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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Columns


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Columns

GC in DC: Tales From the Swamp: Confessions of a museum junkie

As one of the main cultural hubs on the eastern seaboard, Washington, D.C. fosters a strong intellectual culture of discovery through its museums. As Tufts students, we’re spoiled with fairly easy access to incredible museums in Somerville, Cambridge, Boston and the outskirts of Massachusetts through the T.



The Setonian
Columns

The Round-off Roundup: Athletes deserve functionality in their attire.

The NCAA gymnastics national championships are coming up in April, and there’s one thing we’re certain to see — leotards with completely open backs. These sorts of leotards have become standard issue in college gymnastics. On the one hand, an open back makes it possible to see the athletes’ muscles and appreciate how strong they are, especially on bars. However, there is one major issue with this design choice: the vast majority of backless leotards make it impossible to wear a sports bra.


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Columns

For the Culture: The ‘Big 3’ battle for the crown of hip-hop

After 10 years of silence, Kendrick Lamar has finally dissed Drake and J. Cole. Following the release of his verse on “Control” (2013) by Big Sean, wherein Lamar threatened several major hip-hop artists of the time, both Drake and Cole have released subliminal and conspicuous disses directed towards the rapper.


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Columns

Moments ‘til Madness: Thrilling tournament tales

Finally, we’ve made it to March. And it’s been a great tournament so far. Somehow, each and every year, this playoff brings enthralling narratives that take over the sports world. Whether it's a Cinderella story, a dominant team or a new star of the sport, March Madness never fails to entertain. It’d be hard to capture everything that happened in the 40 games that have been played, so let’s take a look at the best storylines from the first two rounds.



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Columns

Dream Works: The journalist

Hi fellow dreamers! Today, I would like to share a story that is very fitting for the Daily: a story about a journalist. David Armstrong is currently a reporter for ProPublica, an independent nonprofit investigative journal. He graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and went on to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002.


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Columns

Dorms, Dishes and Delicacies: Spring break edition

The spring break that we all know and love can be traced back to the 1930s when the Colgate University swim team popularized the idea of going to a sunny and warm destination at the midpoint of the semester. From there, the concept took off, and spring break now serves as a perfect window of time for college students across the country to travel with their friends, relax and make poor decisions. For me though, spring break brought something else: an opportunity to cook some scrumptious food in a non-dorm kitchen for the first time in seven weeks. So, while visiting a friend in Brooklyn, we whipped up a delicious meal of goat cheese and squash pasta, pesto tomato crostini and banana bread. Therefore, I present to you Dorms, Dishes and Delicacies: spring break edition.


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Columns

Tok the Talk: The case of Kate Middleton

Kate Middleton, also known as Princess Catherine of Wales, is dead, and Kensington Palace is trying to cover it up. At least, that’s what several royal conspiracy theorists proposed in the weeks after her public “disappearance.” When a photo released by Kensington Palace of the princess with her three children showed signs of being touched up, the public was sent into a frenzy. Either she was missing, dying or already dead. One X user wrote, “KATE MIDDLETON IS PROBABLY DEAD,” and followed it up with skull face emojis and crying faces. Aptly put by The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis, “The situation quickly turned into a ‘QAnon for wine moms.’”


extra innings-henry blickenstaff
Columns

Extra Innings: 2024 preseason power rankings

Here are my predictions for the 2024 season, with each team’s 2023 record in parentheses. 10. Tampa Bay Rays (99—63)The Rays are tough to place.  They’re coming off a fantastic regular season but will likely be missing their two best players — shortstop Wander Franco for legal issues and pitcher Shane McClanahan for Tommy John surgery — in 2024.


extra innings-henry blickenstaff
Columns

Extra Innings: Top 10 players for 2024

Honorable Mentions:Austin Riley, 3B, Braves; Francisco Lindor, SS, Mets; Julio Rodríguez, CF, Mariners10. Matt Olson, 1B, Atlanta BravesOlson has been one of the game’s best sluggers for the past several seasons. Since 2021, he has 127 homers and 353 RBIs with a .902 OPS, and he’s missed only six games in that span.


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Columns

Munching with Max: Menagerie of munching

Typically, I structure my munching around a specific theme or location. However, for this edition, I’m relaying a valuable life lesson — your plan may not always pan out the way you expect, kids. In the iconic words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” And so, due to my meal planning failures, I present a menagerie of munching.


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Columns

For the Culture: ​​Hip-hop has no more superstars

So, maybe hip-hop is dying? Currently, out of the four major streaming platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, Apple Music is the only platform with hip-hop/rap as the top genre. On the remaining three platforms, coinciding with the leading global music genres, pop music is the No. 1 genre. 


Ukraine At War
Column

Ukraine at War: Oscar-winning film shines a light on the darkest parts of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine

On March 7, the International Relations Program at Tufts hosted an intimate screening of the Oscar-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol.” The film reveals a unique first-person perspective of the siege of a Ukrainian port city of almost 500,000 residents by the Russian army in the spring of 2022. Director Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko were the last remaining journalists who stayed in the area during the initial stages of the full-scale invasion and were thus able to capture the war crimes committed by the Russians in Ukraine.


The Bookmark
Columns

The Bookmark: ‘Family of Liars’ by E. Lockhart

E. Lockhart’s “We Were Liars” holds a special place in my heart. I’m in awe of the way Lockhart pushes the bounds of typical fiction writing. She mixes in unique line breaks so that her book sometimes reads like a poem. She also creates incredible metaphors, like the witch in the first novel, that are so vivid, they have stuck with me to this day. I haven’t reread the book in over two years and I still think about it all the time.



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Columns

Weekly Wellness: Boston’s best workout classes

In a post-COVID-19 fitness era, in-person workout classes have regained popularity and traction, especially among students and 20-somethings. These energetic group workouts and sessions foster a greater sense of community through movement and accountability, motivating the attendee to perform their best. From classics like SoulCycle to newer options like The Energy Barre, the ever-growing fitness empire in the Boston area has options for everyone.


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Columns

A Jumbo’s Journey: Born to dilly-dally, forced to lock in

Throughout my tenure at Tufts, I’ve learned that there are three constants of college: work, tiredness and sickness. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t been at least one of those constants. Even as I write this article, I am stressed from midterms, tired from the Tufts gardeners who have decided that 7 a.m. on a Monday morning is the best time to mow the lawn and sick from my third iteration of the freshman plague. Nonetheless, no matter how sick or tired I — or anyone at Tufts — may be, the continual stream of work never ends until the semester does. And, of course, this persistent stream of work also inherently disregards our genetic desire to dilly-dally. In turn, it forces us to lock in. Tufts, and schools in general, deny us of our innate trait of monkeying about and pressurizes us to get in line.


Confessions of a Cooking Fanatic
Columns

Confessions of a Cooking Fanatic: Habits of a soccer mom

I spent my Saturday afternoon baking three batches of chocolate chip cookies, totaling 42 little treats that I could bring to the CS TA soccer game (yes, an entire six-team soccer league consisting exclusively of teaching assistants for the Tufts Computer Science Department). I’ve (mentally) committed to bringing cookies to make up for my lack of skill on the field.


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Columns

T Time: The ‘Green Line Extension World Tour’ to Union Square

For today’s column, I performed what I am calling a “Green Line Extension World Tour” on my way to visit Union Square station. In my travels, I passed through all sixGLX stations plus Lechmere. For those interested in visiting Union Square, you can take the Green Line from the Medford/Tufts station to Lechmere and then transfer to an outbound Green Line D.