NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS
Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022
Volume 159 No. 6 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
Extreme heat coming to SJ By Nick Zamora STAFF WRITER
An excessive heat warning for San Jose and the greater Bay Area was announced Wednesday by the National Weather Service (NWS). The heat wave is going to remain in effect from 11 a.m. Saturday to 8 p.m. Tuesday Pacific Standard Time, according to the NWS statement. There will be “dangerously hot conditions with temperatures up to 107 expected,” according to the same statement. That brings challenges to some San Jose State students living on campus, especially those that live in dormitories with either limited or no central air conditioning. “I would say that the [lack of AC in Joe West] is actively trying to kill people, but that’s a bit of hyperbole,”
said Nate, a vocal performance sophomore who has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) which leaves him sensitive to heat. Nate wished to be referred as only his first name because of privacy concerns. After being placed in Joe West Hall his freshman year in 2020, Nate said he was “functionally invalid” for the entirety of his time that he spent there because of the heat. Subsequently, Nate said he took the 2021-22 academic year off of school. “The one accommodation I had requested was someplace with air conditioning and they didn’t give it. Even though I had all my paperwork,” Nate said. The Resident Life Coordinators and Student Housing services were unable to comment. Any statement
given after first publication will be updated online. SJSU meteorological professor Craig Clements said excessive heat is not uncommon during the summer months. Clements said in an email that high pressure systems with low subsidence or a sinking effect allows the air to keep warming instead of dissipating. Michelle Smith Mcdonald, senior director for strategic communication, said the Student Health and Wellness Center will send a campus wide email regarding the heat advisory. Follow the Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily Photo illustrations by Bryanna Bartlett; Source: Canva
NEWS ANALYSIS
Endangered corpse flower blooms, dies at SJSU greenhouse By Saumya Monga ASSOCIATE EDITOR
The odor of rotting human flesh could be smelt in San Jose State’s Botany Garden, where a rare corpse flower, or “Terry Titan,” reached full bloom in mid-July. Terry is the first corpse flower to bloom in Silicon Valley, meanwhile there are less than 1000 corpse flowers left in their natural habitat, which is subtropical areas, according to the U.S. Botanic Garden Corpse Flowers webpage. The International Union for Conservation listed the corpse flower, or Titan Arum, as an endangered plant species in 2018, according to its Red List of Threatened Species webpage.
PHOTO FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Former president Ronald Reagan (left) gives a medal to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Reagan Library on May. 4, 1992.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian & Soviet leader, dies at 91 By Bojana Cvijic EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Mikhail Gorbachev, a Russian and Soviet politician known for being the last leader of the Soviet Union, died at age 91 on Tuesday after a period of illness, according to a Tuesday BBC news article. Gorbachev came into power in 1985, his policies of “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (rebuilding) were significant in allowing more freedom in speech and economic reform in the former Soviet Union. Sabrina Pinnell, senior lecturer at San Jose State on post-Soviet politics, expressed how the U.S. loved Gorbachev for his policies and his willingness to open the former Soviet Union up to the West. “The U.S. loved him, but the U.S. was also mostly unaware of what was going on in the USSR due to the limits on the press and communications,” Pinnell said in an email. In Germany, he is viewed endearingly as his policies
The corpses that we have saved and preserved might be the only future specimens that we have someday that are stored in an herbarium because earth no longer possesses the climate for such organisms to grow. It’s kind of a testament to the will of life.
led to the reunification of the country, which led to the fall of the Berlin wall that eventually culminated with the official reunification of East and West Berlin in 1990. President Joe Biden praised Gorbachev in a Tuesday statement, acknowledging his openness to democratic change. “After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms. He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation,” Biden said, according to a Tuesday Associated Press article. Gorbachev was widely praised in the West for his efforts in implementing democratic reforms in the Soviet Union, according to the Associated Press article. However, in his home country he was considered a
The International Union for Conservation is a membership union composed of both government and civil society organizations that work in the field of nature conservation and natural resources’ sustainability, according to its website. Erika Snyder, senior biology and assistant greenhouse tender, said corpse flowers are rare because they take an unpredictably long time to bloom, the climate conditions need to be “absolutely perfect” and their ideal habitats are shrinking. “[The corpse flowers] grow specifically in subtropical places like Thailand and Sumatra, where it’s very specific conditions for them to live, have been deforested since
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Erika Snyder senior biology, assistant greenhouse tender