Issue 1: Sept. 3, 2021

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OPINION

Standards based grading is ineffective, confusing. A7 ASB is too exclusive. A6

LIFESTYLE

SPOTLIGHT

Review: Asian market snacks. B2

Drinking culture: professionals, teachers, parents comment on the history and effects of underage drinking. A4-5

NICO ISMAILI/UNSPLASH

Verbatim: teachers, students on the safety of reopening protocols. B1

Friday, Sept. 3, 2021

The Campanile

Vol. CIV, No. 1

Palo Alto High School, 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301

ASB focusing on club day, spirit week after first dance

Zack Silver

Gina Bae

Following the first school dance and freshman ASB elections, ASB senior class president Matthew Signorello-Katz said ASB is now turning its attention to club day and bonding events.

More than 700 students attended the dance on Aug. 7, and they gave largely positive feedback, according to Signorello-Katz.

Signorello-Katz also said ASB is working with the district to expand access to menstrual products in Paly bathrooms and is planning ice cream socials for the junior and senior classes. He said its biggest focus going forward will be planning spirit week, which will take place from Oct. 11-16.

Editor-in-Chief

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JT BARD/THE CAMPANILE

Junior Phela Durosinmi completes his AP Chemistry homework in the Paly library. Under the revised homework policy, teachers can no longer make assignments due Monday nor administer tests on Monday.

Anaya Bhatt

After positive community feedback, Palo Alto City Council will consider extending the closure of California Avenue and Ramona Street to vehicles at its Sept. 15 meeting. Currently, street closures downtown and on California

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n an attempt to reduce student academic stress and clarify teacher expectations, the Board of Education approved a revised homework policy in August that prohibits summative assessments and assignments being due or assigned on seven-period days. The policy also made several revisions that reinforce previous guidelines as mandatory policies, including expectations for students' homework loads by grade levels and the prohibition of required summer homework assignments as well as late penalties for homework.

Board President Ken Dauber said the school board approved these changes partially in response to the new bell schedule to prevent test and homework stacking on Mondays.

“One of the benefits of the block schedule over having every period every day was that students couldn't face a situation where they had homework in all their classes, and also tests and projects due on in all the classes on the same day,” Dauber said. “But now, if we have a day that has all periods, then we need to make sure that students aren’t facing a situation where they can have a homework overload on that day. The weekend is a lot better if you don't have homework hanging over you.”

Policy continues on A2

City council to decide on downtown street closures Lifestyle Editor

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PALO ALTO PERMIT #44

Teachers express mixed feelings about updated policy

Sports Editor

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U.S. POSTAGE

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Board adopts revised homework guidelines

RILEY HERRON/USED WITH PERMISSION

ANAYA BHATT/THE CAMPANILE

NON-PROFIT ORG

www.thecampanile.org

Junior Asher Friedman crowd surfs at the first dance of the year.

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PALO ALTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL 50 EMBARCADERO RD. PALO ALTO, CA 94301

Avenue are scheduled to end Oct. 1, 2021.

However, city council member Greer Stone said he expects the council to extend the street closures past that date.

“It’s hard to say right now, but my guess is that it’ll be extended given what is happening with the delta variant and the county’s infection rate,” Stone said.

Following the initial closures due to the expansion of seating in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stone said California Avenue and Ramona Street could stay shut down to cars indefinitely.

“I would think that there is a chance that California Avenue and Ramona Street remain closed permanently as California Avenue already dead ends and we haven’t

received much pushback from the retail stores in those areas,” Stone said. “Since we’ve had overwhelmingly good feedback from those areas, we might even want to consider installing certain automatic parts around the street to close it down for a holiday or weekend.” !!!!!!"#$%&'$()*!!""#$%&'()&'($*+,&$-,)&$ &#"(.$'+,/+0,"$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!"

Pipe construction underway on new school bond Rachel Feinstein

Staff Writer

Construction projects around campus to replace outdated climate control pipe systems have frustrated students, but Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson said they should be completed soon.

The most recent wave of construction at Paly began when the Measure A Strong School Bond passed in 2008, which authorized $378 million for various construction projects in the district, former Paly librarian Rachel Kellerman said.

Kellerman also said this bond, funded by the Palo Alto community, was the first major one in many years.

“Paly had very little done to it since (the 1970s),” Kellerman said. “So (Paly) was able to get quite a lot of money from that bond, enough money to build the Performing Arts Center, the Media Arts Center, the library and the science buildings.”

Every construction project at Paly is funded by a school bond. For a bond to pass, it needs to have a 55% approval rate, but Kellerman said

the bonds have always passed by a large margin because the community is generous in prioritizing education.

“I can only think of one bond measure that was not supported by the community,” Kellerman said.

The latest construction is the hot and cold water piping project, funded by a new bond, Measure Z. The project is replacing the 80-yearold clay heating and cooling pipes that no longer regulate temperature properly, Assistant Principal and facilities director Jerry Berkson said.

However, many students, including senior Fraser Phillips, have expressed frustration with the construction’s timeline.

“It would have been great if they did this before school started, so we wouldn’t have to deal with this,” Phillips said.

Though many students are frustrated with the untimeliness of the construction, Berkson said it is the most well run project out of the many he has overseen in his 16 years at Paly.

“They are ahead of schedule,” Berkson said.

“We were fortunate to get most of the noisy Construction continues on A3

RACHEL FEINSTEIN/THE CAMPANILE

Workers replace the 80-year-old clay pipes near the 300 building. The project is funded by the Measure Z bond.

Friday, September 3, 2021

The Campanile

A2

News

Gov. Newsom’s recall: all you need to know

C

alifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a recall election on Sept. 14 where voters will decide whether to keep him in office or elect a Republican governor in a largely Democratic state.

Retired Yolo County Sheriff ’s Sergeant Orrin Heatlie filed for the recall in February 2020, before COVID-19 overtook the country. Reasons for the recall initially stemmed from frustration over Newsom’s policies on matters such as immigration, taxes and homelessness.

However, the recall campaign gained momentum following the hardships California has gone through in the past year, including droughts, wildfires, housing shortages and the pandemic. U.S. Government teacher Stephen Foug said out of these issues, the pandemic has had the largest impact on the recall campaign.

“My guess is that COVID-19 is probably the prime driver of all this,” Foug said. “It’s the biggest one, especially because it seems to have this nature of changing policies all the time, because it’s hard to predict what the heck this disease is going to do.”

For the recall proposal to reach the ballot, recall organizers had to gather 1.5 million signatures by March 17, 2021, but they submitted

2.1 million signatures, 1.7 million of which were verified by the California Secretary of State. There have been four attempts to recall Newsom, but none reached the ballot until now.

If voters do recall Newsom, the candidate with the most votes wins the election. Because there are 46 candidates, Foug said the result may not necessarily represent a true majority.

“You can have a new governor that a very small percentage of the population picked,” Foug said. “That doesn’t seem democratic.”

But the replacement election only happens if a majority of voters first choose to recall the governor.

Leading the replacement candidates, if Newsom is recalled, is radio host Larry Elder, whose far-right ideologies have drawn criticism.

“Some of the stuff that he has said is concerning,” AP U.S. History teacher John Bungarden said. “Most of this is identified with climate change denial and a host of other stuff that don’t fit well. So he won’t serve long. He would serve until the next election cycle when he gets voted out. But can he do damage? Yep.” The recall election could also have implications beyond California. If

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88-year-old California Sen. Dianne Feinstein becomes physically unable to continue representing California in the U.S. Senate, then the governor appoints the replacement Senator.

If a Republican is in control as governor, they may appoint another Republican and disrupt the Senate’s current 50-50 split, where Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris breaks the tie.

Junior Lucas Guan said the recall result could trickle down to the Paly community.

“If Newsom is recalled, assuming it happens, and a Republican comes into office, the schools will probably always stay open, because that’s generally their platform,” Guan said. “But if Newsom really does win, I have a feeling that he’s going to close schools.”

Preliminary polls show that a narrow majority of respondents want to keep Newsom in office, but Foug said the race is not over yet.

“From what I observed about what the result might be,” Foug said, “I think he might be in trouble.”

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Justin Gu

Staff Writer

FROM THE COVER

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Dauber also said the revisions to the policy are meant to provide clarification after Superintendent Don Austin received questions from school sites and individual teachers about previous homework policies.

Dauber said he thinks many students have been assigned more homework than allowed in the original policy, which was approved in 2012, but he is optimistic that compliance will increase.

Dauber also said communication with teachers is important during what he anticipates will be an adjustment period.

“As I understand it, Dr. Austin made the changes to the administrator regulation and then circulated those to teachers, and I’m sure it’s been brought forth and staff meetings and so on,” Dauber said. “So my sense is that the district is good at communicating when there’s an important change like this (so) that everybody understands that the expectations are correctly set.”

Economics teacher Grant Blackburn isn’t so sure, though. Blackburn said there was no such staff meeting at Paly and the only meeting he knows about was an optional AR meeting with Principal Brent TB YP AR Kline on August 25.

KE RW “When I went to the meeting with the princiAN G pal, there were only four other teachers there plus the principal and the discussion that we had, it didn’t feel like we were problem solving. It felt like we were venting,” Blackburn said. “It felt like there was some pushback between us in the administration … We haven’t had a chance to talk about this policy, which was just given to us. We haven’t had a chance to talk about the implications and all of that kind of stuff.”

Blackburn also said that since the policy was released weeks after the start of the school year — and only a week before Back to School Night — adjusting his curriculum was particularly difficult.

Blackburn said he would have preferred more teacher input

to have been considered for a policy that he believes would normally be decided at the teacher level, not at the district level.

“Every teacher’s philosophy and personality is different, and when you have a policy that is misaligned with a teacher’s personality and style, then that’s going to make it hard for the teacher to be truly effective,” Blackburn said. “I do think there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage.”

He said he’s especially concerned with a specific part of the policy — no repercussions for late work.

“I personally believe that sometimes we need to require people to do things that might be painful in the short run because unless they do it and go through that process, they won’t learn the value of doing so,” Blackburn said. “I’m very focused in terms of what I give to my students and why I give it. So if a student doesn’t turn their homework in on time, and we’re going over the assignment, or we’re using the assignment that you just completed in class, and you haven’t done it, it’s not really going to be as valuable for you if you do it later on.”

While Principal Brent Kline said he understands the concerns of teachers related to the new policy, he said the revised homework policy will maximize students’ time.

“I’m a musician at heart, and you practice what you don’t do well,” Kline said. “If you already know how to do it, why practice that when you could be doing something else and practicing something that you don’t know? And so I think that this is a great opportunity for all of us as an entire community that we really reflect on our practices, including mine as a principal, and making sure that we’re doing the best for all of our students in the time that we have during the day and after school.”

Kline said he plans to meet with the instructional leaders of every department to continue to brainstorm best practices surrounding homework and get more feedback. He said he’ll also visit classrooms, talk with teachers and have staff share what works related to homework at staff meetings or during professional development time.

Next week, Kline said he plans to facilitate a student forum

of about 16 students to hear what they think student engagement should look like, what the purpose of homework is and how homework should be treated.

“It’s not going to happen overnight. People are going to have to readjust what they’ve always done or what they think needs to be done,” Kline said. “I think that there’s a lot that we’ve learned as we survived the onslaught of the pandemic, and then we continue to work through that, so I think we need to use what we’ve learned and see what’s even more effective than what we’ve always been doing.”

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The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

News

A3

Special ed. aide remembered as friendly, kind !"#$%&'(&)#*)%'*$+*'%,+&'-.+'/"00+&')-'-.+')1+'%2'34 Austin Xiang Editor-in-Chief

J

unior Brandao, a special education aide at Palo Alto High School and Juana Briones Elementary School, died on July 11 of a pulmonary embolism. He was 56 years old.

Sue Brandao, Junior’s wife, said Junior was known as a calm, kind and resilient man who loved to pursue his passion of helping students with special needs.

“For him, working with special needs kids was important because he would give the kids assurance in his calm demeanor,” Sue said. “He had the same tone of voice even when he was mad — it was unbelievable.”

Junior taught in the Futures Program at Paly starting in October 2020. Kim D’Ewart, whose son, Henry, was a part of the program, said Junior was a teacher who loved seeing his students making little successes.

“He created an environment in the school that was warm and fun, and individualized to every student’s needs so nicely that it just made a comfortable environment for coming back after the pandemic,” D’Ewart said. “He made Henry feel relaxed and not super stressed out.”

D’Ewart said Junior was always in touch with his students’ emotions. He noticed nonverbal cues more easily than most teachers do, she said, and he would notice things that calmed Henry or upset him.

Junior’s bright aura resonated with not only his students, but also touched his fellow teachers. Althea Cardoso, the Paly teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing, said Junior could brighten up any day.

“When you saw Junior come down the hallway, he always had a smile that just would light up your world — he just was a very friendly, outgoing man,” Cardoso said. “I don’t think I ever saw him upset or (with) a frown on his face.”

Prior to working at PAUSD, Junior attended high school and college in his hometown of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he studied accounting. While working as an aide for families with special needs

children, he found his passion and received a degree in Moderate-Severe Disabilities Education from San Jose State University in 2018.

His wife said while studying at San Jose State University, Junior worked for several years at Mount Pleasant Elementary School District in San Jose and moved to Palo Alto last year, where he served as Susanne Doi’s aide at Juana Briones.

“He loved teenagers,” Sue said. “What he liked the most was to put special education children in contact with kids in mainstream education to see the kindness of all kids and how important it was for both sides to teach that we’re all the same; we’re still human beings.”

D’Ewart said Junior would go above and beyond to help his students, including going on trips with his students’ families.

“His job was a real part of his identity in a way that not everybody’s job is,” D’Ewart said. “He was the type of person that embraced everybody, because there’s definitely people who are uncomfortable around disabled people, and that’s where he thrived.”

Junior would also provide families updates about how their kids were doing.

He sent many texts to D’Ewart with pictures of Henry.

“In June, at the very end of the school year, he sent me an awesome photo of him and Henry together on a field trip and Henry was just smiling in a way that he doesn’t often smile,” D’Ewart said. “I think it was one of the last, if not the last text I got from Junior. It was just this beautiful photo of Junior with his mask on and Henry had his mask off because he was eating something, and (he just had a) big smile, and it just brings tears to my eyes when I look at it.”

When he wasn’t working as a teacher aide, Junior enjoyed spending time with his family, including Sue, who he had been married to since 1994, and his two cats.

“He was a cat lover,” Sue said. “We always joked that they were our babies.”

Junior loved to be outdoors, and frequently enjoyed hiking and camping. Sue said he could never resist a camping trip, even when it was raining.

He was also an avid surfer, hitting up his favorite surf spots at Linda Mar and Capitola.

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“Surfing was his passion; he loved the ocean,” Sue said. “He had this connection with water, and he really was a pretty good surfer.”

But even more important to Junior was his love of God. He had been an active member of the Menlo Church San Jose, where he served as a part of the children’s

SUE BRANDAO/USED WITH PERMISSION

ministry and found a welcoming community he could pray and laugh with.

“He loved God was above and beyond anything in his faith,” Sue said. “I think it made him even more special because whatever he did, he showed his passion. He was a wonderful husband, a very kind person and a very wonderful friend.”

FROM THE COVER

RACHEL FEINSTEIN/THE CAMPANILE

A construction worker lays pipes as part of many recent campus building projects.

“With the construction on the quad, and especially in other random places, it’s hard to get through,” senior Sophia Henderson said.

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parts done throughout the summer break.”

Though noise may not be an issue, the project has closed many areas of campus, forcing students to take detours.

Because critical areas of campus are closed, senior Sophia Henderson said the pipes project is more intrusive than any other school construction she’s experienced, including that of the library and science building.

“The library and the science building were out of the way, so we were still able to walk around,” Henderson said. “With the construction on the quad, and especially in other random places, it’s hard to get through.”

Berkson said the quad will be open to students sooner than the other areas because no pipes are being installed in the quad.

Instead, the quad is a convenient and time-efficient staging area for the project.

“The quad was just to put the dirt somewhere,” Berkson said. “They will be re-sodding probably starting next week. It’ll take about two months for it to grab hold.”

After the completion of the pipes project, the next project funded by the new bond is the renovation of the Tower Building. Berkson said this remodel is set to take place in 2022, and will take around 18 months to

complete. Renovating such a historic building can be risky, but Berkson said it’s overdue, and most of the remodel will be on the interior.

“The outside will look the same,” Berkson said. “The entire inside will be revamped to accommodate wellness, the nurse’s office and a lot of therapeutic offices.”

Berkson also said all remodels match the original Spanish architecture of Paly to preserve as much history as possible.

“We try to keep the look consistent,” Berkson said. “The mini-tower at the entrance of the football field, the Peery Center and the science buildings all look mostly like the older structures.”

Kellerman said maintaining the original look of the campus makes it a common ground that unites all Paly alumni.

“The place binds everyone together with their memories, good and bad,” Kellerman said.

“Preserving landscape and putting in new landscape with the same flow is really important so everyone stays connected.” !"#$%&'#("$%#)%*+#+,"$-%+.#/-+-,0 !"#$%&'%()*#+,-./$%!#.,-0/(#12/

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The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

A4

Sp tlight

Debunking our d

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The Mayflower arrives at Plymouth Rock due to a shortage of beer on board

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Temperance movement sparked by spread of drinking becuse of increased accessibility to alcohol

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Alcohol sales outside of bars and restaurants increase by 24% and sales of spirits with higher alcohol content increase by 27% from 2019

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hree weeks into the school year, the number of Paly parties is already in the double digits. There’s a reason high school parties are such a cliché; all events revolve around alcohol –– socializing, games and the courage to dance.

Underage drinking is prevalent for students all over the nation, and Paly is no exception — according to the results of the California Healthy Kids Survey from the 2019-2020 school year, 19% of 9th graders and 43% of 11th graders at Paly had drank alcohol at least once in their life.

Societal pressure, parent-child relationships, mental health and biochemical reasons all influence underage drinking.

High school is a time when teenagers become more independent and mature, and it can lead to different behaviors around drinking, depending on where and how they were raised.

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Drinking has been present in the United States since the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. Because the ship’s beer supply was running low, sailors were worried they were going to run out before reaching England, so they reduced the passenger load by kicking the pilgrims off the boat.

Beer was such a significant aspect of life at the time that former Governor of the Plymouth Colony William Bradford wrote about it in his diary in the winter of 1620.

“It has been another long and thirsty day here at the Plymouth Colony,” Bradford wrote. “How I long for the cool, sweet feeling of a droplet of beer rolling down my parched throat.”

Alcohol has seemingly been a controversial issue since its introduction in American culture. George Washington bought votes by providing 144 gallons of alcohol, winning a Virginia House of Burgesses seat, according to the National Archives.

While bemoaning alcohol as “the ruin of half the workmen in this country,” Washington again used alcohol to bribe Americans, this time providing whiskey and beer from his various distilleries to keep his troops happy.

While hypocritical, Washington was not all wrong, according to U.S. Government and History teacher Steven Foug.

“Through the 1700s and 1800s alcohol consumption was really high, people drank a lot,” Foug said. “And the alcohol consumption basically kept rising as the decades went on.”

By the 1770s, colonists drank an average of three and a half gallons of alcohol yearly, according to JSTOR Daily. But by 1830, that number had doubled for colonists over the age of 15.

Part of the reason for this massive amount of alcohol consumption was for health reasons, Foug said.

“Access to clean water was limited, and the process of making alcohol kills germs, so people drank with breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Foug said.

Drinking became more accessible and more prevalent throughout the 1800s. After working in the factories, immigrants would head to saloons, and the women-led temperance movement grew in strength as the century progressed.

“This movement was fueled by women with drunken husbands, with broken homes, child abuse, and suffering that they linked to alcohol,” Foug said. “And this led to the temperance and suffrage movements being super intertwined.”

In January of 1920, the 18th Amendment was passed, banning the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. This amendment was not ratified until 1933, and these years became known as the era of Prohibition.

Underground trading and speakeasies flourished and became the phase of the day, as did organized crime.

“A lot of people call prohibition a failure, but if you look at it from a larger perspective, I think it worked out pretty well,” Foug said. “The amount of general alcohol consumption in the population before and after prohibition plummeted and didn’t return to its prior levels until the ‘60s.”

In the 1970s, the minimum legal drinking age was lowered, and alcohol was all the rage. In 1971, Congress ratified the 26th Amendment which changed the voting age to 18 and combined with the military draft age of 18, it was reasoned one could also drink alcohol. By 1975, 21 states had lowered their drinking age to either 18, 19 or 20 years old.

The film industry displayed the drinking culture of the 1970s with movies such as Dazed and Confused. The film follows a group of teenagers from 1976 who drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, while hazing, partying and escaping from the police.

But the drinking culture of the ‘70s changed quickly after drinking and driving related accidents increased.

223%

Young people would drive into states with a lower drinking age, drink legally, and then crash their car while returning home.

These accidents led to advocacy groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which was formed in 1980. Eventually these movements led to Congress passing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 which required all states to raise their MLDA to 21.

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Wellness outreach worker Whitney Aquino said the relationship between alcohol and mental health has a positive feedback loop; teenagers who struggle with mental health will turn to drinking as a coping mechanism, while drinking can further increase mental health hardships. Aquino said alcohol impacts students’ mental health because it is a depressant.

“It’s not just physically that it can be depressing, but emotionally something that can impact our brain chemistry and make us feel worse rather than make us feel better,” Aquino said.

She said when teenagers drink as an outlet for their mental health struggles, they are often using alcohol as a way of forgetting bad feelings or as a distraction when they’re in social settings or alone.

“Some people might utilize it when they don’t have all the other coping skills to manage their emotions in different ways,” Aquino said. “It ends up creating a cycle of ‘Let me drink so that I can feel better, but I am drinking so much that I don’t feel good or I am doing things that I’ll regret when I wake up the next day feeling really bad.’”

And Aquino said drinking can also lead to poor mental health because people will often try to chase the good feelings they experienced from their first drink.

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Increase in number of drinking under the influence arrests between 1970 and 1986, while the number of drivers only increased by 42%.

STATISTIC BY US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

TEXT BY MAYA SINGER AN ART BY GINA BAE

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Sp tlight

drinking culture

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substances for a reason,” Aquino said. “That’s because initially that feeling makes them feel good –– there’s no secret that drugs make people feel good –– but the thing is there’s a lot of consequences that come with utilizing the drug that are more grave than the initial feel good feeling.”

Stanford University neurobiology professor Dr. Jennifer Raymond said the enjoyable feelings caused by alcohol use NATION AL SU RVE come from the brain’s production of dopamine, YO ND RU stimulated by alcohol use. Dopamine is GU SE AN D H responsible for the feelings associEA LT ated with drinking alcohol, but H dopamine high is harder to get every time someone drinks.

“Dopamine is critical for motivation,” Raymond said.

“It drives behavior, but the more you get of the dopamine, the receptors are down regulated.

So then it becomes harder to get that satisfaction because for the same amount of dopamine, you don’t get as much of a response.”

This relationship means it takes more alcohol to achieve a pleasurable response, Raymond said, which ultimately leads to more drinking.

Raymond also said there are neural consequences to drinking, especially in relation to the brain’s repair mechanisms.

Rather than repairing a damaged area, the brain finds new pathways to compensate for the injury. However, the brain will eventually reach a point where it can no longer compensate.

“If there’s a little damage, you’ll probably do

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underage alcohol umption is through binge drinking

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We’re surprised that underage drinking is happening, which I find interesting and funny because we definitely promoted it –– it’s one of our core values.

fine. You won’t notice it, but as it accumulates. You drink. You lose a couple of neurons. Your brain changes,” Raymond said.

“You can still do fine, but if you do it again and again, the cumulative effect is really bad.”

Alcohol also affects brain development, in particular, the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for executive function, she said. Underage drinking is especially impactful because the cortex is still developing into the mid-20s, and therefore more vulnerable to injuries from alcohol use.

“If the brain is not able to function properly because of excessive use of alcohol, there’s pretty good evidence that it never develops,” Raymond said. “Data suggests that teens who are heavy users of alcohol are lacking in that executive function for the rest of their life because they missed that window.”

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Parties are frequent at Paly, especially with its upperclassmen population, and the presence of alcohol can often change their dynamic. Last summer, when a current Paly senior, who will be kept anonymous for their privacy, hosted a party, they didn’t expect their house to be overrun by uninvited guests.

“In the summer, I threw a house party and a lot more people than I was expecting showed up,” they said. “A lot of people that I didn’t know and a lot of people in the grade above us came. It was around 150 people total, maybe a little bit more. So it was really big and people brought their own (alcohol) and it just got pretty wild –– a table got broken in my backyard and all the carpets had to be professionally cleaned.”

They said their guests’ alcohol directly led to the damage they left on their house.

“The more people drink the less common sense they have,” they said. “And so (at my party) people were standing on tables and jumping on them. The drunker people get, the more it’s going to spill, and that’s how the carpets got ruined.”

The Paly senior said the parties they’ve experienced can have an extremely tense environment. Because of the limited amount of alcohol teens can obtain, it often ends up being a competition for who gets it.

“Whenever there’s alcohol (at) any party, it’s gone in two seconds,” they said. “Everyone goes out like rats –– they get so intense. It goes so fast, everyone’s so obsessed.”

Yet, they said parties can also bring people together.

“I’ve definitely met a lot of new people at parties, and I’ve definitely made a lot of new friends,” they said.

“And there’s parties with most of the grade where a lot of people show up, and I think that that’s fun because it’s so inclusive.”

High school parties aren’t all fun though. They said the parties can also become an unsafe environment.

“They can get dangerous,” the senior said. “There was one in San Jose where someone got shot and there was another one in Santa Clara where someone got stabbed. They can get really dangerous, really fast.”

Despite the dangers that can be brought on by underage drinking, Paly’s drinking culture has created a support system that ensures everyone receives a safe ride home after gatherings or parties.

“When people do drink, I think it’s really cool that there will be other people who step in,” senior Anika Chang said. “After events, after gatherings, after parties, there’s always

people who make sure that you have a safe ride home.”

In general, Paly students take drinking and driving seriously, she said.

“From my experience, high school students are actually pretty responsible about driving and designated drivers,” Chang said.

“If you’re the driver, you have other people’s lives in your hands so you make sure to abstain from drinking.”

Paly sociology teacher Ben Bolanos said there are many factors associated with underage drinking, including the yearn to feel included and to fit in.

“If most of your friends are drinking and you want to have that social connection, then you yourself will partake in those things, so you can have some connection with other people,” Bolanos said.

He personally believes that underage drinking is a part of becoming mature and teenage years.

“I see underage drinking as a way of being independent, a way of being grown up, even though it may not be the correct way,” Bolanos said.

Underage drinking is also influenced by culture because we, as society, have glamorized the idea of it, he said, especially since drinking is considered to be a masculine act –– we drink beer while watching football and go to tailgates prior to sporting events.

“It’s embedded in our culture,” Bolanos said. “We’re surprised that underage drinking is happening which I find interesting and funny because we definitely promoted it –– it’s one of our core values, even though we don’t call it a core value.”

As a significant part of our culture, alcohol is seen everywhere.

“It’s connected to how we watch sports. We have pubs and bars. We see the way it’s portrayed in TV shows where drinking is happening as a fun thing, as a comedic thing. It creates this whole mystique about it, when it’s really just part of everyday life.”

When discussing underage drinking, Bolanos brought to light the disparities of society’s view on underage versus of-age drinking.

“We’re actually calling into question the rules of society –– what is right and what is wrong,” Bolanos said. “Every form of deviance or rebellion is in some ways connected to pointing out an inequality. In our society, there’s a power dynamic –– adults can drink, but teenagers can’t.”

80$'(7',-*'()0#1)9"(%:' Palo Alto resident and Danish native Nana Chancellor said she sees major differences between the culture of drinking in the US and other countries, especially European ones. Chancellor said this is because of different laws in each country.

“There’s really no drinking age for drinking at home (in Denmark). If your parents are OK with it, that’s at their discretion,” Chancellor said. “You see teenagers at a younger age having a beer or a glass of wine, which sort of demystifies the whole thing a little bit. That’s how I grew up, so that’s what feels comfortable to me.”

In Denmark, the minimum legal age to purchase alcohol in a store is 16 years old and 18 years old at a bar and restaurant.

Any beverage with an alcohol percentage greater than 16.5% can only be bought by someone 18 years or older, but in the US, the legal drinking age for any alcoholic beverage is 21.

Additionally, Chancellor said someone in Denmark only needs to show ID when going to a bar or club and not when purchasing alcohol.

“The alcohol restrictions are so lax (in Denmark), that I don’t know of anyone who’s ever been carded because you could also be buying alcohol for your parents,” Chancellor said.

She said the secrecy aspect of underage drinking in the US, where many teens try to hide their alcohol use from their parents, ultimately leads to unsafe situations where families are unaware of what’s occurring with their children.

“Because it is legal and because every parent I have ever met (in Denmark) is OK with their teenager drinking, there’s no secrecy to it,” Chancellor said. “To me it feels safer because it’s open and it’s talked about.”

Senior Apolline Marabelle who recently moved to Palo Alto from France said the parent-child-alcohol relationship is similar to that of Denmark in her home country.

“Since drinking in France is more common and parents, in general, are more chill about it, it’s not a rebellious thing to drink,” Marabelle said. “If you have a bad relationship with your parents, you wouldn’t drink to make them angry because it’s not viewed as a bad thing.”

Since drinking is not looked at negatively in France, Marabelle said it’s common for relatives to offer young people wine at family dinners, especially when an aspect of the drinking culture in France is to learn how to enjoy alcoholic beverages.

“You learn how to appreciate a good wine or champagne,” Marabelle said. “You don’t drink alcohol every time, even if there is some at a party. Since there is alcohol anywhere and anytime you want, there’s not the urge to go to it every time.”

Friday, September 3, 2021

The Campanile

Opinion

A6 7898$(30/%+$ ":1"),-"*'$#,'3$ 7*,5")(&%$;&(,.$ <*.0-" Austin Xiang

Editor-in-Chief

Millions of jobs lost to automation.

Mass protests and riots occur, leading to deaths and billions lost in property damage. The government calls for the National Guard, reminiscent of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Andrew Yang, a democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 election, describes this scenario in his book, “The War on Normal People.” What may seem like a farfetched scenario is now turning into a likely future — if the United States continues along its current technological revolution and ignorance of the average American.

According to the World Economic Forum, automation will supplant about 85 million jobs by 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 68 million, or 48.5 percent of all Americans work in a sector currently being replaced by automation.

The United States must combat the problems of the “fourth industrial revolution” with a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is no new idea.

From Thomas Paine in 1796 to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967 to Elon Musk in 2017 to most recently, Yang in 2020, advocates of UBI have seen its benefits — it would decrease dependence on existing welfare programs and make our society more equitable for all U.S. citzens.

Yang has advocated for a UBI of $1,000 a month for Americans ages 18-64, funded by a value-added tax (VAT) — a consumption tax on a product at each stage of the supply chain where value is added. As a result, the largest, tax-avoiding corporations would take on the largest chunk of the tax.

166 of the 193 total countries in this world already have a VAT, with the average VAT in Europe being 21 percent. According to Yang, a VAT at merely half the European level, which has shown to be effective, could pay for his UBI, which would cost $1.3 trillion per year.

It’s reasonable to wonder if a VAT would lead to inflation, or businesses leaving the domestic market. Yang admits the prices of items will slightly increase, but that a VAT of 10 percent, which would benefit 80 percent of Americans, would only hurt you if you consume over $120,000 annually, which most likely means you are already well-off. Businesses, especially local ones, would prosper from increased consumer purchasing power.

Some people believe that citizens may lose their incentive to work with a UBI in place, but it depends on how much you give them.

The annual $12,000 of Yang’s “freedom dividend” is below the poverty level. As a result, anyone who wants an enjoyable life would still have to work.

Additionally, we know people won’t irrationally spend this newfound income.

Universal Basic Income has been implemented in several countries for short periods of time, including in Iran and Finland, but even within the U.S. in Alaska. And in these UBI systems, there was no increase in alcohol or drug use. Instead, we saw a decrease in the number of mental health appointments and fewer cases of domestic violence. Yang said poor people being reckless with money is a long-standing prejudice, and not the truth.

Capitalism is an effective economic system. In fact, the very computer that I’m writing this story on demonstrates the ability of the capitalistic market to spur innovation. However, American capitalism is now automating away the jobs of 85 million.

Different forms of capitalism exist all around the world, and the current capitalist system of the United States is failing to improve the way of life for most Americans. Thus, it’s time to transform our capitalistic system to one that is not just about money, but rather the American people. We can do this with Universal Basic Income.

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ASB too exclusive, disconnected from rest of student body

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hen I was a freshman, I first noticed ASB by reading a school administrator’s Schoology post about the Paly student government, which emphasized how appointed officials represented the voice of the students. Without representation, I realized we would be left a student body unheeded.

While I knew of my middle school’s student government, its influence was limited, so like many students, I was indifferent to it. But with my transition to high school, I felt a renewed sense of responsibility to engage.

In my freshman year, the first ASB election passed quickly. After a few weeks of campaigning for their desired positions through posters, social media posts and recorded speeches, the candidates were voted for by the student body.

During my sophomore year, as I scrolled through the ASB officers I recognized several names of students elected freshman year. I wondered how the same people were reelected, but I thought little of it.

But then came ASB elections during my junior year. Once more I recognized the same people securing spots. This time, I thought, it couldn’t just be a coincidence. The student body was voting for the same representatives every year.

This creates an exclusivity surrounding ASB both in terms of the small number of applicants, which leads to an increased chance of reelection for incumbents, and the lack of perspectives on ASB since the same students are elected over and over.

Paly has over 2,000 diverse students, so how can the same small group of people represent such diversity?

They can’t. At least not very well.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that for new students interested in

ASB, applying can seem futile. Students rarely vote for newcomers, which diminishes these newcomers’ desire to apply.

And when incumbent students run, they often win because voters prefer their experience and knowledge. What the student body fails to realize is that for ASB, experience and efficiency are not the same.

Indeed, this misconception comes from Paly’s infamous expectation for excellence. Specifically, it presents itself as the notion that more experience on ASB lends itself to a higher quality of performance.

Because voters seem to prefer past experience, returning ASB candidates who already have little opposition further increase their chances of reappointment.

However, we should keep in mind that ASB isn’t the only platform to gain skills in student leadership. For example, students may acquire such skills through volunteering, childcare and the like.

By appealing to diverse experiences, we’re more likely to introduce students with innovative perspectives. Hence, experience does not translate to performance.

In order to prevent students from being disadvantaged in future ASB elections, the group should establish term

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limits of one year for elected officials.

You run. You win. You serve for one year, and then you allow others a fair chance to run. After serving for one year with a title they can put on a resume, then they can continue contributing next year.

For example, they can provide insight to current officers or assist in activities. If students are truly interested in ASB and student representation, they will continue to work on things they believe in without needing a title.

ASB positions are only available to students in middle school and high school, and thousands of students pass through the school district yearly. It is thus unproductive to allow students to run continuously without considerable opposition, as it contradicts the presumably equitable opportunity of student leadership. Term limits would reduce exclusivity and allow for more diverse perspectives in student government.

To ASB’s credit, they have fulfilled their primary responsibility — running student activities — and have done so successfully, especially considering the return to on-campus learning.

But even if these officials are adequately executing their duties, others with the same opportunity could do so just as well.

With a more diverse student government, representation of the student body would improve and Paly would better support a community of inclusivity and equitable opportunities for all students.

Margot Blanco

Staff Writer

ART BY MEYA GAO

2019-2020 bell schedule should be reinstated

!"#$%&'"$('&)'$&*+$"*+$',-"($.&/("$-0)"$1)02%"-($'3&*$'3"4$(0%5"$60)$('/+"*'( Lauren Chung

Sports Editor

Being a student at Paly for four years, I know the campus like the back of my hand and can name all the teachers. However, there’s one thing I am uncertain of: the bell schedule.

For every year I have been a student at Paly, the bell schedule has been different, and this school year is no exception. To combat stress, monotony of the school day, and lack of sleep many students experience, a committee of administrators, teachers, parents and students pushed the school start time to 9 a.m.

But this change created more problems than it solved. School end times of 3:30, 3:50 and 4:10 p.m. make it difficult for students to juggle their schoolwork and extracurricular activities or jobs.

Because of this, the bell schedule should revert back to the one used during the 20192020 school year. This schedule included a start time of 8:20 a.m. and an end time of 3:35 p.m. at the latest, alternating between odd days — period 1, 3, 5 and 7 — and even days — peri-

ods 2, 4 and 6. If implemented, the start time would be changed to 8:30 a.m. with the new California state law prohibiting public schools from starting before that time.

This bell schedule allowed students to have more time for extracurricular activities and after school commitments and, by extension, more time for homework.

Although both schedules require students to be in school for about the same amount of time, students’ time in the afternoon is more valuable than in the morning because most students complete homework and participate in activities after school.

Additionally, daylight-savings time is in November, meaning the sun will start to set around 5:30 p.m., giving students only about two hours to do activities and complete homework while it’s still light out. I value walks or jogs around my neighborhood to decompress and destress

from my busy days. However, now that school finishes later in the day, there will be less time for me to enjoy the outdoors.

The 2019-2020 bell schedule is also better for student athletes because they don’t miss as much class. According to the PAUSD website, 57% of students participate in sports.

When game time comes around, students will miss more of their classes to compete against schools that get out earlier.

Schools in the Mountain ViewLos Altos School District, for example, often compete with Paly yet do not release their students as early as 3:41 p.m.

Ultimately, PAUSD should switch back to the 2019-2020 bell schedule because it gives students more time after school to complete their homework, sports ART BY KYLA SCHWARZBACH and other activities.

Friday, September 3, 2021

The Campanile

A7

Opinion

Calling Gen Z soft downplays issues they fight to solve !"#$%"&"'()*+&,$-(."$/*0"'"&)1$&"#$2"',2"3)*.",$4"&"53*(6$)+$/"."6+2*&%$)-"$78)8'"

ART BY WALLIE BUTLER

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any people took to social media to express their frustration with rapper DaBaby’s ignorance after he made homophobic and misogynistic remarks at the music festival Rolling Loud 2021.

He later apologized via Twitter and Instagram. Asserting that his apology was unnecessary, though, DaBaby fans called his critics — most of whom are part of Generation Z — “soft” for being offended. DaBaby later deleted the Instagram apology and called his critics “crybabies” at the Hot 97’s Summer Jam 2021 music festival.

This instance is just one of many where people have called Gen Z soft for being offended by offensive remarks.

But when people are told that speaking out on issues they’re passionate about makes them soft, it silences their voices and belittles their efforts.

Moreover, it trivializes the idea that change is necessary for society to grow.

Gen Z is not soft for ad-

vocating for change, especially if it will aid them and their neglected communities.

Older generations who harbor values different to ours do not have the right to disparage us for defending relevant causes.

Too many times my older relatives have criticized my academic progress as “lowerthan-their-standards” or made outdated, offensive remarks at the dinner table. Every year, I tell them of their blatant ignorance, yet every year, they belittle my comments and complain that this generation is too sensitive.

Older generations assume that we know nothing about the reality of the harsh world.

But we now live in the height of climate change, social activism and a pandemic, all of which are present and future issues. Our concerns do not make us too sensitive if they affect us and the future.

But the truth is, Gen Z is the future. We live in a society that holds different values, views and principles than those

held in past generations. Yet, older generations refuse to accept this and hold onto their traditional views in the frame of an evolving world.

According to a 2018 American Psychological Association survey on the stressors in different generations, Gen Z was more likely to report stress related to topics such as mass shootings, sexual harassment and assault, rise in suicide rates, climate change and global warming and separation and deportation of immigrant and migrant families.

From the survey, 62% of Gen Z reported stress from rise in suicide rates in comparison to 44% of adults overall. Gen Z also was the least likely to report very good or excellent mental health with 45%. In contrast, millenials had 56% and Generation X with 51%.

When such heavy topics become important to an individual, one is more aware of their actions and others’ feelings and acts accordingly. Nevertheless, this does not make one too sensitive.

People argue that Gen Z is too sensitive because some of them participate in cancel culture where a mass of people scrutinize and harass someone online for something they may have done or said.

However, the generalization that all of Gen Z participates in cancel culture is untrue and only minimizes the magnitude of issues that do not only reside in the internet world.

We cannot grow as a society without change, change that starts with people speaking up about the problems they want to solve. Before calling someone who actively advocates for what they believe in soft or overly sensitive, instead consider the perspective they’re coming from.

Ultimately, being sensitive to others and implementing change is how we best improve and make progress in our everchanging world.

Tiffany He Staff Writer

Ethnic Studies course deserves more promotion Ajay Venkatraman Managing Editor

When students undergo the tedious annual course selection process, combing over their options and racing to pick a perfect selection of classes, one section of their course catalogs is repeatedly neglected.

ART BY AJAY VENKATRAMAN

Since 2008, Ethnic Studies has only gained sufficient enrollment to run a small handful of times, putting a damper on its ability to teach important values of understanding during a time of racial tension and general ignorance.

Ethnic Studies classes can provide a thoughtprovoking environment for students to talk about the often-difficult subjects of race and culture, a rare opportunity for many.

The lessons taught in classes like Ethnic Studies are vital for understanding others and their diverse cultures as well as creating an inclusive school. Having students take interest in this class would undoubtedly be beneficial to both the students and the school as a whole.

A push last year to mandate this course at the state level gained widespread support in September until it was vetoed

by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Critics of the mandate, including Paly’s own Ethic Studies teacher, Justin Cronin, argued that mandating the course would be harmful, primarily because making the course mandatory may lead to a number of students in the course being uninterested, lessening the worth of the engagement-heavy, explorative course. In addition, Cronin points out that politicizing the course has already led to a rush to include a much wider range of ethnic groups in the curriculum,

decreasing the amount of depth allocated to each group. A mandate like this would work primarily to diminish the natural value of the course rather than spreading it.

Ethnic Studies’ problem doesn’t stem from the fact that students aren’t curious about the class’s content and need to be forced to take it – it’s that potentially interested students are often unaware of the course.

Because the course rarely runs, Ethnic Studies currently has no platform to draw in students outside of its teachers attempting to singlehandedly garner support for it.

Courses in other fields, by contrast, have found their way into the forefront of students’ minds through various avenues. Music and Journalism courses thrive off their legacy and output for student interest, while English electives collectively organize presentations to tenth grade classes.

By contrast, Ethnic Studies hasn't had a chance to garner a reputation or form a group to organize support for it. But because Ethnic Studies provides such a unique function, administrators should be focused on increasing the number of students who have access to information about it and recruit students who are interested in taking the class.

By focusing their efforts on raising awareness of the Ethnic Studies course and publishing material promoting it, administrators can help students discover an interest in an important subject, encouraging them to pursue a class that can help create a more accepting, informed school environment.

!"#$%#&%'()#'*%+ ,&#%-$,+.-$%*&'+ '"/%*$"+'/00*'' Dinu Deshpande Staff Writer

As more language and social science classes implement standardsbased grading, I have to wonder why teachers use a system that is not as clear, consistent or accurate as traditional, percentage-based grading.

In standards-based grading, students are graded on a scale from zero/one to four, with zero or one being the lowest and four being the highest. The levels correspond to four levels of understanding — needs improvement, foundational knowledge, meeting standards, and exceeding standards.

A growing number of teachers in multiple departments have transitioned to this wretched four-point system, confident in the idea that “good work” and “excellent work” are enough criteria for students to understand what is expected of them.

But usually the standards are vague and unclear, making it difficult for students to understand what type of work determines their grade.

In English class last year, this was the rubric requirement I needed to reach to get a four on my essay.

“4 — Student produced work that demonstrates advanced progress towards application of skills and content related to the standard.”

This type of abstract standard provided little information to me about what was expected to get a top score on the essay.

Where are the days of teachers grading directly on vocabulary, cohesiveness and other specific writing elements? Why condense these elements into an arbitrary standard that only teachers understand?

Isn’t the purpose of the rubric to give students an understanding of what they are being graded on?

When I get a three, I got little or no feedback on what I did wrong or how I could get a four — isn’t that missing the whole point of giving students grades?

The four-point grading scale is also imprecise. Final grades have to fall into one of four categories, making a standards-based system less precise than percentage grading, which has 100 separate “categories.”

In standards-based grading a 77% and an 85% could both fall into the three category. But how can a 77% and an 85% end up being the same grade?

To make matters worse, different teachers assign different letter grades to different numbers. Some standards-based teachers go with a system where an A translates to a four, which seems to make sense.

Following this rule, a B would be a three, a C would be a two and a D or F would be a one.

But other standards-based teachers make a three an A, and a four an A+, and some even see a three as an A and four as exceeding an A. Teachers say they use standardsbased grading because it helps students understand, in words, how proficient they are at a topic, claiming it is more intuitive when grades tell you exactly where you are in relation to the class standards.

Although teachers may think that standards-based grading is more intuitive, most of us have a desired grade in our head and are more receptive to letter grades. If I wanted an A on my essay, do I need a three or a four? And if a three is an A, then is a four just an A+? What happens if I get a two? Is that a B or a C? The standards-based grading system isn’t incremental. It isn’t intuitive. It doesn’t help students learn what they did wrong. And it doesn’t translate well to percentages grade point average.

Grades are a major stressor on high school students. The added pressure of trying to figure out what your grades mean and how standards-based grades translate into a grade point average is an unnecessary burden.

There’s no reason to make the lives of students more complicated.

However, standards-based grading does exactly that. All teachers should use a percentage-based grading system to help make grades easy on students, easy on them and easy to learn from. !"#$%&'#("$%#")*+*"+#,-"$*%,.#/*,*-0 !"#$%&'%()*#+,-./$%!#.,-0/,')(),(/

Friday, September 3, 2021

The Campanile

A8

Editorials Editors-in-Chief Gina Bae • Gianna Brogley • Jack Galetti Braden Leung • Austin Xiang News & Opinion Editors Ben Antonow Maya Singer

Managing Editors Valerie Chu Ajay Venkatraman

Sports Editors Lauren Chung • Zack Silver

Lifestyle Editors Anaya Bhatt • Joy Xu

Media Editor Kyla Schwarzbach

Science & Tech Editor Parker Wang

Business Manager Charlotte Hallenbeck Nikie Behal Margot Blanco Lillian Clark Dinu Deshpande Shantanu Deshpande Eric Fan

ART BY GINA BAE

Keep Gov. Gavin Newsom W

To address this issue, Newsom has signed multiple bills aimed at reducing gun violence, including controlling the sale of firearms and strengthening restraining orders for those convicted of gun violence.

Because of Newsom’s commitment to gun control, California has one of the lowest firearm death rates in the U.S., and Paly students have been able to learn in a safer environment.

At the same time, the confounding frontrunner of the recall election, GOP candidate and talk show host Larry Elder, is actively rallying to end mask and vaccination mandates, putting students and staff at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19. Elder’s strong opposition to gun control puts students further at risk of being victims of a mass shooting.

Newsom’s efforts in providing an equal educational opportunity to all are also to be applauded. His $2.7 billion plan to allow all 4-yearolds in California to attend transitional kindergarten by 2025-2026, and his authorization of $656 million for special education align with The Campanile’s views about equality in education.

If Newsom were to be recalled, Paly students would face a drastic decrease in school safety and witness a widening achievement gap among other negative outcomes.

As such, we encourage all of those who can vote in the Sept. 14 election to do so and to vote “no” on the recall of Gavin Newsom.

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!"#$"%&'()*'()%+#,'%-,*'%(#,.#/," Since the start of the pandemic, many of Palo Alto’s commercial streets have been closed off to cars as part of the city’s Uplift Local program.

By shutting down these streets, the city created outdoor dining areas in an attempt to help local restaurants and businesses operate under pandemic restrictions.

While the city was supposed to open its streets as soon as the state lifted COVID-19 guidelines, the Palo Alto City Council voted in June to delay the opening of a few major commercial streets from early July to at least September, due to the overwhelming support of Palo Alto residents and businesses.

Although California is fully reopened, the Campanile thinks Palo Alto ought to keep California Avenue, Ramona Street and University Avenue blocked off from cars to promote dining at local restaurants, cultivate a biker and pedestrian-friendly environment and create a safe outdoor eating space for Palo Alto’s residents to enjoy.

In a staff report, City Manager Ed Shikada said these street closures have benefitted the restaurants that line University, Ramona and California Avenues. Shikada also said the foot traffic on restaurant-heavy University Avenue has resulted in those businesses recovering much faster after the lockdown. To maintain these pedestrian-reliant benefits, it is imperative these streets remain closed to cars.

In addition, leaving these roads closed promotes walking and biking as opposed to driving. The Campanile has previously commended Palo Alto’s attempts to make the city

biker-friendly, and keeping the streets closed would further these efforts.

By leaving the streets closed, Palo Alto would not only be giving visitors and employees a safe space to walk and bike but also a much more pleasant one as well.

Furthermore, time restrictions, fees and permit requirements in the City’s public garages have been waived until Sept. 30, and employees have been encouraged to utilize these garage spaces — leaving the available curb spaces on side streets for commercial pick-up and drop off. If Palo Alto leaves the streets closed, they should maintain these privileges for employees, perhaps through distributing special parking permits.

Leaving these streets closed also maintains walkable areas that Palo Alto’s residents can appreciate.

These closed streets are often full of friends and families eating, talking, walking and biking, and we think opening these roads to cars again diminishes the social element of our city that we all need now more than ever.

San Francisco’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a plan on July 13 to keep their Shared Spaces program — a program similar to Palo Alto’s Uplift — permanent, with the support of the majority of San Franciscans.

San Francisco mayor London Breed said the program “brought back life and excitement to our neighborhoods during an incredibly challenging time.”

Just like San Francisco, by making the Uplift Local program permanent, Palo Alto will be creating a safe, friendly environment benefitting all of its residents.

!"**"5%*'%*;"%?&:*'53

Aidan Seto Cole Sturino Shiki Toyama Colleen Wang Jerry Xia Brianna Zhou

Illustrators & Photographers

JT Bard Wallie Butler

4'5657'-$(0.2-30(8$(0&98$%*,,.350:$,-,7-+($(1*.'2$;*0-$<3*<$*3$+-%&'' hile many students are saddened by the loss of the à la carte menu from the lunch line, the menu now features free breakfast and lunch, thanks to the Universal School Meals Program launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom. This $54 million program, providing meals for 6.2 million students across California, is one of many ways that Newsom has impacted Paly and beyond.

Programs like these are at risk of being revoked in the upcoming gubernatorial recall election, slated for Sept. 14, fueled by conservatives unhappy with issues such as coronavirus restrictions and the French Laundry soiree.

Although there are many important issues at stake in this recall election, as students, the ones that have the most profound impact on us are student safety and equal educational opportunity. Taking these issues into account, The Campanile urges eligible students, parents and community members to vote “no” on recalling Newsom.

In the past two years, Newsom has helped enact a first-in-the-nation public health order requiring all school staff to either get vaccinated or be tested once a week. This measure has allowed Paly and other California schools to open in a safe manner and fully return to in-person instruction.

Gun control remains another issue related to student safety in an era where school shootings have become all-too-frequent.

Staff Writers

Rachel Feinstein Erik Feng Cayden Gu Justin Gu Tiffany He Christie Hong Ali Minhas Ken Ogata James Churchley Phillip Churchley Meya Gao Anushe Irani

Jimmy Miller Anna Nemerov

Adviser Rodney Satterthwaite Letters to the Editors: Email all letters to editors to theeds22@googlegroups.com. The Campanile prints letters on a space-available basis. We reserve the right to edit submissions.

The Campanile only prints signed letters.

Advertisements: Advertisements with The Campanile are printed with signed contracts. For more information regarding advertisements or sponsors in The Campanile and their size options and prices, please contact The Campanile Business Managers by email at campanile.ads@gmail.com.

Note: It is the policy of The Campanile to refrain from printing articles that misrepresent or alienate specific individuals within the Palo Alto community. The Campanile would like to thank the PTSA for supporting the mailing of our newspaper.

Our Vision Statement: The Campanile has upheld the highest standard of student journalism for the last century by engaging the community through various mediums of storytelling.

Our coverage of news, culture and athletics aims to represent the diverse perspectives of our student body.

SEPTEMBER’S TOP TEN LIST The Top Ten Best Things About Returning to In-Person School !"

Smelling the flowery-fresh aroma of the science building bathrooms

#

When Carl with the bike is wearing an extra crispy plaid button-up

$

Playing AMOGUS with your friends during lunch #sus

%

Jaywalking the crosswalk without that one guy with the golf cart seeing

&

Watching prepubescent freshmen run to class

'

When you “accidentally” bump into your crush going to class

(

Getting yelled at to put on your mask when you’re drinking water

)

Making eye contact with the teacher who refused to round your B+

*

When you see that one PDA couple outside the robotics building

!

Getting ’rona

!"#$%&''($)*+$,*+-$(.//*+0$0*$1-'/$(0.2-30( Dear Editors, ASB is the student council, but our decisions are not representative of the entire community. We are working on addressing this issue through various committees and student work, however, it is not happening fast enough.

Furthermore, the idea that an exclusive student council exists merits its own discussion.

Although ASB works hard to provide the events such as Spirit Week, Prom, dances, quad events and bonding events, as well as commission clubs and ensure that the events are available to the entire student body, ASB has offered few visible improvements to the Paly community.

While we installed digital clocks several years ago, and Ben Gordon (the prior Site Council Representative and Board Representative) created the Early Morning Breakfast Program, which gives breakfast to students who did not have it before school, here are only a few improvements to equity among students that ASB has established.

We attempt to do what we can, but without enough student and teacher input into what can be done to improve life at Paly, it is impossible to move forward with any significant and impactful change. With more support from students, parents and teachers, ASB can fulfill the goals of the student body.

Yet, without this vital support, we cannot enact many of the changes Paly students desire.

Sincerely, Gabe Galper ASB Senior Site Council Representative and Clubs Commissioner

BY JOY XU & JERRY XIA

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Lifestyle

People of Paly Kyla Schwarzbach & Anaya Bhatt

Media Editor, Lifestyle Editor

120"'3)2.'04"'5)$0")&, Hi Paly. We’re Kyla and Anaya, and we’re excited to introduce People of Paly: a running column that will focus on a different member of the student body in every issue. We think everyone has an important and interesting story to tell, and this year we want to bring a focus on stories that may fall under the radar.

We hope you enjoy the stories we share and get to know more people at our diverse school.

If you have any questions or have a story of your own to share, please reach out to us by emailing palycampanile@gmail.com.

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ART BY GINA BAE

Appropriation or appreciation?

A

s senior Hillary Cheung scrolls through some popular online stores, she sighs in disappointment as she comes across a dress of silk with a dragon motif in the same design as qipaos, also known as cheongsams, which are traditional Chinese dresses that are staples in both Chinese history and self-expression.

Arguments about what is and what isn’t considered cultural appropriation have caused controversy recently. It can be confusing to distinguish between cultural appropriation and appreciation, especially since Gen Z is one of the most politically progressive generations.

An example that has been trending on social media and clothing companies is using the prints from traditional Chinese dresses, called “qipao,” and turning them into trendy clothing pieces. Many people identify the fabric and design as belonging to an Asian culture, yet still choose to buy the product.

Cheung, a copresident of Paly’s Asian American Student Union, said it can be hard to determine one’s intentions if they are suspected of cultural appropriation.

“I’m speaking from a Chinese standpoint because I’m Chinese, but if there was a qipao design or something that a big company like Urban Outfitters was selling, I would definitely blame the company more than the buyer,” Cheung said. “I think buyers can be kind of ignorant, (but) maybe they see it in the shop and think, ‘Oh, that’s kind of cool,’ so in that way it’s understandable.

But big sellers should know the origins and what it might mean to a culture.”

Clothing manufacturers and retailers, Cheung said, have a responsibility of ensuring their products are not offensive. But besides the ignorance of cultural appropriation, are there any long lasting, harmful effects?

Junior Dora Pang said it can contribute to the deterioration of the culture’s true values and beliefs.

“A lot of the time on social media, I see people wearing qipaos, and it’s a big thing where they sexualize it,” Pang said. “I think that’s completely wrong.

I see a lot of fast fashion companies take those qipao designs and make them completely wrong and sexualized, erasing them of their original culture.”

The qipao was declared to be the Chinese national dress in 1927 and is still used to express Chinese identity and culture. Now, qipaos can be seen as prom dresses or trendy pieces of clothing for non-Chinese girls.

Cultural appropriation is not limited to only Asian cultures: indigenous people see non-Natives wearing headdresses as a costume and Black people

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see non-Black individuals getting their hair done in box braids or cornrows.

So how can we differentiate between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation? How can we tell what is and isn’t OK? Cheung said being respectful starts with getting a basic understanding of the culture.

“I think the main thing that draws the line between the two is appreciating the culture, so you kind of have to do your research,” Cheung said. “If it’s something that’s significant to the culture, you (should) know that maybe there’s a story that goes behind it or wearing it represents good fortune. You might just be wearing or doing whatever the thing is as a trend or because it fits a certain aesthetic, so definitely understand the background or the culture behind whatever you might be doing.”

With such diversity in the Bay Area, it can be difficult and confusing to understand if what you’re doing is culturally appropriate. All situations can vary, and you might have trouble differentiating what’s OK and what isn’t.

Cheung recommends taking a step back and reevaluating, and to ask yourself some questions.

“Ask yourself ‘why am I doing this?’”

Cheung said. “If you have a legitimate answer that’s great, but if it’s just ‘it looks cool,’ I think that’s a good indication of a red flag.”

Senior Kamran Bastani, or Genius in Training to his YouTube channel subscribers, has been making videos about math, science and engineering for around three months.

Bastani moved to Palo Alto during his sophomore year, after living near Cambridge, England for nine years.

Paly has a far heavier focus on sports than his school in England did, he said, and Palo Alto students are more interested in computer science and engineering, which Bastani looks forward to focusing on in college.

Bastani said he prefers living in suburbia.

“When I lived in England, we were more in the country, and I think if I had to choose, I would rather be in a city here in America,” Bastani said.

Bastani also likes to run and has met many of his friends through the cross country team. He is also a part of a junior youth empowerment program, where he serves as a mentor. The group puts together service projects, such as organizing food drives and writing kind notes for the members’ neighbors.

Bastani says his biggest fear is failing, which he defines as not accomplishing anything meaningful.

For Bastani, meaningful means making education more accessible, which he is already working to do through “Genius in Training,” his YouTube channel.

“I just recently started over the summer just for fun,” Bastani said. “I define math and science stuff, like Pascal’s triangle.”

Bastani also discusses ciphers, Newton’s Cradle and magnetism on the channel, and he said he has plans to discuss more topics in future videos.

Bastani said, “Education opens so many doors and a lot of people just don’t have access to it.”

Brianna Zhou Staff Writer

JIMMY MILLER/THE CAMPANILE

!"#$%&"'()"%*+,%-')',*-%)",.#/,"').&)'+,..0)12345678)9-.".+.0' Students have returned to on-campus learning with new safety measures regarding the pandemic, such as wearing masks indoors and only eating outside. After three weeks of school, The Campanile asked students and staff for their thoughts on PAUSD’s current policies.

“Wearing masks, considering the majority of us are vaccinated, gets a bit annoying. If we could go back to how it was last year, if we just kept desks apart, and we were able to remove our masks, I think that would be a better idea.”

“I feel like all my teachers are doing a good job of making the classroom as safe as possible by using multiple air filters or opening the windows and doors, so overall, I do feel safe.”

“I think the current (COVID-19 policies) are enough. If we see more rising cases, then we should maybe consider increasing the policies.

I’ve been seeing many teachers enforcing their mask mandates and social distancing.”

–– Raenen Mathen (‘23)

— Sarp Kendirli (‘24)

— Kelly Tanaka (‘25)

“I feel pretty safe at school. I was actually quite surprised about how loose their requirements were since students were allowed to go to Town and Country. And also, I bike home to eat lunch every day, so I was quite surprised to find that no one cared about that.”

“Our protocols –– every student being responsible for wearing a mask and all teachers being vaccinated — help us to be able to stay on campus and maintain the learning partnership. Nothing is 100% bulletproof, but we’re doing the very best that we can.”

— Brian Lee (‘22)

— LaDonna Butler, 11th grade administrator

“I think that the mask policy is great.

Whatever difficulties oppose us, the safety piece is really important. I think all the vaccination pieces that they’re requiring for teachers are great. It seems like we live in a great area where a lot of people are kind of making the right decision there.”

— Keith Tocci, AP Language teacher

ART BY GINA BAE

Cayden Gu

Staff Writer

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Lifestyle

B2

!"#$%&'%$()"&*+,#+Joy Xu

Lifestyle Editor Growing up as a first generation Asian American, my pantry is constantly stocked with snacks from the local Asian market.

I munch on these snacks throughout my day-to-day activities, and they helped me from my easygoing elementary school activities all the way through to my high school AP tests. I want to share these comfort snacks with Paly and hope that these snacks may brighten your day.

Good Good Eat Wheat Crackers (Spicy) 9/10

As an aficionado of spicy foods, these ramen chips really hit the spot. The presentation of these chips is strange; they are shaped like dried, cut-up ramen noodles, but they taste exactly like ramen noodles too. Not the American cup noodles — the ones you’d find at the Asian supermarket with different levels of spice labeled on its packaging. After a while, the chips did leave JOY XU/THE CAMPANILE my mouth feeling dry, but if I had some water, I would not have been able to stop eating these.

STRANGEBIRD/USED WITH PERMISSION

Choir teachers Brittney Kerby and Michael Najar play their first single, “Little Changes,” together at a bar in San Francisco.

Najar said, “It is incredibly satisfying to see something you created have an impression on someone else.”

From co-workers to co-stars A

s unique as the name StrangeBird may be for an electronic pop duo, it originated from ordinary circumstances — a casual conversation between Paly choir teachers Brittney Kerby and Michael Najar.

“We were sitting and talking about life and sharing stories as friends would do,” Kerby said. “And (Najar) made a comment one day like, ‘You’re a strange bird.’

And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I am a little bit of a strange bird. We’re both a little bit of a strange bird.’”

While they had collaborated with other musicians before, Kerby and Najar said they did not think about starting a band together until a few years ago, when Kerby offered some of her insight on Najar’s original musical, “Venture,” which was performed at Paly in 2018.

During the creation process, Najar said he realized he could combine his newfound interest in music production with Kerby’s similar interest in songwriting and singing to create the duo they soon named StrangeBird.

“We got to know each other and became friends, and I think the musical was helpful to see how we would work together,” Najar said. “That was where I think I knew she was super talented, (had a) great voice, a great ear for melody (and) harmony. So that really solidified this —

‘She’s got all this and she’s a nice person.

Najar said they always aim to make a Let’s do this.’” positive impact on other people through When inspiration strikes, Kerby said their music and most of all, enjoy the she turns on a recorder, sits down at a process. piano and begins singing “I feel like they’re to the notes she plays. able to be more creative Then they both work when they’re doing their to refine the sketch and own projects and songs, turn it into a song. and that’s really inspir“Songwriting for me ing,” said senior Rohini is vulnerable — I’m talkBharat, who is part of ing about past relationboth Najar and Kerby’s ships, about things in my Festival Choir class and life that have made an the acapella group Folk impact,” Kerby said. “And Yes. “(They’re) basically I’ll be honest, most of the making art and making time, those are the dark, it their own, creating a StrangeBird’s new single, sad times. When I feel sound that’s really dif“Just Like the Moon” that energy, songs kind of ferent that can show us pour out of me. It’s therapeutic in a way. what’s possible: the different things that So I would say that a lot of our songs are we can do with our voices, the techniques from that more emotional place.” that we learn and the music that we sing.”

Kerby said StrangeBird’s newest single, In addition to knowing the compo“Just Like the Moon,” sprung from one of nents to making a great song, Bharat said those times of feeling something deeply Kerby and Najar are also great teachers and wanting to put that into a song. and cool people. Kaitlyn Son, a choir “It’s kind of nostalgic in a specific place co-president who began singing in Paly and a specific time,” choirs her freshman year, agrees.

Kerby said. “I lived in “I love how they’re genuinely cool Los Angeles and there teachers,” Son said. “It’s so comfortable to was a neighborhood converse with them even though they’re I would walk in with teachers, and they understand students my boyfriend at the so well. And, of course, they love music, time. And that feelso that’s why they’re teaching. But it’s ing of walking in that so obvious when we’re in the classroom neighborhood — I with them — the energy they bring into can feel it even when choir and how they bring the songs to life I think about it; it’s a with their conducting and all that is part very visceral feeling. of why I’ve been in choir for so long. I Essentially I was trying love that feeling of singing together, but I to take that and put it think they really make it super awesome.” into a song, of being Both Bharat and Son said Kerby and under the moon and Najar help maintain a close-knit choir what that feels like.” community. And Najar and Kerby said Kerby said that unthey have built that same supportive enlike Najar, who shares vironment within StrangeBird. Kerby dedrafts of his music with scribes it as a trusting partnership where his friends and family she feels confident sharing her musical even when it might drafts and working together with Najar to not be fully polished, refine and perfect them. it took years before she “We’re good at trying to get the most felt ready to let others expressive music out of one another, so it’s hear her music. just easy to make music — it doesn’t feel But after releaslike a chore, which was the most exciting ing songs as part of thing,” Kerby said. “Music is our job, so StrangeBird, Kerby said the magic sometimes can be gone. Keepshe has realized there ing that alive in our own creative journeys STRANGEBIRD/USED WITH PERMISSION is something valuable of musicianship is what this is to me.”

Brittney Kerby sits down to write music. “There’s something really about letting her music valuable about letting it exist in the universe, outside of yourself,” exist in the universe Valerie Chu rather than keeping it Kerby said. “Taking that risk and letting your music be heard is to herself. Kerby and Managing Editor really important.”

Yan Yan (Vanilla) 4/10 Despite its cute packaging and eyecatching presentation, I was severely disappointed in this snack. The vanilla crème, intended to complement the cracker stick, had a thin, unappealing consistency, and lasted only five cracker sticks before it ran out. The taste of the cream was bland, and I could pretty much only taste the cracker stick and none of the vanilla flavoring. The real kicker is that this snack was 310 calories, which is a waste of junk food and left me feeling scammed. As a huge fan of junk food, I’d rather eat fruit than this, which is yummier than this joke.

Want-Want Senbei Rice Crackers 8/10

The chips are uniquely flavored with hardened, sweet and white splotches sprinkling the top of the chip; the chip was somewhat salty. “Xue bing” means snow cracker, as the sweet white splotches cover the chip like snow. Though the combination of those two flavors seem unappealing and unorthodox, the taste is not only delicious, but one-of-a-kind and hard to come by in American foods.

Black Sugar Milk Tea 10/10

The only thing missing from this delicious bottle-packaged drink are the boba pearls, but this is the perfect budget alternative to the popular Tiger Sugar milk tea, a brown sugar-flavored boba that comes from their shop. The bottle is decorated with tiger stripes with the label pasted on the front. This refreshment would be great served chilled on a warm summer day or served hot on a chilly fall or winter evening. The brown sugar taste of the milk tea dissolved in my mouth; I’d highly recommend it, especially for people with a sweet tooth.

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Lifestyle

B3

Revisiting beloved youth novels !"#$%&"'()'"*+),%-%.")/&)&/'"*012.).320$,%&4')5//6')72"3)&%7)*88,%.2*"2/&)9/,)"3%2,)0*'"2&1)2:8*."'():%:/,2%'

Colleen Wang Staff Writer

W

hen he was a 3rd grader, senior Nolan You flipped a page in a “Percy Jackson” book, reading voraciously as it was the much-anticipated final novel. He eagerly theorized about lines of the prophecy introduced, but he stopped at the word “raze.”

He had no idea what the word meant, but decided to continue reading to find context to decipher it. Lo and behold, the main character, Percy Jackson, also did not know what the word meant, and another character in the book had to explain it to him.

Now, whenever he reads the word “raze,” You said he always thinks back to learning the definition of the word “raze” — to destroy — with “Percy Jackson.”

You’s experience isn’t an outlier — many childhoods have been shaped by iconic preteen and young adult novels.

Many fans sorted themselves into Hogwarts houses from “Harry Potter,” pretended they were demigods like Percy Jackson and said, “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” a few too many times.

But does the magic remain?

Freshman Crystal Li said she continues to enjoy reading childhood books because they are a gateway to another magical world.

“People read to escape reality and worlds like ‘Harry Potter’ provide an alternate reality that is very different from our current situation,” Li said. “It provides somewhere to escape to mentally.”

Li also said books from her childhood bring her to a comforting place. “(The books) provide a sense of nostalgia,” Li said. “It reminds me of times when life was simpler, there wasn’t that much homework and I wasn’t stressing about whether I’m going to pass or not. It just feels good to live through that again.”

In addition to the nostalgia, popular childhood books have withstood the test of time.

“They’re such great stories, and it’s a really accessible reading,” librarian Sima Thomas said. “The characters are really engaging so they continue to engage; they haven’t really gone out of style the way that some other books do.”

One iconic childhood book series that has enduring popularity despite recent controversies is “Harry Potter.”

Written by J. K. Rowling and consisting of seven main books, the “Harry Potter” series follows the adventures of a boy wizard, Harry Potter, sent to a magic boarding school

named Hogwarts and his struggles against the antagonist Voldemort, who threatens the Wizarding World.

Following the release of the final main book and movie, Rowling co-wrote and released the sequel “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” as a play, followed by the ongoing spin-off movie series, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Both have received mixed reviews, especially concerning the characters and plots.

Rowling has faced controversy about the lack of representation in her books, her transphobic Tweets and her additions to the world of “Harry Potter.”

“I remember reading ‘Harry Potter’ in elementary school, and I really noticed a change within the author and especially the franchise after ‘The Cursed Child’ came out,” Li said. “J.K. Rowling had a very stable franchise. And then, in a way to get more profit, she ended up giving the franchise away and allowing other people in on it.”

Thomas said Rowling’s actions had a great impact on “Harry Potter” fans.

“These books are so special to so many people, and then she put a shade over them,” Thomas said.

Another popular childhood book series is “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” by Rick Riordan, which has five books. The series is set in a world where Greek gods are real, and they have children with humans, called half-bloods. The main character, Percy Jackson, is a half-blood and the son of the powerful Greek god of the sea Poseidon.

“When I was in elementary school, I remember I’d walk into my third grade classroom and I’d just see every two or three desks had a new Percy Jackson book, and I think it still has that appeal,” You said.

Riordan authored a five-book sequel series to “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” called “The Heroes of Olympus,” as well as another five-book sequel series, “The Trials of Apollo,” both of which have concluded.

Maturing viewpoints have changed You’s opinion on certain aspects of “Percy Jackson.”

“In ‘Heroes of Olympus,’ there’s characters that I absolutely despise that now I somewhat tolerate. I’m looking at characters like Jason who are just bland, but now that I matured a bit, I realized they were there to provide exposition, as well as just character,” he said.

Though people may harbor some concerns that rereading their favorite childhood books when they are older does not provide intellectual challenge, reading benefits people, no matter the content.

“I have no prejudice against any kind of book and all reading is good reading. Anytime you’re reading, you’re going to be stimu-

lating various parts of your brain,” Thomas said. “You’re going to develop your voice as a writer, and you’re going your reading speed for all kinds of reading. Every time you reread a book, you pick up details you might not have remembered and you’re also really paying attention to detail.”

Senior Daniel Yang said he agrees.

“You get a new perspective about the books,” Yang said. “It’ll change very radically in your eyes, and you’ll be able to also notice the details you wanted to notice before.”

Li thinks there are no strict age guidelines for readers of children’s books.

“I personally read books for the sense of

familiarity, and I don’t understand why people are saying certain books are for children,” Li said. “Children’s books are written so that everybody can enjoy them.”

Children’s books such as the “Harry Potter” series have made an impact on Thomas that extends well beyond her childhood years. “(‘Harry Potter’) seems to have this special place in everyone’s experience,” Thomas said.

“It’s such a well developed world, and it’s so fantastical like the idea of going to Hogwarts is just so much fun. And then every time you reread it, it takes you back a little bit to the first time you met it, and that kind of magic of childhood.”

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OV MER ART BY ANNA NE

Pandemic cinema: a year in review ;211%'")50/.65#'"%,')9,/:)<=<=()<=<>)7%,%)0*,1%0?)#&$%,73%0:2&1()0*.60#'"%, Aidan Seto

Senior Staff Writer

The movie industry produces its fair share of blockbusters every year, the nine-figure moneymakers, the creme de la creme. Despite the roadblock of theaters being closed for most of 2020, studios released a number of signifi-

cant titles including “Black Widow,” “Jungle Cruise” and “Godzilla vs.

Kong.”

While these movies may have had impressive box office numbers, audience satisfaction is a whole different matter. Many productions rake in money but are terrible and straightup painful to watch. Take “The Emoji Movie” for example, bearing an absolutely abysmal seven percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

This year, even amongst the topgrossing movies, they vary in degrees of quality.

Arguably the most anticipated film of 2021, “Black Widow,” burst onto the scene as the newest installment in the heralded Marvel franchise. And while it was not an utter disappointment, the signature zest Marvel movies possess was not there to justify the hype it received.

While it had a decent storyline, well-choreographed fight scenes, and witty jokes to bring a lighthearted feel, it felt all too similar to the other superhero movies I’ve seen in the past few years.

ART BY

KYLA SCHWARZBACH

The typical dysfunctional family of assassins and the ominous sky-dwelling supervillain screams a lack of the X factor that makes the best movies, well –– the best. While “Black Widow” is an entertaining movie, it will likely be forgotten in a matter of years.

But at least it wasn’t as bad as “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” I came into the movie with high expectations, as I thoroughly enjoyed the first Conjuring movie and am a fan of horror movies.

But boy, did this film suck. It was quite possibly my biggest cinema letdown in years, leaving me wondering why I wasted two hours watching another example of why some franchises are meant to be left alone. There was a significant lack of jumpscares that helped make “The Conjuring” great, and the storyline was so run-of-the-

mill that it was painful to watch.

In this version of “The Conjuring” franchise, the same characters return to do more exorcisms, except this time, none are scary or unique, and the new elements the movie tried to introduce flopped terribly. The only purpose this movie serves is to broadcast to the world that The Conjuring series has been milked dry of the traits that made it popular in the first place. Opposite of the mess that is “The Conjuring 3”, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” is an unorthodox movie that presents a new genre to western cinema. It is the highest-grossing and most recognizable Japanese animated movie to reach North America.

The beautifully animated fight scenes coupled with the stellar storytelling make this movie one of the best to hit the theaters this year. The characters are unique and crafted well, and the art style is exclusive to “Demon Slayer,” portraying it perfectly.

The anime saw its sequel movie debut in American theaters in April of this year, complementing the meteoric ascent in popularity the anime genre has experienced recently.

Overall, while this year has been littered with mediocre and sometimes downright terrible movies, there have been a selection of high quality movies such as “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” that have attributes that set them apart from the rest. Despite the setbacks of the pandemic, the movie industry is still on its feet.

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Lifestyle

!"#$%&'()%(*%'%+,)-% ,+%*#.+/#01)#**(,2 Shiki Toyama Staff Writer

ART BY WALLIE BUTLER

Cinema or streaming apps?

I

n keeping with this summer’s box office trends, last month, James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” disappointed by grossing a mere $26 million in the U.S. in its opening weekend amid the rise of the Delta variant.

The film, like the rest of the 2021 Warner Bros productions, was released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. While many filmmakers have been outspoken about their frustrations with streaming releases, Gunn said that watching movies at home has great value.

“Movies don’t last because they’re seen on the big screen,” Gunn said in a recent interview with Variety. “Movies last because they’re seen on television. ‘Jaws’ isn’t still a classic because people are watching it in theaters. I’ve never seen ‘Jaws’ in a movie theater. It’s one of my favorite movies.”

Gunn’s perspective seems to align with his audiences’. “The Suicide Squad” according to HBO Max chief Andy Forssell, was successful on the streaming service.

“As the country faces new challenges due to the COVID-19 variant, we’re happy to continue to offer fans the option of viewing movies in their homes,” Forsell told The Hollywood Reporter. “Many chose to do just that as ‘Suicide Squad’ emerged as the second most-viewed film over an opening weekend on HBO Max since we began day-and-date releases with theaters.”

Gunn’s comments, coupled with the streaming success of his film, sparked a debate regarding where a film is meant to be seen. Denis Villeneuve — whose upcoming film “Dune” will also simultaneously stream on HBO Max in October — said view-

ing in theaters is the only way to watch a then we’re saying that basically, movies movie. don't have a place in society right now.”

“Frankly, to watch ‘Dune’ on a television, While many directors have been clamthe best way I can oring for theatrical compare it is to drive exclusivity, Williama speedboat in your son said something bathtub,” Villeneuve all audiences want is !"#$%&'()*+,-*./$%"$#, told Total Film. “For good content they can me, it’s ridiculous. It’s experience anywhere.

56% have preference a movie that has been “If it’s a great for streaming made as a tribute to movie, and the story the big-screen experiis great, and it’s not ence.” so much about the 30% have a preference Film Composicinematic experience, for theaters tion teacher Alanna who cares? Watch it Williamson said she at home,” Williamsees merit in both son said. “I like both 14% have no preference perspectives. experiences.”

“I feel a little bit Junior Bennett Statista 2020 of pressure to be on Hardy said for many, the side of movie home viewing is more theaters, as that is the way that they were convenient financially. meant to be experienced,” “More people nowadays are just watchWilliamson said. “But at ing them online,” Hardy said. “Because it’s the same time, streaming cheap. It’s free. It’s seven bucks a month to services are now creating see an infinite number of movies.” their own films, and I Hardy said cinema viewing provides think it would be unfair a distraction-free environment, which is to say that those movoptimal for experiencing a film. ies are not as good, just “You’re not focused when you’re at your because they are being house because you do other things, right?” put out on a streaming Hardy said. “You play video games, you service.” go on your phone, you’re not as focused Williamson said the into the production of the movie, rather importance placed on than you have to shut everything off and theatrical exclusivity may just focus on the movie when you’re in the be counterintuitive. theater.”

“I think right now is really tricky, because I am still not comfortable with going Nikie Behal to movie theaters,” Williamson said. “If we are putting that boundary around films, Staff Writer

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As junior Sienna Seiders sat in a salon filled with middle aged women waiting for their monthly appointment to get their white roots redone, she said she had a realization: you should never resist self expression.

Seiders was at the salon to get her hair so bleached it could be white.

“I felt insecure, but then I remembered that my hair is me, and there’s nothing I can do to change myself,” Seiders said. “I was always into fashion, but it wasn’t enough for me, so I broadened my self expression by getting the blondest hair possible.”

Growing up in Palo Alto, Seiders said her family was not the typical Silicon Valley one. While her friends were inspired by Disney characters, Seiders’s source of inspiration was the grunge scene of the ‘90s like Kurt Cobain’s platinum blonde partner Courtney Love.

For Seiders though, self expression was something she hid until recently.

For decades, hair styles have been an outlet for self expression, something that has tied closely with fashion and presentation towards society. But in recent years, hair color has begun to be associated with insecurity, begging the question, why?

“As humans, we’re taught to watch each other and learn from each other,” Seiders said. “People that are different become in danger of being judged.”

Because of the stereotype for hair dye to be informal, changing hair color has never gained enough popularity to become normalized, but Seiders believed with the increased frequency of seeing someone with dyed hair, it may soon reach a point of acceptance. As a hairstylist working in Silicon Valley, Marla Powers has said she has seen opinions change regarding dyed hair depending on the environment.

“I used to manage a blow dry bar, and we had this strict rule that we could not have hair color,” Powers said. “It became a big issue because one of the girls got pink hair, and the others didn’t like it.”

Powers said it wasn’t until she left the blow dry bar to work at a hair salon that she began to appreciate the uniqueness and individuality hair color can provide.

“When I started working at the hair salon is when I started learning about it more,” Powers said. “Being around people who were doing different kinds of styles, I started wanting to try different things.”

Even as people like Powers grow more accepting of dyed hair, Julia Dugan, owner of Academy of American Ballet, said stigma still surrounds it.

“Some people look at colored hair and view it as a bad thing,” Dugan said. “(In ballet), for example, we can’t dye our hair for performances, and I can see how doing that would be seen as different.”

Powers, though, said hair color shouldn’t be seen as “different,” as, by nature, people are all different in some way.

“Really, there is no normal,” Powers said. “Normality is based on where you are specifically, so you can’t worry too much about society.”

Influencers promote dangerous misconceptions online Lillian Clark Staff Writer

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So while following trends isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the message influencers send can be. Lee said people should critically think about everything they see on the internet, whether it be obviously fake information or more subtle misconceptions, don’t trust everything on social media, she said.

“The first thing you could do is to take online social media literacy training courses,” Lee said.

Lee said she works with one training course, called Common Cause USA, that has social media monitoring training that teaches how to fact check online.

“Another really easy thing people can do that is often neglected is talking to other people in the comments of these popular creators,” Lee said. “Though it can be a scary place, you can find people who have genuine questions about what the post is talking about.”

LIE AL W

Under the diet hashtag on Instagram, there are 73.3 million posts.

Many of these posts promote odd diet trends and weird food combinations to help you lose weight. These are some of the few misconceptions spread on the internet. Misinformation and blatant lies about the habits of content creators spread like wildfire over different social media platforms, leaving it up to teenagers to debunk them.

Stanford Social Media Lab researcher Angela Lee said making an effort to verify information instead of mindlessly accepting it is usually not on the top of scrollers’ radars.

“It can sometimes be difficult to verify those claims in a social media setting because you are there to get entertainment, so incidentally, people can pick up false or misleading information from these influencers or creators,” Lee said.

She said this is a big part of how social media users fall for influencers’ gimmicks.

“Lots of social media influencers and creators can push undisclosed sponsorships in terms of problematic diet supplies or products,” Lee said.

“Fit tea is one I have seen a lot; it’s essentially a laxative, but they market it as a fast, easy weight loss system, and it’s really dangerous. For teenagers, if you don’t understand what exactly it is and what it’s going to do to your digestive system. One, it can be a surprise, and two, it can actually lead to harmful effects especially if you’re taking too much of it.”

Many doctors, teachers, and other professionals will often call out these false claims, trying to contain the spread of misinformation.

But not all products endorsed by influencers are necessarily harmful.

“I’ve bought clothes I saw on TikTok, face wash I saw on TikTok, and these buttons to help with the fit of your jeans because of TikTok,” junior Grace Corrigan said.

Mckenna Raush, junior, also adds to the conversation by saying, “Yeah, I’ve also bought clothing from brands on TikTok. Also, I have gotten so many new makeup products because of TikTok and Instagram.”

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

Sports

>/#'%)?%9#'7 !""#$%&& !"#$%& Varsity: 0-2 !"#"'()*#$%"+) Paly vs. St. Ignatius 8/27, L, 7-28 Paly vs. Serra 9/3, L, 14-41

!'(&)*+",-(. !"#$%& Varsity: 2-0 !"#"'()*#$%"+) Paly vs. Westmont 8/30, W, 4-2

/'0&1*2"&&(.$%&& !"#$%& Varsity: 4-4 !"#"'()*#$%"+) Paly vs. Gunn 8/28, W, 2-1 Paly vs. St. Ignatius 8/28, L, 1-2 Paly vs. Archbishop Mitty 8/31, L, 0-3 Paly vs. St. Francis 9/2, L, 2-3

JV: 0-1 !"#"'()*#$%"+) Paly vs. Menlo Atherton 8/28, W, 2-0

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JENNA HICKEY/USED WITH PERMISSION

Paly’s cross country team practices after school ends at 4:10 p.m. on Thursday, trying to finish their workout before the sun goes down.

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Staff Writer

J

ust arriving home at 7 p.m. after a long, sweaty football practice, junior and varsity football player Oliver Marburg still has hours of homework to complete.

Tired and sore in the evenings, Marburg said because the varsity football team practices Monday through Friday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., he struggles to balance sports with his academic work every day of the week.

“I’ve been getting home late. I’m tired. I’ve got to take a shower. I still have to do homework,” Marburg said. “So time management is definitely a thing we’re going to have to figure out because it’s kind of hard to manage all that with the late practice ending.”

In 2019, the California State Assembly passed a bill mandating schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., starting with the 2021-2022 school year.

Now, in the first year back from the COVID-19 pandemic, Paly has shifted its start time even further back.

All school days start at 9 a.m., with Wednesdays and Fridays ending at 3:30 p.m., Mondays ending at 3:50 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays ending at 4:10 p.m.

While this schedule might be a perk for those who prioritize their sleep, Marburg said it has a large negative impact on athletes’ schedules.

“(Practices) are starting a lot later, obviously, because of the bell schedule, and getting out a lot later,” Marburg said.

Athletic director and football coach Nelson Gifford said he sees where student-athletes are coming from in their complaints about the late release times in the new bell schedule.

“Homework is always a challenge,” Gifford said. “When you’re an athlete, you’re staying up later and you’re waking up early. It’s always going to be hard.”

Gifford also said because a limited number of facilities are available, practices can get pushed back even later for some sports.

“You can only fit so many people in the gym at a time,” Gifford said. “For us, it’s just about trying to maximize our space, our time and our access to resources.”

And while some coaches have discussed moving practices before school, Gifford said for many sports, there are challenges in this potential shift.

“I don’t think (morning practices are) going to be a thing mainly because most of our coaches are walk-on coaches and they have jobs,” Gifford said. “That would conflict with coming at that time.”

Gifford also said the fact that many schools Paly competes against get out earlier than

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Water polo overcomes obstacles !"#$%"%&'"()*+'*+'&,*"%'-.'*+/0(*%&1'2-)2#*+3'2#)+3%& Colleen Wang Staff Writer

on this team, a girl who’s going to go on and maybe play at a high level in college,” Rowell said. “So we’re gonna have to rely on really good defense, and a really good team. That’s how we’re going to be successful and be competitive this year.”

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Despite the challenges of a new coach and several injured players, both the boys and girls water polo teams maintain an optimistic attitude for their upcoming games.

New varsity boys water polo coach Bob Greene said the team has graciously welcomed him and is hopeful about their performance.

“I think we’re off to a really good start,” Greene said. “The guys have a really good attitude and are working really hard (and are) focused. The first two and a half weeks (have) been really impressive and I like what I see so far.”

Junior Julien Chow said he is confident in his teammates’ abilities after playing against one another in practice scrimmages.

“We’ve been practicing hard –– everybody is putting in a lot of work,” Chow said. “The season so far is going better than I expected.

Our scrimmages against each other were rusty, but we pulled it together.”

Chow and Greene said they are anticipating putting their practice into action in their first official scrimmage with St. Francis High School.

“We need to see how things go right now in practice,” Greene said. “I love what I see.

But now, hopefully, we can see that same thing

moving forward when we have our first scrimmage.”

Greene said the scrimmage will also mark a turning point in the direction of water polo practices.

“The next week is the first week that we start games, so we’ll be more into situational play,” Greene said. “We’ll really start to diagram out everything that we want to do and make sure that we are all focused on what that play or what that goal is. So next week (we) start a real focus on the game itself.”

Meanwhile, the girls water polo team has several athletes injured.

“We’re just trying to be cautious, so they haven’t been playing or swimming as much,” sophomore Grace Gormley said. “It’s kind of a bummer because our team is a little smaller now, but we want to make sure that they don’t get injured further so that hopefully they can play later.”

Nonetheless, girls water polo coach Deke Rowell said the team is well prepared to deal with fewer players.

“Injuries are part of sports, unfortunately,” Rowell said. “And the reality is, if we lose a player, you want to have a program that’s consistent enough from top to bottom, so that the next player can fill this big gapand do the best they can. Those players have to be confident that they know what they’re doing.”

The team has played two scrimmages

against Menlo-Atherton and Archbishop Mitty, but it has not kept scores.

“It’s really interesting to see what the other teams are doing this year and what we can bring this year,” Gormley said. I think the other teams are quite good, but we were (too) and put up a good fight.”

Rowell said the team’s practices are focused on strength training to prepare for upcoming games.

“Water polo takes a lot of conditioning; it’s a big part of it, to be able to get up and down the pool,” Rowell said. “We’re focusing on that primarily and fundamentals, so we haven’t done too Rowell also said the team is relying on teamwork and cooperation as its strategy for the first game against Castilleja on Sept. 7.

“We don’t have a superstar

Paly does makes having a game schedule that accommodates the new bell schedule is difficult.

“The games are fixed at 4 o’clock,” Gifford said. “We have made adjustments on our own end to hold some contests later if teams agreed to it, but we can’t unilaterally change those times.”

Because of the conflicting game schedule, the girl’s volleyball teams are particularly affected by days that end at 4:10 p.m.

“Every time there’s fourth period, because games are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, (freshmen players) have to skip it and leave early,” varsity volleyball player Hillary Cheung said.

Assistant Principal Erik Olah was the chair of the bell schedule committee that recommended this year’s schedule for approval.

Olah said he feels for the athletes who have a large homework load.

However, he said he recommends athletes take advantage of prep periods to get work done, leaving less to do after school.

“I’d really like to make sure that they utilize that time in the prep to get some work done,” Olah said. “I know there might be some tendency to take a little break during that time, and that’s OK. But if you have a bunch of homework waiting for you when you get home at night at 7, try to get as much as you can done ahead of time.”

Olah said creating a schedule that takes into account everybody’s perspective is a challenging task — the interests of athletes and coaches have to be balanced with students, teachers and parents across the entire school district.

“Any shift that you make, you’re going to have some pushback and you’re gonna have some things that get out of balance,” Olah said.

“Maybe it takes a little bit of time and a little bit of adjustment, but hopefully everything can balance back together.”

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Paly vs. Salinas 9/2, W, 6-0

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Friday, September 3, 2021

The Campanile

C2

Sports

Putting in the work! With several teams competing for pool time, many swim and water polo practices have to take place before school. “It can be brutal,” swimmer Harrison Williams said.

KAREN HICKEY/USED WITH PERMISSION

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T

hree times a week, senior Tyler Wang wakes up at 4:30 a.m., knowing full well he is about to jump into a freezing pool, hours before the rest of Palo Alto has woken up.

For Paly swimmers such as Wang, morning practices are all too familiar, and Wang said these practices both challenge athletes and push them to grow.

This year, morning practices for the water polo and swim teams are not just challenges. They have become a necessity because of the number of teams who need pool time.

“We have four (water polo) teams here, two girls and two guys,” boys varsity water polo coach Bob Greene said. “So you’re limited to the amount of hours you can go in the pool.”

Because of the amount of training the teams put in, Greene said afternoon practices are often not enough to accomplish everything they need to do.

Morning practices allow the water polo teams to jump straight

into scrimmages and technique work in the afternoon, because they’ve already done conditioning in the morning.

“I really love morning practice because you can get a lot of your conditioning done during that time,” Greene said. “It’s really effective because you can go right to game situations and set up scrimmages (in the afternoon).”

Water polo players and swimmers have mixed opinions on morning practices, though.

Senior David Gormley said even with the early start time, morning practices give him a great start to the day.

“Ever since I was 8 or 9, we’ve been having morning practices. I really enjoy them,” Gormley said.

“You’ve already gotten maybe all the workouts you’re going to do for the day behind you. You feel good. You feel fresh. You feel like you’ve had a little spark to your day.”

But despite having had morning practices for years, senior Harrison Williams said he still finds them burdensome.

“In general, I’m not a fan,” Williams said. “I hate having to wake up at four in the morning, three times a week. It can be brutal, and it can make me really tired.”

While swimming and water polo are already timeconsuming sports, morning practices add an additional burden of having to alter sleep and homework schedules.

With a later end time for school this year, as late as 4:10 p.m. on some days, some athletes said they find it difficult to finish their homework on time.

“The chunk of time after my morning practice ends before school starts. That’s typically when I have to get my work done,” Williams said. “I have a three hour window right there to do whatever I need to do. Also, a

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big part of it is just taking advantage of my preps to make sure I can get a good amount of work done there.”

Greene said he understands the impact morning practices can have on student athletes.

He takes measures to make sure student athletes are both performing at a high level and doing well in school, primarily by working closely with his players.

“The student and the coach need to work together,” Greene said. “You have to take the whole person to make sure that we are ready for the classroom, ready for the pool, and make sure that we are not making our kids exhausted both physically and mentally.”

While jumping into a freezing pool at 5 a.m. isn’t preferred for Williams, he said morning practices have shaped him into the swimmer he is today.

“They definitely taught me to be responsible for myself,” Williams said. “It teaches you to be really determined with what you do. You have to be willing to climb out of a warm comfy bed at 4 in the morning, knowing that you’re going to jump into a freezing pool. It teaches you to be really determined with your goals and responsible like that as well.”

!"#$%&'())"%&*+),"-()'.&'"/0'12)"'&3%&%(3%+)&4(/")% Rachel Feinstein Staff Writer

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Senior Diana Narancic practices her serve. The team is working to make up for the time lost last season. “After not being able to play with people last year, I realized how much more I love the game,” Narancic said.

After last year’s condensed season due to COVID-19 restrictions, members of the girls tennis team say they are looking forward to the promising season ahead.

Senior Iris Lee said she is excited for this year because of how skilled her team is.

“We have a really strong lineup this season,” Lee said.

“Our singles are decked out, and our doubles are also pretty good too.”

The team hasn’t played any official matches yet, but senior Diana Narancic, the team’s physical and social director, said practices indicated a successful season. The team’s first match as an exhibition match against Aragon on Friday, Sept. 3.

“It’s been really nice to see all the girls and we’ve really come back with a better game,” Narancic said.

Senior and co-captain, Agnes Mar said the team has focused on enjoying practices and building camaraderie.

“We’ve really tried to make practice fun by playing music

and getting to know the new people on the team as well,” Mar said.

But coach Andy Harader said practices need to balance fun and focus.

He said that this team can go all the way if they put in the effort.

“If everyone shows up and everybody plays seriously, there’s no reason that we can’t win a championship,” Harader said.

Narancic also said COVID-19 restrictions and last year’s shortened season gave her a new perspective on tennis and her team. She said an absence of tennis from her life made her appreciate it more when practices resumed.

“After not being able to play with people last year, I realized how much more I love the game because it was more valuable,” Narancic said. “Quarantine made me love the game more because I was so far away from it for so long.”

Since this is Mar’s last season, she said she has every intention of finishing strong.

“It’s our last season, so hopefully we can do really well,” Mar said. “I’m confident that it’s going to be a good one.”

The Campanile

Friday, September 3, 2021

C3

Sports

ERIC FAN/THE CAMPANILE

Senior Yubin Zhang curls 45 pound dumbells in the weight room. Zhang began lifting in 2019 and has expressed frustrations about the uncertainty of the room’s opening and closing times. “It isn’t certain which days the weight room would be opened either through a coach or team sports, and many times, the weight room was never opened despite many kids waiting outside,” Zhang said.

The wait for weights

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Science & Tech Editor

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orty-five minutes before he trains, senior Yubin Zhang grabs a quick snack — Rice Krispies, a Jamba Juice or candy bars — as well as professional equipment including a belt, lifting straps and chalk to help with his deadlifts and dumbbell curls.

In 2019, Zhang said he was seeking more challenges in his life and after stumbling on a random YouTube video of a bodybuilder lifting. It was then Zhang said he decided to try weightlifting and, found a passion for it.

Through weightlifting, Zhang said he has learned life lessons, including how to endure hardships and failures. He said he now lifts between 75 and 90 minutes five days each week.

“I feel like if you constantly need motivation, then lifting is not for you,” Zhang said. “I just have passion and drive every day to train harder than the day before, and I am always excited to walk into the gym.”

But Zhang said it has been a struggle to lift weights after school at Paly because there is no definite schedule as to who will be opening the weight room and when they will be opening it.

“It isn’t certain which days the weight room would be opened either through a coach or team sports, and many times, the weight room was never opened despite many kids waiting outside,” Zhang said.

Senior Eric Gabbassof said he began weightlifting during his freshman year because he was determined to become a better swimmer.

When the weight room closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both Gabbassof and Zhang said they continued to train outside of school.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to find time to use the gym, and I wish it was open during preps,” Gabbassof said. “When the Paly weight room was closed, I got a membership to a different gym where I can lift.”

Boys and girls swimming varsity coach Danny Dye said the key to weightlifting is talking with students to teach them the benefits and techniques of lifting.

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“Every sport is different, and so are students, so it’s important to direct the training towards the needs of the specific student,” Dye said.

He said he urges his swimmers to use weightlifting to maximize their potential each season. Since school started, Dye said he has been opening the weight room before school for all students.

“With the late start, it is an advantageous situation for the students to work out, get the blood flowing and the mind clear before school starts,” Dye said.

Dye said that to help with the inconsistent weight room schedule, Paly should hire one or two dedicated strength coaches to work with Paly sports coaches, their teams and students on a consistent basis.

“There is a lot going on in our district with the students coming back from COVID-19,” Dye said. “I know it is something our (athletic director) Mr. Gifford is looking at, and I trust in time, and with the right resources, the experience for both athletes, students and teachers G AN ART

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After an undefeated 2020 season, the girls golf team hopes to continue its streak by winning another CCS championship title this fall.

When PAUSD implemented a three season, shortened sports schedule last year because of COVID-19, senior and captain Lauren Sung said her team had to go from one week of practice straight into matches.

“I think it was probably a month and a half of just two matches a week,” Sung said. “But it was pretty good; we went undefeated again.”

Sung said she is confident in her team this year and aims for another undefeated season to round out her fourth year. One of her goals is to foster talent from the team’s new members in future tournaments.

“Our goals would be winning leagues, to win another CCS and making it to states again and just having a fun time.” Sung said.

Coach Doyle Knight said the most difficult thing the team faced during the 2020 season was the lack of bonding due to changes made for COVID-19 safety.

“We used to take vans to all our matches, and we don’t get to do that now,” Knight said. “To me, it was just a way for them to bond and now we can’t.”

Sophomore Alexa Pineda agrees and said COVID-19 creates a disconnect between teammates, espe-

cially since she wasn’t able to fully experience a high school season until last year. Nonetheless, Pineda said she appreciates the captains’ words to keep the girls together.

“They’re just always positive on the golf course, and if I’m playing badly, it’s still fun playing with them,” Pineda said. “They talk a lot and are enthusiastic.”

Despite some COVID-19 restrictions still in place, Sung said she is confident the team can cultivate the spirit that contributes to her love of golf.

“I hope that in the coming years, those upperclassmen can step up and get that environment back,” Sung said. “It’s definitely what makes golf fun and what motivates each other to play.”

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TIFFANY HE/THE CAMPANILE

Senior and girls varsity captain Lauren Sung practices her swing.

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Friday, September 3, 2021

Tesla autopilot crashes prompt safety investigation

The Campanile

Science & Tech

Cole Sturino

Senior Staff Writer Senior Anton Tompert remembers hearing stories about near accidents from the people around him — of people biking home and getting nearly hit, of close calls in parking lots. These stories have one thing in common: the cars these people were nearly hit by? Teslas.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has opened an investigation of Tesla due to at least 11 crashes, 17 injuries and one death, resulting from the use of the Autopilot advanced driver assist system function in their cars. Most of these incidents occurred after dark.

All other companies with autonomous capabilities, though not being actively investigated, are now required to submit all data of crashes to the NHTSA, although there has been no reason given for this. The NHTSA is additionally looking at how involved the drivers and the vehicles were in the accidents they were a part of, as well as looking at the object and event detection employed by the vehicles before and during the accidents, according to the investigation report they filed.

Tesla is a Palo Alto-based company, and the number of their models on the road here exceeds that of most other communities, accounting for 1.2% of all registered Teslas in California, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley. Tompert isn’t worried about the accidents, however.

“An automated car won’t drive drunk, drive tired, text and drive, suck at driving, or fail to pay attention,” Tompert said. “You have a higher chance of getting struck by lightning –– let alone hit by another human driver –– than you do getting hit by a Tesla on autopilot.”

But how does the ADAS, or, really, any self-driving system, work?

“You need sensors … historically, people have used cameras,” said Dr Ronjon Nag, a fellow at the Stanford Distniguished Careers Institute. “The problem is, cameras often have difficulty seeing in the dark. So sometimes they use infrared, and there’s another system called LIDAR which can see in the dark, but they’re very expensive.”

Nag said Tesla is known for refusing to use LIDAR, but that they use other sensors instead, like cameras. He said sensors only give the cars data, which then needs to be processed.. With just raw data, he said, the car may be confused about what to do and what’s in front of it.

“Now in this day and age you can get millions of pictures, and what you can do is train on these pictures,” Nag said. “Now, the problem is, can you actually get every single scenario built in, even if you have millions of pictures?”

But is Tesla at fault, or is that fault the drivers for using the function incorrectly?

“It’s not the people’s fault, it’s the manufacturer as well,” Nag said.

After the announcement of the NHTSA investigation into the autopilot, Tesla stock dropped 1.8%, and the future of the technology involved is uncertain, according to Forbes.

The NHTSA has the authority to require more safety features or force a recall of the implicated models. However, Nag said he is hopeful for how the investigation will impact future technology in years to come.

“Give a rulebook to manufacturers, checkpoints, of which they should have to pass before they actually go on the road,” Nag said. “Going to medicine, we see this all the time: we get a vitamin bottle, and it says ‘this has not been approved by the FDA’, or it’s been claimed, not approved.

As warnings, it puts a clear line of what manufacturers … can say. So at least then it makes people a bit more careful. And I think they [Tesla] will, because of these incidents, become more careful anyway, but we’d rather have it with less lives lost.”

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KYLA SCHWARZBACH/THE CAMPANILE

Wildfires create smoke and ash which can contribute to lower air quality and disrupts activities and create health consequences. “During bad conditions like wildfire season, (my asthma) gets much, much worse,” junior Kyle Park said. “I can only do easy runs, and I still feel awful.”

Wildfire season returns

California blazes are burning sooner, faster than ever before

W

ith the sweat dripping from his brow and woodsmoke in his lungs, Chris Lobdell briskly cuts and clears trees with a chainsaw in an attemt to creat a fire break to stem a wildfire just a few miles away. It’s up to him and his crew to protect the forest from the raging inferno, one that shouldn’t be happening this early in the season.

Unfortunately, wildfires across the world are increasing in size, frequency and destruction. A study done by the Journal of Geophysical Research found that western states are expected to experience a 78% increase in area burned before 2050, and it’s only going to get worse from there.

So where did wildfire seasons come from?

AP Environmental Science teacher Nicole Loomis said a combination of factors contribute to it.

“There are multiple things causing them,” Loomis said. “It’s people; it’s power lines. It’s climate change, drought, heat, and it’s forest management practices over time.”

As a result of climate change, Loomis said heat domes, high-pressure systems that trap hot air, are some of the main culprits. They cause increased temperatures and droughts and are becoming far more frequent.

“The heat domes that are hitting the Northwest are unprecedented,” Loomis said. “These are like once-in-a-thousand year heat events that they’re having two of in one summer. And those thousand-year events are now going to become 100 or 50 or 20-year events rather than things that you would almost never see.”

Unnatural shifts in what would usually be natural events are creating ideal environments for wildfires to spread, but human activity is often the spark that causes forests to go up in flames. Loomis said because it’s becoming more expensive to live in cities, there’s been a trend of people moving into remote areas where people didn’t live previously, and as a result, infrastructure has to be built.

“There’s a lot of ways fires can get started,” Loomis said. “Sometimes your power lines spark, and if your area is dry, then things will catch on fire. It would’ve been a lot smarter to put the power lines underground rather than having power lines above the ground and not necessarily keeping them maintained.”

Alongside the impacts of infrastructure, practices regarding forest management have

caused a buildup of fuel on forest floors. This excess of dead trees and branches is another element causing wildfires to be so devastating. Loomis said this is also a result of climate change.

“Bark beetles and pine borer beetles have come through and really killed a lot of trees, and so those trees are dead and just ready to burn,” Loomis said. “They’re coming into new areas because of climate change because they’re not getting a hard freeze in the winter anymore.”

Lobdell, who worked in a crew fighting forest fires throughout this past summer, said he was mostly responsible for protecting unburned areas from fires rather than suppressing them directly.

“We cleared 30 foot wide sections of forest for a few miles surrounding parts of land we wanted to protect,” Lobdell said. “We were basically drawing a line in the sand where you are trying to prevent the fire from crossing.”

This practice, known as creating fire breaks, is meant to create a large enough gap between fuel sources that a fire can’t spread to certain areas of land.

The greatest effect that Palo Altans feel

from the fires is smoke. A high Air Quality Index is now commonplace in the late summer and fall months, and for junior Kyle Park, a runner with exercise-induced asthma, fire seasons can be especially difficult.

“During bad conditions like wildfire season, (asthma) gets much, much worse,” Park said. “I can only do easy runs, and I still feel awful.”

In response to what is expected to be a difficult smoke season, PAUSD released protocols regarding high AQI levels. If the index registers at 151 or higher, then COVID-19 protocols will be temporarily suspended and outdoor activities like lunch and PE will be moved indoors. Rachel Gibson, chair of the district’s sustainable schools committee, has some issues with the protocol.

“Pollution from woodfire smoke increases our susceptibility to respiratory infections including COVID-19,” Gibson said at a school board meeting. “A number of parents are concerned about certain activities taking place indoors.”

Ben Antonow

News & Opinion Editor

KYLA SCHWARZBACH/THE CAMPANILE

Climate change has led to hotter summers and drier forests, resulting in more frequent wildfires such as this one in Daly City, Calif. California experienced its worst wildfire season in 2020.

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