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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Saturday, November 23, 2024

Columns

Ukraine At War
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.


For the Culture
Columns

For the Culture: Women in hip-hop breaking barriers

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill and Lil’ Kim deconstructed barriers that negated the artistic expression of female rappers in mainstream hip-hop music. In their records, the trifecta explicitly and implicitly subverted patriarchal binaries. Fundamentally, these rappers envisioned liberation through the expression of female sexuality, romance and emotions.




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Columns

A Jumbo’s Journey: Dabbling in some tomfoolery

My friends think of me as a modernized, reincarnated Plato. My philosophical mind has been compared to Kant, Aristotle and many other great philosophers. Oftentimes, in the hallway of Hodgdon Hall 2.5 (the floor I call home), we debate and converse about the values and ethics of life into the wee hours of the morning.


Confessions of a Cooking Fanatic
Columns

Confessions of a Cooking Fanatic: Cheesus Christ

Now, I have colloquially described my college house as “The Cheese House,” firstly, because my roommate (now abroad) is Coby Formaggio, founder of the current Tufts Cheese Club, and because I am from the grate state of Wisconsin. Refusing cheese feels a little blasphemous, and yet, I blaspheme.




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Columns

Brown and (Usually) Blue: Imagining the environment

My room back home in Bombay (or Mumbai, depending on who you’ve heard it from) faces the Arabian Sea. I’ve gone to sleep listening to the soothing lull of waves since before I learned the meaning of the word, walked past couples posing against clear blue skies and admired crimson west coast sunsets, especially since my foray into Instagram. But the rose-tinted glasses (or filters, if you will) of social media can’t hide the reality of where we’re headed.


Policy Perspective Column Graphic (updated)
Column

The Policy Perspective: Fund the IRS

If there’s one thing that many Americans can agree on, it’s that they dislike the IRS. The Internal Revenue Service is a federal agency responsible for collecting and administering federal taxes. The IRS primarily ensures that everyone pays their taxes, often by auditing individuals or businesses, and processes requests for tax refunds. It’s understandable the IRS is not popular, especially as 56% of Americans feel their tax burden is unfair and a majority state that the complexity of the American tax system “bothers them a lot.”


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Columns

Dorms, Dishes and Delicacies: Hodgdon Hall

After two consecutive weeks at uphill locations, I decided to book a trip downhill this week to cook up some bean quesadillas in none other than Hodgdon Hall. Hodge is known for a lot of things — the convenient Food-on-the-Run dining location, forced triples and its disorienting floor plan all come to mind. Unfortunately, the student kitchen should not be added to the list of things that make Hodge stand out.


Public-Cinemy
Columns

Public Cinemy No. 1: Reality television in the digital age

Compared to the rest of the world, American television is infamous for its glossiness. Whereas British soaps and Italian reality TV shows tend to feature girls-next-door and regular Joes (Giuseppes?), US shows are chock-full of toned abs, low-cut tops, gleaming white teeth and other trademarks of the young and fit.


extra innings-henry blickenstaff
Columns

Extra Innings: Royals make big bet on Witt

It’s Aug. 18, 2023. My friend and I had bought last-minute tickets to see the Chicago Cubs play the Kansas City Royals at Wrigley Field. A Cubs win should have been a safe bet — they had been playing good baseball since mid-July, but more importantly, Kansas City was an abysmal 39–84. Unfortunately, Bobby Witt Jr. had other ideas.


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Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Gabby Douglas’ elite comeback

The singular thing I’m most excited for as the elite domestic season begins in the lead-up to the Olympics is Gabby Douglas’ elite comeback. Douglas competed in the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, becoming the first Black woman to win the Olympic All-Around with her 2012 victory.


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Columns

Ruminations from Rabat: First impressions

I arrived in Rabat, Morocco just over a week ago. I was, of course, immediately struck by cultural differences: everyone eating out of the same dish at dinner, an immunity to Western cultural influence that I’ve seldom experienced and the sheer amount of time many people spend sitting at cafés, drinking tea. Yet the first thing I want to write about in this column is not my cultural observations but what my host mother told my roommate and I over dinner the other night. A conversation which I ruminated over and concluded must be the mindset with which I approach my semester abroad in Rabat.


"Moments 'Til Madness " Column Graphic
Columns

Moments ‘til Madness: Transfers or freshmen?

In April 2021, the NCAA decided that first-time transfer student-athletes would be able to immediately suit up for their new schools, eliminating the one-year sit-out policy. Just a couple of months later, the NCAA suspended its prior rules on name, image and likeness that restricted players from receiving any compensation. The combination of these two significant changes to college athletics made for a whole new landscape in college basketball, along with other highly competitive sports.


For the Culture
Columns

For The Culture: Don’t bite the bait!

Hip-hop has a problem: unoriginality. Espoused by “oldheads” and hip-hop traditionalists for years, criticism of unoriginality in hip-hop is now an established sentiment within the community. Although some hip-hop artists and groups like JPEGMAFIA, Smino, EARTHGANG and Griselda maintain the experimental and innovative spirit of the genre, mainstream hip-hop is overwhelmed with strikingly stale records.


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Columns

GC in DC: Tales From the Swamp: The DC college rivalries trifecta

It’s a frigid Saturday afternoon in the middle of a January snowstorm, and I just convinced myself that it would be a great idea to walk 25 minutes in near 15-degree temperatures to Georgetown. I planned on meeting one of my hometown friends who’s a senior at Georgetown University for coffee, and she informed me that she was bringing along another mutual friend who attended American University. He majored in international relations, and I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to yap about the ignominious failures of Kevin McCarthy.




From Classroom to Clinic Column Graphic
Column

Diet drugs: A paradigm shift in weight management?

Ever since Ozempic took center stage, it’s been hard to look away. In my family medicine clinic, it seems like every patient is inquiring about weight loss drugs. These drugs seem like little miracles stuffed in once-per-week injectable pens, boasting weight loss of up to 34 pounds after about a year of treatment. We know that obesity is dangerous. I recall the exhaustive lectures on how excess adiposity increases your risk of stroke, heart attack, Type 2 diabetes and death. Now, we have this drug that seems like a cure for obesity, an issue that ravages about 2 in 5 adults in the United States.