On Tuesday, March 31, after 42 and a half years on the job, Sgt. Robert McCarthy retired from the Tufts University Police Department. For years, he collaborated with the Tufts Observer , giving us the most entertaining—and strange—police reports that TUPD encounters on the job. He shook our hands and told us sincerely: “This was
Author: Aaron Langerman
“Sam,” his mom hummed, knocking on his door. “Yeah?” Sam grumbled. “Dinner’s ready.” Sam sighed, put down his pen, closed his laptop, and reshuffled his evidence. “Okay mom. Be there in a second.” He walked downstairs, past the contemporary paintings with which his mom decorated the walls, past the bookshelves of his dad’s travel books,
Sherlock Stoned Thursday, January 15th, 9:34pm Officers arrived at Tilton Hall in response to a report of the smell of marijuana. They quickly located the room from which the smell emanated. The officers questioned the resident, who said that he smoked outside, claiming that the smell “must have drifted up to the window.” However, the
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village, demanding that everyone line up and show identification cards. Those who were cross-dressing were to be arrested; it was a time when homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. Police raids on gay establishments were routine. The
There’s an irony in returning to Tufts after a semester abroad. Typically, in stories, after long journeys, the protagonist returns older, wiser, and more sure of him or herself. I’m thinking of Odysseus in The Odyssey, Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, and Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings. But this hasn’t been the case for
History is more than a set of facts. It is a philosophical claim that there is a shape, a process, an internal logic to the disorder of our existence. In Western society, our relationship to history—the way we conceptualize how the past implicates the present—has changed drastically over the past five hundred years. Today, historians
Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories not only returns musicianship to electronic dance music, but also seeks to restore meaningful human experience to a genre that has become increasingly shallow in its over-the-top use of costumes, lights, gimmicks, and oversized venues. In a break from their past work, Daft Punk opted to record real
K.flay—real name Kristine Flaherty—redefines what it means to be a hip-hop artist. A double major in psychology and sociology while at Stanford, last year K.flay signed with RCA Records and moved to Brooklyn to focus on producing. Although she’s originally from Illinois, she identifies the Bay Area as her home. Her music finds a balance
The prospect of conflict between China and Japan is rising drastically over a set of small uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China. Diplomatic talks have stalled while nationalistic sentiments in both countries have grown louder over the seemingly insignificant islands. Both China and Japan are ramping
My courses at university have taught me that colonialism and capitalism institutionalized patriarchy, racism, militarism, and unrelenting exploitation of the environment in Western civilization in a tireless pursuit of wealth and progress. The more I learn in college, the more pessimistic my outlook is towards my government and my country. I’m a 20 year-old being
Students of Tufts, your weekend social lives of partying at fraternities may be in danger. Despite lines stretching from fraternity doorsteps to the streets on weekends, and frats reaching full capacity at their sweaty parties, the NESCAC schools have become increasingly willing to phase out Greek life. Over the past few decades, eight out of
From negative political ads flooding television channels to President Obama and Governor Romney lashing out fiercely in the debates, practically breathing accusations down one another’s necks, each candidate has worked tirelessly to persuade the public that his policies would lead to a radically better America. For both, the focus has been on the economy and