How we Choose to Heal

Gabriel Greschler is a sophomore politics major.

It was on Thanksgiving night last week that I got dragged into what many would call a taboo subject: political conversation with family and friends during the holidays. In this instance, my friend’s grandmother inquired about my major. After I told her it was politics, she commented on how it had been such an interesting year for it. I agreed tepidly; “interesting” probably had a very different meaning for both of us. We carefully measured each other’s next few responses, unsure of the other’s political orientation. Within moments, our conversation was cut short.

President-elect Trump Knocks on our University’s Door

Throughout the 2016 election, strong anti-immigrant rhetoric was being spewed from much of the conservative party, most notably from President-elect Donald Trump. While the most infamous of these policies came in the form of a supposed wall construction project that would span the border between Mexico and the United States, less dramatic, yet equally harmful proposals have been made by the incoming administration.

This includes President-elect Trump’s plan to repeal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an executive order made by President Obama in June 2012, which allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the country before their 16th birthday or June 2007 to receive a renewable two-year work permit and exemption from deportation. Many DACA applicants have now become part of the student body at our very own university. With no signal from President-elect Trump of any sort of compromise or mediation on the matter, DACA and undocumented students are rightfully worried about their future prospects.

Think Before You Drink

Corey Kowalczyke is a freshman English major.

Every student has done it. You are in the caf grabbing your lunch when you realize you don’t have your refillable water bottle. Out of convenience, you go to the drink section and get a Smartwater. On-campus students may overlook the fact that three dollars of our Flexi was spent on something one can get for free out of the tap. It’s more of a temptation to grab an ice cold bottled water than to take your reusable water bottle to the water fountain to fill up. Despite this, it is ludicrous to charge students such a high price for bottled water.

Even though San Francisco gets its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite–a water system considered very safe to drink–most students do not like the idea of drinking out of the tap. According to the Washington Post, “77 percent of Americans are concerned about pollution in their drinking water, according to Gallup, even though tap water and bottled water are treated the same way, and studies show that tap is as safe as bottled.” Water bottle companies market to consumers using keywords such as “fresh,” “pure,” and “bottled at the source.” These companies also use celebrities and athletes to convince their audiences that drinking bottled water is good for their health. However, the story behind plastic Smartwater bottles goes beyond just marketing.

The 2016 Foggy Awards

David Garcia

Scene Editor

2016 is nearly over, and like many of you, we could not be happier. Here we are, once again ready to hand out some goofy fake awards to the most important and influential people, places and moments from the past year, and we can barely rise to the challenge. Why? Because 2016 has been the most flat-out unpleasant, uninspiring, unnerving year of the past decade.

A slew of artists and celebrities, from Gene Wilder to Leonard Cohen, shuffled off this mortal coil. The alt-right, a conservative pestilence made up of internet trolls, neo-nazis and vote-hungry Republicans, is on the rise. Terrorists carried out massacres across the country, while Black Lives continued to just not matter all that much. Climate change is definitely going to kill us all.

Winter Movie Preview

Arrival

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

David Garcia

Scene Editor

4½ out of 5 stars

Looking for some quality sci-fi? “Arrival” fits the bill perfectly. A delicate film about the inexplicable arrival of a fleet of hovering spaceships and the scientists working to communicate with the beings inside, “Arrival” is miles away from the celluloid vomit of a typical alien invasion movie: no death-defying stunts, no exploding skyscrapers, no faux-inspiring monologue from an American president. Instead, we have Amy Adams delivering one of the year’s best performances as a language expert working with the government to decipher the alien’s messages.