rush. Buying chocolates and ! owers on Valen-tine’s Day may seem like a foolish expen-diture that supports a corporate sham of a holiday, especially for the average cash-strapped college student. But perhaps we are too quick to malign this holiday; if today’s apocalyptic " xation has taught us anything, it’s that we should probably be telling the people we love that we do in-deed love them, and it helps to have a day reserved for doing just that. Besides, who doesn’t love getting ! owers and chocolate?

# is Valentine’s Day, think beyond the Hershey’s Pot of Gold when picking up gi$ s for friends and lovers; there are many bakeries, ! orists, and gi$ shops well-known and well-loved by Jum-bos that o% er delightful Val-entine’s day pre s e nt s . G o i n g l o c a l f o r

V-day doesn’t have to mean break-ing the bank, either. # ink whim-sical and inventive, not mawkish and ordinary. For example: instead of a humungous box of waxy chocolates from CVS, how about a handful of amazing tru& es from the Danish Pas-try House? # e sweethearts of chocolate lovers should also be steered towards L.A. Burdick’s near Harvard Square. # eir choc-olate treats are placed in simple wood boxes and tied with a red or pink silk bow, starting at $20 for 16 pieces. # ose who, like myself, plan to squeeze back into their bikinis for Spring Break in March will surely ap-preciate quality over quantity.

Cupcakes—once relegated to the realm of tasteless, Crisco-laden con-fections served in plastic containers at birthday parties—have become modish,

boutique desserts that can make for a charming V-day present. “Sweet” in Harvard Square,

a fabulous product of the booming cupcake industry, can put together a box of their delectable mini cup-cakes for your main squeeze.

Overachievers can even cus-tomize their orders to spell out

I <3 [insert crush’s name here]. Mere mortals can

run over to Kickass Cupcakes, pick out

one with pink ic-ing and call it a day. Served in a simple box with red hand-dyed twine, this gi$ is

sure to please. Of all of these, how-

ever, making your own cupcakes is always the cheapest and most

personal option.

For the I-prefer-the-cheese-plate kind of girls,

though they may be few and far between, gi$ ing ! owers is another sure-" re Hearts Day option. But before you tearfully reach for your wallet to shell out 70 bucks for a dozen red roses, check out a local ! orist like Ulla’s on Boston Ave, which can put together a cheaper but still lovely bouquet of ! owers. Red tulips, pink stargazers, or purple calla lilies are fabulous substitutes for your average roses. For the traditional-ists or the ! orally challenged, a single red rose should never be underestimated. A single carnation, however, is gag-worthy.

While it may be trendy to hate Valen-tine’s Day, the merits of this holiday are all in the eyes of the consumer. Being original on February 14th doesn’t necessarily mean reaching for the doilies and Elmer’s glue, but it may mean hopping on the T. O

Hershey s Pot of Gold when pickingup gi$ s for friends and lovers; thereare many bakeries, ! orists, andgi$ shops well-known and well-loved by Jum-bos that o% erdelightful Val-entine’s daypre s e nt s .G o i n g l o c a l f o r

boutique dessertsfor a charmin“Sweet” in

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DAVID SMYTHE


POETRY & PROSE

By George Kolev

Put your creative minds to work! Submit to Poetry & Prose.[Email observer@tu! s.edu]

Some mornings she was all aboutConsidering other chances;Then she would shout; and he would shout.Such were the circumstances.

But some fair day not long ago,His mind’s eye veiled by brandy,He did neglect her tremolo,And hoped all should go dandy.

She, - gentle she! - did not protest,Or glance in ways of fire.She stood just there, in pause of rest,No sympathy, no ire.

And something hushed then pierced his heart,As stillness framed her figure -Immobile grace so full of art,Serenely ripe with rigor.

And as she cast no whispered wordHis silence gently followed,Unfettered, soft, and so unheard,So equivocal and hollowed.

They facing stood, all things unsaid.

‘Twas silence’s pensive whisperThat brought her near to lay her headAnd moved his lips to kiss her.

The Therapeutic Potential of Remaining Fluently Silent in Arguments

RUTH

TAM

FEBRUARY 8, 2010 TUFTS OBSERVER 27

POETRY & PROSE

! e house on top of the roof,! e one that tarnishes the eye-salted sky, (into which he had fallencaptive),the oneto the right of the old bridge with rickety measures and detached unions (you cannot miss it),the one that climbs the swirls of honey-buckledFields, which (to be straight with you)stroke the petals of fl uid and night-scapefears (where big fi sh with small dreams –the dreamers, rent their vacant mirrors);the one to which dead trees compresstheir branch-roots to mask change,the one which, in non-current blocks of timeembarked upon star-felled universes, andin contemporary instances has failed to hold its ceiling high,the one which traps itstenantbetween fl oors of instability,

is covered in cardboard words (of sanctuary) shredded by Foundation.Such is living.

To Be Straight With You

Melis Aker

g

M

SUZI

E G

ROSS

MAN


POLICE BLOTTERCAMPUS SAFETY

dents had covered the smoke detector and had a pipe, as well as a water bong, lying on the table. A bottle of wine was also dis-covered in the underaged students’ room. ! e report was sent to the dean’s o" ce.

Tuesday, February 2

Groundhog’s Day came early for sev-eral TUPD o" cers when they came across an o# -campus party on Sunset Road. When the o" cers knocked, a student an-swered the door, immediately shut it, and loudly instructed the estimated 200 party goers, “Don’t open the door; it’s the cops!” O" cers gained entry by knocking on the back door where they were allowed in by a party attendee who apparently didn’t get the memo. ! ree kegs were found on the premises as well a bottle of dry gin.

! e Police Blotter was originally created by Ryan Stolp. While he is abroad, it is being illustrated and written by Ruth Tam.

Sunday, January 31

! e close of the month brought an unfortunate homecoming for one Tu$ s student. On re-turning from a week o# campus, an unlucky Jumbo walked into his dorm room in Tilton Hall to % nd that his lap-top had been doused with water. ! e student’s pass-port was also reported stolen. Coincidentally, a small gathering may have occurred in his room the previous Friday night.

Monday, February 1

Need to relax? Don’t lounge around on your front

porch. As if the cold weather wasn’t enough of a detriment, take heed from

Somerville’s Department of Public Works’ (DPW) recent fumble: A

vehicle belonging to Somerville’s DPW struck the front porch

of a house resid-ing at the corner of Winthrop and Capen. Neither the driver nor the resi-dents were hurt in the accident, but the same cannot be said for the house, which

will soon be seeking repairs.

Monday, February 1

TUPD responded to a call about the smell of burning marijuana in a Tilton Hall dorm. Upon entering the room, they noticed that the resi-

SomWorks’ (

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Spring 2010 - Issue 1