Editor's Note

Dear FM, With not one, not two, not three…but FIVE dinosaurs in this closeout, it’s safe to say that FM is in its Mesozoic Era. First, I’d like to shout out FM legends and multi-scrut extraordinaires KT and JKW, whose scrut was originally slated as the cover story for this issue. This dynamic dino duo wrote about MCI-Norfolk, a prison founded in 1927 by Harvard alumnus Howard B. Gill. Gill wanted Norfolk to be a place of rehabilitation rather than punishment. With this goal in mind, he created the Norfolk Inmate Council, a governing body of incarcerated people that advocates for the needs of other Norfolk residents. Though it still exists, today, the NIC finds itself at odds with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Sourcing from NIC reports, DOC policy documents, and conversations with the current board of the NIC, KT and JKW place the tensions between the NIC and DOC in context of a broader struggle for prison reform in the United States. Their thorough reporting raises the question of whether Gill’s rehabilitative vision can ever become a reality. KT and JKW, thank you for your diligent sourcing (CorrLinks! Support groups! Public records requests!), for staying two steps ahead of every deadline, and for your beautiful, empathetic prose. It’s been an honor to learn from you as a writer and edit you as a chair. Thankfully, we had another dinosaur claw his way out of the fossil record to save us from scrutlessness. In this week’s actual cover story, EJS takes us inside Harvard’s Conservative and Republican Student Conference. Drawing upon interviews with conference organizers, Harvard Republican Club presidents past and present, and Steve Bannon (?!!)(this is not a joke)(EJS literally went to Steve Bannon’s hotel room), EJS examines the ascendance of Harvard’s conservative movement. EJS, thank you for your comprehensive reporting, your colorful line-work that had MTB and I cackling in the FM office all of Tuesday night, and your dedication to turning around a 4,000+ word story in less than two weeks. We’re glad you came out of retirement to bring us such a banger of a piece. And thank you to fellow dino SSL for coming to us in our hour of need and accidentally editing a scrut. We even had a dinosaur on one of our weeklies! DRZ wrote about Professor Michael M. Desai’s 16,000 generation yeast, which he and his lab group feed weekly in a “choreographed 30-minute routine” (we promise it’s not a cult). Leaving the Mesozoic era, NSK takes us to The Million Year Picnic, an underground comic book haven hidden in Harvard Square. Our lovely introspections editor RCG talks to Professor Christina Maranci about Armenian architecture, coffee, and Kim Kardashian. This week’s issue also marks the official resurrection of COLUMNS! In her first installment of her column on form, CL dissects the art of the pregame. AJBS writes about Target self-checkout as part of her column on technology and isolation. The rest of our columns will make their debut in next week’s issue — stay tuned! Finally, we close out the issue with two beautiful introspections. XSC writes about her experience going through U.S. customs as a Chinese international student. And in this week’s endpaper, MEL writes about the loss of her father, showing us how grief can serve as proof of love. Thank you to BHP, JHC, and KHL for filling our issue with your team’s wonderful photos. Thank you to CHF, XCZ, SFL, KHL (again!), and OWZ for the creative designs. Thank you to all of our FM execs, and particularly to our EALS ESKS and VWR and wonderful AME CEK, for our second successful week of in-person production. And, finally, thank you to MTB for our 12.5 hour Tuesday night hangout (with cameos from NHS and MNA), for adminning this issue even though it’s my week (I owe you), and for holding me back from many a crash-out with your unbreakable calm. I couldn’t ask for a better co-chair. FMLove, MTB+YAK