Opinion | Viewpoint

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The rise — and fall — of a Midwest princess

By Talia Wilcox | October 10

2024 Video Music Awards Best New Artist recipient Chappell Roan has transformed the music industry. Roan, born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, rose rapidly to fame with her album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” (2023). Roan embraced a unique drag aesthetic, and her lyrics and image have catapulted her to icon status in the LGBTQ+ community. But with this unprecedented rapid rise to fame, Roan has taken to social media to let us know how she feels. 

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Seeking policy change in Indonesia under Prabowo

By Theodorus Ng | October 10

Indonesia will be swearing in its eighth president Prabowo Subianto on Oct. 20, following his landslide election victory in February of this year. Prabowo will inherit the world’s fourth most populous country, with the third largest surviving area of tropical forest, and an economy poised to become the world’s sixth largest by 2027. Yet, he will also be inheriting a legacy of fossil fuel dependence, with 81% of the country’s energy derived mostly from burning coal, and persistent deforestation, with Indonesia’s annual forest losses remaining the fourth largest in the world. This means that Prabowo is faced with a thorny policymaking dilemma between encouraging economic growth and maintaining long-term environmental health for Indonesia.

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Inflation is pretty much fake

By Rory Myers | October 9

Corporate America wants people to believe that they are the victims of the terrifying monster known as inflation. This monster was born in the basement of the U.S. Department of Treasury and brought to life by the terrifying machine known as the currency printing press. It’s this monster that forces them to raise prices on everyday items. Companies such as Crest and Colgate had no choice but to raise the price of toothpaste by 45% last year. In 2022, innocent retail chains such as Target and Walmart didn’t want to increase the prices of their food products by over 10%, but their hands were forced.

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Eric Adams: The failed promise of an underdog

By Gian Luca Di Lenardo | October 7

Eric Adams’ rise to political prominence, from transit cop to New York City mayor, has all the hallmarks of a rags to riches story. As a teenager in Brooklyn, Adams found himself squarely in the crosshairs of the justice system when he was arrested for criminal trespass at the age of 15. In a 1999 New York Times profile, he recalls being beaten so badly by the arresting officers that he urinated blood for a week afterward. He cites this experience as one of the formative factors that motivated him to join the force and reform it from within. 

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Stop denying women’s bodily autonomy, Part 2

By Linda Huang | October 2

With the presidential election approaching, the topic of abortion has drawn increased concern from voters, particularly from young female Americans. A New York Times/Siena College poll from August shows that abortion is the most crucial issue for women under 45 to consider when casting their vote. At the same time, a Guardian poll indicates that 67% of women under 30 plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris likely due to her commitment to expanding reproductive rights. As a woman living in the U.S., I share these concerns about the future of abortion access and its potential impact on women's autonomy.

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The Amazon is ablaze: It's been anything but short n’ sweet

By Kaashvi Ahuja | October 2

As the Amazon, the lungs of our Earth, currently burns with an intensity far surpassing the infamously devastating fires that took place in 2019, the world watches in unsettling silence — a dangerous reflection of our diminishing sense of climate urgency at a time when critical elections could shape the future of our planet.

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Unevenly flooded: How redlining and the Boston storm season intertwine

By Monica Reilly | October 1

Boston held its first-ever Deployables Day on Friday. The day focused on education and training for flood control. The day was sunny with a slight breeze, making discussion about fluid control and floodbreaks seem out of place. But for Boston, a year out from last year’s flooding-turned-state of emergency, nothing could be more relevant.

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Three jobs, one very small apartment

By Bela Silverman | October 1

In March 2023, after an unrelenting internship application season, I received a research position at a small non-profit organization in Boston. Desperate for any form of résumé-boosting work, I gladly accepted and planned my summer in the city. However, as my housing search began, my urban summer started to lose its appeal. Looking to sublet in Back Bay for a minimal commute, I quickly understood why it follows Seaport as one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. My rent filter on housing sites quickly jumped from “under $1,500” to “under $3,000,” and after months of searching, I finally secured an apartment in Back Bay for $2,500 — and a roommate to split the cost.

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Should the Olympics ignore international conflict?

By Gretta Goorno | September 30

From Aug. 4 to 6, I was in Paris, watching some of the most talented athletes in the world compete at the33rd Olympiad. As someone who loves watching sports as much as she loves people-watching, I found the Games thrilling. On the streets of Paris, hundreds of thousands of fans sang their countries’ fight songs. Royal orange filled up each stadium — evidence that the Dutch had arrived. Each French athlete — from the unranked sprinter to the record-holder swimmer — was greeted with passionate shrieks from the home crowd. I, of course, rooted for my fellow Americans, waving my flag proudly until my arms burned. But amid this sea of national pride, there was one huge demographic missing: the Russians.

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The soft power of female pop

By Theodorus Ng | September 27

Lest we forget the distinctive lime green shade and low-res, Arial-font words plastered across everyone’s social media feeds this summer, Charli XCX released her sixth studio album, “Brat” in June to resounding acclaim and commercial success. It instantly canonized “brat summer” as an epoch in the pop bible, making her just one of the many female artists who have made a mark in 2024’s pop culture. 

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Towards effective fire management in California

By Aaron Bolonick | September 27

In recent years, massive wildfires in the western United States have captured national attention. In California, all but one of the 20 largest wildfires in the state’s history have occurred after the year 2000, with this year’s Park Fire ranking as the fourth largest in the state’s history. These wildfires come with large economic costs, with estimated losses reaching $117.4 billion annually between the years 2017 and 2021 and $5 billion in annual state fiscal loss.

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The specter of isolationism

By Evan Wang | September 26

As the American presidential election heats up and both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris begin to announce their policies, one major point is conspicuously absent: America’s role on the global stage. Trump is likely to favor his America First strategy, which would see America give up its position as the defender of democracy on the world stage and retreat into its own isolated pocket.

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Amid civil strife, what can be done to help Sudanese civilians?

By Alexander Degterev | September 24

Throughout the early half of the decade, the world has felt like a powder keg which is one spark away from a catastrophic explosion. In many parts of the world, said keg has already exploded, and while many of these conflicts seemingly only ‘went hot’ in the past few years, they have really been simmering in the background long before the 2020s. This is the case with the current civil war in Sudan, which only began gaining widespread attention in mid-April in 2023 and is steadily approaching its two-year mark. Since Sudan’s foundation in 1956, the state has sadly been marred by civil conflicts brought on by post-colonial division and religious tensions. These conflicts have repeatedly devolved into genocidal retributions against civilian populations. The roughly one and a half years that the current conflict has drawn on have also been marked by horrific human rights abuses, in the form of rampant sexual abuse, exacerbated situations of famine and genocidal actions. Nearly eight million people have now been internally displaced, with a further two million fleeing abroad, primarily to countries in Central and Northeastern Africa.

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Whose finger do you want on the button?

By Talia Wilcox | September 24

Given the short 41 days until the election, the deluge of political discussions has exhausted us all. Topics of abortion, immigration and the economy seem to live in the spotlight. But what about unaddressed issues like nuclear weapons? The nuclear threat looms large and deserves serious discussion in the upcoming presidential election. Nuclear weapons make our world extremely dangerous, and voters should elect candidates who will work toward nuclear disarmament.

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It’s time to get serious about trees

By Kunal Botla | September 19

Trees are saviors we haven’t thought nearly enough about.When you think about trees, you might think back to an elementary school lesson about how they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, come in different types or can be identified by their leaves. That elementary school education really only scratches the surface of the hidden value trees bring to our society — especially our urban society. Trees could even be the solution to issues presented by climate change and health care that plague urban communities.

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Fund our national parks

By Keshav Srikant | September 17

At the end of eighth grade, my school decided to take us on a one-week overnight trip to Yosemite National Park. We learned about Yosemite’s ecosystems and history while hiking through forests and among thundering waterfalls. Almost a decade later, I remember this trip vividly, just as I remember every national park I’ve been to.

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A Harris win won’t shatter the glass ceiling

By Gretta Goorno | September 9

At the Democratic National Convention in August, Hillary Clinton alluded once again to that famed glass ceiling. You know, the one she hoped to triumphantly shatter through — pantsuit and all — during her unsuccessful bids for president in 2008 and 2016. Clinton recycled much of her old feminist rhetoric for her speech at the DNC nominating Harris, suggesting that Harris — like herself — was in a long line of successful women in politics and that the day to break the ceiling was finally here.

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When politics gets spicy

By Sadie Roraback-Meagher | September 3

When Republicans from around the country gathered in Milwaukee, Wis. this past July for the Republican National Convention, they were greeted with a sign reading “Welcome Future Fake Electors.” The poster referenced the attempt made by several states, including Wisconsin, to keep Donald Trump in power by substituting the legitimate electors with fake ones.

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Trump and RFK Jr.’s alliance is more dangerous than it seems

By Dylan Tanouye | September 3

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, no candidate has been more of a laughingstock than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who entered the presidential race as a third-party alternative to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. While he initially polled as high as 15% nationally, the strongest performance from a third-party candidate in decades, many skeletons began to emerge from his closet.

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Why Tufts?

By Liam Chalfonte | September 3

When I was first applying for college, I remember obsessing over acceptance rates. I curated a small selection of schools to apply to that I thought fit my taste and would sound good anytime I was asked the inevitable “Where do you go to school?” Sending off my applications, I felt sure that I’d be a strong enough candidate to get into most of these schools.

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