The independent newspaper of Stanford since 1987
MIT + Harvard + Interwebs = EdX
As an undergraduate on the Farm, it’s not often that I frown at a post in the media that hails Stanford as, among other things, a bastion of rigorous education. But Gregory Ferenstein’s recent Techcrunch piece titled “Move Over Harvard and MIT, Stanford has the ‘real revolution in education’ was a disappointing read, not in the least because it reflects such a poor understanding of the flipped classroom model that it so enthusiastically lauds.
Chi Theta Chi is arguably Stanford's most unique form of housing.
If you’ve been to Chi Theta Chi (or “XOX,” as it is more commonly known), you’ve probably been able to walk in easily and roam around without anyone raising an eyebrow at you. In fact, I doubt you would face much opposition if you picked up one of the lonely pool cues in the corner and walked off with it. So what’s this “Anti-Theft” business? Well, earlier this week the University announced that XOX would be under review for two years, during which time it’s lease will be discontinued (with the possibility of a renewed lease if the XOX alumni board and residents prove themselves capable of handling their own management).
Overview: It’s time to be real about everybody’s go-to restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory on University Avenue. The typical explanations for why people typically want to go to the Cheesecake Factory is because it has a wide array of food, is inexpensive or is large enough to accommodate a crowd of Stanford kids out on the town. While it is true that the Cheesecake Factory provides ample seating and even more food options, this reviewer believes that the food is just not worth the convenience. It’s time to sacrifice the picky food eater in your group (sometimes its me) and just go to a restaurant that specializes in one type of food, not 53.
People out there may ask, why the bitterness? Is Cheesecake Factory really that bad? I would say yes, although I know plenty of people who love Cheesecake Factory in an odd way. In fact, I used to be one of those people. So why the change in heart? Let me describe the last two times I have gone there.
I will break it down into categories so you all can truly understand my angst.
With the explosive growth of social media and technological ease to communicate around the world, our culture as of late has prided itself on being well-connected in a variety of ways. We all certainly find ourselves in dire situations where the use of a cell phone or email has proved most handy, but what of the greater consequences stemming from our increased mechanization for communication and staying connected with one another?
Skype, Facebook, and Twitter certainly have carried some great baggage in terms of communication, especially in the world of sports, news, and popular culture. The speed of which popular news and trends circulate throughout social circles is incredible. With all of the positives from these media outlets, I feel like our current social media makeup is adversely affecting our social lives, and some. Our generation brags about how well wired we are, but are we really? If I were in college in 1985 and wanted to ask a friend in my dorm a question, I would physically walk over to his room and ask the question face to face. Today, the options of communication are extensive. Text messaging, email, tweeting, and facebooking all being common options. Given the rapidity of our communication, I feel that some of our “real-life” conversations may subconsciously mean less to us.
Have we become more socially awkward? Are we overly-dependent on technology to “ask the hard questions” for us? Isn’t is much easier to ask someone an awkward question via text or instant messenger than face to face? I think so. We are becoming increasingly dependent on technology to do things we had to do manually before. We are certainly becoming increasingly dependent socially.
I am only 23 years old, and I do not intend to sound like a wise old man, but given the extraordinary changes that we have seen technologically just in my short life alone, I honestly am disappointed in my generation’s championing of the mantra of “being well connected”. I use my Droid every day. I check my email on it, I text my friends, listen to radio stations from back home, and listen to my music library, but I always try to not let it run my life. My overarching fear isn’t that we are becoming more socially awkward (which I certainly think we are), but the fact that we are becoming so bogged down with what is happening in the palm of our hands, as opposed to the world around us. Sure, I can check any football score, political poll, or breaking news within seconds if I reach into my pocket and be “aware” of what’s going on in the world, but do I always have to be so concerned with what is going on? Not necessarily.
If you truly feel like you’re connected, put down your phone for a few days. Deactivate your Facebook or Twitter account. At the end of the day, I’m not against social media, I’m not against furthering technology, or communication. I’m just against people not looking up and noticing the beautiful world around them once in a while. It’s an empowering notion. The right question isn’t are we connected, but rather what are we connected to? Just a thought.
Are the Mexican food options at Stern not satisfying you anymore? Are you yearning for some delicious guacamole and chips? Look no further than Vive Sol, located at 2020 W. El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA. Full disclosure: I have a car so a few of these restaurants that I recommend may be a bit far away for those who only have access to the Marguerite. However, Vive Sol is so tasty that it is worth the effort to go sign up for a Wheelz or ZipCar account.
Now onto the actual restaurant.
The Space: First thing you need to know: this place is small. If you are trying to come here between 6-8 on any weeknight, save yourself some boredom and bring a book or a particularly lively conversation partner. Odds are you will be waiting anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. However, if you can push your way through to the bar area, you can entertain yourself by looking at the décor. It is a perfectly charming little restaurant, with wooden beam ceilings and multi-colored lanterns everywhere you look. It looks like the perfect combination of Puebla, Mexico and Anthropologie. As for the sound, it is always pretty loud, but not so terrible that you can’t hear the conversation of the person across from you. If you are a low talker, you may need to assert yourself a bit but hey it’s all worth it.
The Service: Perfect. They refill your drink (and more importantly, your chips and salsa) promptly and are extremely nice at the same time.
The Food: Finally the important stuff. Even though I am sometimes a picky eater, I love almost everything on this menu. And for those who aren’t picky eaters, like my co-writer Keshav, then you will definitely love everything on this menu. For appetizers, they have delicious guacamole (though if you are ordering something on the menu that includes guacamole, this is a pricey start to the meal). The fried calamari is quite nice as well—it is served with fresh cilantro and a spicy salsa that balances the flavors perfectly. One word of warning: don’t get the Coctelde Cameron. The shrimp are small and bland, which is very abnormal in an otherwise delicious menu.
For entrees: It’s a large menu, and you can’t really go wrong, but I will tell you my and my date’s favorite entrees. I enjoy the Burrito de Carne Asada, which is filled with delicious peppers and grilled onions along with the meat and other items. Ask for melted cheese on the top, mix with the rice and beans to the side, and enjoy! My date got the Sabana Invierno, which is thin sliced pieces of grilled steak on top of a bed of beans, sliced chorizo, and a blanket of melted cheese. Based on how empty his plate was after the meal (and they give substantial portions) I would say it was good. In addition, the Camarones al Chipotle, or shrimp with chipotle spices, is also a very good choice. However, if you aren’t a fan of spice, I would advise a different option—I went through about six glasses of water during that meal.
The Price: The appetizers range from $7-10 while the entrees range from $12-18. It’s a little pricey, but then again most things in Palo Alto are and most restaurants are not this good.
The Hours:
Lunch Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday 11am – 2pm
Dinner Hours of Operation: Sunday – Thursday 5pm – 9pm
Weekend Dinner Hours of Operation: Friday and Saturday 5pm – 9:30pm
Overall, this restaurant is fabulous and I would definitely recommend giving it a try (and then going there again and again). For best results, go before six on weekends or before seven during the week—a place this good always has customers out the door! Also, a word of caution: Vive Sol as a sister restaurant on California Ave. that is called Palo Alto Sol. While it too is quite good, the location in Mountain View simply blows it out of the water in terms of food deliciousness. Not exactly sure why, but trust me on this one.
Come back next week for another review! I promise to try to review something a bit closer to campus.
The current BCS system for many years now has been under much scrutiny on the figures the computers provide, as well as the selections process regarding the BCS championship game and the other 4 major bowls. The BCS contract will expire in 2014, and serious talks within the world of college football have been aiming towards amendments in the postseason process in regards to the role of the BCS. I feel that a change is not necessary, but healthy for the sport in the long run. Those who may simply dismiss the current BCS system as unpractical or unfair I feel are taking too drastic a step, and are over-simplistic in how they are evaluating college football as a whole.
College football has always been popular in the U.S. on the mainstream level, but the BCS elevated college football to a new, modern echelon that would have never been possible under any other system. Stanford fans should be especially aware of this, considering the BCS implications stemming from the Cardinal victory over USC in 2007, which sent shock waves throughout the ranks of collegiate football. On that October night, fans across the country gasped and cheered at the chaos which would follow the Trojan loss. At the announcement of the Stanford-USC score, the violent uproars felt in Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge or in the Rose Bowl that night would be but meaningless “ohh’s and ahh’s” if a large-scale playoff existed without some kind of ranking system like the BCS. If the BCS did not exist, and perhaps a large postseason playoff instead, the Stanford victory would mean very little in the long run for the Trojans. National media would have eventually shrugged off the win as a road bump for the Trojans en route to staying in the top 16 for the rest of the year to still have a national title shot.
The BCS has taught us that every game matters. Under the current system, the entire season is a playoff in itself. If you are a BCS team in a major conference with a respectable schedule, win and you’re in. Of course there will always be exceptions, and nothing will ever be perfect (USC in ’03, Auburn in ’04, Boise St.), but the system has achieved a sense a dire emergency for teams to win all of their games, regardless of their “importance”, something the NFL lacks. This system awards teams who perform at the highest level from start to finish, something the NFL also lacks.
What should we change then? With the BCS in the picture in some shape or form, the only realistic possibilities are the status quo or a 4 team playoff. A playoff that is any larger would be unrealistic and would dull the sport. No conference or bowl committee could expect fans from Alabama to travel to the Rose Bowl for a first round game, and then turn around and travel to Miami for the next round. Attendance at these games would be atrocious. Attendance would begin to resemble the monotonous, colorless crowds of rich business executives entertaining clients in the stands like that of the Super Bowl. What about playing on a team’s home field? That solves our attendance problem, although many more persist on the overall picture. There is always this issue of being ”fair”. Boise State and Utah fans would argue that the past few years for them have been anything but fair. A 4-team playoff does address this issue partly, but the fairness problem does not magically vanish. Currently, there have been teams fighting for and debating who deserves the #2 spot to play in the title game. With a 4-team playoff, the same conversation would occur about who should be #4. The fairness issue goes largely unresolved, but rather swept under the rug. Is this better? In my opinion, yes, because I would rather see the system at least get 3 teams in contention for the title “right” as opposed to 1 under the current system.
To realistically address the BCS problems, I feel that the current criteria that combines the Harris Poll, Coaches Poll, and Computer rankings is an effective and largely accurate system, and should not be changed. Complaining that the system is not perfect is not an effective argument against the BCS. No system will ever get everything right. The only amendment I would support would be the addition of a small, 4-team playoff, with higher ranked teams having home field advantage, and then most likely a neutral site for the title game. Seeing as the 4-team playoff would change the outlook of the Orange, Rose, Sugar, and Fiesta bowls, there may have to be additional changes made concerning automatic qualifiers to these bowls. I personally am not entertained watching a Big East team ranked in the 20′s play a BCS game. I am not against that criteria being changed either. Whatever is decided in the end, we cannot allow college football to lose the sense of urgency it has. The BCS has instilled this in the game, and it is pure magic in my opinion. Every game is important. This is what makes college football so enjoyable. This is why college football’s regular season makes the NFL and NBA pale in comparison. Everything matters. It’s a never-ending roller coaster of victory, defeat, controversy, and of dire emergency to win all games. If that doesn’t sound like an awesome season to watch, check your pulse.
City of Angels, a Ram’s Head production, was an absorbing pot-pourri of Broadway-esque jazz, comedy and film noir. The plot of this meandering musical-within-a-musical was a little hard to follow, especially since the premise was its state of continual revision, but this was more than made up for by a sumptuous set and Stanford’s thespian and orchestral talent.
Sex, murder and intrigue abound in this all-too human story of a screenwriter struggling for fame, pandering to his sensationalist producer-director, cheating on his wife, internally plagued by his characters’ thoughts. As he hacks away at his 1940s typewriter, working and reworking the script, his words spring to life on stage left. Felonies, betrayals and infidelities ensue. Everybody sleeps with everybody else. Predictable, yet satisfying.
That half the actors played double roles, often with only subtle character dissimilarities, really speaks for their versatility. (I didn’t realize Anneka Kumli was both Bobbi and Gabby until five minutes before the curtain, a fact that I attribute entirely to her acting, not my vision…) On the whole the show was extremely well cast, perhaps most notably Alaura Kingsley and her legs. Graham Roth (aka Buddy Fiddler) captured a familiar Hollywood stereotype as the quintessentially pushy, shallow director; Clare Bruzek’s sweet, clear voice in “You Can Always Count on Me” was one of the highlights of Act II; Alon Devorah’s endearingly ridiculous Hispanic accent offset some of the doom and gloom that was beginning to develop. Perhaps a little too many gratuitous fornication scenes, but Mallory Kingsley’s lingerie was probably the high point of the evening for some. And undeniably, “SEX”, plastered over every poster across campus, was one of the musical’s intended unique selling points.
There were many fine voices to be found here: the chorus with Rob Biedry was delightful, and though Stine’s acting was decent, it was his singing that really stole the show. Stone was perhaps a better actor than a singer, pulling off convincingly the image of the earnest but easily seducible detective, subject to the whims of fate and the femme fatale. The orchestra was fabulous; I walked away with Cy Coleman’s lingering melodies ringing in my ears, and proceeded to download it all on iTunes the next day. All in all, it was an engaging drama, a thrilling extravaganza of words, color and music. The Last 5 Years will have big shoes to fill indeed. Bravo.
"Predictable yet satisfying."
____________________________________________________________
Nayantara is a Freshman studying Music and CS, and can be contacted at nayanj at stanford.edu.
Stanford in Government and the Stanford Speakers Bureau hosted former chief
GOP strategist Karl Rove and former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
to discuss which party is better suited to lead the country. The central irony of the
afternoon, however, was how each opponent unwittingly disregarded a central
theme of their respective positions: bi-partisan reform.
Rove argued forcefully if aggressively, rattling off facts and details at an impressive
clip. Gibbs was more restrained in his approach, and frequently stuck to generalities.
Both figures clung to their respective party lines when responding to moderator
Rob Reich’s pointed questions, which included questions on previous policies and
the current political climate.
Asked about Obama’s cool, supplicatory character—which some have criticized as
a cause for legislative inefficacy in DC—Gibbs argued the gridlock was due solely
to the obstructionist character of House Republicans. Rove challenged Gibbs on
Obama’s record on immigration reform, claiming the President did not deliver
on his campaign promises, despite the decided Democratic majorities in both the
Senate and the House until 2010. Again, Gibbs cited obstructionist Republicans,
eliding GOP minority status until 2010, and failed to consider what may have been
inadequate governance on the President’s part.
Rove’s debate tactics were no less partisan. Reich asked the former strategist to
comment on the tendency of Republicans to be seemingly “divorced from fact.”
Reich cited Senator Jon Kyl’s statement that abortion related cases represent over
90% of Planned Parenthood services. In reality, only 3% of services are abortion
related. Another example was the view, popular for some time among Republicans,
that President Obama was a foreign born Muslim.
Rove’s primary and most vociferous response was to cite parallel
misrepresentations by Democrats. Thus, he basically evaded what may be a
substantive critique of GOP political culture. Further, when interrogated about the
danger Super PACs represent to the democratic process, Rove mainly cited parallel
reliance on Super PAC financing by Democrats. Rove himself is an advisor to one of
the largest Super PACs, American Crossroads.
The primary strategy for each side was to blame the other. While both decried the
grave problems facing the American people that require genuine bipartisan effort,
the failure to compromise lay squarely in the other camp. Thus, while each figure
sharply criticized the obstinacy of Washington politics, their debate performance
exemplified the very problems they challenged.
Honestly, I could not pass up this opportunity.
Hilarity never ceases to ensue with our political elite: Fox Chicago reported Monday that Rod Blagojevich will be teaching Shakespeare to fellow inmates in prison! Okay, so it’s not really preaching anything, but the idea struck me as incredibly interesting. I would like to think that this follows a recent trend of introducing unconventional subjects in educating inmates, as described in this Ted Talk about teaching philosophy in prison.
Rod Blagojevich is the former Governor of Illinois, who was impeached for corruption charges in 2009, and convicted in 2011 to 14 years of jail-time.
Stanford can’t seem to stay out of the news these days. The New Yorker has just published an in depth feature on Stanford’s entrepreneurial culture with a piece titled “Get Rich U.” The article is far more nuanced than the headline might indicate. Many national news sources have sought to explain the connection between Stanford and Silicon Valley, but Ken Auletta is the first to capture Stanford’s culture with such remarkable precision.
The piece contemplates the conflict between Stanford’s “Silicon-Valley” mindset and the ideals of a liberal arts education. Stanford has emerged as the most practical university in America, but many of Auletta’ interviewees suggest that something is being lost in the process.
Check it out. I’ll bet you know one of the many students quoted.
(The article is entitled “Get Rich U.”)
http://www.newyorker.com/