Columns

A Jumbo’s Journey: I’ll lasso the moon for you

By Ben Rachel | December 10

I am writing this column in the middle of a packed Tisch, surrounded by stressed students and working off of three Yerba Mates (I’m shaking). Even the reading room is full; I had to share a cubicle with a Fletcher student. It feels like finals season brings everyone out of their dorms to shotgun energy drinks and complain about their workloads.

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Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Ellie Black — the people’s gymnast

By Sarah Firth | December 10

Ellie Black sometimes gets overlooked by casual fans because she is from Canada, but she is one of my favorite gymnasts of all time. To be fair, I’m partial to any gymnast who does front handspring vaults, and she has an excellent handspring front full (and even a rudi at one point). I also have to give props to anyone who can rock a maple-leaf-themed leotard — I appreciate Canada’s commitment to a theme.

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Column

Ukraine at War: Music as an act of resistance

By Mariia Kudina | December 10

This year, a famous Ukrainian rock band, Okean Elzy, celebrated its 30-year anniversary. The group has become a symbol of resistance for all generations of independent Ukraine. For my parents, Okean Elzy became an integral part of the Orange Revolution in 2004 and 2005, when Ukrainians protested against election fraud, and Euromaidan in 2013 and 2014, when the citizens objected to pro-Russian governmental policies. I strongly link the band’s music with those events as well, but mainly with Ukraine’s counteroffensive and defense during Russia’s full-scale invasion. This October, Okean Elzy performed in Boston as part of its global tour. The day after the concert, I had a chance to listen to a talk by the lead singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk at Harvard.

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: It’s time for the United States to take action in Syria

By Alexander Degterev | December 9

About a week after various armed groups began to move against the Syrian government’s forces in Aleppo, the conflict is spiraling into a befuddling mess of frontlines, with some rebel groups now turning their attention towards one another.   It seems that the recent violence has been brought ...

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Columns

Full Court Press: Let’s talk about NIL

By Noah Goldstein | December 6

As I stirred mashed potatoes over Thanksgiving break, an avid reader of “Full Court Press” (and, coincidentally, a family friend) approached me, asking my opinion on the name, image and likeness phenomenon that has taken over college sports in recent years. One week earlier, superstar high school quarterback Bryce Underwood flipped his commitment from Louisiana State University to Michigan State University in one of NIL’s wildest stories yet: one that involved billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and what even conservative estimates say will be a fat $10 million paycheck.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Sunday comics

By Max Turnacioglu | December 3

Almost every Sunday, I used to strip. Of course, I mean this in the comic sense — that is, I comic stripped. Clad in pajamas, bedraggled and in desperate need of orange juice, I pored over the funny pages. These were literal pages in my youth, but later were the webpages of The Washington Post. Over Thanksgiving break, I observed the remnants of this weekly routine: Tomes and volumes of comic strips still litter my room, including the complete “Calvin and Hobbes,” “The Far Side” and “Garfield.”Moreover, the catalogue of “Peanuts” holiday specials continue to hold cultural sway over many Americans, including myself, bizarrely relishing the pathetic lamentations of Charlie Brown as he mopes through every festivity. As this print medium enjoys its tragic decline, among its brethren in physical artwork, where do the comics still lie in our consciousness? Is this goodbye, Charlie Brown?

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: Why the Tatmadaw’s usage of anti-personnel mines is an egregious human rights violation

By Alexander Degterev | December 3

It was Sept. 29, 2022, and 57-year-old Daw Khin had just recently returned to her village in eastern Karenni State after being forced to flee due to attacks by Myanmar’s military junta, the Tatmadaw. Cleaning her now disheveled house, one of those still standing in her neighborhood, she stepped on a landmine which was placed right outside of her outdoor toilet.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Eyes

By Max Turnacioglu | November 26

Look me in my eyes. Admittedly, this may be quite an ask, given that through this newspaper column, my identity is somewhat abstract. If you could look into my eyes, maybe they really would tell the full story. Eye contact improves cognition and attention, after all. For the time being, please look me in my Is, as I elucidate that endlessly entrancing, palindromic organ: the eye.

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Column

Coffee Table Socioeconomics: Let’s give corporate social responsibility more credit

By Linda Huang | November 26

I spent the entire past summer volunteering as a funder research assistant for a U.N. agency, where I researched over 300 Chinese corporations on their Corporate Social Responsibility indexes. From analyzing the key sectors of each company, I sought to identify those with the dual strengths of mission-driven goals and substantial social funding to support targeted initiatives.

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Column

Forgotten Fronts: Making a case for DAANES governance

By Alexander Degterev | November 25

My previous article was a call to President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider his stance on withdrawing troops from Syria. However, I do not feel as if I properly made a case for the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which I so adamantly advocated for.

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Column

Ukraine at War: Russia targets Ukrainian children and families

By Mariia Kudina | November 22

I used to count the days since the start of the full-scale invasion. It seemed that such a brutal and bloody war could not last long and that the international community would soon find a solution to make Russian forces withdraw. I stopped the daily count sometime after the images from recently liberated towns around Kyiv and the news about the bombing of Mariupol Drama Theater were released in 2022. Though the world saw the atrocities of the Bucha massacre and the attack on the theater used as a shelter by civilians, including children, the war has only become more violent since then. This week marks 1000 days since the full-scale invasion, and after approximately 3900 days of the war, Russian attacks continue to intensify, increasingly targeting entire families.

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Columns

Full Court Press: Trump is ruining combat sports

By Noah Goldstein | November 22

Last weekend delivered two of the most talked-about fight events of 2024. The much-hyped, but unsurprisingly ultimately lackluster, showdown between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul took center stage on Friday night. Then, on Saturday, UFC legend Jon Jones made his long-awaited return to the octagon after 623 days, facing off against Stipe Miocic — widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight in MMA history.

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Columns

Daily Drip: Blossom

By Dylan Fee | November 21

Is life moving too fast and you don’t know if you can keep up? Stop and smell the roses with me as I review this week’s Sink-nature drink: The Blossom.

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Columns

Adventures of an A-Lister: Your new holiday favorite

By Odessa Gaines | November 21

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for “Red One.”What do you get when you have an evil Christmas witch kidnap Santa Claus (nicknamed ‘Red One’) on Christmas Eve so that a Santa Claus Enforcement Logistics and Fortification operative and a hacker have to save Christmas? Movie magic.

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Column

The Death of Education: Morning prayer for Trump in public schools?

By Evan Wang | November 20

Recently, Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of public instruction of Oklahoma, announced that he had purchased over 500 copies of the Bible to be taught in high schools and sent videos of himself praying for President-elect Donald Trump to be shown to public school students. This is in addition to a previous program that sought to purchase some 55,000 Bibles to be distributed to every public school classroom in the state of Oklahoma. Not only is this a travesty and mockery of the American education system and the separation between church and state, which is enshrined in our Constitution, but it is also a slap in the face to Christianity, which should not be taught by teachers who are wildly unprepared for the job.

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Columns

The Oxford Comma: Tutorials 101

By Grace Nelson | November 20

Hi again! It’s Grace, your favorite American in Oxford. Today, I’m going to talk about what many consider to be the main attraction of Oxford: the famous tutorial system.

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Columns

Hey Wait Just One Second: Nostalgia

By Grayton Goldsmith | November 19

As daylight hours become ever more scarce and a proper wintry chill has finally set in on campus, I find myself longing for summer sun and the impromptu trips to Mystic Lake that once characterized life in the blissful metropolis that is Medford/Somerville. According to researchers at the University of Southampton, this wave of nostalgia that has so suddenly subsumed me in fact has an evolutionary function: Nostalgia can make you feel physically warmer. 

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