Rory Myers is an Opinion staff writer at the Tufts Daily. He is a junior studying Computer Science and can be reached at Rory.Myers@tufts.edu.
America has a problem with passivity. It’s not the kind of passivity that prevents us from responding to threats — many attacks on our country are met with a disproportionate, violent response. American passivity has to do with an unwillingness to address (or even acknowledge) injustice, especially the type of injustice that benefits those in charge.
It was February of my sophomore year when I woke up to a blaring noise. The Harleston Hall fire alarms were going off at 2 a.m. My roommate and I sluggishly put on our coats and begrudgingly left our abode. As we walked outside into the freezing winter air, we noticed a significant lack of urgency. No one who was walking outside with us believed that there was an actual fire. Some people even remained behind in their dorms, putting pillows over their heads to suppress the noise while they waited for the inevitable false alarm announcement. Suffice to say, if there was an actual fire, we’d be in serious trouble.
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.
On April 1, Tufts students and staff woke up to an email from a seemingly official Tufts announcements address with the subject, “Very Sad News.” The email announced the tragic, unexpected death of University President Sunil Kumar. After revealing the news, the email offered a standard list of support resources, including Ears for Peers, Counseling and Mental Health Services and the Student Support team. At the very bottom of the list, there was a message to Tufts Technology Services that called out their failure to prevent email scraping, explained how said failure has led to countless spam and phishing emails and suggested that TTS implement CAPTCHA services in the Tufts directory to prevent scraping and further spam. The email simply ended with “April Fools.”
With the addition of Disney’s 1928 short “Steamboat Willie” into the public domain, discussions surrounding copyright law have once again become relevant. A large point of debate is over the necessity of restrictions on the public domain.
