While Wallace often discusses current events that might typically be covered by “gossip channels” or celebrity news, his approach is radically different. Rather than using these events as entertaining fodder, he takes them as opportunities to examine underlying social structures and implications.

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If anyone can be described as the intellectual figure of this generation, it’s ContraPoints.

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I’m not “anti-athlete.” Athletes are fine. I have friends who are athletes. However, the way that the University prioritizes these athletes over the rest of us, is simply bullshit. We all know why Stanford does it: the big bucks.

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But when I hear them say how they can’t wait to “return to normal,” I also feel a pang in my chest, because I know that such a return may make many of the fulfilling, meaningful activities I do now inaccessible to me again.

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Editor’s note: The Reads beat is publishing short fiction, poetry and other creative writing pieces. Send submissions to scotts7 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Most Stanford undergraduates live in residences where they don’t cook, clean or grocery shop, and finding housing is handled by the draw and the board cost, which Stanford has absolute authority to determine, is slapped on their student bill.

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Introduction At an institution like Stanford, where class privilege is a norm, where you can be considered first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) even while making more than the median income in the U.S., one would believe that a shared humanity would kick in during times when students, vital members of our community, are in need. Some…

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