The Stanford Daily Vol. 257 Issue 24 (03.06.20)

OPINIONS/4

ARTS & LIFE/6

THE GRIND/7

SOUNDING THE ALARM

CLIMATE CHANGE

INSTAGRAM FOR CLASS

Sean Casey calls for voters to stand behind Bernie and Biden against Trump

The animated film ‘Weathering with You’ explores environmental issues

Eleni Aneziris reflects on how she has used Instagram to be a better student

The Stanford Daily FRIDAY March 6, 2020

An Independent Publication www.stanforddaily.com

Volume 257 Issue 24

Stanford Med treating COVID-19 cases Exact number, location of patients unspecified

By DANIEL WU STAFF WRITER

ERIN WOO/The Stanford Daily

As of Thursday, 20 people in Santa Clara County have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, marking an increase from the previous count of 14.

“Stanford Medicine is currently caring for a few patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 [coronavirus],” wrote University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in an announcement on Thursday afternoon.

“Our hospitals and clinics on campus provide essential health care for the people of our region,” Tessier-Lavigne wrote. “Stanford Medicine ... is following CDC and county reporting regulations. I want to emphasize that Stanford Medicine continues to follow protocols to ensure the safety of patients and health care workers.”

Stanford Medicine spokesperson Julie Greicius declined to comment on how many patients were being cared for, nor did she comment on whether the patients are affiliated with Stanford, citing patient privacy laws.

Greicius also declined to specify whether the patients are being cared for at Stanford Hospital on campus.

Stanford Medicine’s facilities also include its ValleyCare hospital in Pleasanton and various specialty clinics across the Bay Area.

Stanford Medicine is following campus safety guidelines set by the University, Greicius added.

“Patients with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 receive care in an isolated ‘negative pressure’ room, which restricts airflow from leaving the room,” Greicius wrote in an email to The Daily. “Their healthcare providers are required to wear ‘Airborne,’ ‘Droplet’ and ‘Contact’ personal protective equipment (PPE), which includes an N95 mask, gown, gloves and eye protection.”

As of Thursday, 20 people in Santa

Please see MEDICINE, page 5

SCIENCE & TECH

Stanford launches new coronavirus test Diagnostic test delivers results within 12 to 24 hours

By EMMA TALLEY DESK EDITOR

UJWAL SRIVASTAVA DESK EDITOR

The Stanford Medicine Clinical Virology Laboratory launched a new diagnostic test for detecting coronavirus on Wednesday. The new test, which can deliver results within 12 to 24 hours, will rapidly identify infected people and could help limit the spread of the virus.

The test is currently in use only on patients at Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health suspected of having the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The test was validated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) for testing involving human subjects.

The lab that developed the test is led by Benjamin Pinsky, associate professor of pathology and infectious diseases at the Stanford School of Medicine.

Testing is essential because it helps to identify both asymptomatic

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The test was developed in late January, as researchers at Stanford worked to optimize previous coronavirus tests to bring them in line with current U.S. testing guidelines. carriers and infected people, Pinsky told The Daily. These results then inform treatment, quarantine and the allocation of vital medical resources.

“The sooner we know a patient is positive, the sooner we can take the right action to provide care and take steps to ensure the safety of people they came into contact with, whether that’s health care providers or the patient’s loved ones,” Pinsky wrote in an email to The Daily.

Please see TEST, page 2

HEALTH

County confirms 6 new coronavirus cases

By KATE SELIG DESK EDITOR

Six new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Santa Clara County, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 20, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department (SCCPHD) announced at a Thursday press conference. SCCPHD also released new guidance to reduce the spread of the virus.

Seven of the 20 people with confirmed cases had no known travel or direct contact with other confirmed cases. Four of the six people with newly confirmed cases are at home, and two are hospitalized, according to Santa Clara County Emergency Operations Center Director James Williams.

The number of worldwide coronavirus cases is nearing 100,000, with at least 210 cases and 12 deaths in

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the U.S., according to The New York Times.

Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Sara Cody said the county should expect to see more cases.

“As we test more people, we are finding more cases, we will continue to find more cases, and we expect the case numbers to increase in the days to come,” Cody said. “Our cases to date indicate to us that the risk of exposure to the virus in our community is increasing.”

Cody also issued new guidance urging employers to take measures to decrease employee contact with large numbers of people. She recommended the postponement or cancellation of “mass gatherings” and encouraged individuals to take precautions like washing their

Please see CASES, page 4

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Sophomore guard Bryce Wills (above) posted 16 points on Thursday to lead the Cardinal in scoring for the second consecutive game. This time, Wills’ efforts were not enough, as Stanford fell 68-65 to Oregon State.

TINKLE TRIUMPHS MEN’S BASKETBALL FALLS IN FINAL SECONDS

By SAVANNA STEWART DESK EDITOR

Having four players in double figures lifted Stanford men’s basketball (20-10, 9-8 Pac-12) over Colorado at home last week, but the same feat failed to produce the same outcome against Oregon State (12-13, 6-11 Pac-12) on Thursday. The 68-65 loss snapped a fourgame win streak and marked the first time the Cardinal have been swept by the Beavers in over a decade.

Though it took less than a minute of play for both teams to get on the board, two more minutes passed before either team was able to score again. In an unfortunate reminder of the slumping Stanford team that dropped seven of eight consecutive games earlier this season, the team’s slow start weighed it down throughout the opening minutes.

A layup from guard Tyrell Terry

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helped Stanford finally break the 10-point barrier with 13:08 left to go before the break, but it did little to help the freshman find his footing. Terry finished just 4-for-12 from the field and 1-for-2 from behind the arc despite turning heads in Maples Pavilion with seven triples against Utah just eight days prior and averaging over 15 points a game on the season.

A 4-for-5 showing from the foul line barely prevented Terry from finishing in single digits for what would have been just the third time this season; he finished the night with 13 to his name, but snagged a team-high 10 rebounds to tally his third double-double of the year.

Without Terry controlling the Cardinal offense, sophomore Bryce Wills topped the stats sheet for the second consecutive game. Wills recorded 16 points on a 6-for-13 effort, making his average for the last two games an impressive 17.5. The guard posted 19 total points against

Colorado on Sunday, when he scored 17 in a row for the Cardinal.

Before taking on the Buffs, Wills averaged just 6.9 points per game.

Ideally, Wills’s performance would have been paired with the offensive skills of junior forward Oscar da Silva, but four fouls kept the latter largely confined to the sideline during the second half.

When the Beavers had inched their way to a 10-point lead with under nine minutes remaining, da Silva returned to the court and added two points of his own before a fifth foul five minutes later sent him to the bench indefinitely.

With 3:29 left on the clock and da Silva fouled out, working to contain two of the Beavers’ biggest threats — forwards Kylor Kelley and Tres Tinkle — became too much for the Cardinal. A jumper from Terry that put Stanford up one with just 34 seconds left made it

Please see BEAVERS, page 8

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UNIVERSITY

County starts faculty housing survey

By MARIANNE LU CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Santa Clara County has launched a historic survey and development standards study of the San Juan Residential District — a group of neighborhoods housing Stanford faculty — after advocacy from resident faculty members and their families.

The survey will document the district in order to catalogue and protect any historically significant features. The Stanford Homeowners, a group of district residents, hope the inventory created by the survey will inform Stanford’s plans for future developments and demolitions. Group members say the survey’s results will preserve what they see as the historic character of the neighborhood,

even if it is not officially designated a historic district.

But the inquiry has prompted concerns from other faculty that a historical designation would interfere with the University’s ability to build more sustainable, high-volume faculty and staff housing.

On campus, the San Juan Residential District comprises eight neighborhoods and houses 860 faculty and their families.

At least nine of those residents have identified themselves as members of the Stanford Homeowners; Sandra Pearson and Sunny Scott, who are spearheading the historic survey initiative as spokespeople for the group, say there are more than 200 other members who wish to remain anonymous due to fears of backlash from the University.

Both women have lived on campus for more than 30 years. Sandra’s husband, Scott Pearson, is a former agricultural economics professor; and Sunny’s husband, Kenneth Scott J.D. ’56, was a professor at Stanford Law School before passing away in 2006.

Sunny and Sandra oppose Stanford’s housing plans for their neighborhood, which include tearing down two existing houses and building seven new houses in their place.

Though Sunny and Sandra say they recognize the pressures of the housing crisis and have nothing against high-density housing, they want to preserve the district’s architectural style, which Sandra said attracts new faculty and “adds

Please see SURVEY, page 5

Santa Clara County

The San Juan Residential District is the subject of a historical survey led by Santa Clara County and the Stanford Homeowners to catalogue and preserve the district’s unique architectural features.

ELECTION 2020

Super Tuesday panel weighs in Professors discuss potential Biden-Trump matchup

By MICHAEL ESPINOSA DESK EDITOR

MICHAEL ESPINOSA/The Stanford Daily

Stanford Students for Bernie, one of the many student campaign groups that were created on campus for the 2020 election cycle, watched the Iowa caucus results roll in late at Treehouse on Feb. 3.

STUDENT LIFE

On-campus 2020 campaigns reflect Student group leaders talk friendships, future goals

By ANASTASIA MALENKO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Following the end of Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.), entrepreneur Andrew Yang’s and, most recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) Democratic primary campaigns, student clubs in support of those candidates highlighted friendships the clubs brought them, as well as their commitments to future political change.

Warren, the most recent candidate to exit the race, announced the end of her campaign Thursday morning.

Cardinal for Warren chapter lead Chloe Stoddard ’21 said the group was planning a celebration.

“Our current plan is to have our last meeting on Sunday,” Stoddard said. “We’re just going to go to The Treehouse and have a night to cele-

brate what we did accomplish and what, most of all, the campaign has accomplished.”

Stoddard focused on the relationships activists formed during the campaign.

“We joked about how, you know, if she [Warren] stopped running, we would continue as a social group,” Stoddard said. “It’s a joke, but it goes to show how much we care about each other and how much our love for Elizabeth Warren has brought us together.”

Stoddard added that she enjoyed the campus reception of Cardinal for Warren while the group campaigned.

“I’m still surprised,” Stoddard said. “People would be like, ‘Oh, hey, I get your emails all the time. Thank you for your public service.’ People never, even if they disagreed with Elizabeth Warren or something, they didn’t really target the group.

Please see CAMPAIGN, page 5

Three professors debated the significance of Super Tuesday to the 2020 presidential election in a panel hosted by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Stanford University Women’s Club on Thursday.

They argued that Super Tuesday is the result of a multi-year trend of ideological division within the Democratic Party, discussed the strategies of each campaign and previewed a possible matchup between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump in the general election.

Political science professor David Brady said the key to understanding the results of the primary process thus far is the divide within the Democratic party between “very liberal” voters and the rest of the party. According to Brady, “very liberal” voters are more likely to support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. They are also more satisfied with the field of Democratic candidates running for president.

“At the present time, there are 14% more ‘very liberals,’ 4% fewer ‘liberals’ and 11% fewer ‘moderates’ and ‘conservatives’” within the Democratic Party than in 2008, Brady said.

Despite the growth of the “very liberal” wing, L. Sandy Maisel, professor of American government at Colby College, said that “‘very liberal’ Democrats by self-identification [are] just slightly more than a quarter of the Democratic Party.”

According to Brady, Biden’s recent success has been the result of more moderate voters realizing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) could be the Democratic nominee.

“After Nevada, people were looking at [the race] and saying, ‘Whoa. [Sanders] could be the nominee,’” he said. “And moderates and liberals moved away from him in

SCIENCE & TECH

MICHAEL ESPINOSA/The Stanford Daily

David Brady, L. Sandy Maisel and Bruce Cain answered questions about Super Tuesday’s election results at a panel hosted on Thursday by the Bill Lane Center for the American West and the Women’s Club. droves. And that’s what caused into the Democratic National Conwhat happened in Super Tuesday.” vention.

Maisel focused on the strategies “And it’s going to be very hard, of the three candidates that are re- maybe impossible, if Sanders stays maining in the race. He said in until the bitter end — which I Biden’s goal is to continue the mo- think he probably will do — for mentum he won on Super Tuesday, Biden to get to 1,991 [delegates], he while Sanders needs to continue said. “I think it’s gonna be pretty “getting new voters and working- hard, so there’s a real importance class Democrats to come out to vote for Biden to get the plurality.” as they have never come out to vote In an interview with MSNBC’s before.”

Rachel Maddow on Wednesday, “I have no idea what Tulsi Gab- Sanders said he will drop out of the bard is doing,” he added. presidential race if Biden receives a Bruce Cain, director of the Bill plurality of delegates before the Lane Center and a political science Democratic National Convention. professor, looked ahead to the next states to vote in the primary, and to Contact Michael Espinosa at a potential general election mesp2021@stanford.edu. matchup between Biden and Trump.

“Biden cannot run as a wonk,” he said. “I say this because Democrats prefer policy-wonk presidents.”

Continued from front page He argued that Biden would not fare well in a policy-focused debate against Trump, and implored According to the Stanford MediBiden to “keep it simple” should cine News Center, it is not yet clear such a case arise. how long a patient needs to be inIn order for Biden to be de- fected before testing positive and clared the nominee, Cain said that whether someone not yet showing it is important for the former vice symptoms could test positive. president to secure the plurality of “While the situation continues delegates. It might be difficult for to evolve, rapid identification of inBiden regardless, Cain said, if fected people could help limit the Sanders continues his candidacy spread of the virus,” Pinsky wrote.

“Public health experts have indicated that prompt identification and quarantine of infected people is critical to limiting the spread of the virus.”

Pinsky and his team began developing the test in late January, as they worked to optimize previous coronavirus tests for current U.S. quire a human element, such as elder testing guidelines.

The test uses a technique called care, Etchemendy told Altman that real-time RT-PCT to “detect the they present a “difficult problem.”

He said, though, that AI can en- presence of genetic material in samhance what human caregivers do ples obtained from nasal swabs of without replacing them, such as potentially infected people,” Pinsky “providing devices that can observe wrote.

He added that the test screens when the elder has fallen out of bed, or fallen and hurt him or herself.” He for two viral genes.

“The first encodes a protein added that AI might allow fewer caregivers to provide care to larger called an envelope protein, which is found in the membrane that surnumbers of people.

“There are ways to use this tech- rounds the virus,” Pinsky wrote. “It nology that are going to allow us to then confirms the positive result by provide things like elder care much testing for a gene encoding a second protein called RNA-dependent more broadly,” he said.

Both Etchemendy and Altman RNA polymerase.”

The release of this test comes on emphasized the broad scope of AI the heels of an announcement from technologies.

“Everybody who has a smart- the Federal Drug Administration phone has access to certain AI (FDA) that now allows in-house diagnostic testing without FDA aptools,” Etchemendy said.

Altman said “every Google proval. Previously, all nasal swabs search that you ever do is assisted by had to be sent to public health agenAI, and every purchase decision, cies for further testing.

The release also came one day whether you like it or not, is nudged before Stanford President Marc

by AI.” As for the development of artifi- Tessier-Lavigne confirmed that cial general intelligence (AGI), AI “Stanford Medicine is currently carthat would be capable of doing most ing for a few patients who have testof what a human can do, ed positive for COVID-19” in a statement to the University commuEtchemendy is skeptical.

“There are companies that are nity on Thursday.

“Our hospitals and clinics on currently working on AGI,” he said.

“You heard it first here: They’re campus provide essential health going to fail. We do not yet under- care for the people of our region,” stand human intelligence well Tessier-Lavigne wrote. enough to make that a feasible goal.”

Contact Emma Talley at emmat332 Contact Emma Talley at emmat332 @stanford.edu and Ujwal Srivastava at ujwal@stanford.edu. @stanford.edu.

AI will benefit society, says former provost John Etchemendy argues AI will create, not destroy, jobs

By EMMA TALLEY DESK EDITOR

Though artificial intelligence (AI) will undoubtedly impact the economy, it will improve jobs, not replace them, said former provost and current co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) John Etchemendy.

“We as an institute focus on ways in which the current technology, and hopefully future technology as well, can be used not to replace humans but rather to enhance humans, to extend what humans can do, to enrich human lives,” said Etchemendy, who is also a professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Etchemendy spoke Thursday at a live taping of the radio show “The Future of Everything.” The show, hosted on SiriusXM by bioengineering professor Russ Altman, explores how technology, medicine and science shape the world.

Etchemendy told Altman that contemporary AI is limited.

“It is simply a way of programming computers to get them to perform functions that were infeasible using traditional programming techniques,” he said. “But it’s nothing more than that currently.”

Even in its current form, however, Etchemendy said AI is going to

EMMA TALLEY/The Stanford Daily

In a live taping on Thursday, former Stanford Provost John Etchemendy told Russ Altman, host of radio show “The Future of Everything,” that contemporary artificial intelligence is limited. affect everything that people do.

“It’s going to have impacts on every piece of our lives,” he said. “It already has, whether you know it or not. ... We need to understand what the impact is going to be. We need to look at its impact on humans, on society, on cities, on the workforce, the economy, international security.”

In response to fears that AI will lead to a loss of jobs, Etchemendy told Altman “it will be slower than people are currently anticipating.”

While he said “there will be disruptions” in the workforce, he pointed out that in every technological revolution, the number of jobs has increased.

“I do not for a minute believe that we will end up with no jobs and lots of robots,” he said.

Instead, he believes AI will improve jobs, removing the tedium.

Utilizing the example of the longhaul truck driver, Etchemendy suspects there will no longer be crosscountry driving in five to 10 years, though he predicts drivers will still be needed for carrying products shorter distances.

“That actually makes the truck driver’s job better,” he said. “You won’t have to leave home for five days at a time; you can sleep in your own bed at night.”

When asked about careers that re-

TEST

Friday, March 6, 2020 N 3

The Stanford Daily

SPORTS TENNIS

Weekend wins for men, women

SCOTT GOULD/isiphotos.com

Senior Grant Shoults (above) came in first place in Thursday’s 500-yard freestyle at the Pac-12s. Shoults also won the 500 free at last year’s Pac-12s. After the second day of competition, the Cardinal are currently in first.

SHOULTS REPEATS STANFORD LEADS AFTER TWO EVENT VICTORIES HALFWAY THROUGH PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS

By NATALIE HILDERBRAND LYNDSAY RADNEDGE/isiphotos.com

Senior Emily Arbuthnott (above) earned her 100th career singles win during Stanford’s shutout over Saint Mary’s on Tuesday afternoon.

Her career record is 100-25, with 30 wins coming as clinchers.

Arbuthnott becomes 2nd Cardinal to earn 100 career dual victories

By SHAN REDDY DESK EDITOR

Stanford men’s and women’s tennis earned wins this week at Taube Family Tennis Stadium.

The No. 13 men’s team completed a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over No. 5 Ohio State on Wednesday, snapping a four-game losing streak. After falling to No. 1 USC, No. 12 TCU and No. 4 Texas

twice over the past three weeks, the Cardinal men bounced back with a strong performance all around at home.

After dropping the doubles point and losing the day’s first two singles matches, the Cardinal men initially fell behind 1-3. Freshman Filip Kolasinski started the comeback charge, defeating Robert

Please see TENNIS, page 8

DESK EDITOR

Since Wednesday, No. 16 men’s swimming (4-1, 3-1 Pac-12) has been competing in the Pac-12 Championships in Federal Way, Washington. Stanford is currently in the lead — 15.5 points ahead of second-place Berkeley.

The Cardinal have had two event victories so far: the 400-yard medley relay and senior Grant Shoults’s 500-yard freestyle.

The highlight of Wednesday evening was Stanford’s first-place 400-yard medley relay — comprised of senior Benjamin Ho on backstroke, senior Hank Poppe swimming breaststroke, junior Alex Liang on butterfly and sophomore Mason Gonzalez anchoring the freestyle leg.

The Cardinal relay appeared to come in third, clocking in at 3:06.81 behind Berkeley (3:02.85) and Ari-

zona State (3:04.54). It was soon announced, however, that both Berkeley’s and Arizona State’s butterflyers dove in early, disqualifying their relay. Thus, the Cardinal claimed the event title due to this technicality.

The other event of the night was the 800-yard freestyle relay, where Stanford pulled a solid performance of 6:15.79, placing fourth in the event. Senior Will Macmillan led off and was followed by sophomore Jack LeVant, senior James Murphy and Shoults, who anchored the relay with an impressive 1:32.48.

Wednesday was a solid start for the swimmers building on an outstanding diving meet last week.

Conor Casey was named the Pac-12 diver of the meet and claimed both the 1-meter and 3-meter event titles, becoming the first from Stanford to do so in five years.

Thursday continued with prelims and finals in the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual med-

ley, 50-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle relay.

Stanford had an impressive 500yard freestyle event. Shoults came in first place in both prelims and finals, touching the wall at 4:15.32 in prelims and 4:12.45 in finals. He was able to claim the event title in the finals in a close race with Berkeley’s Julian Trenton, who Shoults out-touched by 0.32 seconds.

Junior Matthew Hirschberger came in second place in consolation finals (10th overall) with a time of 4:17.32. LeVant came in 12th overall (4:17.80), junior Johannes Calloni came in 13th (4:18.98), Murphy came in 14th (4:19.05) and freshman Andrew Matejka came in 16th (4:21.78).

The next event was the 200-yard individual medley. Junior Brennan Pastorek placed the highest of the Stanford athletes, earning fifth

Please see SHOULTS, page 8

FINDING AVOICE OF HER OWN

JESSICA MENDOZA ’02 REFLECTS ON STANFORD, MEDIA CAREER

BY MIKAELA BREWER

BY INYOUNG CHOI

STAFF WRITER

STAFF WRITER

This article is part of an ongoing series celebrating Stanford women in sports in honor of Women’s History Month, which is commemorated throughout March. This weekly series will feature profiles of current and former professional athletes, sports journalists and executives.

W

For the first time since 2008, baseball and softball will return to the Olympic games, which are set to take place this summer in Tokyo. Also returning to the Olympics is Jessica Mendoza ’02, a National Softball Hall of Fame 2019 inductee, two-time Olympian and groundbreaking baseball and softball analyst.

During her tenure as a member of the U.S. Women’s Softball National team from 2001 to 2010, Mendoza brought home a gold medal from the 2004 games in Athens and a silver from Beijing four years later. This year, when Mendoza heads to Tokyo to cover baseball and softball’s historic return, however, her two kids — a kindergartner and a fourth grader — will be alongside her to see the stage where their mother once stood.

Mendoza’s shift on the Olympic stage from standing on the diamond to standing in front of the camera will

be a surprise to few. In 2015, she became the first female in-game analyst for ESPN’s Monday Night Baseball, a national broadcast of the MLB. A year later, Mendoza became the first female analyst for Sunday Night Baseball, a national, weekly broadcast show on ESPN that averaged 1,505,000 viewers last year in its 31st consecutive season.

Today, the Stanford alum puts packages together for live studio shows like SportsCenter and First Take, where she grapples with statistics, metrics and online platforms to best tell a story that will be informative, accessible and fun.

“I love the combination of my nerdiness,” Mendoza said in a phone interview with The Daily. “The stats and the numbers and all the cool technology blows my mind. I love the challenge of [thinking about] how we make this cool and fun for people to listen to.”

NORBERT VON DER GROEBEN/isiphotos.com

Please see MENDOZA, page 5

4 N Friday, March 6, 2020

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OPINIONS The Stanford Daily

Sean Casey Established 1892

Sounding the alarm olitics has had a busy week.

Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer dropped out in the span of 48 hours, Elizabeth Warren folded after losing her home state, and Joe Biden shocked the world with a comeback win on Super Tuesday. In all the excitement, a pivotal moment for the future of reproductive health passed mostly under the radar (save some controversial comments from Democratic leader Chuck Schumer). On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard June Medical Services v. Russo, a case that seemed poised to greenlight onerous restrictions on abortion providers and begin dismantling a woman’s right to choose.

The case’s outcome is far from certain. Though the court’s five Republican-nominated judges constitute a strong majority, Chief Justice John Roberts voted to strike down identical Texas legislation in 2016 and may well do so again. But the fact that the one old, wealthy, staunchly conservative male is all that stands between Roe v. Wade and an avalanche of red-state legal challenges speaks to a widening crack in our democracy, a ticking time bomb set to explode during the next administration.

The problem here boils down to math. Two consistently progressive voices on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, are 86 and 81 years old. The next-oldest jurist, Clarence Thomas, is only 71. With the recent additions of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, the mean age of Republican-appointed justices drops to a virile 62, more than a decade younger than the average age of Democrat-appointed justices, 73. All things considered, it is exceedingly likely that one, if not two, vacancies will open up in the most influential body in American politics over the next four years — vacancies controlled by the sitting president.

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of these nominations. This administration has already filled 187 benches, a velocity not seen since Teddy Roosevelt, thanks in large part to Mitch McConnell’s stonewalling of Obama-era appointments. The White House and its Federalist Society buddies have already

P

succeeded beyond their wildest dreams (just read their press release), and our judiciary, never a progressive institution, will lurch even farther to the right upon a second Trump term.

Imagine, if you will, a commanding conservative majority on the highest court in the land — 6 to 3, maybe 7 to 2. Imagine Justices Ginsburg and Breyer replaced by hardline Republicans in their 40s. Imagine losing all hope of compromise, reason, impartiality. Imagine dangerous, backward decisions like Citizens United as the rule, not the exception. Imagine law after progressive law dead at the hands of the judiciary, not just in the Supreme Court, but in the hundreds of smaller, less prominent arenas, where the GOP’s brightest legal minds will quietly force a regressive, damaging, deadly agenda on the general public for the foreseeable future. Imagine having no recourse, no way to dislodge these judges, no way to impose the direction of the people onto its government. That is the world we will live in should Trump be re-elected.

If Sanders wins the nomination, many moderates will grouse that they are not comfortable supporting a self-described socialist or his revolution. To them I say: You aren’t voting for Bernie and his radicalism — you’re voting against Trump and a judiciary bent to the will of the conservative movement. You’re not voting for Medicare for All or the Green New Deal or felon re-enfranchisement — you’re voting against the disembowelment of public health insurance, against the destruction of environmental protections, against the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. You’re not supporting Sanders.

You’re opposing the institutional death of our country. There is, believe it or not, a difference.

The same holds if Biden is triumphant. A prevailing view among the activist left holds that a ballot cast for a relative moderate is a ballot cast for a flawed status quo, a state of affairs better torn down and rebuilt than reformed. To them I say: Judicial appointments are lifetime appointments. If Trump is re-elected and allowed to cement conservative dominance of the courts, it won’t matter how loud or young or motivated

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you are — his jurists are untouchable. They will reign over the legislative landscape for decades to come, sinking progressive agendas before they get off the ground. If Biden is the nominee, it won’t be enough to stay home. You have to hold your nose and vote, in huge numbers, because if you think the status quo is bad, just wait until we live in the world according to Clarence Thomas.

This election is not about Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or Donald Trump. This election is about whether our republic can preserve a two-party system, whether Democrats and Democratic values will even exist 20 years from now. Trump is a temporary evil. But the choices he makes today will mold the nation for the rest of our lives, and nowhere are those choices more evident than in the courtroom. His judges will restrict our rights, demolish our democracy, stifle progressive policy until the planet is hot and liberals are left in the cold. So come November, don’t wring your hands over the eventual nominee or their political idiosyncrasies. A presidency is four years. Brett Kavanaugh is for life.

‘Once a Pun a Time’

Contact Sean Casey at spcasey @stanford.edu.

Julia Gong

jxgong@stanford.edu

Grace Wallis

My frustrations with Stanford Late Night n elementary school, “The Midnight Snack” was one of the most exciting parts of my week. Every Saturday, I slept over at my best friend’s house. At midnight, we sneaked into her kitchen and glutted ourselves on Ritz crackers and string cheese. On the floor of her pantry, we peeled those once-solid sticks into countless flimsy ropes of wispy, rubbery goodness, reveling in our sneakiness and general brilliance. Once we’d tossed the wrappers of our feast and retraced our steps, we fell back into bed, full of highly processed cheese.

Victorious.

Now, I am more or less an adult. I am also a college student for whom midnight is no longer such a treat, but rather an hour by which I might hope to have my head on my pillow and not in my homework. The Midnight Snack has also changed dramatically in form and function. Now, it comes in many different shapes, sizes and flavors.

Hundreds of students partake. Most importantly, it isn’t just available at midnight, but rather 9:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., seven days a week. The Midnight Snack has been rechristened Stanford Late Night.

Stanford is not the only college to offer food late at night, nor is it a trendsetter. The 24-hour college food scene has been a part of college culture for decades. Back in the time of The Midnight Snack, I might have had another opinion, but now, as a student who believes that my tuition should not only cover a stellar academic education but also one in wellbeing, I believe that Stanford Late Night is unhealthy and unacceptable, especially at a university that prides itself on healthful food initiatives. It needs to go or change immediately.

In stark contrast, Stanford’s daytime dining options have rendered the University a leader in healthful food. In 2014, Stanford Residential & Dining

I

Enterprises (R&DE), Stanford Medicine and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) co-founded the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative. It uses college dining as a laboratory for “cultivating the longterm well-being of people and the planet — one student, one meal at a time.”

Over the years, R&DE has revamped its culinary, sourcing, sustainability and safety standards. It has also done wonders in the field of culinary and nutritional information through countless student engagement programs.

Last year, I worked as a Baking Apprentice in the Stanford Executive Dining Commons, the same institution that, for 14 years, has ranked first in executive university dining by the Financial Times. Not only was it an intensely enjoyable (and tasty) experience — I also developed a deep interest in food systems because of it.

It’s reassuring that Stanford students are in such good culinary hands, because college students are some of the most precarious eaters. They have some of the lowest fruit and vegetable intakes and some of the highest sodium, fat and sugar intakes. 37% of the college student population is overweight, and 11% is obese. To ensure that today’s college students don’t inflate the billions of dollars already spent on obesity annually, dining halls — which offer the perfect opportunity for developing new habits — must focus on successfully nudging students toward healthier eating habits.

That is not the case at Arrillaga Nights, one of three Stanford Late Night programs where students can choose between 42 options, from oreo milkshakes to chicken quesadillas.

Among those, fruit and salad options are nowhere to be found. The only vegetables offered are those loosely perched on the frozen Veggie Delight Pizza — that is, unless, we’re also considering French fries as vegetables.

Vegetarian options are limited. By R&DE’s dining hall standards, healthful options are non-existent.

Why should this food program exist if Stanford’s goal is to cultivate “the long-term well-being of people and the planet — one student, one meal at a time?”

Those in favor of offering late-night food argue that it benefits students who don’t have enough time to eat during the day, especially during dining hall hours. Other schools, like Vanderbilt University, have instituted latenight food options in response to the deaths of several students who drove off campus for food while under the influence of alcohol. At the same time, however, these offerings encourage students to get less sleep, and sleepdeprived performance is similar to performance under the influence of alcohol. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 55% of all 100,000 annual drowsy driving crashes are caused by fatigued drivers under the age of 25.

The same symptoms of sleep deprivation that impair driving also impair brain function. While Stanford suggests that Late Night “should be your venue of choice” if you need to work, studies show that late-night eating not only impairs sleep quality, but also memory and learning ability (and not just during the night of ingestion). If your goal is to get an assignment done, you’re better off going to bed, skipping that late-night meal, and waking up early in the morning. For these reasons, Late Night can only be described as hypocritical, a threat not only to R&DE’s healthful food programs but also to the University’s overarching values of student safety, well-being and academic excellence.

Stanford has a lot to lose by feeding students bad food and making that bad food available late at night — but it also has an opportunity to be a leader in promoting self-care and safety through food, which could also address dangerously high stress levels and poor decision-making among students. While its food is already one of the healthiest in the nation, Stanford must ensure that all of its food programs aim to nurture the well-being of its students.

In the meantime, avenues for small-

er, student-led change exist! Thanks to R&DE’s successful student engagement initiatives, students can find paid work as dining ambassadors. A dining ambassador for Arrillaga explained to me that, while he doesn’t get much feedback from students, the Late Night administration actively seeks student feedback and is willing to change the menus accordingly. Whether or not you go to Late Night, make your voice heard. Locate and share feedback directly with your dining representatives, propose specific healthful alternatives to late-night programs and offer ideas for other possible outputs for late-night resources during the day.

Best of all, avoid it altogether. En-

CASES Continued from front page hands to avoid further spread of the virus.

“Right now is a critical moment in our response to COVID-19 in our county,” Cody said. “If we can take these measures now, we do have the potential to slow the spread of the virus in our community.”

Cody’s announcement follows Stanford’s Tuesday recommendation to postpone or cancel events involving more than 150 participants over coronavirus concerns, notably leading to the cancellation of popular events like Grad Alumni Day and Midnight Breakfast.

Large classes like Social Dance I and II and CS 230: “Deep Learning” have also experienced schedule disruptions.

Vice Provost for Faculty Development, Teaching and Learning Sarah Church released academic guidance on Thursday, encouraging students and teaching staff who are sick or have compromised immune systems to avoid class.

“We currently expect regularly scheduled classes to continue through the remainder of the quarter, and for final exams to be administered according to the existing

courage your friends to go to bed early and work in the morning — rather than risk succumbing to the temptation of late-night eating. If we can’t end latenight programs, we can at least ensure that healthier and more environmentally friendly, plant-forward options are available. The benefits will span students’ transcripts and well-being — and long-term lifestyle habits, health and the environment.

As a midnight string cheese thief, I never got caught. The same can be said of my appearances at Late Night. You’ll never find me there.

Contact Grace Wallis at gwallis@ stanford.edu. schedule,” Church wrote. The University has set up a website with additional guidance on winter-quarter coursework and exams.

Shifting from containment to risk-reduction Cody said the county is shifting from a strategy of “containment,” where it focuses on identifying cases and tracing contacts, to broader strategies to reduce the spread of the virus.

“What we know now from the data that we have with the number of cases where we cannot trace the contact — that’s an indicator to us that the virus is circulating at some level in the community, and that it is increasing,” Cody said. “That is the reason for making this pivot and this change to broader strategies like canceling large events and mass gatherings.”

Cody said the county is shifting its focus from monitoring individual cases to reducing contact between people in general.

“It’s all about probabilities,” Cody said. “The smaller the number of people that gather, the better. The farther apart they are when they gather, the better. The shorter the period of time that they’re together, the better.”

Contact Kate Selig at kselig@ stanford.edu.

Friday, March 6, 2020 N 5

The Stanford Daily

CAMPAIGN Continued from page 2 So, thank you, Stanford.”

Representatives for the Yang and Booker campaigns on campus echoed similar sentiments.

According to Kyra Whitelaw ’21, organizer of the campaign for Booker on campus, the group “mostly disbanded” after Booker dropped out in January.

“Most of us are individually still very politically active but we did not continue working as a group,” Whitelaw said. “We are still in touch in the sense that we are all friends and see each other around campus often.”

She said she also looked forward to maintaining the friend-

ships she had made.

“We shared a lot of the same values and interests,” Whitelaw said. “I’m excited to continue those friendships beyond this election cycle.”

Michael Fischer ’20, who led Stanford’s Yang Gang, said that after Yang dropped out in February, the group stayed in touch and plans to organize more events in the future.

“The friendships we made will definitely be one of the most lasting parts of the campaign,” Fischer said. “Ultimately that was why the group worked from the start because we liked hanging out with each other.During the campaign we were focused on doing everything to get Andrew Yang elected and further the idea of universal basic income. We’re still planning events around universal basic in-

come on campus.”

Like Stoddard, Fischer spoke favorably about what he saw as a positive attitude toward the Yang Gang’s campaign efforts, as well as a “collaborative experience” working around other political groups on campus.

Fischer said the campaign also helped prepare him to teach about the intersection of technology and law for LAW 4045: “Digital Technology and Law: Foundations.”

“Being on the campaign and thinking about law and technology definitely help to prepare me to be a better teaching assistant,” Fischer said. “Where technology meets law was one of the ethos of Andrew Yang’s campaign.”

Contact Anastasia Malenko at malenk0@stanford.edu.

MEDICINE Continued from front page Clara County have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Santa Clara County Public Health Department.

On Wednesday, Stanford restricted University-sponsored international travel, including canceling all spring overseas programs, and recommended the postponement of events larger than 150 people.

In his statement, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that Stanford would seek to balance maintaining campus safety and “continuing our daily education and research activities in ways that are appropriate under the circumstances.”

Contact Daniel Wu at dwu21@ stanford.edu.

SURVEY Continued from page 2 intrinsic value to its occupants.”

The new buildings, Sunny and Sandra say, are architecturally inconsistent with their surroundings and will degrade the character of their district.

“We see our residential areas evolving to meet future housing needs,” Sunny said. “Our goal is to define development standards and zoning to preserve our neighborhoods as they evolve.”

Ultimately, the two women want preservation of the neighborhood’s character, consistent enforcement of regulations, clear building codes and transparency regarding Stanford’s plans for residential development.

Many of their neighbors, however, think the survey is the wrong way to achieve that goal.

County meeting draws opposition The county held its first public meeting about the survey on Feb. 27, drawing dozens of district residents in vocal opposition to the initiative.

During the meeting, Santa Clara County Principal Planner

MENDOZA Continued from page 3 Much of Mendoza’s current job is informed by her past as a studentathlete on the Farm. At Stanford, Mendoza filled a career highlight reel as a four-time first-team AllAmerican and All-Pac-10 honoree outfielder for the Cardinal from 1999-2002. As a sophomore, she led Stanford to its first-ever Women’s College World Series appearance and was a top-25 finalist for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. 18 years later, Mendoza still holds career records in batting average, hits, home runs, slugging, runs and stolen bases.

But behind Mendoza’s lengthy career highlights is a deep passion for learning and growth, which she credits to Stanford’s unique culture of cohesive academics and athletics.

“Stanford is unique, because I was rarely around [my team],” she said. “You’re around your team [during] practice and travel on airplanes, and you love your team. But then you go back [to campus], and you’re with students — excited to get in these insane conversations. ...

At the end of the day, I still wanted to learn and be a part of school.

“What I love about Stanford is [that it’s] not just the straight-A students from high school that we all knew that were just super nerds and didn’t know how to socialize and talk,” Mendoza said with a laugh.”And there are some of those still, but a mix of all kinds of different people — I heard so many different opinions from different people, [and] how they saw things.”

She said there is an expectation that student-athletes are also students. Whether or not they are ath-

ACADEMICS

Faculty Senate talks frosh experience President also briefed the Senate on coronavirus

By MAX HAMPEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Faculty Senate deliberated changes proposed to the freshman academic experience to “create a first-year shared intellectual experience through a purposeful core curriculum” at its meeting on Thursday. Senators were also briefed on coronavirus by Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne.

The core proposal contains three focuses: “Liberal Education,” “Ethics and Citizenship” and “Global Perspectives.” Students would meet the Liberal Education requirement by taking an Education as Self-Fashioning (ESF) course or a course called “Why College?” The Ethics and Citizenship category would be fulfilled through a seminar called “Citizenship in the 21st Century.” And for Global Perspectives, students would be required to select a course from a curated list.

The ideas are only proposals — leadership has “not voted on a thing,” nor has it “drafted any legislation yet,” said Adam Banks, a professor in the Graduate School of Education and member of the Steering Committee who spoke on behalf of the committee discussing these changes.

The Faculty Senate split into small groups to discuss the proposals. The private sessions were off

Bharat Singh outlined the project timeline, including a survey of the Residential District from April to August, two more public meetings and a final Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors’ hearing in spring 2021. The county has allocated $50,000 for the survey, according to Singh.

But some meeting attendees called for denser housing to solve the housing crisis in the area, telling The Daily that the supporters of the survey are a small, unrepresentative group within the community. When they asked Singh whether the purpose of the survey was to stop Stanford from turning existing housing units into denser and more affordable ones, he said the answer depended on the results of the survey.

“For junior faculty who are trying to teach at Stanford, the question of whether or not we can come take this amazing job and stay to have a career depends, more than anything else, on whether we can get housing,” geophysics assistant professor Dustin Schroeder told The Daily.

But Schroeder also said the situation is difficult, noting that many senior faculty members have strong emotional and financial ties to their homes and the neighborhood.

letes, she said, all students are held to the same standard, and professors want them all to succeed.

As a student-athlete at Stanford, Mendoza said she faced the pressures on both ends of her identity, both athletically and academically. At an institution known for its academics and with a legacy of record-breaking teams, she felt pressure to succeed.

“I remember freshman year sitting in a few classes and [thinking], ‘Okay, maybe I made the wrong choice ... They’re all going to be Pulitzer Prize winners and are going to NASA and beyond the moon,’” Mendoza said of her peers. “[I] was an athlete being challenged on the field, physically, mentally, emotionally. [I] went through all of that — highs and lows, times when I was so close to getting cut, because I just wasn’t cutting it.”

Confidently embracing her voice in spite of such pressures is a lesson she took to heart. These experiences translated to her career now as an analyst for a national audience.

“I faced the challenge with bringing even tenfold of knowledge and confidence and owning what I’m doing,” Mendoza said of starting as an analyst. “And if that means that someone disagrees, or if it means I screw up, at least I’m 100% owning the person I am, my viewpoints and what I believe I’m saying and doing.”

Mendoza credits her curiosity as a storyteller to her Stanford experience, and it’s exciting that she has a platform to share the stories she finds. Over the years, media coverage has drastically changed to better reflect women in athletics. Gone are the days when the Women’s College World Series wasn’t televised: ESPN’s coverage of the 15-game tournament last

the record, and no final conclusion was presented.

Coronavirus Though the first-year curriculum was the main focus of the meeting, Tessier-Lavigne also presented on the novel COVID-19 disease, also known as coronavirus. Both he and the “cross-campus emergency operations team” led by Associate Vice Provost for Environmental Health and Safety Russell Furr are focused on striking a balance between “protect[ing] the community” and “sustain[ing] daily education and research activities,” he said.

He also said “Stanford Medicine is currently caring for a few patients who tested positive for COVID-19.”

Contingency plans for students in dorms, he continued, are currently being “worked through.”

Additionally, Tessier-Lavigne announced the creation of a COVID-19 diagnostic test by associate professor of pathology and medicine Benjamin Pinsky. The test was FDA approved on Monday and can currently test 700 patients per week.

Lastly, he discussed the University’s recommendation to postpone all events that involve more than 150 participants until April 15. He said April 15 is a “long enough runway to give us time to see how things develop,” but added that this date could be changed in the future.

Contact Max Hampel at mhampel@stanford.edu.

Residents also expressed concerns that they would lose some control over their homes if the neighborhood were to be designated as historic. Some questioned the need to bring the county into Stanford’s housing decisions, wishing instead to work internally with Stanford Campus Residential Leaseholders (SCRL).

“We need to be as flexible and thoughtful as we can, and adding an external body and additional bureaucratic restraints limits our ability to do that,” Schroeder said.

“I’m more hopeful that we can come up with creative and thoughtful solutions within the Stanford community.”

Stanford Community Relations & Land Use Communications Officer Joel Berman wrote in a statement to The Daily that “Stanford will continue to work collaboratively with homeowners and Santa Clara County to identify strategies for oncampus development that allow the building of much-needed additional housing while maintaining the character of the neighborhoods.”

“We feel this constructive approach is the best avenue for addressing the interests of residents and the university,” he added.

Contact Marianne Lu at mlu23@ stanford.edu.

year averaged 1 million viewers, a 20% increase in growth from the year before. Mendoza praises these positive changes towards equity — but gender disparity in the media remains. In response, she is actively seeking to bridge this divide in storytelling in sports as a content creator.

“I just remember how much it meant to me and my family for someone to tell my story,” Mendoza said. “For someone to take a minute to [understand me] beyond just how I hit a ball ... I try to think about that.”

Mendoza said she loves that players are connected through the terminology of the game, even if separated by language and cultural differences. “[I] try to talk more [about] who they are, as well. Because what meant so much [to me] as an athlete is for people covering me to see me as not just the numbers.”

As a woman in sports, and especially one that has transitioned from athlete to storyteller, Mendoza has become a trailblazer. In her journey to craft a unique voice in the world of sports, Mendoza has repeatedly faced and overcome obstacles, embracing her voice and unique perspective. Today, as a storyteller, she goes beyond sabermetrics to learn about the people involved and share their stories with viewers across the nation.

Not surprisingly, her advice for Stanford students is to attentively listen to the voices of others.

“Just be someone that can get to know and meet a lot of people,” Mendoza said. “It will form you in a way that shapes you for the rest of your life.”

Contact Inyoung Choi at ichoi@ stanford.edu and Mikaela Brewer at mbrewer8@stanford.edu.

6 N Friday, March 6, 2020

The Stanford Daily

ARTS & LIFE MUSIC

Indie musicians take the stage Student-artists gathered Week 9 for Music @ Mars

By MEGAN FAIRCLOTH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

B

iking through the chilly March night on my way to Music @ Mars, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. It was my second time covering a Music @ Mars showcase for The Daily, and when I entered the lounge and saw the warm fairy lights, instruments and enthusiastic crowd — people huddled together closely, reclining on bean bags, spilling onto the floor, squeezed into couches beside their friends — it was a pleasantly familiar sight. I sat crisscrossed on the floor with my notebook on my lap. An electric keyboard stood in front of the crowd, forecasting the performances to come, with two large speakers standing on each side. I noted on the wall in the middle of the makeshift “stage” hung a curious abstract painting of a rocket taking off, the exhaust from the engines painted as bubbles of color.

“It feels warm,” said audience member Alex Romero ’21 as he got more comfortable on his bean bag.

“I mean, this feels like what a Week 9 event should be. I can sit down and soak in the vibes.”

It was the same pleasant, lively atmosphere I had known when I went fall quarter. This time, however, the indie artist showcase was officially hosted under the auspices of the new volunteer student

organization (VSO) Palm Drive Records. The music VSO, cofounded by Elizabeth Gray ’20, Izzy Angus ’20, Federico Reyes Gomez ’21 and Cooper Reed ’21, has produced a series of recording workshops this quarter advertised by posters plastered around campus, featuring their black-andwhite palm tree and record disc.

With the mission of celebrating and bringing visibility to the hidden work artists are doing on campus, the indie showcase hosted by co-founder Elizabeth Gray plays perfectly into what the music VSO hopes to achieve on campus.

When asked how the latest Music @ Mars event relates to her work with Palm Drive Records, Elizabeth reflected on how indie student musicians may not always feel as though they have the right space or audience to perform their work: “I think because there is somewhat of an implicit and internalized pressure on studentartists to perform covers, it can be difficult for these artists to feel like an audience wants to hear originals. I often feel as if I have to sneak originals into a set of mostly covers because I think the audience just wants to sing along with what they know, and I’m afraid of losing momentum. We hope that Music @ Mars provides a space for artists to feel empowered to perform their own work, since our audience is comprised of people who come because they want to be hearing originals.”

The latest Music @ Mars certainly delivered in giving space to student-artists to perform their music, featuring everything from classic rock, blues/Americana, surf-and electronic music to sampled Youtube beats, French and Stanford lingo. The night began with Charlie Kogen ’23, who began with his original song, “The Only One I’ll Take It For Is You.” Kogen’s voice, sound, and even his stage presence — playing the electric piano demurely while looking occasionally into the audience — immediately hit with a classical air. Kogen and his music seemed straight out of an upscale New York City restaurant in the 1950s — think Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Billy Joel; man and his piano singing forlorn love-songs in an echoing room. His lyrics, while melancholy, carried an uncanny patience and buoyancy to them, singing about a kind of love that’s flawed and unreciprocated, but fated and enduring. The gentle but pained words reminded me of Johnny Rivers when he welcomed his “baby” back to the “The Poor Side of Town.” Between songs, Kogen talked about his musical inspirations — some of his songs were inspired by lived experiences and others by imagined ones. Yet his song “The Right Mistakes” was written about wanting to combine his actual life with the ones he lives through his music. Though it was his first time performing many of his songs, Kogen wowed

SCREEN

‘Weathering with You’:

A timely cli-fi Japanese director Makoto Shinkai weaves a magical, layered tale on climate change in his latest animated film

Palm Drive Records

Student group Palm Drive Records hosted its second indie musician showcase of the school year this month. Megan Faircloth reviewed the first in The Daily and is back for more. the audience with his unique sound, clear voice and remarkable songwriting ability, and definitely inspired more than a few new fans.

Aditeya Shukla ’22, better known by his stage name “Adi,” brought out a guitar for his set, performing acoustic versions of his songs which had originally been composed electronically. The transition to acoustic, however, was seamless, with Adi’s voice being perfectly suited to the mood — soft, deeply emotive, haunting.

His singer-songwriter and Americana sound told stories of wavering emotions and wary feelings of affection. “No Stories” deftly captures the disillusionment and disappointment of an ending summer — cooler weather approaching, things unsaid, opportunities unseized, freedom receding once again. After the song, Adi announced to the crowd that they’d no longer have to hear “a guy up here singing sad songs,” and promised to satisfy those who came to the showcase to get “turnt.” After that, Adi flipped the mood in an instant, bringing out a trap beat and rapping to a song inspired by the “OY/YO” sculpture recently erected in front of the Cantor Arts Center. The song was hilarious, poking fun at icons of

Stanford culture, such as 5-SURE and Marc Tessier Lavigne, and was filled with so many sharp and clever lines that I couldn’t write them down fast enough. The crowd’s favorite by far, however, was, “You see a stop sign, all I see is go.” Though the song hasn’t been added to Adi’s Spotify yet, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs a good laugh with some cleverly worded jabs at the Stanford experience.

Mariam El-Mansouri ’22 then entered the stage with William Kingsfield ’20 on electric guitar.

Mariam began by dazzling the crowd by singing a cover of the French song “Rein de Rien,” with William dishing out smooth, bluesy chords alongside her. Mariam has a strong, lovely voice with a tone vaguely reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, or maybe a bit of Alicia Keys. The second song she performed was self-composed and untitled, and conveyed the feelings created by many of the poignant dilemmas that arise from love in the modern world. Mariam’s vivid lyrics communicated the feeling of blooming love, uncertainty and insecurity, the dread of being unsure of one’s relationship status (which

Please see MUSIC, page 8

By KAYLEE BEAM CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“W

ould you like this rain to stop?” a teenage girl asks the boy she just met, the two of them standing atop an old building.

Without waiting for a reply, she clasps her hands together, closes her eyes and sends up a silent prayer. Seconds later, the sky clears.

In the new animated movie “Weathering with You,”we see a Tokyo where rain has poured over city streets for months. The fate of the city, and whether or not the rain will let up, lies in the hands of a supernatural human and her friends.

This fantastical scenario is the climate-conscious backdrop to director Makoto Shinkai’s newest film, which debuted in U.S. theaters on Jan. 17.

The movie grossed more than $5 million during its opening weekend, according to Forbes Magazine.

Shinkai, who has expressed his desire to depict life truthfully on screen, began making short films in 1999. He gained international recognition when “Your Name”broke into American box offices in 2016, receiving high praise for its clean animation and touching storyline. The release of the film earned Shinkai a spot as one of Variety’s top 10 animators to watch that year.

“Weathering with You” follows the story of two teenagers: Hodaka Morishima, a 16-year-old boy who runs away to Tokyo to escape a suffocating home environment, and Hina Amano, an 18-year-old girl who bounces from one odd job to the next to provide for her younger brother after their mother dies. Rather than stopping to reflect on their trauma, the two of them are determined to keep moving forward.

After their chance encounter in the streets of Tokyo, Hina leads Hodaka to the roof of an abandoned building. He watches in disbelief as she prays and the rain stops. This is how Hodaka learns that Hina is a “sunshine girl” — a mythical figure with control over the elements who can temporarily bring out the sun.

But as Hina’s popularity grows and she brings out the sun for more and more people — even clearing the sky for the city’s biggest fireworks festival — the repercussions of her power become apparent. Strange patches of glowing light start to appear on parts of her body, and her powers throw nature off-kilter. Hina, Hodaka and their friends must find a way to save her before her condition worsens, and the city before the elements threaten to sink it.

Scorching summers and strong typhoons have become the norm in Japan in recent years. In summer 2019, a heatwave killed 57 people and sent more than 18,000 to hospitals in just one week, according to The Japan Times. Typhoon Hagibis made landfall later that year, killing more than 30 people and injuring nearly 200 others, NPR reported. Shinkai’s movies have shifted with the weather, previously depicting it as a breathtaking background element, and more recently as a force with destructive power.

“In my works up until now, I’ve always portrayed the weather as something beautiful,” Shinkai said in an interview GKIDS

In the animated film “Weathering with You,” Hina Amano approaches a shrine gate bathed in sunlight amid the pouring rain.

Please see CLIMATE, page 8

Friday, March 6, 2020 N 7

The Stanford Daily

THE GRIND Instagram for academics How using the social media app has contributed to my success as a student

By ELENI ANEZIRIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When I first started posting stories on my Instagram, I never anticipated that it would actually help me focus.

In fact, I always thought it was doing just the opposite: distracting me. That’s not to say Instagram doesn’t distract me — when I post a photo, I have to do it right before class or at another phone-free time so I’m not constantly checking to see if

my crush (who, of course, is never online) has liked it yet.

But during fall quarter, while digging through some notes I took regarding an idea for a narrative in a creative writing class, I found I couldn’t read my handwriting. It wasn’t the first time such had happened to me, but this one felt important. I posted an Instagram story asking for help.

I received some reasonable suggestions, such as “fumed,” “for ward,”

“frowned” and “farmed.” But in the end, none of them seemed to fit. Even so, my Instagram stories turned into a place I could go to crowdsource writing help. From story ideas to character names to grammar questions (until recently, I was apparently part of the 2% who did not know the past tense of “strike”), my Instagram story became an even more powerful writing tool than BabyNames.com.

Around the same time, my

friend started snapping me excerpts from books she was reading that were relevant to our conversations. I stole her idea and started posting excerpts from books I was reading as Instagram stories.

Though these stories were much less interactive — I occasionally asked for book suggestions because I have way more books on my Goodreads to-read shelf than I can reasonably get through in a lifetime — I loved looking for lines that I felt in my chest and finding gifs that best expressed that feeling.

I didn’t notice much about this new habit until I read a book a few weeks ago

that I absolutely could not stand. It wasn’t that it was bad — the language was so dense to get through that I had to Google several words per page, and when I did, the definitions I found didn’t even feel worth the effort. I ran out of patience 10 pages in. But I had to read it for a class, so I tried my best. I really did. A few days into the book, when I finally found the first sentence I actually liked, I posted it on my Instagram story. From then on, I noticed that the only thing that kept me reading was the thrill of finding another line I liked and getting to post it on Instagram. I paid closer attention to the language, plot,

characters. I later noticed myself doing this for books that I liked, too. It just wasn’t as obvious to me, since every other line could easily end up on my Instagram.

Ultimately, none of it matters, as I am still the neutral evil who marks a book as “read” on Goodreads even if I only tried and abandoned it.

But it does raise an important question: Does Instagram really make me a better student, or am I so dependent on it that I can’t focus on anything without it?

Contact Eleni Aneziris at elenia@stanford.edu if you can think of any other interpretations of her chicken scratch.

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S ATIRE

Hopkins Marine Station captured by pirates

By BENJAMIN MIDLER STAFF WRITER

In a startling turn of events, the Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey, California, was captured by pirates last weekend.

According to eye-witness sources, a full-rig frigate with 20 cannons a-side approached before dawn. It anchored not far from shore, and lowered multiple jollyboats to the tempestuous sea, each overflowing with battle-hardened pirates.

They rowed to the beach and then climbed up the bluff to the Marine Station where they quickly overpowered the unsuspecting and meek faculty and students with their cutlasses and Johnny Depp-esque smolder.

Unconfirmed reports state that the pirates — after bursting into a Hopkins classroom where BIOHOPK 198H: “Directed Instruction or Reading” was being taught — proceeded to tie the professor to a chair.

“I am the professor now,” said the leader of this band of brigands.

Several undergraduates then proceeded to, after raising their hands and being called on, question the pirate’s credentials.

“From where did you receive your Ph.D.,” one asked.

A fourth wanted to know if there would be any changes to the class’s grad-

RICHARD COCA/The Stanford Daily

Students set to study at Hopkins in spring quarter were recently informed that, instead of taking the normal courses, they would immediately begin training as pirates.

Matrick Ponreal, who began early, said he is “really enjoying” the course PIRATE 136: “Advanced Blubberbus.” ing policy. He was made to walk the plank.

When asked what he intended to do about the situation, Provost Persis Drell answered, “Shiver me timbers, we’re going to take it back, by golly,” as she pulled an eye patch and fake parrot from a Party City shopping bag. “We’ll show those bilgerats what we’re made of!

They’re sure to be dancing with Jack Ketch, as I intend to give neither quarter nor parley, ho!”

Indeed, students who were planning on studying abroad at Hopkins for Spring Quarter were recently informed that, rather than their normal assortment of classes, they would immediately begin training as pirates.

“At first I was skeptical,” reported Matrick Ponreal, a sophomore who began the program early. “But I’m really enjoying my PIRATE 136: ‘Advanced Blunderbuss’ class. I’ve barely hung the jib since I started.”

When asked for comment, the pirates occupying Hopkins report that they’re ready for whatever offensive Drell can muster.

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Contact Benjamin Midler at bmidler@stanford.edu.

8 N Friday, March 6, 2020

The Stanford Daily

REBOUND FOR FINGALL WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PREPS FOR FIRST PAC-12 TOURNEY MATCHUP

By DANIEL MARTINEZ-KRAMS STAFF WRITER

This weekend, senior forward Nadia Fingall will play in her third and final Pac-12 tournament. Last year, an ACL tear in her left knee kept Fingall out of the final 24 games of the season, so she was on the sideline for the tournament during its first year in Las Vegas.

“A lesson I learned, last year especially, is that you can’t take any second for granted,” Fingall said.

“Nobody expects to get hurt, and I definitely didn’t. It taught me a lot about myself.”

Fingall’s season-high performance came one day short of the one-year anniversary of her injury. On Jan. 4, 2019, she tore her ACL. On Jan. 3, 2020, she went for a season-high 20 points against Washington State.

Four years ago, Stanford beat Oregon State in the 2017 conference title game in Seattle, Washington, propelling Fingall, the three other members of the freshman class and Stanford to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament.

Oregon, which Stanford bypassed in those semifinals, has gone from sixth in the conference to an undeniable first.

Now, No. 7 Stanford (25-5, 14-4 Pac-12) is set to meet Oregon State (23-8, 11-8 Pac-12) in the quarterfinal, with Oregon looming on the other side of the bracket for a potential rematch of the championship game for a third time running. The Cardinal are seeded third partly because of a home upset to UCLA in which, Fingall says, her team did not come out of the locker room with intensity.

“Regardless of how it goes, it’s going to be a challenge,” Fingall said. “We all know that. We’re expecting that, and we’re preparing for that.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog conference.

You have to be prepared to come out and play your best every night,” she continued. “Because if you don’t, whoever you’re playing against will

SHOULTS Continued from page 3 place in the championship final with a time of 1:44.02. Liang came in right behind him at 1:44.14.

Freshman Shane Blinkman earned 10th (1:45.32), sophomore Jonathan Cook came in 12th (1:45.97) and Ho came in 13th (1:46.15). Sophomore Daniel Roy

TENNIS Continued from page 3 Cash (6-4, 7-5). Junior Timothy Sah then earned a straight-set win over Justin Boulais (7-6[5], 6-3) to tie it up 3-3. Freshman Neel Rajesh clinched the win with a victory over No. 78 James Trotter (6-2, 3-6, 6-3), completing the upset.

The women’s team continued its recent streak of dominance with a shutout win over Saint Mary’s on Tuesday afternoon, bringing their active winning streak to four games. The team has dropped only one game all season, but has posted five shutouts on the year thus far.

Senior Emily Arbuthnott earned her 100th career singles win, highlighting Stanford’s dom-

CLIMATE Continued from page 6 with Crunchyroll. “But in reality, especially in Japan, the weather has become a real threat to humans.”

“Weathering with You” is a piece of work in a growing body of art that incorporates the human experiences of climate change and disastrous weather events. Experts say climate fiction, or cli-fi, will prove central in the fight against climate change. “I’m interested in how you can use this sort of long-form storytelling narrative approach to communicate complex ideas,” said James Jones, associate professor of aarth system science, “because climate change is complicated ... and there are lots of cascading consequences.”

Jones is also a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and says he is an avid clifi reader himself. Neuroscience studies of storytelling have shown that people tend to have a

take advantage.”

This year, Fingall’s classmate senior guard DiJonai Carrington will be the one watching from the sidelines. Between Carrington’s voice off the court and Fingall’s on it, Stanford has two leaders who are embodying the focus head coach Tara VanDerveer said the team needs to succeed this weekend.

Keys to Vegas For spurts this season, Stanford has blown teams out of the water but has rarely put it together for a full 40 minutes. So what does Stanford look like when it is playing its best basketball?

“What does it look like?” VanDerveer said. “We’re taking care of the ball. We’re rebounding, and people are talking and being really aggressive.”

In the season-closing road trip to Arizona, Stanford twice committed double-digit turnovers, even venturing to a season-high 22 in a 73-72 overtime loss to the Wildcats. Due to that defeat, Stanford tied with UCLA for second in the regularseason standings and ended up being seeded third on a tiebreaker.

Now, the Bruins represent a potential redemption game in a hypothetical semifinals.

There are three keys to a successful Vegas trip for the Cardinal — the first is the freshmen. With guard Haley Jones still out, the remaining members of the nation’s second-ranked recruiting class will need to shine.

Forward Fran Belibi had her best game of the season against Arizona State. Forward Ashten Prechtel was just named Sixth Player of the Year in the media vote. Guard Hannah Jump shoots 37.7% from beyond the arc but has seen her minutes wane recently.

Stanford’s highest ranking nationally in any stat category is made 3pointers, and the team just might need Jump to shoot the lights out to make a deep run.

“We have a very young group, and this is their first time in the

also earned a spot in the bonus final.

The 50-yard freestyle was next and was the weakest event of the day for the Cardinal. None of the Stanford athletes made it into the championship final. Junior Jordan Greenberg tied for 12th, coming in at 19.73. Gonzalez came in 15h (19.84) and freshman Neel Roy came in 16th (19.94).

At the end of the day, Stanford was ahead with 253.5 points.

inant performance. The economics major defeated Jordan Harris in straight sets (6-1, 6-2), bringing her career record to 100-25 overall.

After No. 43 Choy/Higuchi earned the day’s first doubles victory, the No. 19 Arbuthnottt/Blake duo narrowly defeated McIntyre/Kozyreva (7-6[6]) to earn the doubles point for Stanford. Senior Emma Higuchi provided the clincher for Stanford, handily taking down Danielle McIntyre (6-1, 6-2).

The women’s team returns to home conference play on Friday against No. 37 USC before hosting No. 3 UCLA on Saturday. Meanwhile, the men’s team heads to La Jolla, CA for the Pacific Coast Doubles tournament.

KAREN AMRBOSE HICKEY/isiphotos.com

Friday marks the beginning of senior forward Nadia Fingall’s (above, center) final Pac-12 tournament.

Third-seeded Stanford’s first test for the conference crown is set for 8:30 p.m. PT against Oregon State. tournament,” VanDerveer said.

“Keep doing all the good things they’ve been doing, not let the tournament lights change anything.”

The next key will be defense, which comes down to the Hull twins, Lexie and Lacie. Lexie was named First Team All-Pac-12 defense, and Lacie was an honorable mention alongside Fingall. Defense is a significant part of senior guard Anna Wilson’s game and an underrated aspect of junior guard Kiana Williams’s play.

On the topic of Williams, as VanDerveer has said all year, “Ki” is the key. In the last five games, Williams has scored 33% of Stanford’s points, with the offense running through her hands more than ever. The All-

Pac-12 first team member has carried the offense when others have lagged — and she has at times won games virtually single-handedly.

The final key will be the adjustments of VanDerveer, already a Hall of Fame coach. There are unique challenges of playing a team for a third time and winning for a third time. More difficult, however, will be playing a team for the third time and winning for the first.

“This is a very tough conference where I think we’re the best conference in the country,” VanDerveer said. “And do we want to be first? Yeah. And now we get a chance. You know, we didn’t get it the first time. Now we’re trying for a second time.”

Berkeley is catching up quickly, however. At the end of Wednesday’s meet, the Bears were 95 points behind, but they are now in second place with 238 points.

The meet will continue Friday morning with prelims in the 400yard individual medley, 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke and 100yard backstroke.

BEAVERS

Contact Natalie Hilderbrand at nhild@stanford.edu.

MUSIC Continued from page 6

Contact Shan Reddy at rsreddy@ stanford.edu.

is, unfortunately, very relatable ... tsk tsk). My favorite line from the song was when Mariam described “playing with your hair with my fingertips.” Between her surprising French intro, William’s guitar skills, and Mariam’s vocal talent, the performance was simply unforgettable.

Parker Day (Cameron Woods ’20) began his set by telling the audience about his unique, creative process: writing raps based on Youtube beats that call to him.

While humble by nature, Parker Day is a talented lyricist with an invigorating stage presence. Before his song “Stay Golden,” Parker Day bantered with the audience

stronger response when information is presented in a narrative format, in part because a powerful story fully engages the reader or viewer through investment in the narrative and characters. For example, when public service announcements (PSAs) are engaging, oxytocin and a hormone related to attentiveness are released in the brain, and donations to relevant charities become 261% more likely, according to a study conducted by neurobiologist Paul Zak in 2015. Another benefit of achieving successful engagement is the activation of the body’s stress pathways, which can alter how audiences perceive the threat of climate change.

Human beliefs about the world are determined by what we see on a daily basis. If a city experiences a cold winter and a warm summer, for example, its citizens will have less anxiety about climate change because they’re not seeing clear evidence of it in their everyday lives. Known as the positivity bias, this psychological effect is considered a major barrier to raising cli-

mate change awareness.

But stress has the power to override it.

Cli-fi with a strong narrative, relatable characters and emotional plot lines can draw audiences in and activate stress pathways, erasing the positivity bias and making it possible for them to experience a shift in their thinking about climate change.

Another aspect of successful clifi is telling a relatable story where the characters are navigating everyday tasks and challenges, like finding a job and building interpersonal relationships. When elements of a changing climate are present, but secondary to these day-to-day concerns, audiences can first connect to the characters’ struggles. These initial connection points pave the way for the reader or viewer to start digesting a story’s deeper climate change themes — and see parallels to their own lives in the process.

The never-ending downpour depicted in “ Weathering with You”seems fantastical at first. But Hina and Hodaka’s fighting to

Continued from front page seem as if the Cardinal might complete their comeback — but Tinkle answered with two trips to the foul line and a perfect 4-for-4 mark in the final 17 seconds to secure the win for the Beavers. The final four moved Tinkle’s total for the night to a game-high 23 points.

about experiences with high-school exes, and then dove into a song that transitioned from longing for a missed relationship into a compelling verse about the loneliness of the Stanford campus and fears of “not making it.” Parker Day’s observations really stuck with me and validated my experiences, and, judging from the nods in the audience, I wasn’t the only one. The song “Vacation” was fittingly composed off a sample of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys, and was inspired by his trip to France.

Equal parts carefree and cheeky, the chorus was so catchy and moving that Parker had the entire audience singing along unprovoked, as if they weren’t hearing the song for the first time. Parker Day showcased a great flow, uplifting energy and deeply moving, skillfully worded lyrics. The show wouldn’t have been the same without him. keep moving forward and helping each other along the way is such a human story that it becomes possible to connect with them and see parallels between their reality and ours. The rain that seemed purely fictional becomes a metaphor for unusual weather patterns. The absence of Japanese wildlife that usually thrives during the summer conjures thoughts of changing ecosystems. And the slow-butconstant flooding of Tokyo’s streets mirrors the reality of rising sea levels.

But there are positive parallels, too — Hina and Hodaka’s continued search for solutions reminds us that, even when something feels wildly outside of human control, like climate change, the situation is not completely hopeless. A cli-fi like “Weathering with You” is special not only because it raises awareness of environmental issues, but also because it reminds us that there is an active role we can play in fighting for a better future.

Contact Kaylee Beam at kbeam97 @stanford.edu.

To do so, Stanford would potentially need to go through three NCAA tournament teams from the highest-rated conference by RPI in three days.

“You’ve seen yourself against them,” VanDerveer said. “You know matchups — you understand what they’re doing.”

Stanford opens tournament play against Oregon State Friday at 8:30 p.m. PT. “Our coaches do an amazing job of trying to scout for us,” Fingall said. “I think if we all just really dial in and execute during the game, there’s nobody that can beat us.”

Contact Daniel Martinez-Krams at danielmk@stanford.edu.

Kelley, on the other hand, harassed Stanford’s offense around the basket from the opening minutes and finished with three blocks to prove it.

For their final game of both the road trip and the regular season, the Cardinal move on to Eugene to face the No. 13 Ducks.

Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. PT on Saturday.

Contact Savanna Stewart at savnstew @stanford.edu.

The final performer was Cat Davis ’21, who performed songs she had written for classes here at Stanford. From her first song “Nice Try,” Cat Davis’s clean vocal dexterity was already apparent.

Cat has an excellent range, able to go from deep notes to falsetto seemingly effortlessly within the span of a single chorus. According to Davis, people have referred to “Nice Try” as “savage.” After listening to the lyrics, this description is understandable — the song is a bold call-out to an insincere suitor and their tactics. Beyond lyrics, both of Cat Davis’s songs featured jazzy, experimental sounds; “Don’t Worry Baby,” in particular, contained modulated backing vocals that imbued the song with a beautiful, slightly ghostly air.

Sitting on the bean bag (I eventually upgraded from the floor to a bean bag) in the Mars common room, and watching all of the performers, I couldn’t help but have the feeling that I was watching artists who would someday be “the next big thing.” The talent was overwhelming. It felt like the kind of thing you would tell your kids — you saw them first, you saw them before they “made it.” So many different sounds, personalities, feelings and art styles were represented. Thanks to the remarkable originality and creativity of studentartists, Music @ Mars has consistently delivered completely new and enticing material for its audience, who gather during the stress and bustle of Week 9 to simply enjoy music together. And now officially produced by Palm Drive Records, alongside various music-recording workshops, Music @ Mars (with its consistent good vibes) has become an anchor in the ocean of musical opportunities for student-musicians on campus.

Natalie Francis contributed reporting.

Contact Megan Faircloth at meganfaircloth@stanford.edu.