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Card opens spring practice, The Stanford senior talks about
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64 48 60 47

DEAD WEEK

WEDNESDAY
The Stanford Daily An Independent Publication
www.stanforddaily.com Volume 239
March 9, 2011 Issue 27

Stanford athletes had access to

STUDENT GOV’T

Candidates,
slates earn ‘easy’ course list
By RYAN MAC and was designed to accommodate ath- general education requirements. Titled “courses of interest,” the

ballot spots
AMY JULIA HARRIS
CALIFORNIA WATCH
A drama class in “Beginning
Improvising” and another in “So-
Final ASSU ballot set to cial Dances of North America III”
were among dozens of classes on a
feature 3 executive slates closely guarded quarterly list dis-
tributed only to Stanford athletes
to help them choose classes.
By KABIR SAWHNEY
DESK EDITOR
Stanford officials said the list
letes’ demanding schedules and
disputed that the list was made up
of easy courses. Officials discontin-
ued the list last week after student
reporters working for California
Watch began asking about it.
The list, which has existed at
least since 2001,was widely regard-
ed by athletes as an easy class list.
More than a quarter of the courses
on the list did not fulfill university
“It’s definitely not going to be a
hard class if it’s coming off that
list,” said Karissa Cook, a sopho-
more women’s volleyball player,
who consulted the list to pick class-
es in her first quarter at Stanford.
The classes on the list were “al-
ways chock-full of athletes and
very easy A’s,”added Kira Maker,a
women’s soccer player, who used
the list her freshman year.
list was distributed by the Athletic
Academic Resource Center. Ad-
visers in other departments at the
University said they were unaware
such a list existed.
Stanford has long mandated
equal scholastic footing among all
undergraduates,including athletes.
Many of its student athletes,in fact,
Please see LIST, page 2

ASSU Elections Commissioner

Stephen Trusheim ‘13 released the results of
Brain Food STUDENT LIFE
Social dues can no
the petitioning process, which closed last
Friday at 4 p.m., in an e-mail to current
ASSU officials, candidates and special fees

longer pay for alcohol

group officers on Tuesday afternoon.All ex-
ecutive slates, senior and sophomore class
president slates and Undergraduate Senate
candidates received enough verified signa-
tures to appear on April’s ballot.
Of the 15 groups required to petition for
an increase in special fees funding, 11 gath-
ered enough verified signatures to appear
on the ballot.The Stanford Journal of Inter-
national Relations, the Progressive, the
Harmonics and STAMP did not receive
enough signatures.
The final ASSU ballot will feature three
executive slates, two senior class president
slates,five sophomore class president slates,
39 Senate candidates and 52 special fees
groups.Forty-one groups were not required
to petition after receiving approval for their
requested budgets and increases from the
Senate and GSC.
The ballot has not been officially final-
ized by the Elections Commission and will
not be final until the Voter Guide is released
21 days before the election begins.
Two of the Executive slates — “Cruz &
Macgregor-Dennis for Exec” and “Tenzin-
Vasquez” — qualified for public financing
after receiving a minimum of 100 signatures
apiece from the undergraduate and gradu-
ate student populations. The third slate,
“Hertz-Coggeshall Family for Excellence,”
which is backed by the Stanford Chaparral,
made the ballot with paper signatures but
will not receive public financing.
The last item on the ballot is an advisory
referendum entitled “Measure A — Advi-
sory Question on ROTC,” which will ask
voters if they support the return of ROTC
to Stanford’s campus. Both the Senate and
GSC approved the measure earlier this
quarter.The referendum is non-binding; its
purpose is to advise the Faculty Senate’s ad
hoc committee tasked with investigating
ROTC’s return.
However, the referendum may not ap-
pear on the ballot, pending the result of a
Constitutional Council case initiated by
Alok Vaid-Menon ‘13, president of Stan-
ford Students for Queer Liberation
(SSQL).Vaid-Menon contends that the ref-
erendum violates the ASSU’s anti-discrim-
ination statutes. SSQL has been among the
most vocal opponents of ROTC’s return on
the grounds that the program violates the
rights of transgender students, as they are
not allowed to serve openly in the military.
Please see BALLOT, page 7
By TYLER BROWN However, this practice could be in
DESK EDITOR conflict with a Stanford policy that
bans the use of funds held by the
Social dues collected by Row University for the purchase of al-
houses can’t be spent on alcohol cohol.
anymore, according to a Residen- According to some financial
tial Education (ResEd) policy that managers (FMs), the most evident
goes into effect spring quarter.The loophole to this change would be
change comes as ResEd increases to collect unofficial social dues.
its oversight of Row finances and However, this practice might not
revises some unpopular policies work if too few residents con-
put in place fall quarter. tributed.
The policies are part of a larger “We’re allowed to collect vol-
push by ResEd that is attempting untary dues from our residents
“to bring the Row program closer that we can go buy alcohol with,
in line with the rest of the Universi- we just can’t do it through the Uni-
ty” and increase equity between versity,” said one FM, who asked
houses, ResEd Assistant Director to remain anonymous.
Zac Sargeant wrote in a Feb. 15 e- “I can see why the University
mail sent to the Row managers list. would want to do it, but I think it’s
“The only thing that we have absolutely a terrible decision
been unable to accomplish yet, when it comes to the social life of
along this social dues policy transi- the Row,” he added.
tion, was to create a standardiza- Other financial managers said
tion of social funds for non-alco- they understood the rationale
holic purposes to be collected on behind the new policy, but were
the University bill instead of in nonetheless unenthusiastic
house,” he said. about it.
“If you’ve got sophomores liv-
KOR VANG/The Stanford Daily A new social policy ing in the house and you charge
Students gathered at various campus eateries for the 13th annual Row residents are required to them social dues that you’re going
Midnight Breakfast on Monday night. Above, a student enjoys pay social dues, part of which is
traditionally used to buy alcohol. Please see DUES, page 7
bagels and other assorted snacks before hitting the books.
RESEACH
Breakthrough study links gene regions to heart disease
By ELLORA ISRANI which drew data from 14 previous studies, is Of these 23 gene regions, only 13 passed
STAFF WRITER almost 10 times larger than the next-largest statistical tests for validation.
whole-genome study to date. The study replicated and confirmed evi-
School of Medicine researchers have Stanford researchers identified 23 gene re- dence from previous investigations in a
linked 13 new gene regions to the risk of heart gions that predispose individuals to heart dis- meta-analysis, doubling the number of iden-
disease in an unprecedented collaborative ease. They subsequently examined these re- tified gene regions related to heart disease.
study that examined the genomes of more gions in 25,000 afflicted and 25,000 healthy pa- The results are essential in understanding
than 80,000 individuals. The results were pub- tients. heart disease because, unlike other major ill-
lished in this week’s issue of Nature Genetics. “These chips generate 500,000 data points, nesses, it is a product of multiple gene inter-
The study analyzed the genomes of 22,000 but we only took 23 to the next level,” said actions.
people with a history of heart disease and Themistocles Assimes, assistant professor of
60,000 healthy individuals. This investigation, cardiovascular medicine. Please see HEART, page 7

UNIVERSITY SSQL protests Harvard’s recognition of ROTC

Judicial Affairs surveys students
on University Honor Code
CAROLINE CHEN
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Last Friday, after several delays,
the Office of Judicial Affairs (OJA)
closed a survey to gauge student at-
titudes towards the Honor Code as
part of a review initiated by Vice
Provost of Student Affairs Greg
Boardman.The review is the first to
be conducted in 13 years.
The comprehensive survey,
which has been open to students
for more than a month, asks stu-
dents to evaluate their own under-
standing of the Honor Code and
the Judicial Affairs process as well
as the effectiveness of the Honor
Code system at Stanford.
OJA sent the online survey to
approximately 2,400 undergrads
and 4,000 graduate students,waited
for a 40-percent response rate be-
fore closing, wrote Jamie Pontius-
Hogan, assistant dean of student
life, in an e-mail to The Daily. Final
counts report a 24- and 26-percent
response rate from undergrads and
graduate students, respectively.
“A 100-percent response rate
would be satisfying but also unreal-
istic,” Pontius-Hogan said.“It is dif-
ficult to get students to respond to a
survey, but I do not think we faced
any difficulties that others seeking
information this way have not
faced.”
In order to assess the students’
understanding of the Honor Code,
the survey listed various scenarios
such as “working on an assignment
with others when the instructor
asked for individual work” and
“witnessing a case of cheating and
ANASTASIA YEE/
The Stanford Daily
not reporting it.” The survey asked
students to label these scenarios as
“not cheating,” “trivial cheating,”
“moderate cheating” or “serious
cheating.”
In terms of the Judicial Affairs
process, the survey also asked stu-
dents to evaluate what they consid-
ered to be sufficient evidence for
determining whether or not a stu- Courtesy of Sophi Newman
dent violated the Honor Code, of-
fering the options of “preponder- Stanford Students for Queer Liberation (SSQL) gathered in White Plaza on
Friday to rally against Harvard’s reintroduction of Navy ROTC on its campus.
Please see HONOR, page 7 SSQL has been one of the most vocal opponents to ROTC’s potential return.

Index Features/3 • Opinions/4 • Sports/8 • Classifieds/9 Recycle Me

2 ! Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Continued from front page
LIST| “Courses of interest”seen as easy,time-accommodating
have distinguished themselves in the
classroom, notably football stars An-
drew Luck, who has a 3.5 GPA, and
Owen Marecic, who plans to gradu-
ate this year with a degree in human
biology. The university’s hard-line
approach has rankled some coaches
over the years who have watched tal-
ented recruits go elsewhere because
they didn’t measure up to Stanford’s
academic standards.
But some faculty and students say
the list may have offered an academ-
ic advantage for the athletes who re-
quested it — especially since the
general population was unaware it
was even available.The Athletic Aca-
demic Resource Center didn’t adver-
tise the list or post it on its website.
But athletes have been known to ask
for it.
Athletes said they heard about
the list by word of mouth or simply
picked up the document at the re-
source center.
“There’s a perception that the
classes are easier,” said Carly Villare-
al, captain of the Stanford women’s
crew team. “Some of the classes are
substantially easier.”
Austin Lee, director of academic
services at the Athletic Academic
Resource Center, disagreed.
“An objective evaluation of the
courses included on the list reveals
several courses that most students
would consider to be academically
rigorous,” Lee said. He did not iden-
tify specific classes.
Lee said the center’s four advisers
compiled the list to help student ath-
letes find introductory classes that fit
into constrained time schedules and
fulfill general education require-
ments. Afternoon team practices
mean that athletes have to choose
classes that start in the morning and
early afternoon — typically classes
that begin from 9 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.
The list mostly contained classes dur-
ing those hours.
Before officials discontinued the
list, Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of
freshmen and undergraduate advis-
ing, said with other scheduling re-
sources available to all students, per-
haps the list was “unnecessary.”
Gerald Gurney, president of the
National Association of Academic
Advisers for Athletics, was unaware
of the situation at Stanford, and was
unwilling to speculate on the matter.
His association, a collection of col-
lege academic advisers throughout
the nation, focuses on promoting the
integrity of athlete advising.
“The ethical duty of academic ad-
visers working with student athletes
is to assist them in achieving their
personal academic goals and to help
them not take the path of easiest re-
sistance for the purpose of maintain-
ing eligibility,” he said.
“The course list in itself isn’t a vio-
lation, but promoting courses be-
cause they’re easy isn’t, ethically,
something that academic advisers
should do,” he said.
The 40 classes on the winter quar-
The Stanford Daily
ter list included “Intro to Statistics” of it by student reporters. They said Until spring 2009, Stanford also Susan Simoni Burk, the former
and “Elementary Economics.” The there was no comparable list for stu- printed and widely distributed the assistant athletic director for student
list also included 14 classes that didn’t dents who are not athletes. “time schedule,” which listed all the services who oversaw the Athletic
meet general education require- “I don’t have a go-to list for easier quarter’s offerings by time. Academic Resource Center’s advis-
ments, including the “Beginning Im- classes,” said Melissa Stevenson, one Stanford students now also can ing efforts from 1995 to 2009,said any
provising,” and “Social Dances” of the school’s eight academic direc- use the online options of CourseR- student, athlete or not, could pick up
courses in addition to “Public Speak- tors located at student residences. ank and Explore Courses to help sort the list. But she also noted that stu-
ing,” one of the only evening classes “As far as I know, there’s no decided classes based on time offered and dents who were not athletes rarely
on the list. answer to which classes are easier general education requirements. had reason to visit the offices.
Nearly 200 courses in 16 academ- and how to take an easier quarter.” Lee and Lythcott-Haims said the “They were put on a table, and
ic departments and programs offered Lythcott-Haims said the school list was meant to serve as the begin- usually they were gone within the
during the 9 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. time has made accommodations for stu- ning of an advising conversation. first day,” she said.
slots were left off the list, a review of dent athletes because they “have the “We’re not handing it out and dis-
online course catalogs showed. most constrained schedules of any tributing it all around,”said Lythcott- California Watch is a project of the in-
Sociology professor Cecilia Stanford students.” Haims. dependent,nonprofit Center for Inves-
Ridgeway was surprised to learn that “The list originated before the But student athletes said they typ- tigative Reporting. This story was re-
her class titled “Interpersonal Rela- university’s transition to an (sic) ically just picked up a copy of the list ported by Stanford University inves-
tions” was included on the winter searchable on-line bulletin when stu- and left. In some cases, no advising tigative reporting students Ryan Mac,
quarter list. Ridgeway said she had dents had no practical, efficient conversation ever took place. Amy Julia Harris, Elizabeth Titus,
heard about the document in years means to navigate the printed bul- “Literally, when you walk into the Devin Banerjee, Ellen Huet, Joshua
past and talked to the athletics de- letin,” Lee wrote in an e-mail re- AARC, right next to the door, it’s Hicks, Cassandra Feliciano, Daniel
partment about removing her class sponse to student reporters. right there,” said Ryan Sudeck, a jun- Bohm, Jamie Hansen, Julia James,
from the list. She said department But for at least the last seven ior on the men’s crew team. Paul Jones, Valentina Nesci, Dean
staff told her at the time that the list years, the university has provided “I never used it before this year,” Schaffer, Kareem Yasin, Kathleen
did not exist. other ways for students to find class- he continued.“I was trying to get my Chaykowski, and Thomas Corrigan.
Like many professors whose es, including Axess — an online in- requirements done. But this quarter The class was under the direction of
courses are on the list,Ridgeway said terface that enables students to sort it was like,‘Oh,I need an easy class to California Watch Editorial Director
her class is academically challenging, and choose classes by time. boost my GPA.’ “ Mark Katches.
noting that she had given failing
grades to student athletes — to the
displeasure of the athletics depart-
ment.
Other professors were uncon-
cerned that a class they taught made
it onto the list.Some,in fact,said they
believed student athletes should be
treated differently than the typical
student.
“(Stanford) accommodates ath-
letes in the manner that they accom-
modate students with disabilities,”
said Donald Barr, who teaches a
course titled “Social Class,Race,Eth-
nicity, Health,” which was highlight-
ed by resource center advisers.
Some faculty members said they
didn’t believe the list harmed anyone
— and may have helped fill their
classrooms.
Art history lecturer Thomas Beis-
cher, a former Stanford rower, said
he welcomed the boost in enrollment
brought by the inclusion of his class
on the list.
While the list has an intended au-
dience of student athletes, Lythcott-
Haims said any Stanford student
could have obtained a copy of the
document, which was available only
in hard copy from the offices of the
Athletic Academic Resource Center
— in the basement of the Arrillaga
Center for Sports and Recreation.
But Miriam Marks, a Stanford
senior and Daily columnist who was
told about the list, said the list is es-
sentially only for the athlete commu-
nity.
“The biggest drawback is that it is
specifically made available to ath-
letes,” Marks said. “If it was pub-
lished to the entire student body,
that’s a different thing. If I were to
walk in and ask for the list, they
would ask me why I needed it, since
I’m not an athlete.”
Some academic advisers outside
the resource center found out about
the list when they were shown a copy
The Stanford Daily
THE $50,000 BRAIN
DRAIN
How much are college students really learning?
By JESSICA WERTHEIM
STAFF WRITER
S
tanford is known for a lot of things: first-
rate academics, famous faculty, a
staggeringly low admit rate and
overcoming the greatest
odds in football history
in 2007 by defeating USC. But
it turns out that in the broader
American university system,
education may not be one of
the principal accolades.
Indeed, Derek Zoolan-
der may have been on to
something when he advo-
cated for a “Center For
Kids Who Can’t Read
Good.”
Sociology of education pro-
fessors Richard Arum and Josipa
Roska recently made national news
with a report that asserts, more or less,
that college students appear to be learning
squat. Using a sample size of 2,300 under-
graduates from 24 schools across the country, the
large-scale study found that “45 percent of students
show no significant improvement in the key meas-
ures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and
writing by the end of their sophomore years.” This
percent only marginally improved to 36 percent
after four years.
In addition, the researchers found that of those
2,300 undergraduates, “half did not take a single
course requiring 20 pages of writing during their
prior semester, and one third did not take a single
course requiring even 40 pages of reading per
week,” a deficiency that may have contributed to
the lack of intellectual growth among the collegiate
population.
Blame was placed not only on the institutions
and their lack of academic rigor, but on the students
themselves, citing an increase of social engagements
as one of the culprits for decreased test scores.
“Clearly, this is very bad news for university ed-
ucation,” said Catherine Heaney, associate profes-
sor in the Department of Medicine and the Stanford
Prevention Research Center.
“What may happen to a lot of students [during
their first year of college] is that they don’t realize
they need to adjust the way they learn and study,”
Heaney said. “They are being asked to process in-
formation and material in a myriad of different
ways, a far departure from the learning and thinking
they did while still in high school.”
Stephen Dobyns, this year’s
Mohr Visiting Poet, is no stranger to
the classroom and spoke vehe-
mently about the decline in crit-
ical thinking due to class size.
“I have been teaching
for almost 50 years and have
seen this ability to write and to
think really get worse and
worse,” he said. “In order
to successfully teach
writing and composi-
tion, the class size
should be about 10
students, not 35.”
Dobyns elabo-
rated, “Particularly in
ERIC KOFMAN/ the subjects of English,
The Stanford Daily writing and composition
and even critical thinking,
[students] are being failed at the high school level;
instead of being flunked, they’re simply moved, and
once they enter a college environment, they sink.
They lack the knowledge and study skills necessary
to be academically competitive.”
Though from markedly different fields, Heaney
and Dobyns agree that, at least on Stanford’s cam-
pus, academia is alive and well — good news for
Stanford students, considering the $50,000 tuition.
“I really don’t think [stagnation in critical think-
ing and reasoning] is present at Stanford at all,”
Heaney said.“I’ve seen so much growth in students
that I’ve gotten to know, particularly in terms of
their abilities to gather relevant information and in-
tegrate it in critical and appropriate ways.”
Dobyns agrees, citing a measurable difference in
the quality of writing from Stanford students as
compared to other institutions where he has taught,
like Syracuse University and Sarah Lawrence Col-
lege.
“I’m struck here by the writing that I’ve seen,” he
said. “There isn’t the roughness, the simplicity of
syntax and diction or the grammatical mistakes that
Please see LEARNING, page 6
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 ! 3
FEATURES
SHAPING
RULE OF LAW
Student-led Afghanistan Legal Education Project
publishes law books for Afghani universities and
sees books’impact in Kabul first-hand
By MARWA FARAG
DESK EDITOR
A
rmed only with law
textbooks, six Stanford
law students and facul-
ty advisor and senior
research scholar Erik
Jensen landed in Kabul,
Afghanistan on Feb. 6 on a mis-
sion that would last six days.
The group made up Stanford’s
Afghanistan Legal Education
Project (ALEP), a student-led law
school project funded by the U.S.
State Department that creates
textbooks on Afghanistan’s legal
system specifically for the instruc-
tion of Afghani students.
Working with the American
University of Afghanistan
(AUAF), the project is creating a
new generation of lawyers to
shape Afghanistan’s future.
Since it was founded in 2007 by
Stanford law alums Alexander
Benard J.D. ‘08 and Eli Sugarman
J.D. ‘09, the project has published
four textbooks. These include an
introductory text to the laws of
Afghanistan and textbooks on
commercial, criminal and interna-
tional law. Students are currently
writing a textbook on constitu-
tional law.
“The whole project is indige-
nously oriented,” Jensen said.“The
textbooks are written in response
to needs and demands of Afghan
students, and we try to contextual-
ize our work as much as we can to
the politics, economics and social
order in Afghanistan.”
The purpose of the recent trip to
Kabul was to explore the future
and progress of the project. Stu-
dents attended classes that are cur-
rently taught using ALEP text-
books, got feedback from Afghani
students and professors and inter-
acted with administrators at the
AUAF to see where the project is
headed.
“Sitting in on the classes and
meeting with the students was for
us a priority, because that’s the
best way we can get feedback on
our books and make the project
better,” said Daniel Lewis LAW ‘12
and ALEP co-executive director.
After meeting with the presi-
dent of AUAF, the group agreed
that the ultimate goal for the proj-
ect is to build a complete law
school curriculum.
“The time frame is uncertain,
but we’re expanding really quick-
ly,” Lewis said.
In addition to rolling out the
new textbook, ALEP plans to in-
troduce new classes in the fall on
Islamic law and the informal jus-
tice system in Afghanistan, taught
by a collaborating Afghan profes-
sor and an affiliated postdoctoral
fellow. Workshops on practical
skills such as negotiation and writ-
ing are also on the horizon, as well
as translations of the books into
Dari and Pashto.
The group met other notable
Afghan and American officials,
including the dean at the Kabul
University School of Law, univer-
sity professors from the most pop-
ulated provinces and Ambassador
Hans Klemm, coordinating direc-
tor of rule of law and law enforce-
ment at the Embassy of the Unit-
ed States in Kabul.
“All the high officials we met
Stanford law students in the Afghanistan Legal Education Project (ALEP)
meet with Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi during their six-day trip to Kabul.
SERENITY NGUYEN/
The Stanford Daily
with were extraordinarily sup-
portive of the project,” Jensen
said.
“We’d gone over there expect-
ing it wouldn’t really be easy get-
ting our books out there [past
AUAF], or that there would be
some hostility,” Lewis said. “But
that really wasn’t the case. The
feedback was that they were ex-
cited to have another resource
that was new and updated.”
Other universities are not the
only other audiences attracted to
the project’s textbooks, which are
available publicly, and for free, on-
line.
“Over the past year or so, peo-
ple have been downloading them
[the books] and using them, some
of which we know about and some
of which we don’t,” said Rose
Ehler LAW ‘12, another ALEP
co-executive director.
The U.S. military has also used
the textbooks to familiarize offi-
cers with Afghani law. According
to Jensen, retired Gen. Stanley
McChrystal was “very familiar”
with the textbooks.
The Afghan Ministry of Jus-
tice, leading judges and legal aca-
demics have also expressed inter-
est in the project, according to
Lewis.
“It was fascinating to be [in
Kabul] as Stanford law students
talking to these really important
people in Afghanistan . . . in a
knowledgeable way,” Lewis said.
But strengthening the AUAF
law school and spreading legal ed-
ucation are only the beginning of
ALEP’s goals.
“The development of the rule
of law is historical process. It takes
time; there are fits and starts,” Jen-
son said.
“The problem is when you are
at Afghanistan’s level of develop-
ment, it will go through years and
years of fits and starts . . . and as
society goes through these
episodes, it will need a new cadre
of leaders to lead to positive
episodes,” he added.
ALEP seeks to contribute to
the formation of these future
leaders, not only in the legal pro-
fession but also in the country as a
whole. By using analytical meth-
ods to teach students critical
thinking, they hope to bridge the
gap between American style legal
education and the Afghan reality.
“They [the Afghan students]
will see opportunities that we can’t
Please see ALEP, page 6
Courtesy of Daniel Lewis
4 ! Wednesday, March 9, 2011
OPINIONS
E DITORIAL
Teach for America’s Rise
Reveals Need for Options
T
each for America has be-
come a household name
over the past year as the
number of applications has sky-
rocketed 32 percent to over 46,000
— making TFA one of the leading
employers of new graduates from
top schools across the nation, in-
cluding Stanford. Increased media
attention, along with a growing
TFA presence on campus, has
brought the program to the front
page of many campus publications.
While this Editorial Board believes
that TFA’s burgeoning success at-
tests to the civic-mindedness of our
peers, it also casts a spotlight on the
gaping lack of options for Stanford
seniors seeking alternatives to
graduate school, consulting, or fi-
nance.
TFA has become a corporate
giant in the world of college recruit-
ing, turning public service and edu-
cation reform into a status symbol.
The New York Times has even
claimed that “getting into the na-
tion’s top law schools and grad pro-
grams could be easier than being
accepted for a starting teaching job
with TFA.” Such assertions have
prompted many examinations of
the TFA model — especially its re-
cruitment tactics. In his article
“What Are You Going to Do With
That?” which quickly went viral
among seniors after being featured
on the “O’Leven” Facebook page,
William Denesiewicz argues that
TFA appeals to the modern gener-
ation of overachievers. He likens
TFA to McKinsey,Goldman Sachs,
Harvard Medical School and
Berkeley Law because “it’s presti-
gious, it’s hard to get into, it’s some-
thing that you and your parents can
brag about, it looks good on your
resume, and most important, it rep-
resents a clearly marked path.”
Danesiewicz criticizes today’s
generation for being unwilling to
take chances and think creatively.
While this critique is not wholly un-
founded,it fails to acknowledge an-
other piece to the puzzle: there is a
Unsigned editorials in the space above represent the views of the editorial board of The
Stanford Daily and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Daily staff.The editorial
board consists of six Stanford students led by a chairman and uninvolved in other sections
of the paper.Any signed columns in the editorial space represent the views of their authors
and do not necessarily represent the views of the entire editorial board.To contact the edi-
torial board chair, e-mail editorial@stanforddaily.com.To submit an op-ed, limited to 700
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I’ M , L IKE , T OTALLY P ROFOUND
I’m dropping
out of Stanford
I
’m leaving for Marine Corps
Boot Camp on March 20th, sans
college degree.
Originally I wanted to write
deeply and personally about that
decision for this last column, and in-
clude my joke about how I always
used to tell people that I’d drop out
of Stanford after two years and go
make a million dollars, and hey, it’s
coming halfway true, ha ha.
But now I’m thinking that since
there’s a chance that this dropping
out is a huge, horrible mistake,
and/or that I’ll fail out of boot camp,
and since coming back to Stanford
with my tail between my legs would
feel bad enough without having left
after some big, noble “road less
traveled by” kind of speech.
I actually don’t want to write
about that . . .
Although, I would like to men-
tion that one of the most valuable
and least-known things about Stan-
ford is its policy on Leaves of Ab-
sence. Long story short, Stanford
makes them mind-blowingly easy to
do. I offer this as evidence that our
school really does give a darn about
us as human beings. Against all tra-
ditional business sense, Stanford
lets its students take time off to fig-
ure out who they are, and welcomes
them back whenever they’re ready.
I mean, a few weeks ago I was hav-
ing a beer in the GCC with a woman
who was originally in Dean Julie’s
Class of 1989 and is just now finish-
ing her B.A.
Don’t think you’re ready to stop
being an undergrad? Don’t think
you’re ready to start being an un-
lack of resources devoted to expos-
ing students to entry-level posi-
tions in many fields other than con-
sulting and finance. The problem
lies in the way campus recruitment
functions. For many seniors, partic-
ularly those without pre-profes-
sional majors, it seems as if there
are now two options: go the bank-
ing/consulting route or go the TFA
route. Of course, other options
exist, but the numbers show that a
disproportionate number of stu-
dents gravitate towards one of
these two divergent paths.
The reality is that there is a sub-
stantial group of students in the
middle who are interested in other
job opportunities. Conventional
wisdom has it that “if you are not
going to sign with a bank or con-
sulting firm, your better land a job
through a Stanford alum.” What
about the students who do not have
an existing network of alumni in
their fields of interest? We are con-
stantly reminded of Stanford’s ex-
tensive network of influential
alumni — certainly they are not all
bankers or consultants (and even
fewer are schoolteachers). The
question then becomes, what can
Stanford do to help make students
aware of the paths less taken, and
to facilitate success in those areas?
To start, Stanford must reinvest
in the Career Development Center
(CDC). Banks, consulting firms
and TFA have deep pockets and fi-
nance their massive recruiting ef-
forts accordingly, with great suc-
cess. Conversely, other, smaller em-
ployers in the public and private
sector cannot afford to send re-
cruiters to Stanford. If the Univer-
sity values the employment of its
graduates, it should expand the
CDC’s overstretched staff and
make job listings on the CDC web
site more robust.
A second problem is lack of
structure. TFA provides a coordi-
nated recruitment effort based on a
Please see EDITORIAL, page 5
Robin
Thomas
Your life doesn’t
have rules
dergrad? Guess what! Your life
doesn’t have rules! You really don’t
have to go straight from high school
to college and graduate in four
years and then go right into a job! It
was all just a dream!
You wouldn’t believe how often,
when I mention to Stanford grads
the concept of time off, they say,
“Oh, man, I wish I’d done that!”
You might as well have your
mid-life crisis now, while your knees
are still good and your parents are
still around, instead of convincing
yourself to do the “responsible” and
predictable thing and work until
you’re fifty-five only to suddenly
quit your job, sell your house, di-
vorce your spouse, and buy a red
Please see THOMAS, page 5
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I H AVE T WO H EADS
The Capital-F Future
I
think it goes without saying that only about internships but about
winter quarter has a reputation job and graduate school prospects.
as the most uncertain of quar- Many of us do embrace that posi-
ters. On top of frequent accounts of tivist mindset more often than not,
subdued mood and academic over- Rachel but at the same time, we can feel un-
load, this part of the year is prime
time for us Stanford students to
Kolb certain about how to choose and
then achieve our goals.
consider our summer plans and our In one sense, these dilemmas are
goals for the next six or so months. unnecessary.As undergraduates, we
It’s application season, the time to with so many options to shape our still have many years in which to
think about upcoming responsibil- personal trajectories, it would be “discover” ourselves. Our degree, as
ities, which can spiral into consid- difficult not to think about long- well as the experiences we have on
ering the whole enchilada, our cap- term goals. The opportunities avail- campus, will not necessarily define
ital-F Future. Now, thinking about able to us are part of what make our who we are or what we do in five
summer internships, next year and campus environment so wonderful years, much less 50.We can embrace
all those impending times of self- — but, combined with a campus the chance of learning all that we
discovery could serve as the culture that places tremendous em- can, for the sake of learning, while
proverbial light at the end of the phasis on personal success, they can we still have the opportunity.
tunnel of February rains, but more make us approach every decision Yet, in a world overflowing with
often than not, it seems to have the already panicking about its lasting information and a campus environ-
opposite effect. ramifications. Not only do we feel ment that can make us feel pressed
For weeks, my Facebook news like kids in a candy store, but we for time, there remains the question
also want to know exactly how that
feed has been full of agonized status of just what we find most worth
updates about summer research candy we buy will impact our nutri- learning. One thing that I think we
and major grant applications, my tion 10 years from now. have all been told is to follow our
friends have rushed around stress- Face it: summer internships passions. But which passion? Which
ing over interviews, managing to don’t have to be the beginning of future version of ourselves? Just be-
look organized and dapper despite the rest of our lives, not really. Yet cause I enjoy something doesn’t
the harried lines on their faces. The we can tend to frame them that way. mean that I would want it to be the
people fortunate enough to lock Wrapped up in the rush of winter central focus of my life. What’s
down summer jobs early, I imagine, quarter, we can view them as anoth- more, I’ve come to realize that too
er step down the path of becoming
must bask in self-congratulation; at much passion and not enough bal-
the opposite end of the spectrum, that Successful Stanford Student ance can lead to burnout or bitter-
others react to the uncertainty by that we (or is it our campus cul- ness, or both.
withdrawing into projects and pa- ture?) want ourselves to be. Maybe The central question that we un-
pers. These minor daily challenges we imagine standing at a class re- dergraduates might be asking our-
do have their advantages, simply by union 20 years from now, sipping selves, within the flurry of both
being immediate. As much as Stan- wine and saying, “Well, [insert suc- short- and long-term decisions, is
ford likes to inundate its students in cessful enterprise here] all started just what that healthy, self-sustain-
rhetoric about the brilliant futures with the summer after my sopho- ing passion is. To be honest, there
we have ahead of us, the truth is that more year . . . “ are so many options and so many
I’ll say it again: one span of three
some of us would rather burrow areas of need that what we choose
deeper within the tepid reassurance months will not fundamentally de- might not matter as much as we
of a problem set than face that fine our entire trajectory. Even if, at think, as long as we retain the per-
much more fearsomely looming the same time, it can. This sense of spective that, indeed, our current
hole. duality, and of possibility, is what campus lives are helping us to de-
Yet the questions of our future can paralyze us even more than the velop.
linger with us all the time, even if prospect of biking to class in the
they only reach fever pitch during
the heightened application dead-
rain. We want to embrace the “go-
get-’em” attitude that seems en-
Rachel wants to know what’s in your
lowercase-”f” future. Send her a mes-
lines of winter quarter.At Stanford, grained into the Stanford spirit, not sage at: rkolb@stanford.edu.
T HE T RANSITIVE P ROPERTY
Epiphanies
I
went through a huge life realiza- and well-known transgender ac-
tion this past week. Maybe it’s tivists in the community. I listened
because I’m a senior, and it’s to Willy Wilkinson, a transgender Cristopher
about time I made big life realiza- person who specializes in providing Bautista
tions or else I’d be a bit screwed. Or healthcare for transgender folks. I
maybe it’s because of this column, met Danielle Askini, the National
which has made me really think Program Manager of the GSA Net-
about my life. Or maybe it was be- work. I had tea with Autumn columns — but every time I meet
cause this past week was Transgen- Sandeen, a transwoman who hand- another transgender person, every
der Awareness Week, where I met cuffed herself to the White House time I think about what I’m going
so many big figures in the transgen- fence to protest against “don’t ask, to write about next week, every
der rights movement, and I thought
about my own role in the trans
community and what I can do for a
don’t tell.” I met Rocco Kayiatos
(aka Katastrophe) a trans-identi-
fied rapper who founded one of my
time I get into a conversation about
transgender issues, I realize that I
want to help out those young trans-
movement that’s 30 years behind favorite trans-centered magazines gender kids who are yet to come
the LGB movement. Or maybe I
wanted to procrastinate from doing
(I even landed an internship for it!
Joy!). I talked to Jamison Green, a
out. They deserve better than what
we’re getting today. Transgender
Awareness Week was merely a
my CS106A homework. transgender man who has helped
I remember when I was first draft pro-transgender legislation taste of what I want to do.Although
transitioning, I felt so alienated, so and is one of the most famous that week will have long passed by
alone. I didn’t think there was any- transgender activists in the world the time these kids come out, just
body like me in the world. It was a (and I discovered, much to my ela- the fact that it all happened in the
time in my life that I felt hopeless, tion, that he lives in my hometown). first place is more than significant.
and I was at the point of giving up. It was seriously like Christmas. It’s part of our transgender history
Ever since I was younger, I was told Every day. and our transgender community.
I didn’t deserve to be happy, that I It wasn’t until this past week And I helped out with that. My ex-
didn’t deserve to have what the that I realized I’ve come a long way periences during Transgender
“normal” people had. My own nar- since that day sophomore year dur- Awareness Week only further my
rative didn’t follow the “normal” ing Dead Week of fall quarter, drive to join this cause, to define my
narratives, and as a result, that when I came out to myself after an life in terms of activism. I’ve actual-
made me an outsider, a freak. I was extensive Wikipedia search. I real- ly started looking for jobs at non-
taught that it wasn’t any use argu- ized, as I sat riveted by their speech- profits in San Francisco.
ing, I deserved to take all the blame es and performances and in my Things are changing. At Vaden,
for whatever happened to me — conversations with them, that when there’s now a third option, “trans-
and I kept hammering that message I grew up, I wanted to be just like gender,” besides male and female.
into my head, even well into my them.They forged paths to help the Your preferred name, not your
senior year. people who would come after them legal name, now appears on your
Now, when I’ve got a whole live easier lives, lives of a higher unofficial transcripts. The Stanford
week devoted to people like me, it standard. It’s been a slow realiza- Services Center is working on the
certainly helps with the self-es- tion — something I’ve been slowly
teem. I met some of the most visible approaching through each of my
Please see BAUTISTA, page 5
The Stanford Daily
THOMAS
Continued from page 4
convertible.
Or so I figure. But I digress . . .
What I really want to write
about is the Westboro Baptist
Church.
I have a theory about them. Re-
member when they came to Stan-
ford and the whole campus turned
out with bagpipes and costumes
and ironic signs in unity against
them? Everywhere the WBC goes,
people come together to stand up
for everything the WBC stands
against — gay marriage, fallen sol-
diers, love and tolerance, and so on.
Get this: what if the WBC actual-
ly supported those things all along?
It would be brilliant, really, and
so simple: make such obscene and
hateful statements against Thing X
that everyone else feels compelled
to defend Thing X. Using only a tiny
handful of brave and self-sacrificing
people, you could polarize an entire
nation into siding with your hidden
agenda.
Think about it: if tomorrow the
Westboro Baptist Church started
holding signs that said “GOD
HATES JAMBA JUICE,” how
many people would go out and get
a Mango-a-go-go in counter-
protest? Sales would probably sky-
rocket.
Almost as easily as I can picture
Fred Phelps being a hateful, igno-
rant bigot, I can also picture him
going home after a protest and say-
ing to his gay boyfriend,“I can’t be-
lieve people actually take our ‘God
hates fags’ crap seriously!” He’s ar-
guably made bigger strides in get-
ting people to support issues like
gay rights than many of those who
protest against his church.
Along this same line of thinking,
I have a solution to all the wars and
famines and human rights abuses
going on today. I think the govern-
ments of the world should get to-
gether to secretly create a fake
arch-nemesis for all humanity;
something inhuman and preferably
located off the planet — hostile
aliens on Mars, maybe — so that
people don’t individually go trying
to hunt it down.
Nothing brings people together
like a common enemy; common
joys are unfortunately not nearly as
effective. If every human could
somehow be convinced of some
concrete, massive, yet not-insur-
mountable threat to the planet,
think how hard we’d work to get
along and protect each other. Just
look at how well it worked in those
pinnacles of filmmaking “Indepen-
dence Day” and “Armageddon.”
Okay, sure, it could all go south
in 1984-esque fashion. But it’s a fun
idea.
So that’s my parting shot. Any-
way, Stanford, you’re great. You
have brains and beauty. But I did
you the discourtesy of expecting
you to be the solution to all my
problems, and you’re not. I can’t
change who you are, though; I can
only work on figuring out who I am.
See you in four years, maybe?
Robin won’t be able to access his e-
mail for several months after March
20th. So if you’re going to say some-
thing to him, say it now via robthom
@stanford.edu.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 ! 5
O P-E D
Self-Compassion
W
e live in a culture that tells
us we’re lazy and self-in-
dulgent if we don’t criticize
ourselves. Our media exposure and
our peers at Stanford tell us we’re
not good enough no matter how
hard we try — we’re not smart
enough, pretty enough, cool
enough, studying enough, partying
enough, even happy enough (yes,
we can compete on everything, and
we do!). We all have something
about ourselves that we don’t like,
that we’re ashamed or insecure
about. At the same time, we reject
the patently true fact that imperfec-
tion is human.When we fail, we per-
ceive that we’re alone in our failure
— even though feelings of inade-
quacy and insecurity are part of liv-
ing the human life.
It’s time we realize that our self-
critical and self-judgmental out-
look is not healthy. We tell our-
selves that it is what has driven us to
where we are today, at Stanford.We
avoid being too kind to ourselves
because we fear becoming self-in-
dulgent. But a 2007 study at Wake
Forest University demonstrated
that a minor self-compassion inter-
vention can actually curb overeat-
ing instead of encouraging it, con-
trary to expectations. Female col-
lege students were asked to eat
doughnuts. Half were given a les-
son in self-compassion with the
food: the instructor said, “I hope
you won’t be hard on yourself.
Everyone in the study eats this
stuff, so I don’t think there’s any
reason to feel real bad about it.”
Later, all were asked to taste test
candy. The women who heard the
reassurance ate less; those who
hadn’t, ate more. The hypothesis is
that the women who felt guilty for
eating the doughnuts engaged in
“emotional” eating, whereas the
women who gave themselves per-
mission to eat the doughnuts didn’t
overeat.
A 2007 study by Neff, Rude and
Kirkpatrick found that self-compas-
sion is correlated with self-reported
measures of happiness, optimism,
initiative, curiosity, agreeableness,
extroversion and conscientiousness.
It is negatively correlated with neg-
ative affect and neuroticism. Self-
compassion predicts positive psy-
chological health beyond that at-
tributable to personality.
Self-compassion is a relatively
new concept in psychological re-
EDITORIAL
Continued from page 4
systematic framework: there are
campus reps, head recruiters, pres-
entation dates, specific deadlines
and outlined timelines for the ap-
plication process. All applicants
know whom to contact and when
they should expect to hear regard-
ing first-round on-campus inter-
views. The structure can be repli-
cated on a grander scale to help
spotlight public sector and start-up
opportunities, while appeasing stu-
dents’ need for structure, formal
applications and deadlines. There
should be a focus on expanding the
use of existing resources, like the
Stanford Alumni Network and the
Stanford Alumni Association web-
site, as well as a push to leverage
support from Bing programs. By
using off-campus resources, the
University expands its regional
presence and can help students
pursue opportunities in other re-
gions and abroad.
TFA’s rise is a good thing,but no
Stanford student should apply for
lack of a better option. Too many
students heed the siren call of fall
recruiting without an adequate un-
derstanding of their options. Stan-
ford fails its students when a cohort
feels disenfranchised in the world
of campus recruiting. With mini-
mal increases to the CDC’s staff,
and creative discussions with Bing
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search and practice. However, its
import hit home when I attended
the memorial service of a Stanford
student and friend who was incredi-
bly active in public service and in
the Center for Compassion and Al-
truism Research and Education,
but wasn’t compassionate enough
to herself and took her own life.
There, in the peace and beauty of
Memorial Church, I was reminded
that the greatest relationship we
can have is with ourselves. And the
greatest life that we can live is the
authentic one. It’s hard, but by
being real about our struggles, we
can turn our vulnerabilities into
strengths instead of weaknesses.
There is infinitely more that binds
us than sets us apart, and the sor-
rows and stress that each of us face
are universal to all human beings —
and yes, all Stanford students, as in-
vincible and perfect as we may per-
ceive others to be. We don’t have to
feel alone. No one is perfect, no one
is always happy, we all fail and we all
feel overwhelmed sometimes. It’s
okay to break down these facades
that we may carry. Don’t be afraid
to open up and be vulnerable. If
you’re not comfortable doing that
with friends or an RA, call CAPS at
650-723-3785 or the BRIDGE at
650-723-3392, both of which are
confidential and 24/7. Nothing’s
“too small” or insignificant.
It’s hard to unlearn habits of a
lifetime so we must make an active
and conscious attempt to develop
the habit of self-compassion. Like
any other muscle, self-compassion
is one that can be improved with
practice. When things go badly, re-
mind yourself that difficulty is a
part of life that everyone goes
through, and you are not alone.
Imagine you’re talking with your
friend, who has come to you de-
spondent and suffering. What
would you say to him or her? Give
yourself the space, time, kindness
and affirmation that you would give
a friend who came to you with the
same feelings. Forgive yourself of
your flaws — be patient and under-
standing of them, just as you would
for those of your friends.We are fre-
quently hardest on ourselves more
than anyone else. Go on a “self-
compassion diet” instead of one re-
volving around self-discipline, dep-
rivation and neglect.
BELINDA CHIANG ‘10 MS ‘11
programs overseas and in Wash-
ington, Stanford can reach these
students and help engage them
find an appropriate choice,
whether it be a consulting gig,
Google, TFA, or a job with a start-
up, NGO, or non-profit organiza-
tion. Perhaps students do not need
a “clearly marked path,” as Dane-
siewicz argues, but they do need a
push in the right direction while
pursuing their own options.
BAUTISTA
Continued from page 4
ID issues, so for the next trans kid,
it won’t take two years to get a new
ID. With the ROTC debate, trans-
gender people are being talked
about, thought about, not just at a
Stanford level, but nationwide.
And I’m a voice in this debate. If
you had told me this as a terrified
sophomore in college, I wouldn’t
have believed you.
I’m growing into somebody,
and I’m not quite sure who yet, ex-
actly, but I’m headed towards
something new, something beyond
essays and problem sets and par-
ties and toward something I saw in
those people I met during this past
week. I am becoming the person I
was meant to be. I thought I’d be
terrified. But I’m not. I’m growing
up. And it feels good.
Cristopher likes life revelations.
E-mail him at cmsb@stanford.edu.
To give the miracle of life
Earn $30,000 + travel costs
Blue-eyed and
Warm, Caring, Athletic
Clinic, Foster City
6 ! Wednesday, March 9, 2011
SPEAKERS & EVENTS
Franco and Bidart
present killer talk
By ROBERT TOEWS
STAFF WRITER
Actor-director James Franco
and poet Frank Bidart discussed
their recent artistic collaboration in
front of a packed audience in
Dinkelspiel Auditorium on Mon-
day afternoon.
In 2009, Franco adapted “Her-
bert White,” a poem by Bidart, into
a short film. At Monday’s event,
Bidart performed a reading of the
poem and Franco presented his film
adaptation before engaging in a dis-
cussion about the project.
“When I heard [Bidart’s] poem
for the first time, I was immediately
struck by it, and I knew I wanted to
make a movie out of it,” Franco
said.
The poem, which Bidart de-
scribed as “very dark,” explores the
mindset of the unstable Herbert
White, a necrophiliac murderer. It is
written in the first person, from
Herbert’s perspective.
Bidart, who jokingly pointed out
that he was not as insane as his char-
acter, noted that this was the first
time in decades he had done a pub-
lic reading of the piece because of
its difficult subject matter.
“The poem intrigued me be-
cause there is, of course, the voice of
the psychotic killer, but in between
there is also the voice of a poet, a
creative mind trying to make sense
of the world,” Franco said. “Frank
weaved those two voices together
marvelously.”
Franco’s film adaptation re-
mained mostly consistent with the
text of the poem, although he did
add certain touches of his own, in-
cluding recurrent imagery of Her-
bert bulldozing trees in the forest.
“Because film is a medium that
handles images much better than
words, being loyal to the poem in a
film adaptation does not always in-
volve using the exact language of
the poem,” Franco said. “I have
learned that, to be loyal to the
poem, you should be more con-
cerned with being loyal to the tone,
to the structure, to the pace of the
piece.”
The 14-minute film, which was
written and directed by Franco, was
screened at last year’s Sundance
Film Festival. Actor Michael Shan-
non played the role of Herbert
White.
Many in the audience seemed
taken aback at first by the heavy
subject matter of the project, but
most seemed to leave the talk im-
pressed by the manner in which
LEARNING
Continued from page 3
were so prevalent on other campus-
es. And that’s very heartening.”
Stanford students echoed their
professors’ sentiments, arguing
against the study’s claims that they
may be spending a small fortune on
nothing more than balmy weather
and a trademarked Nalgene bottle.
“I have no doubt that I’m learn-
ing [at Stanford],” said Charles
Naut ‘12. “The ability to think criti-
cally and problem solve is always
emphasized in the classes I have
taken so far. And as an engineering
student, I appreciated IHUM and
PWR because they allowed me to
improve my writing skills that I
would have otherwise not empha-
sized as a priority.”
Naut cited a collaborative atti-
tude and an interdisciplinary ap-
proach to problem solving as cen-
tral to Stanford’s academic culture.
“It’s not as cutthroat an environ-
ment as at other institutions, and I
feel a great deal more of academic
support,” he said. “The professors
are really supportive, and you can
get as much attention as you want.
It’s all about taking initiative.”
However, other students feel
their learning is hampered by over-
ly large class sizes and insufficient
ALEP
Continued from page 3
see from Stanford, but they can see
on the ground in Afghanistan,”
Jensen said, describing the project
as one that is about imagining alter-
natives so as to prevent oppression.
The law students’ person-to-
person contact with the Afghani
students made it clear that this
project extends far beyond what
can be seen on paper.
“The passion that we all saw in
the students in Afghanistan just in-
creased our passion for the project
at Stanford . . . the heart and soul
of the Stanford group is derived
from the heart and soul of the
Afghan students.”
The Stanford Daily
ANNE PIPATHSOUK/The Stanford Daily
On Monday, in a packed Dinkel-
spiel Auditorium, James Franco and
Frank Bidart spoke about their artis-
tic collaboration on Bidart’s dark
poem “Herbert White.”
Bidart and Franco explored the
themes of self-expression, isolation
and sanity.
“The film was jarring, macabre
and managed to give a nuanced
presentation of a complex human
monster in under 14 minutes,” said
Shaya Fidel ‘11. “To me, it solidified
the fact that Franco is a director
worth taking seriously.”
Michelle Dadourian ‘11 agreed.
“What impressed me the most
was [Franco’s] explanation of the
artistic process he went through in
taking a character described only in
words and turning him, with all his
warped psychoses and inner
demons, into a believable figure on
the screen,” Dadourian said.
Co-host of the 2011 Academy
Awards, Franco is famous for his
acting roles in “Spider-Man,”
“Pineapple Express” and “127
Hours.” He is also a film director,
screenwriter, author and painter.
Bidart is an English professor at
Wellesley University and an award-
winning poet. Among other distinc-
tions, his work has been nominated
for the Pulitzer Prize.
The presentation was moderated
by Ken Fields, a professor of Eng-
lish and creative writing.
Contact Robert Toews at rtoews@
stanford.edu.
office hours, and that sometimes,
taking initiative isn’t enough.
Abby Howard ‘13 is one such in-
dividual.
“I learn a lot of facts, but I don’t
always feel like I retain that infor-
mation post-test, which is both frus-
trating and disconcerting,” Howard
said.“The quarter system is a sprint.
I never feel like I have a week
where I get to enjoy the material for
the sake of learning,without the un-
derlying worry about the exam.”
Last quarter, for example,
Howard had a total of seven
midterms in her four classes, most
of which had hundreds of students.
“I’m taking my fifth quarter of
chemistry, and there are upwards of
200 people in the class,” she said.
“You can, of course, go to office
hours, but when there are that
many people each vying for individ-
ual time with the professor, you
only have time to ask a set ques-
tion.”
That being said, Howard agrees
with Naut: she feels she has become
a more confident student and has
benefited from the emphasis Stan-
ford instructors place on critical
thinking.
“You have to assume that your
education is working for you, but
you really have no way of knowing
for sure,” she said.
Contact Jessica Wertheim at jessw89
@stanford.edu.
“Everybody on the trip came
away saying, ‘Wow, we’re actually
doing something that’s useful
here,’” Lewis said.
The trip left the group opti-
mistic about the project’s future.
“Student demand is high; we’ve
been successful at retaining some
of the best faculty, and we hope
that that the [AUAF] law school
becomes a center of educational
excellence,” Jensen said.
Despite the fact that ALEP is no
intermission
longer the “sole source” of Afghan
law textbooks, Jensen is confident
about the books’ prospects.
“I look forward to the market-
place of competition . . . I think
our books will show themselves to
be the best.” TODAY
FRIDAY
Contact Marwa Farag mfarag@stan-
ford.edu.
The Stanford Daily
HEART
Continued from front page
“It’s not one gene region or one
gene; it’s a bunch that all have sub-
tle effects,” Assimes said. “You in-
herit a profile of those mutations
and depending on the number of
mutations you have, that dictates
the lifetime risk of having heart dis-
ease.”
Interestingly, only three of these
13 regions are related to traditional
risk factors for heart disease — for
example, diabetes, high cholesterol,
high blood pressure or smoking.
Heart disease is caused by the
buildup of cholesterol crystals in
blood vessels, a process known as
coronary atherosclerosis. The re-
maining 10 genes may influence the
degree to which individuals’ vessels
are susceptible to this buildup.
“Essentially all of these tradi-
tional risk factors are irritating the
blood vessel wall and are promot-
ing plaque formation in the wall,”
Assimes said. “And then there are
players inside the wall. The signals
that are not coming from the tradi-
tional risk factors are probably
something in the vessel wall [but]
we don’t know exactly what.”
The study is also groundbreak-
ing because of its scope: it examined
HONOR
Continued from front page
ance of the evidence,” “clear and
convincing evidence”and “beyond a
reasonable doubt.” Currently, the
Judicial Affairs charter requires
proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The survey targeted the Judicial
Affairs process as well, asking stu-
dents to assess what sanctions they
would find appropriate for a first-
time violation of the Honor Code,
with options including an oral repri-
mand,a failed grade and suspension.
In recent years, the number of
Honor Code hearings has remained
fairly consistent, with 102 cases last
year, compared to 82 in 2008-09 and
124 in 2007-08. However, Richard
Yuen, assistant dean of the Judicial
Affairs Office, observed that the
growing usage of technology in the
a large number of patients in order
to “overcome statistical noise,” As-
simes said.
According to principal investi-
gator Thomas Quertermous, who is
a professor of cardiovascular medi-
cine, a collaborative effort of this
magnitude is “unprecedented.”
“Five or 10 years ago we would
never thought we would have been
able to come together,” he said.
“I’ve never met most of the people
that I’m working with, but we’ve
come together through e-mail and
through telephone because we’ve
needed to.”
While unprecedented, the study
had its limitations. Researchers
only examined individuals of Euro-
pean descent, mostly due to the
availability of data.
“The individuals in the study
have been collected over the course
of years, through recruitment of in-
dividuals who’ve had a heart at-
tack,” Quertermous said. “It just
turns out that those kinds of studies
were done in countries where the
vast majority of the population is
Caucasian — Italy, Sweden, United
States, Germany.”
According to Quertermous,
there are ongoing studies that look
at individuals of African, South
Asian and Hispanic descent.
At present, the Stanford study
has two preponderant implications:
it paves the way for future research
classroom has given rise to more
web-based cheating cases.
“With the development of the In-
ternet, many more cases of plagia-
rism utilizing uncited sources from
the Web are discovered,” Yuen
wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.“Stu-
dents need to understand that using
the ideas or writings from other au-
thors must be properly cited
whether it appears in printed mate-
rial or the Internet.”
This trend was reflected in the
survey,which asked students to eval-
uate the severity of “paraphrasing or
copying a few sentences of material
from an electronic source — e.g.,the
Internet — without footnoting it in
a paper”.
The survey also contained ques-
tions that focus on cheating related
to programming, specifically copy-
ing code from a peer. These ques-
tions stem from a startling statistic:
almost 30 percent of Honor Code vi-
olations last year took place in the
on new therapies that could reduce
the risk of heart disease and simul-
taneously helps identify individuals
who may be at higher risk of heart
disease.
“We’ve identified single base
pair differences and said that these
signal differences, out of three bil-
lion, change your risk of having
heart disease,” Quertermous said.
But there’s still more to be done.
Quertermous hopes to continue to
investigate the relationship be-
tween single base pair differences
and changes in the function of a
particular gene or set of genes.
“If I change that gene, either in
terms of structure or level of activi-
ty, how does that change the biolo-
gy and the risk of heart disease?” he
asked.
“We shouldn’t stop until we fig-
ure out what’s going on,” Assimes
said.“And when we do figure it out,
obviously there’s the potential to
develop a therapeutic [solution] to
block that pathway that’s in-
volved.”
Still, doctors must be cautious
when genetically-profiling individ-
uals and assessing their risk.
“The reality is that we still need
to find a few more gene regions be-
fore we’ll get to a point where pro-
filing will be useful,” Assimes said.
Contact Ellora Israni at ellora@stan-
ford.edu.
computer science department.
According to the Office of Judi-
cial Affairs’ yearly report, there
were 29 cases in the CS Department,
followed by 11 cases in the Econom-
ics Department.After that, the num-
bers drop sharply, with most depart-
ments having only one or two cases.
“We will use the information
gathered to inform discussions of
the Internal Review Panel,”Pontius-
Hogan said of the survey’s findings.
He declined to provide further
commentary on the results.
The Honor Code subcommittee
of the Review Panel, which also par-
ticipated in the student input forum
earlier this month, is still in the
process of gathering more feedback
from the Stanford community.
Cassandra Feliciano contributed to
this report.
Contact Caroline Chen at cchen501
@stanford.edu.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 ! 7
STUDENT GOV’T
ASSU mulls rules for
elections petitioning
Students wary about
petitions pressures
By BRENDAN O’BYRNE
STAFF WRITER
A handful of complaints from
students who felt pressured to sign
petitions for the upcoming spring
elections were recently brought to
the attention of the Administration
and Rules Committee of the ASSU.
Juany Torres ‘13, the chair of the
Administration and Rules Commit-
tee for the Undergraduate Senate,
said that about 5 people had filed
complaints stating they felt pres-
sure to sign petitions.
These complaints included cases
where students were pressured to
sign petitions as candidates stood
over their shoulders, as well as inci-
dents where candidates would put
their own laptop in front of people
and encourage them to sign while
the candidate watched. These ac-
tions caused some students to feel
pressured and to lodge complaints
with Torres.
“There are no real rules about
petitioning, other than the petition-
ers need to be Stanford undergrad-
uates,” Torres said.
Torres pointed out that in the
ASSU joint bylaws, there are no
specific rules prohibiting or regulat-
ing any sort of pressuring of stu-
dents to sign petitions.
When it comes to the actual elec-
tion, there are sections of the gov-
erning documents that have explicit
rules regarding pressuring people
to vote for a specific candidate or vi-
olating the privacy of the secret bal-
lot; however, there is a lack of simi-
lar regulation for the petitioning
DUES
Continued from front page
to go buy alcohol with, it’s basically
encouraging underage drinking,”
said the anonymous FM. “And it
also comes to the fact that all the
money we control under the Uni-
versity, so they’re essentially buying
alcohol for underage students
through us.”
Haus Mitteleuropa (Haus Mitt)
FM Alison Dame-Boyle ‘11 said
she is concerned that residents
would spend more time drinking in
their rooms with friends than at
house functions, making it tougher
for staff to watch for alcohol prob-
lems with residents and party atten-
dees.
“I think it will probably be hard-
er for houses that do not have a
pretty close-knit group already be-
cause the temptation in college, ob-
viously people on the Row are
going to drink anyway,” Dame-
Boyle said.
In another change, the board
budget will be made available to
FMs in installments, rather than as
a lump allocation. ResEd is also hir-
ing a new staff member for the Row
Office; this staffer’s job will be re-
sponsible for scanning weekly re-
ceipts turned in by FMs.
Though some FMs said the
change wouldn’t significantly im-
pact day-to-day operations, they
foresee potential hassles.
“I’m not really sure what that’s
going to mean,” Dame-Boyle said
of the change.
It remains ambiguous as to how
official these social dues changes
are. That aside, Dame-Boyle said
ResEd was “very clear” that houses
would retain all of their money and
be entitled to use it at their discre-
tion.
“It will probably just mean more
work for financial managers and
more communication between fi-
nancial managers, kitchen man-
agers and chefs,” she said.
Dues refunds
It is still unlikely that Row resi-
dents will see significant refunds of
their social dues.
Row management documents
from two years ago suggest Student
Organized Services (SOS), which
manages Row house accounts,
strongly encouraged refunds in the
past. However, Sargeant’s e-mail
said students’ $100 damage de-
posits are the only refunds that will
be issued this year. As previously
reported by The Daily (“Row dues
lead to confusion”, February 4,
2011), financial managers were told
that excess social money would no
longer be refunded to residents and
instead, would be rolled into the
house’s restricted-use “capital re-
serve funds” (CRF).
For the present, social budget
surpluses can be rolled forward
from quarter to quarter and unused
money placed into a fund to pay for
house reunion parties. It is unclear
what happens to the funds at the
end of that year,although FMs reaf-
process.
Torres noted that anyone who
was concerned with or regretted
their signature had the opportunity
to contact the Elections Commis-
sion to have their name removed
from a petition; however, she also
acknowledged that many students
are unaware of this option.
According to Torres, the Admin-
istration and Rules Committee is
“working closely with the Elections
Commission” to write into the by-
laws rules regarding petitioning
practices. Though they won’t apply
to this year’s elections, Torres said
the changes will help in the future.
“We don’t know exactly what
we’ll say, but we will work in some
language where it explicitly states
that if students feel pressured when
petitioning, they should e-mail the
Elections Commission.”
Stephen Trusheim ‘13, the ASSU
Elections Commissioner, said that
petitioning is one area where the
Elections Commission has very lit-
tle authority.
“We don’t have the authority to
tell candidates they can’t watch
people sign a petition or something
like that,” he said.“The Administra-
tion and Rules Committee asked
me if I could make or enforce new
rules, but I can’t do it without the
Undergraduate Senate’s permis-
sion.”
Trusheim said that if the Admin-
istration and Rules Committee
wanted, they had the power to sub-
mit rule changes to the Senate, but
for this year’s elections, he had very
little power to regulate the petition-
ing process.
Contact Brendan O’Byrne at
bobyrne@stanford.edu.
firmed that the money could be
moved to CRF.
SOS director Nick Peters de-
clined to comment on the issue.
“I feel that excess money, rather
than trying a way to spend it, should
just be given back to residents,” said
Roth FM Lyn Mehe’ula ‘11.
According to a document on the
Row’s Student Management web-
site, CRF contributions were
capped at $90,000 per year, a figure
set to decrease annually by $10,000
through the 2014-15 academic year.
If a house exceeds the cap, the sur-
plus money would be washed into a
general University account.
This year, Kappa Alpha Theta
and Pi Beta Phi exceeded the cap.
The latter surpassed the cap by
$12,000.
Some FMs say that the ResEd
change is well intentioned, but they
noted that it is not the ideal solution
to ResEd complications they de-
sired.
“We want a little bit of cushion
so if we spend a little bit more than
we think, we’ll still be fine, and I
think that that money, if we don’t
spend it, should be given back to
residents,” Dame-Boyle said. “If
the financial manager makes an
error and charges too much, it can
go back to the people that paid it
and not into the CRF fund that has
$30,000 or however much sitting
around in it that we can’t really do
much with.”
An Le Nguyen contributed to this
report.
Contact Tyler Brown at tbbrown
@stanford.edu.
BALLOT
Continued from front page
ASSU President Angelina Car-
dona ‘11 will defend the referen-
dum, which she authored, when the
Constitutional Council hears the
case this evening.
“The ballot measure is moving
forward unless the Constitutional
Council rules otherwise, as the
measure has qualified for the ballot
already,” Trusheim wrote in an e-
mail to The Daily. “Innocent until
proven guilty; Constitutional until
proven otherwise.”
The deadline for declarations of
intent and petitions for GSC candi-
dates and junior class president
slates has been pushed back to Mar.
18, which is the last day of finals
week. No junior class president slate
had entered the race at the time of
publication.
For the four special fees groups
that did not receive sufficient signa-
tures, the ASSU Constitution em-
powers the Senate and GSC to push
back the petitions deadline if there
are “extenuating circumstances.”
This grace period could allow those
groups to gather enough signatures
to appear on the ballot.
Contact Kabir Sawhney at ksawh-
ney@stanford.edu.
8 ! Wednesday, March 9, 2011 The Stanford Daily

SPORTS
FOOTBALL SPECIAL

GETTING IN GEAR
SPRING PRACTICE OPENS FOR 2011 SEASON
By KABIR SAWHNEY
DESK EDITOR
With the scent of oranges from
January fading away, the Stanford
football team wrapped up its first
session of spring practices on Satur-
day afternoon. The Cardinal com-
pleted seven practices between Feb.
21 and March 5. Three of those ses-
sions were open to the public, giving
a first glimpse at the makeup of
Stanford’s roster for next season.
Two storylines dominated spring
practice: the battles for starting jobs
at a number of positions and how
coaching changes would affect the
team in its first practices under new
head coach David Shaw. So far,
Shaw seems to have done well in
coaching and motivating his play-
ers, sounding all the right notes
about staying hungry and competi-
tive following last season’s historic
success. However, it is impossible to
fully examine the ramifications of
the coaching change at this early
With plenty of turnover in the coaching staff and several unresolved position
battles, the Cardinal will be glad to have redshirt junior quarterback Andrew
Luck (No. 12) returning for another season.
stage — we’ll have to wait until the
fall to make a true estimate of
Shaw’s head coaching abilities.
There has been one prominent
position switch this spring, with red-
shirt sophomore running back Usua
Amanam moving to defensive
back. With a deep stable of half-
backs, including rising junior Step-
fan Taylor and sixth-year senior Je-
remy Stewart (who received a med-
ical redshirt in the offseason) and
two highly-touted running backs
coming into the program next sea-
son as freshmen, the coaching staff
decided to move Amanam to de-
fense to take advantage of his ath-
leticism and speed.
Stanford has several large holes
to fill after it lost a good chunk of its
starters to graduation and the NFL
Draft.The Card’s most glaring defi-
ciencies are along the offensive line
and in the defensive front seven,
where it lost a combined seven
starters. There are also gaps at wide
receiver, fullback and cornerback.
ZACK HOBERG/The Stanford Daily
Lastly, a heated competition is
under way at quarterback, where
three players are jockeying to sit be-
hind redshirt junior Andrew Luck
on the depth chart.
At offensive line, the main battle
is at center, where Stanford must re-
place All-American Chase Beeler.
There is no clear frontrunner be-
tween redshirt sophomore Khalil
Wilkes and redshirt junior Sam
Schwartzstein, though
Schwartzstein was getting more
time with the first team at the most
recent practice on Saturday. At the
other positions, the top contenders
are redshirt senior Tyler Mabry,
sophomore David Yankey and jun-
ior Kevin Danser.
On defense, junior Terrence
Stephens looks like he will step into
the hole at nose tackle left by Sione
Fua, with juniors Ben Gardner and
Trent Murphy battling to replace
Brian Bulcke at defensive end. At
linebacker, the two standouts so far
have been redshirt juniors Alex
Debniak and Max Bergen, who
both saw decent playing time last
season as well.
With senior Chris Owusu out of
camp with an injury, the battle is
mostly to grab the second and third
wide receiver slots on the depth
chart, following the departure of
two of Luck’s favorite targets, Ryan
Whalen and Doug Baldwin. So far,
senior Griff Whalen and junior
Drew Terrell have separated them-
selves from the rest of the pack,with
junior Jamal-Rashad Patterson also
playing a role. At fullback, redshirt
sophomore Ryan Hewitt looks like
the top contender to take over for
Owen Marecic.
At cornerback, senior Johnson
Bademosi and sophomore Barry
Browning will probably play the
Please see FOOTBALL, page 9
After a collegiate career on and off the sidelines, graduating senior Derek
Hall (No. 53) is knocking on the doorstep on the NFL. He’ll have just one
more chance to prove himself to scouts at Stanford’s Pro Day.
Derek Hall
An NFL prospect a year in the making
By WYNDAM MAKOWSKY
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Consider Derek Hall’s position
at this time last year.
In anticipation of the spring
practice sessions, Greg Roman,
the associate head coach at the
time, names Hall and two younger
players — Kevin Danser and
Tyler Mabry — as the main candi-
dates to replace Chris Marinelli at
right offensive tackle.A rising red-
shirt senior and unknown com-
modity, Hall had, at this point,
played in just two contests in his
first four years on the Farm.
Fast forward to the summer.
Hall’s main competition is now
James McGillicuddy, a sixth-year
senior with 22 games of experi-
ence under his belt. Both had been
converted from the defensive line
earlier in their Stanford careers,
but McGillicuddy made the switch
in January of 2007, whereas Hall
made the change over a year later.
Stanford Daily File Photo
McGillicuddy had also played on
the offensive line in high school,
while Hall’s two-way role at that
level was at tight end. A presump-
tive favorite, Hall is not.
The battle, perhaps the fiercest
of the Cardinal’s 2010 camp, goes
down to the wire, but Hall eventu-
ally pulls ahead in the week before
the opener against Sacramento
State.
“At first, I was a deer in the
headlights,” he said. “I was so
amped up to finally play. You had
to get those first game jitters out of
the way. After that, I got tremen-
dously more confident.”
From September on, it’s a
whirlwind: Hall starts all 13 games
at right tackle and fits seamlessly
into a line that returned four
starters.The unit, which also heav-
ily features McGillicuddy as an
extra tackle, wins wide acclaim en
route to Stanford’s 12-1 season.
Please see HALL, page 9

STANFORD
SHARPSHOOTERS
BY WILL SEATON
and [Dad] said ‘just stick with your natural
shot,’” Barte said.
Barte has one memory from last season
that stands out in her mind as a moment her
forehand proved invaluable.
“Against Baylor last year in the quarters
of NCAAs, it was match point and the girl
was serving at 15-40,” Barte said. “I hit a
backhand return and she had a good first
ball back to my forehand.I was forced to hit
a running forehand and I remember think-
ing ‘I’m just going to hit this really hard.’ I
MEN’S BASKETBALL
BEARS DEAL BITTER
END TO SEASON
By NIC REINER-PARRA
In a season finale characterized by poor
shooting and porous defense, the Stanford
men’s basketball team fell Saturday after-
noon to rival Cal, 74-55.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
STANFORD 55
CALIFORNIA 74
3/5, Berkeley, Calif.
The Cardinal (15-15, 7-11) had one of its
worst shooting performances of the year and
never had an answer for Cal (17-13, 10-8),
which led comfortably the entire game.
Cal burst out of the gate early, jumping to
an 8-2 lead by the first TV timeout with 15:25
left in the first half. Following the timeout, Cal
junior forward Harper Kamp made a layup
and Stanford freshman forward Dwight Pow-
ell scored what would be the Cardinal’s only
basket in the ensuing five minutes. With nine
minutes left in the first half,The Cardinal had
only four total points and trailed by 15.
The Bears were spearheaded by Kamp,
who had eight of Cal’s first 14 points and was
a perfect 5-for-5 from the field in the first half.
At the seven-minute mark, Stanford was
down, 23-8, and had nearly as many turnovers
(seven) as it did points (eight). Cal continued
to force bad shots and create good ones of its
own — with 1:50 remaining in the first half,
Cal led 33-15 and appeared to be coasting to
an insurmountable first-half lead. However,
in its first sign of life all game, the Cardinal
scored six points to end the half trailing 33-21.
In the sub-par first half, junior guard Jere-
Please see MBBALL, page 10

TEXAS TAKES TWO

hit the cleanest forehand I can remember
and it felt so good.It was not returnable,ba-
sically, and clinched the match to send us to
the semis.”

FROM VISITING CARD

On the opposite side for tennis players is
the backhand — and when one wants to

F
ZACK HOBERG/
or those The Stanford Daily
watching Stan-
ford’s 5-2 victory
over Cal last Sat-
urday, some of the finest strokes in colle-
giate tennis were on display.With four play-
ers ranked in the top 25, Stanford has a col-
lection of players who have honed a few
shots that stand out in the minds of the fans.
To see Stanford’s number one player
senior Hilary Barte hit a forehand is to
watch a motion so natural it garners little
attention. What does raise the eyebrows of
spectators, though, is how hard that ball
comes off the racket and how perfectly
placed her shots are. Her ability to add va-
riety to her shot allows her to control points
when given the chance to use her forehand.
“That’s one of the strengths of my fore-
hand,” said Barte. “I can loop it. I can hit it
completely flat and hard. I can hit it heavy.
Anything. My basic rally shot is a heavy, flat
ball — a line drive that dips at the end.”
She credits her uncle, a lefty like Barte,
with first guiding her through the process
of learning a left-handed forehand. When
she felt like her shot was getting pulled in
different directions, she had her father
there to help.
“Coaches are always trying to change it
see backhands, one watches senior Jennifer
Yen. The only player on the team with a
one-handed backhand, she has mastered
her shot to allow greater variety and a
heavier shot than she had before with a tra-
ditional, two-handed hit.
“With a one-hander, you can extend
more,” said Yen. “With your left hand on
your racquet, you’re limited by how far you
can extend it. With one hand, you can go
farther out in front. It’s natural and easy for
me now. I can hit harder with a one-han-
der.”
Her switch from a two-handed back-
hand to a one-handed version came about
in a rather unusual way — not because of
the typical, technical reasoning.
“I started out with a two-handed back-
hand when I first started playing tennis,”
Yen said. “That’s what everyone did. But
when I was 13, a couple of the kids that I
played with had one-handers. I thought it
would be so cool to hit it.”
From the baseline to the net, senior Car-
olyn McVeigh is another player that wows
spectators with her shots. Her consistent
doubles success with junior Veronica Li at
the No. 3 spot has come about largely be-
cause of McVeigh’s quick hands and angled
volleys.
“It’s a pretty integral part of my game, es-
Please see WTENNIS, page 10
IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily
Sophomore third baseman Stephen Piscotty, above,
gave the Cardinal a huge boost out of the three-hole
on Saturday with two hits and two RBI. The Cardinal
ultimately won that contest, 9-2.
By JOSEPH BEYDA
DAILY SPORTS INTERN
Offensive struggles doomed Stan-
ford baseball in two of three games in
Austin this weekend, as the No. 9 Cardi-
nal could only win once against No. 6
Texas.
The Cardinal is 6-5 on the year and is
near the end of a tough nonconference
stretch that has included 10 games
against ranked teams. Though Stanford
mounted impressive come-from-be-
hind efforts on both Friday and Sunday,
each fell short in 4-3 and 4-2 losses.
BASEBALL
STANFORD 2
TEXAS 4
3/6, Austin, Tx.
Texas starter Taylor Jungmann was
as impressive as expected on Friday af-
ternoon, taking a perfect game into the
fifth frame before allowing his first run
of the season after 22.2 innings pitched.
Stanford sophomore Mark Appel,
meanwhile, gave up four runs in 7.1 in-
nings.
Please see BASEBALL, page 10
The Stanford Daily
FOOTBALL
Continued from page 8
two cover corner positions.
Amanam, redshirt junior Quinn
Evans and redshirt sophomore Ter-
rence Brown will provide depth
and see playing time in five- and
six-defensive back sets.
Last but not least, the backup
quarterback competition is ongo-
ing between junior Josh Nunes
and sophomores Darren Daniel
and Brett Nottingham. Nunes
looks like the current leader, tak-
HALL
Continued from page 8
Hall is named honorable mention
All-Pac-10.
Now, one year removed from
being known only to the most in-
tense of the Stanford diehards,
Hall is a legitimate NFL Draft
prospect — a raw but effectual
lineman who made the most of his
limited opportunity.
Where does that leave him? Hall
said that people see him as high as a
third-rounder or as low as undraft-
ed, but that he isn’t “trying to pre-
dict it, because it’s so hard to pre-
dict.” Wes Bunting, the Director of
College Scouting for the National
Football Post, sees him as a proba-
ble late-round selection or, at
worst, a priority undrafted free
agent.
“My confidence in myself is
good,” Hall said. “It doesn’t matter
where I get taken.”
Bunting finds Hall to be an in-
triguing prospect — better, he
thinks, than Marinelli and Matt
Kopa, two of the last Cardinal tack-
les to test the NFL waters. In sepa-
rate interviews, both Bunting and
Hall pointed to skills gained as a de-
fensive lineman that could be bene-
ficial to Hall’s career as an offen-
sive tackle.
“On the defensive line, it’s all
about attacking and playing with
low leverage,” Hall said. “I think
that helped me run-block better. I
was firing off like a defensive line-
man so I could get the most push. I
knew what they were trying to do.”
Bunting concurred.
“You can see it as a run blocker,
he can create a lot of leverage,” he
said. “At 303 pounds, he’s not over-
ly strong, but his ability to generate
leverage is a big plus.”
That means, for example, that
Hall is not pigeonholed into any
one type of scheme.
“He could play in a zone or
power, to be honest. His body type
screams zone. But when you see
him play with leverage, you know
he can do power,” Bunting said.
“That’s good, because he’ll be on a
few more teams’ draft boards.”
Hall recognized that he still has
work to do in pass protection;
Bunting pointed to “overextended
footwork” as one of Hall’s major li-
abilities, but also said that his ath-
leticism is good enough that he
could improve with more practice.
“I’ve been told that scouts say
that they like me but that I need to
improve my pass blocking, because
the defensive ends are freaks in the
NFL,” Hall said. “I still need to con-
tinue to get better.I’m still learning.”
To his credit, Hall seems to be
the person most cognizant of his sit-
uation. He is not fooling himself: his
technique — essential to pass
blocking — is the major focus of his
current workouts. He’s also practic-
ing as a guard to look more attrac-
tive to NFL clubs.
“To make a team, because the
rosters are so much smaller in the
NFL, you have to be versatile,”
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ing the most reps on Saturday, but
he has looked shaky and erratic,
opening the door for the other two
to sneak in. Daniel is more of a
mobile, running quarterback, so
he might be used in Wildcat for-
mations or even converted to a re-
ceiver. Shaw stressed that the
competition is completely open
right now with no frontrunner, but
with the way the quarterbacks
were throwing on Saturday, Stan-
ford fans should be happy that
Luck passed up the NFL to return
for his senior season.
Contact Kabir Sawhney at ksawh-
ney@stanford.edu.
he said.
Since Stanford’s season ended in
January, Hall has been working to
beat the learning curve. He’s train-
ing at the Athletes’ Performance
Institute in Carson, just south of
Los Angeles, where he spends his
days trying to improve his strength,
speed and technical skills. His
meals are specifically designed to
maximize performance. He does
drills against some of the best de-
fensive linemen in the draft, includ-
ing Clemson’s Da’Quan Bowers,
who many see as the probable No. 1
overall selection.
“It gives you a good gauge of
what you need to work on and
where you’re at. Doing it just gives
you more confidence, because
you’re practicing against these
highly skilled people. When you
look at the NFL from the outside,
you have these ideas of grandeur.
It’s good to get used to playing
people at that skill level,” Hall
said.
Eventually, the benefits of these
drills and workout regimens have
to reach the eyes of scouts and
coaches, and Hall, unlike many
other candidates, will only have
one major forum to showcase his
talent. While other prospects were
invited to postseason all-star
games and the scouting combine,
Hall was left out. His lone chance
to perform in front of a legion of
NFL personnel will be Stanford’s
Pro Day on March 17.
“I’m a little disadvantaged be-
cause not going to the Combine
means they know less about me. I
haven’t done an interview yet,” he
said. “Even at Pro Day, I won’t be
evaluated as closely as if I went to
the combine, where they do a
ridiculous amount of tests and in-
terviews. At Pro Day they’re work-
ing you out and taking you through
drills, not doing actual interviews
with you.”
Bunting stressed the importance
of Hall’s Pro Day performance.
“There will be more weight on
his Pro Day. If he doesn’t perform
well, he won’t get the chance to
make up for it,” he said. “He needs
to have long arms, which is key at
the offensive tackle position. He
has to run in that 5.3 range [in the
40-yard dash]. He has to show that
he can put on some weight. He has
a good frame, but he should be clos-
er to 310.”
Ultimately, Hall knows how he’s
viewed and where he sits. His atten-
tion is not on the past but on what
he can do in the next two months to
improve his draft stock.A good Pro
Day performance, for instance,
could prompt separate visits from
teams, or invitations to their train-
ing facilities, where Hall and coach-
es can get better acquainted. It has
taken numerous unpredictable
turns to get him to this point, but
Hall stands on the precipice of a
professional career. To that end, his
focus and drive are honed.
“I just have to worry about what
I can control,” he said.“I’m going to
work my hardest.”
Contact Wyndam Makowsky at
makowsky@stanford.edu.
HOUSING WANTED.
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practicing.
Email gerhardtjulie@hotmail.com
March Madness Musings
I T
t’s officially March, so it’s
officially time for some
Dan Bohm
madness. Unfortunately
for men’s basketball fans on the Farm,Stanford isn’t
exactly the best campus to be on during the Big
Dance. The first issue is the academic one. I feel like I’ve
tackled this one in the past.As college basketball warms up
for its big tournament in a week with conference tourna-
ments this week, Stanford similarly prepares for its culmi-
nation — Finals Week — with its preamble, Dead Week.
(And if somebody could explain to me what,if anything,is
dead about Dead Week,that would answer a question I’ve
been trying to address for five years now).
The second issue is that Stanford’s men’s basketball
team is a complete non-factor in the madness.The Cardi-
nal ended its regular season with a less-than-inspiring (to
put it nicely) performance at rival Cal last weekend — the
Bears shellacked the Cardinal, who at one point looked
like it may not score 20 points all game,but managed to put
up 55 in a 19-point loss. Now Stanford must win a play-in
game just to be a part of the Pac-10 tournament.If the Car-
dinal can beat Oregon State in that play-in game, it gets a
date with the No. 1 seed, Arizona. That leaves Stanford’s
chances of going dancing about even with the chances that
the Minnesota Timberwolves make the NBA playoffs —
not going to happen.
What is unfortunate is that Stanford juniors have never en-
joyed a Stanford basketball game in the NCAA tournament.
The last time the Cardinal played in the tournament,it lost in
the Sweet Sixteen to Texas.That was 2008 — Trent Johnson
was still the team’s coach and the Lopez twins (Brook and
Robin) were still locking down the paint.Now Trent Johnson
is at LSU (although that may not last), the Lopez twins are
NBA fixtures and Stanford looks to be nowhere near where it
needs to be to get back to the tournament.
Sure, the Cardinal has some promising young players
— but this is not a Stanford team of the late 90s or early
2000s. It is still a team that lacks athletes, consistent point
guard play and star power. When Stanford will return to
the Big Dance is anyone’s guess.
There is good news for basketball fans — this is shap-
ing up to be one heck of an NCAA tournament.There is
no clear-cut favorite and any number of teams are capable
of cutting the nets down in early April.
Ohio State and Kansas have to be seen as the two fa-
vorites, but even that is a stretch. Defending champion
Duke has looked beatable in recent weeks,Texas has gone
through a pseudo-collapse and BYU recently kicked one
of its best players off the team.
There are the surging teams and the underdogs. North
Carolina looks very tough to beat these days. So does
Kansas State.How about a Cinderella? Will we see anoth-
er George Mason? If so, who will it be? George Mason?
Your guess is as good as mine,I suppose.
Then there are other storylines, like the Big East.Will it
get 11 teams in the Tournament? No conference has ever
gotten nine teams in,but the Big East has 11 real contenders.
Unfortunately for Big East teams, the gauntlet of a confer-
ence schedule could help them be tournament-ready — but
it may well have worn teams out.My guess?A Big East team
won’t win the national title.Pittsburgh and Notre Dame are
legitimate possibilities,but I’m betting both will wear down
at some point before the title game.
Regardless, even with how difficult Stanford makes it
to enjoy the NCAA tournament, there is a lot to be had,
even for Cardinal fans.
Dan Bohm has lost every March Madness pool he has
ever entered. Every single one.To give him a pep talk, or
to just send him a completed bracket to submit this year,e-
mail him at bohmd@stanford.edu.
WOMEN STILL
PERFECT
By KEVIN ZHANG
DAILY SPORTS INTERN
The No.1 Stanford women’s water polo team contin-
ued its impressive season last weekend, winning its first
two games over No. 9 San Diego State and No. 11 Long
Beach State. The Cardinal (15-0, 1-0 MPSF) beat the
Aztecs 12-4 and defeated Long Beach State 11-3.
After undefeated performances in the Michigan
Kickoff and Stanford and UCI Invitationals, Stanford
opened up its Mountain Pacific Sports Federation sea-
son against San Diego State (9-7, 0-2) on Saturday and
kept its momentum going.
On the offensive end, the Cardinal continued using
a diversified attack as seven different players scored.
The strong goalie play by Aztec junior Kelly Campoli,
who tallied 12 saves, was not strong enough to answer
Stanford’s offense.
Sophomore two-meter Annika Dries led the Stan-
ford attack with three goals, which led all scorers in the
game. Sophomores drivers Vee Dunlevie and Victoria
Kennedy, along with junior two-meter Melissa Seide-
mann, contributed with a pair of goals each. Junior driv-
ers Cassie Churnside and Alyssa Lo joined senior driv-
er Kim Krueger in posting one goal apiece.
In addition to excellent offensive play, the team held
its opponent under five goals for the seventh-time this
season with senior goalie Amber Oland recording
seven saves.
The following day, Stanford looked for its 15th victo-
ry of the season against non-conference opponent Long
Beach State (4-9). After one quarter of play, the Card
found itself in unfamiliar territory, down 1-0 after a goal
by 49er Julia Garyfallou. However, Stanford quickly
answered in the next period with four goals from four
different players: Dries, freshmen driver Kaley Dod-
son, sophomore driver Jillian Garton and junior driver
Pallavi Menon.
Stanford held a 4-2 lead going into halftime and
Hate for its own sake?
I
Tom Taylor
t’s March, which only means one
thing: the NCAA Basketball
Tournament is coming.Practically
unheard of my side of theAtlantic, The reason I had strayed so far from
this annual event is certainly a campus was because I was watching it
highlight of my sporting life in America. with a friend who did her undergrad at
Last year the women’s side of the tour- Duke. She was there because she want-
nament captured most of my attention, ed to find a place where she’d have safe-
partly because I was a beat writer for the ty in numbers with fellow Blue Devils
Stanford team, but also because they fans. But even in this safe haven, I was
had a great chance of going all the way.I struck by how many people just did not
did,however,catch a bit from the men’s like Duke. Most weren’t Butler fans or
tournament, including the final (where alumni from Duke’s rival schools in the
Duke narrowly defeated Butler) in a Atlantic Coast Conference, but they
sports bar up in San Francisco. were certainly not neutrals.They really,
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 ! 9
he calendar has
reached March, which
Jacob Jaffe
means it’s time for
sports heaven. That’s right, folks, March Mad-
ness is upon us,and I couldn’t be more excited.
Now, I’ve written before about how much I love college
football bowl season, and those days watching bowls are
some of my favorite of the year.College football is my fa-
vorite sport,and while its current system has flaws the size
of Charlie Sheen’s ego, it still creates one hell of a bowl
season.
That said, nothing can top the excitement of March
Madness.Think about it — what other sporting event can
consume an entire month (or more) and keep people in-
terested enough to name the whole month for it? Where
the month of October has lost some of its luster as the
World Series moves into November,March Madness is as
mad as ever even though the Final Four is in April.
Why does America catch a case of March Madness
every year? Because the NCAA tournament (and the
conference tournaments leading up to it) provide the per-
fect blend of amazing performances, enormous mistakes,
thrilling finishes, explosive controversies, ground-shatter-
ing upsets and, perhaps most of all, the best system in the
sports world for fan picking.
While you may think that I am overstating the impor-
tance of betting by saying that bracket competitions drive
March Madness, stop and consider how you view the
NCAA tournament.I’d be willing to bet that 99 percent of
people who watch the tournament are in at least one
bracket-picking competition. And the other 1 percent
(don’t worry, not you, Rick Neuheisel) consists of people
whose jobs don’t allow them to. It wouldn’t be March
Madness if you weren’t waiting with bated breath,clutch-
ing your bracket in prayer as your Cinderella pick in-
bounded the ball with a chance to topple that No.3 seed.
The great thing about March Madness is the way it in-
vites competition, even among those of us with no ability
to influence the outcome of any of the games (I’m looking
at you,baseball fans.You can wear your hat upside-down
and put on the same socks you’ve worn all season, but it
won’t make your team do any better).The looks of utter
devastation or unimagined joy on the faces of the players
are matched only by the looks of fans across the nation
that correctly picked that upset.
If you’re new to college basketball,you may think I’m
kidding, but I still remember correctly guessing Vermont
over Syracuse six years ago.The pride of that pick was one
of the first things I shared with a guy on my freshman hall-
way who ended up becoming one of my best friends (not
to mention the editor in chief of this paper).
Of course,for every great win,there’s an agonizing de-
feat (or in my case, many agonizing defeats). If Derrick
Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts hadn’t done their best
Chuck Hayes impressions in the final minutes of the title
game against Kansas in 2008, I would have won my fami-
ly’s competition.Everyone has one of those moments that
he or she can point to, and those, just as much as the wins,
make March Madness amazing.
I’ve never won or lost a cent betting on NCAA tour-
nament games,but every year,every game feels like life or
death.Stanford almost certainly won’t be making the Big
Dance, and I don’t particularly root for any other teams
passionately. But for the next month, with a wide-open
field and upsets undoubtedly cropping up wherever you
don’t expect them to,March Madness will be my life.
If you think Jacob Jaffe needs to get over that one pick
six years ago, or if you just want into his betting pool
(and he has one I promise), hit him up at jwjaffe@stan-
ford.edu.
Stanford Daily File Photo
Junior driver Alyssa Lo (No. 4) recorded a hat-trick against
Long Beach State on Saturday. The Cardinal kept its
strong season going in the match, which it ultimately won
by a score of 11-3.
never looked back. Despite a ten-save effort by senior
goalie Kristen Stragier of Long Beach State, the Card
went on a 7-1 run to win 11-3 against the 49ers.
Lo led the Card with a hat-trick. In addition, Dries
and Garton each had a pair of goals in the win.
With its performance over the weekend, Stanford
has now scored ten or more goals 14 times this season.
The only time Stanford didn’t score 10 goals was in a 9-
6 win over defending NCAA champion and second-
ranked USC. In addition, 11 out of 15 victories have
come by a margin of eight goals or more. Dries is now
first on the team with 26 goals.
The team will have this weekend off before continu-
ing its MPSF season against Arizona State in Tempe on
Saturday, March 19.The next scheduled home game for
Stanford will be on March 26 against UCLA.
Contact Kevin Zhang at kevinzhangle@gmail.com.
really wanted Duke to lose.
Being English,I can certainly sympa-
thize with the Blue Devils fans. Each
time a major international soccer tour-
nament rolls around, there is a notice-
able contingent within the UK of North-
ern Irish, Scottish and Welsh fans sup-
portingABE (Anyone But England).In
return,many England fans — who often
have family links to one or other of those
Celtic countries — will brush the dislike
away and happily lend their support
when roles are reversed.There might be
Please see TAYLOR, page 10
10 ! Wednesday, March 9, 2011
TAYLOR
Continued from page 9
longstanding political and soccer rival-
ries between those nations and Eng-
land, but it is hard to keep those going
when we rarely play games against each
other and live in a pretty equal society.
The enmity goes only one way.
But being an English soccer fan,I can
also sympathize with the haters. Man-
chester United is a hugely successful and
well-supported team over here,but I re-
ally don’t like them.And I’m not alone.
They really are a polarizing club: their
phenomenal success in recent years,
frustratingly a result of being one of the
best-managed clubs in the World, has
earned them many fans but lent them a
perceived arrogance that has created
even more enemies.In fact,as I write this
column, I’m happily watching their big
rivals, Liverpool, conclusively beat
them.
I’m not sure why Duke is so hated.It
has certainly had success, but four Na-
tional Championships spread over
twenty years doesn’t make it unbeat-
able.As a university,it is also known for
being a rich, private institution — so
perhaps it’s because Dukies are elitist.
But then there are many others in that
category,including Stanford,which easi-
ly have more than its fair share of athlet-
ic dominance.It could be its style of play,
some suggesting that Duke players
manage to win more fouls than have re-
ally been committed,but even that does-
n’t seem a good enough reason. If that
were really true, then officials would
slowly get wise to the ruse.
Looking in as an outside observer,it
is strange that the Blue Devils are so dis-
liked — and a little unpalatable. Some
fans surely harbor real justification for
hating Duke, but I wonder if many just
do it because that’s what you do.
And it makes me start to reevaluate
my own choices in sport. Next week
Manchester United has an important
match against foreign opposition in the
Champions League.If they win,it won’t
hurt any of the teams I have a soft spot
for domestically,but it will help raise the
profile of the English league in general.
Maybe I need to bite my lip and honest-
ly cheer for the Red Devils.
Tom Taylor also enjoys rooting for the
Arizona State Sun Devils and New Jer-
sey Devils.Contact him about watching
a Devils game or two at
tom.taylor@stanford.edu.
MBBALL
Continued from page 8
my Green did everything he could
to keep the Cardinal in the game.
Riding smooth mid-range jumpers
and two three-pointers, Green
scored 14 of the Cardinal’s 21 first
half points. No other Cardinal play-
er had more than two points in the
half and the team as a whole shot 28
percent from the field.
Stanford came out harder in
the second, forcing three
turnovers and several missed
shots.The Cardinal scored the first
four points to pull within eight
(33-25) at the 17:30 mark. Cal then
turned its offense back on and
scored on each of its next 10 pos-
sessions, pushing out its lead to 53-
32 with 11:23 left in the game. Cen-
tral to the big run and to Cal’s sec-
ond half offense in general was
freshman guard Allen Crabbe,
who was electric for the whole 20
minutes — he scored 21 of his 24
total points in the half, missing just
one shot and lighting Stanford’s
defense up from every spot on the
court. From there, the game was
never in doubt. Shot after shot,
Cal extended its lead, getting as
WTENNIS
Continued from page 8
pecially in doubles,” McVeigh said.
“I try to move forward into the first
half of the court as often and as
early in the point as I can to put
pressure on our opponent. I like to
serve and volley most of the time
because I trust in my ability to
make volleys.”
Here at Stanford, she has thrived
under the expert tutelage of Head
Coach Lele Forood, a former dou-
BASEBALL
Continued from page 8
The Longhorn star seemed
shakier in the ninth, allowing four
hits against five batters to start the
frame and giving up two runs before
being pulled. The Cardinal was in
position to steal the lead with two
runners on and two outs, down 4-3,
but a hard-knock comebacker
sealed the deal for Texas and gave
Appel his second close loss in a row.
Stanford’s late momentum con-
tinued into Saturday’s matchup, as
the Cardinal scored early and often
to take a 3-0 lead going into a three-
run fifth. Sophomore third baseman
Stephen Piscotty’s second double of
the game knocked in a run before
the Longhorns’ third error on the af-
ternoon made the score 5-0. Fresh-
man Lonnie Kauppila came up with
his second RBI single in as many
games for another Stanford run.
Texas’s five errors — three of
which were made by third baseman
Erich Weiss — were too much for
the Longhorns to overcome as soph-
omore Dean McArdle (2-0) allowed
just one run in 7.2 innings and the
Cardinal took the contest, 9-2.
But Texas made no errors on
Sunday, and Stanford had trouble
coming up with any offense until the
final two innings of the series.
The Cardinal kept things close
but still hadn’t scored by the bottom
The Stanford Daily
far ahead as 28 with a minute left,
at 74-46.
In one of his best all-around
games of the season, Crabbe also
finished with nine rebounds. Cal
junior guard, Jorge Gutierrez,
spread the ball around with seven
assists and Kamp also contributed
in the second half, supporting
Crabbe and finishing with 20 points
of his own.
For the Cardinal, Green finished
with 19 points while the rest of the
team shot a collective 16-45 (35.5
percent) from the field on the
game. The Cardinal also shot an
abysmal 9-19 (47.4 percent) from
the free throw line.
Stanford will try to extend its
season at next week’s Pac-10 tour-
nament in Los Angeles. As the
eighth seed, the Cardinal will face
ninth-seeded Oregon State at 6:10
p.m.Wednesday in the first game of
an opening round doubleheader.
The Cardinal split the season series
with the Beavers, winning the first
game on Jan. 29, 70-56, and losing
Feb. 26, 87-80. If the Cardinal wins
that game, it will advance to play
No. 1 seed Arizona the next day.
All Pac-10 tournament games
will be played at the Staples Center.
Contact Nic Reiner-Parra at nrein-
er@stanford.edu.
bles specialist and an expert on vol-
ley techniques.
“Lele is one of the best coaches at
volleying that you can come across,
and I try to work with her as much
as I can,” McVeigh said. “Lele,
being a professional player and a
doubles specialist, is most able to
help me with my form on my vol-
leys and my strategy.”
Barte, Yen and McVeigh will
join the rest of the team for its next
match, against Utah on March 21 at
Taube Tennis Stadium.
Contact Will Seaton at wseaton
@stanford.edu.
of the sixth, when sophomore out-
fielder Jake Stewart lost a ball in the
sun,resulting in a Longhorn triple.A
wild pitch by junior Scott Snodgress
brought the runner in and made the
score 4-0 for Texas.
Stanford rallied in the eighth,
loading the bases on a walk and two
consecutive hits to start the inning.
Following an RBI single by fresh-
man first baseman Brian Ragira,
sophomore Eric Smith grounded
into a double play, bringing in a run
but costing the Cardinal two crucial
outs. The next batter, freshman
Brian Guymon, struck out to end
the inning.
Senior Dave Giuliani singled to
lead off the ninth, but the three top
hitters in Stanford’s order — who
would finish with just one hit in 13
at-bats on the day — couldn’t close
the 4-2 gap. The matchup was also
the Cardinal’s least impressive of
the series from a pitching stand-
point, as Stanford hurlers walked
seven batters — that’s more bases
on balls than in the two previous
games combined.
Though Stewart hit safely in all
three games, continuing his impres-
sive run with hits in 10 of 11 games,
he cooled off considerably over the
weekend, batting just .200 in the se-
ries.
The Cardinal gets a week off for
finals before it plays Michigan in a
home series on March 18 and 19.
Contact Joseph Beyda at josephbey-
da@comcast.net
inside VIDEOGAMES
page 6
PC gaming is far from dead.
MUSIC
page 4
Check out our review of DeVotchKa’s new
cover
album, “100 Lovers.”
Anastasia
The Oatmeal releases new book “5 Very Good
Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth.”
Roxy Sass helps you define
your relationship.
Yee
BOOKS
page 5
ADVICE
page 8 Robert Gauthier /
MCT

Ways to know you’re unprepared

for finals
H appy dead week folks! Now comes that glorious time of the quarter
when we collectively melt down and freak out. For some of us, it’s when
than study. Others would rather lick the lint off the ground. While some-
how, most of us manage to pull it together, there’s always an unfortunate
few who don’t. Here are some red flags that suggest you may fall into the
we realize we’d rather stick pushpins into our heads or strangle a monkey latter category.

1 2
Your book still You’ve flirted with the idea of opening it but have
You don’t know This is usually a pretty clear indicator
put it off until now. It’s always satisfying to crack
makes that open a textbook and inhale that new book smell but what your professor
that either A) you never go to class, or B)
when you do go, you’re never awake
fresh, cracking definitely not when you have to absorb all the infor-
looks like. long enough to learn anything useful.
mation inside of it before your final the next day.
sound.
You don’t
know where
your section is. 3
Thinking of salvaging those participation
points? It’s kind of hard to make a last-ditch
effort when you don’t even know where to go.
You realize your
final was three
hours ago. 4 This is pretty self-explanatory.

5
You waste your Lists are the first step to productivity if you actually work to check
music
things off. However, compiling inane lists like these is generally the
time making lists. first step in the opposite direction. Previewing South
by Southwest
D
ispel your common notions of a major music festi-
val. Imagine not a campground-turned-hipster-
commune but rather, a vibrant and urban down-
town area, where bar after bar and club after club is issued a
full slate of bands for five days of organized chaos.
That’s the scene at Austin’s South by Southwest
(SXSW), an omnibus event that plays host not just to musi-
cal acts, but film screenings and interactive technology
showcases, too. For a “week” (actually, 10 days), the city is
taken over, and this year, for the first time, The Daily is join-
ing in on the action. While we’d love to be there for all of it,
finals period has other plans. But, we’ll still get there for the
music, and that’s perfectly fine by us.
How does SXSW work? It has headliners — among

2 ANASTASIA YEE/ The Stanford Daily

intermission | continued on page 4 |
 movies
James Franco
IS MY BOSS
“H
ow did I get here? I
have no freaking idea.”
A wide-eyed Lacey Dorn ‘11
laughs in disbelief. It’s opening night
of “Metamorphosis: Junior Year”, the
play adaptation of Betsy Franco’s
quirky young adult novel and what
Lacey has spent the last six months of
her life documenting on film. James,
her co-director and Betsy’s eldest son,
flies in Monday to take a stab at
directing a shoot. You can imagine it’s
difficult to collaborate in person
when Lacey’s finishing up at Stanford
and James is working towards his
Ph.D. in English at Yale. What’s prob-
ably a bit harder to manage is when
your co-director is also balancing a
movie star career along with high-
profile gigs like hosting the Oscars,
making appearances on “General
Courtesy Light at 11B
Hospital”, romancing Japanese body
pillows on “30 Rock” and studying at
practically every college your mom
can name, like UCLA, Columbia,
NYU, Brooklyn College and occa-
sionally Warren Wilson College.
But how do you even get your-
self there in the first place? How do
you wrestle your way onto an already
over-committed star’s radar?
Easy — you go to Telluride
Film Festival.
James recently raked in the crit-
ical acclaim, not to mention an
Oscar nomination for his starring
role in “127 Hours”, the follow-up of
“Slumdog Millionaire” for director
Danny Boyle. The film premiered at
Telluride last September, which
Lacey attended along with her friend
and Stanford Film Society head,
Sam Pressman ‘10, who worked the
Courtesy Light at 11B
festival. After the movie’s Q&A,
Lacey struck up a conversation with
James and realized they had much
in common.
“I share a lot of the same aca-
demic interests, especially with writ-
ing, and his parents met at Stanford.
He grew up in Palo Alto,” Lacey said.
“So we were talking about lots of
stuff, and he was like,‘You know
what? My mom and I are doing a
project in Palo Alto. Why don’t you
help out?’”
Naturally, Lacey agreed.“It was
totally serendipitous, and I got a call
from his producer in the next month
who was like,‘Hey, want to help
out?’”
Lacey’s role snowballed from
there, going from helper, to co-pro-
ducer and to co-director.
“So this has been a total whirl-
wind. They brought me on after
things had just started, but no one
really knew what was going on,” Lacey
said.“We didn’t know what angle we
wanted to take or how we wanted to
approach it, but we did know that
there’s this amazing creative process.
There’s a community that has a lot of
pressure on teens, where there’s been
a lot of teen mental health problems
despite the surface perfection. It’s Palo
Alto — the Stanford Duck Syndrome
definitely — it expands into Palo Alto
and the high schoolers here for sure.”
The next step was to interview
the teens involved and figure out
which stories to follow.
“It’s a documentary, so you
| continued on page 8 |
Five minutes with
Betsy Franco
W
hen Betsy Franco, Stanford
alum and mother of James,
first submitted her draft of
“MMetamorphosis: Junior Year” to her
editor, she received less than enthu-
siastic feedback.
“That publisher said, ‘This is too
weird. This isn’t really a novel. Can
you get rid of the myths? Can you
get rid of the poetry?’” Betsy said. “I
thought, ‘I’m willing to work with
you, but that’s kind of the whole crux
of the book.’”
Betsy was inspired to write
“Metamorphosis” after watching a
local high school production of Mary
Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses”
three times. Like Zimmerman’s play,
“Metamorphosis” is an adaptation of
the classic Greek and Roman myths.
The story centers on brooding teen
artist, Ovid, who chronicles the lives of
his family and friends as modern
retellings of the classic myths. Her
teenage protagonist’s realism stems
from her plentiful experience raising
three of her own.
“Oh my god. I don’t think I slept
for many weekends when James and
Tom were growing up. Dave was a
little easier,” Betsy chuckled. “They
were risk risk-takers. They got in trou-
ble.”
Nowadays, the three Franco brothers
are a bit of momma’s boys, all chip-
ping in to bring their mother’s work
to the stage. Middle child Tom drew
the original illustrations for the book
and helped design the sets. Her eld-
est and youngest — James and Dave
— collaborated on the audiobook of
“Metamorphosis”. James is also pro-
ducing a documentary about the
making of the play, which he hopes
will capture the teen-driven creative
wednesday march 9 2011
Courtesy Light at 11B
process of the production.
“It’s so much fun. I can’t believe
they’re willing to work with me,”
Betsy said. “James just put me in a
movie, ‘The Broken Tower’, about
the poet Hart Crane and then let me
be his mom on ‘General Hospital’,
and now he’s doing a documentary
of the making of the play, because
we involved the teens so much.”
Another perk of having celebrity
spawn? Third row center seats at the
Oscars.
“Oh my god. It was just pure
fun from start to finish. It was just so
delightful,” she said. “The actors
were in front of us who were nomi-
nated and who were presenting. It
was fun to see them naturally talking
to each other — not that I don’t
know actors are people, because my
son is — but people put them on
pedestals.”
What did she think of seeing
her son in drag?
“That was my favorite part. I
love that he didn’t even stuff it - just
flat!”
The kids in the cast requested
she say hi to a couple specific stars,
so she went onstage afterwards to
greet James’ co-host, Anne
Hathaway, and found “The Social
Network’s” Jesse Eisenberg at the
Governor’s Ball. With a movie star
son, Betsy has no qualms approach-
ing the rich and famous.
“I mean, I have a calling card,”
Betsy laughed. “I just go up to peo-
ple and say, ‘I’m James Franco’s
mom.’”
— l a u re n W I L S O N
3
 music
the vital stats
having to consult the printout in the album. fast-paced with liberal use of the pedal on the
100 Lovers
The same is true for “Ruthless”, with words in guitar, which seems to parallel the achingly
DEVOTCHKA Spanish and French sprinkled throughout the emotional bandoneón line. There’s a sensuality

D
Indie Folk
eVotchKa is best vocals and flamenco influences on the guitar to the rhythm that only Latin flavor can bring
known for scoring LE OF line and dance rhythms. As backup to Urata’s to music. The climax of the song, an ascending
CA

7
the independent

1
S
scene-stealing vocals, Jeanie Schroder’s (also on line on violins and bandoneón that drops sud-

TO
ON A
film, “Little Miss Sunshine.” double bass and sousaphone) sweet, flat tone denly and is drowned out by the guitar, is the

With the release of their fifth
album, this Denver-based band proves that
it owes its reputation not to the Academy
Award-winning film, but rather to its stunning
ability to transmit emotions through its exu-
berant, heartwarming brand of singular indie-
world-folk music.
“100 Lovers” is an amazing whirlwind
tour of tango rhythms, mariachi horns, soaring
string instrumentation and front man Nick
Urata’s distinct slurred vocals. An interesting
mélange of genres, the album starts off on the
nostalgic notes of “The Alley”. It is a beautiful
opening track that builds on several layers of
sound, beginning with sweeping orchestral
strings, a piano line and steadily building
marching drums. When Urata’s voice explodes
unto the carefully crafted soundscape, it har-
nesses the instrumentation swelling around it
and adds depth and character to the otherwise
10
Courtesy Anti Records
too film-friendly harmony.
And what a voice this is. All throughout
the album, Urata’s voice captures the ear in a
way that none of his contemporaries on the
indie scene can match: his slurred vocals are
unquestionably the central part of the album.
Mashing words together, dropping syllables
and adopting several different kinds of accents,
Urata is able to alter his vocals to match the
cultural context many of the songs on the
album boast. On “Bad Luck Heels”, which fea-
tures mariachi brass and dansón influences,
certain vocals are in Italian, slurred so artfully
into the vocals in English that it’s completely
impossible to distinguish where one language
ends and the other begins. The vowel sounds
are flattened, the consonants slurred, making it
difficult to discern the actual lyrics without
provides a middle ground, which manages to
connect the strong instrumentation to the
equally strong vocals without one overbearing
the other.
“100 Other Lovers”, the quasi-title track,
comes third on the album. The dreamy quality
in the music is courtesy of the theremin, an
early electronic instrument that sounds softer
than a synth, which suffuses the recording with
an antique, eerie quality when layered with
orchestral strings. Handclaps and a tambourine
in the background mitigate the somber mood
and inject youthful nonchalance into the cock-
tail, while the vocals again show off that idio-
syncratic mumble.
“The Man from San Sebastián” strikes up
a tango rhythm with the very specific use of a
bandoneón, a wind instrument much like the
accordion that is characteristic of popular
Argentinean music. The song is revved up and
most dramatic moment on the album. It’s a
furious, sensual whirlwind of music and the
definite apex of the album, with a final note
that resonates for the whole length of the
album.
There are several instrumental tracks scat-
tered throughout the album, some under the
telling titles of “Interlude” which showcase the
range of sounds the band has come to master
and which bring the band’s most hated genre
label into mind: gypsy punk. One such track is
the closer, “Sunshine”. With spacey, swirling
string instruments and digital vibes from the
theremin, the band closes the curtain on the
fifth act of their dramatic showcase, this time
with the spotlight firmly on them.
—maría del Carmen Barrios
contact maría:
mariacbg@stanford.edu

CONTINUED FROM “SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST” PAGE 2

them this year are Duran Duran, Queens of the Stone
Age, Wu Tang Clan, Cee Lo Green, Lupe Fiasco, Wiz
Khalifa and The Strokes — but unlike, say, Coachella,
the flow of the festival is not based around these per-
formances. The sheer volume of acts prevents it. There
are thousands. Seriously. It’s entirely possible — in fact,
it’s almost certain — that we will skip the majority of
the “main” groups. And that’s okay. There’s plenty to
take in, and we have a shortlist, at the top of which is . . .
Killer Mike.
My photographer and I, dear friends since our
preteen years, have always had an affinity for southern
rap. The third and final member of the group shares
said interest. Hence, the following conversation:
“Guys, Killer Mike is playing.”
“What?”
“Yup.”
“Dope.”
“We’re going.”
“Yup.”
“Yup.”
Then there’s Danny Brown and Freddie Gibbs,
Roc Marciano and Pill. But we’re not confined to rap.
We’ll hit the indie circuit. We’ll get to some country.
We’ll take all comers. We’ve spent the past two weeks
listening to all the mixtapes and albums we can get our
hands on, just to prepare.
How are we going to cover this? We’re going to
tweet. We’re going to post pictures. We’re going to
review as much of the music and the culture as we
can. This is not going to be a standard summation of
events. We’re looking at this through an almost
anthropological lens. Take Hunter S. Thompson off
the campaign trail, reduce his talent by about 95 per-
cent and place him in Austin — voila, you have what
we’re going for.
But if you hadn’t gathered, there is a problem: we
could deploy our entire reporting staff and still not get
to every single performance. There’s only so much that
we can see. We’re going to have to discriminate. Our
inclination is toward the hip-hop scene, but our tastes
are widespread and surely, though we combed through
the acts, we may very well have missed a supremely tal-
ented act or — gasp! — even “the next big thing.” So:
get in touch, give us the scoop, let us know whom you
want us to cover. Follow us on Twitter @intermission
TSD. We’ll try and make it happen — if, of course, our
prior commitments to Killer Mike don’t get in the way.

—wyndam MAKOWSKY
4 contact wyndam: makowsky@stanford.edu
intermission Robert Gauthier/MCT
 books
C
onfession: sometimes I
forget basic grammar
rules, including appropri-
ate apostrophe use. I don’t usually
turn to a style guide or Google for
quick instruction, but instead
turn to the Oatmeal blog, known
for its satirical comics, snarky
commentary and illustrated
instructions to get you through
the more mundane aspects of
daily life (not to mention the
abundance of cartoon dinosaurs).
So when I got my hands on
the Oatmeal’s new book, “5 Very
Good Reasons to Punch a
Dolphin in the Mouth (and
Other Useful Guides),” I was
ecstatic to start flipping through
its colorful pages and bask in the
pretentiousness of mocking cus-
tomer service representatives and
obnoxious Facebook friends —
you know that one person who
bombards your News Feed with
Farmville updates all the time?
There’s a comic for that. My inner
geek also loved “How to Use a
Semicolon” . . . one that everyone
should take the time to read.
The book is mostly just a
published collection of cartoons
and comics from the web site.
Some of them are useful, includ-
ing “How to Use an Apostrophe,”
while others are randomly enter-
taining yet unrealistic (“Why it
would suck to live next to a vol-
cano”). The blog has been a
favorite procrastination device of
mine for the last year, and having
it in print form is a nice break
from surfing (okay, creeping) on
Facebook every study break.
Flipping through some of
the pages, you can’t help but
laugh at how relatable the materi-
al is (see “crappy hugs”) . . . but
then you cringe a little when you
remember that your bad hand-
shake or misspellings could easily
be the butt of any of these jokes.
Oatmeal good for
cheap laughs
“
the gross jokes become tiresome.
The premise behind “5 Very
Good Reasons” is interesting —
If it weren’t for an exhausted, angry web designer
quits his corporate job and pub-
the pull-out lishes his first year’s worth of car-
toons that spawned the Oatmeal,
posters, I would but ultimately, the book is redun-
dant in its targets and a bit
whiney.
stick to just However, the comics are
great for mindless skimming,
”
reading this cheap laughs and some educa-
tion (“Twenty Things Worth
Knowing About Beer” counts,
online. right?), but it’s not something to
spend hours poring over.
If it weren’t for the pullout
The comics become increas- posters, I would stick to just read-
ingly vulgar as you flip through
the pages. Ultimately, the comics
ing this online. As for the dolphins,
I’m not sure I’m convinced.
portray what we point to as first-
world problems — bad interviews
—kate ABBOTT
and giving computer help — at
contact kate:
their finest, and toward the end, kmabbott@stanford.edu
Courtesy Andrews McMeel Publishing
Courtesy Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt
An unbiased
look at religion
T
his reader readily admits that,
when she first heard of this book,
she was deeply skeptical. A history
of the Holy City, as told by a former
Catholic priest, conjured images of evan-
gelical, gay-bashing nutcases looking to
debunk evolutionary theory for the hun-
dredth time. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” how-
ever, turned out to be a literate and com-
passionate treatment of a wildly provoca-
tive subject, a testament to James Carroll’s
skill and perspective.
The book opens with a personal his-
tory, the story of how Carroll came to be
fascinated by the city of Jerusalem —
both the historical, physical city and the
mythos of Jerusalem that came to hold
such sway in the modern collective con-
sciousness. In any other work of this
nature, this sort of introduction would
have seemed trite and self-aggrandizing;
one typically reads nonfiction to learn
about the subject matter, not the author.
In this case, however, it felt right — hon-
orable, even — as though Carroll were
disclosing his background out of journal-
istic integrity.
Jerusalem’s story begins on chapter
two, where Carroll
wednesday march 9 2011
begins, not with the Biblical version of the
tale, as one might expect, but rather with
a Jared Diamond-esque analysis of the
origins of the three major monotheistic
faiths. His analysis of the genesis of reli-
gion is strictly secular and very scientific
— he argues that it was primarily a
means of sublimating intrinsic human
violence and dealing with death. His
examination of the foundation of the city
of Jerusalem, and its predecessor, Jericho,
is similarly clinical, written with aplomb
and an appreciation for archaeological
evidence that any historian would admire.
He is not afraid to question, or even con-
tradict, the text of the Bible where neces-
sary; indeed, he spends a significant
amount of time analyzing the very
human origins of the Holy Book itself.
As his focus shifts to more (relative-
ly) modern events, like the crucifixion
and the Islamic conquest of the Middle
East in the medieval era, he does not lose
his impartiality. His treatment of these
extremely relevant and extremely contro-
versial topics is sensitive but anchored in
an unflinching appraisal of the follies of
human nature through the centuries —
universal weaknesses that have persisted
irrespective of faith of any stripe. He does
not spare his own Catholic faith, which is
as central to the Jerusalem story as either
of it modern contenders; he criticizes the
violent conduct of organized Christianity
throughout history as a fundamental mis-
interpretation of the teachings of Christ, a
throwback to the more violent Old
Testament, and explains — but does not
excuse — its treatment of Judaism as a
backward psychological response to its
historic persecution at the hands of classi-
cal Rome.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem” is a truly
scholarly treatment of a very relevant
topic and one of the least biased works
this reader has seen from an author of
such unique perspective. It is well worth
the while of anyone interested in the his-
torical background of today’s Middle
Eastern conflict.
—sarah GUAN
contact sarah:
sguan@stanford.edu
5
 games
PC gaming:
STILL
HOT ind
I
f you’ve been plugged into

ames
the traditional channels
of videogame dogma
over the past five or so years,
you’ve probably absorbed
more than a few aggrandized
claims about where this business is headed
— depending on who you talk to, motion
controls, music games, MMOs, free-to-play
games and social networking have all been
poised to take over the industry at one time Courtesy Bioware and Electronic Arts
or another. Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins, released in 2009, was one of the last AAA mulitplatform titles to take full advantage of the PC’s
Not all of the rhetoric sounds so hope- strengths, from superior visuals and controls to custom modifications that alter gameplay. Features like these are becoming more rare.
ful. Some parts of the industry are fading
dictions and differences of opinion, but global PC gaming market by 20% last year, last year’s Super Meat Boy and Amnesia: The
away, and in general, those same game gurus
would-be truthsayers (myself included) need up to a whopping $16.2 billion in revenue. Dark Descent can get the recognition — and
saw it ahead of time — the traditional
to be open to stepping back, taking a fresh That doesn’t sound very “endangered” sales — they deserve. Indie development has
Japanese RPGs and 3-D platformers that
look and perhaps making a bit of a para- to me. So how are PC games still thriving? never been more exciting than now, and its
flooded the market of yesteryear, for exam-
digm shift. It’s hard not to start with the Internet home is clearly on the PC. Ever heard of
ple, may indeed be dying breeds. But another
This brings me back to my sticking — the cause and solution of so many prob- Minecraft? Markus Persson could only have
claim about a supposedly endangered facet
point. I’ll be the first to admit that PC gam- lems. Digital distribution is picking up where designed, created or distributed such a phe-
of gaming, an older and more common one,
ing has moved past its golden age of classics, the retail market dropped off, accounting for nomenon on the PC, which is free of the
has yet to ring true.
such as Doom and Monkey Island, and the millions of purchases that aren’t recorded by market policing of Xbox Live and
Contrary to the popular line of think-
US retail market has declined far enough (to traditional channels like the NPD. Most of PlayStation Network.
ing, PC gaming is not dead — and I’m tired
about $500 million in 2009) that you aren’t those come through Valve, whose Steam And that’s really the heart of PC gam-
of hearing otherwise.
guaranteed to even see a PC shelf in the platform accounts for over 70 percent of ing: freedom. Away from Nintendo’s “Seal of
Gaming is a rapidly changing beast, and
games section at Best Buy. Some major devel- game sales. The service provides day-and- Quality” and Microsoft’s strictly regulated
it’s understandable that a lot of our predic-
opers, often with good reason, are focusing date access without traveling to a store, back- online services, PC developers can create and
tions are way off base. I can’t tell you how
their efforts on dedicated gaming consoles, ground patching, an achievement system update games exactly as they see fit. Gamers
many times I’ve been completely baffled by a
and PC ports are often broken, late or nonex- akin to the Xbox 360’s, ridiculous sales, com- themselves reap similar benefits — on a PC,
Nintendo announcement only to bite my
istent — even if the franchise originally had a munity networking and enough other fea- they can customize controls, tweak graphical
tongue (they’re going to add a waggle-stick
home on the PC (GTA, Assassin’s Creed, tures that I could probably fill this column settings and even create and share modifica-
to the GameCube and sell 85 million units?
Fable, Halo and Gears of War are all offend- just deifying Steam. tions that alter gameplay.
“Never,” I said.) On the other hand, it’s easy
ers on one level or another.) Worst of all is The rise of social networking and micro- PC gaming is different than it used to
to call Nintendo out on some things I got
rampant piracy, which Epic Games President transactions provides another fertile ground be, but claims about its imminent demise are
right — in 2004, CEO Satoru Iwata told the
Michael Capps once said is “killing” major for PC gaming — the Facebook game, shortsighted and close-minded. As DICE
Japan Economic Foundation that “customers
players in the PC games space. FarmVille, has an estimated 300 million-plus general manager and Battlefield designer,
do not want online games.”
That isn’t the whole story, though. PC users, and franchises going free-to-play like Karl Troedsson, said last week, they’re “bull-
That’s all a longwinded way of saying
gaming has been forced to make radical Lord of the Rings Online are often proving shit.”
something simple: there’s room for wild pre-
changes in the wake of the Internet, piracy more lucrative than traditional games. —nate ADAMS
and explosive console popularity, but they Global connectivity also means that contact nate:
aren’t all bad. In fact, they helped boost the independent and small-budget games like nbadams@stanford.edu

6
intermission
 food
I
wrote this during a glamorous
Sunday night study session in the
Paloma Lounge but am actually
supposed to be on Bourbon Street in
New Orleans for Mardi Gras right
now. Three final papers and a
midterm (during dead week — how
is that a mid-term?) intervened, and
the trip got postponed a year, but in
the spirit of the occasion, I thought I
would write about the food-centric
traditions that gave rise to our con-
temporary celebration of Mardi Gras;
it beat reading increasingly incoherent
text messages from people actually in
New Orleans for the week.
“Mardi Gras”is French for
“Fat Tuesday”and actually comes from
the medieval Christian calendar — not
the producer of some low-budget
“Girls Gone Wild”spinoff’s twisted
imagination. It started out as a celebra-
tion of the last day before Lent, 40 days
of fasting and atonement in prepara-
Winter Quarter Rewind: SNOWCHELLA
The campus music fest returned for a second year, hosted by Sigma Nu and Kappa Kappa Gamma.
MARDI GRAS:
What’s Going on Once the Beads Have Settled
tion for Easter Sunday. (For a more
contemporary analogy, think of how
crazy the last weekend before Dead
Week can get here on campus.) During
Lent, Christians are expected to give up
basically any fun stuff — back in the
Middle Ages, that included all alcohol,
meat and dairy. The 40 days start on
Ash Wednesday, a day on the church
calendar entirely devoted to contem-
plating your inevitable death. (There’s a
reason why the Ash Wednesday music
genre isn’t quite as popular as
Christmas carols are.)
So to get their last licks in, people
would throw bacchanal celebrations
the day before (Tuesday), sort of like
carbo-loading for Christ. Today, that
Tuesday has morphed into the more
recognizable Mardi Gras festivities in
New Orleans and Rio de Janiero’s
Courtesy Michael Mezzatesta
infamous Carnival.
But while the celebrations are
famous, the subsequent period of
atonement isn’t as widely recognized in
modern secular society. In an age of
instant gratification, excess and con-
stant availability of — well, anything
you want, deprivation can feel like a
bizarre concept. It’s so easy to buy a
gallon-sized tub of Red Vines at the
two 24-hour Safeways within a few
miles of campus; you can forget that
candy is actually a luxury item. I come
from a family that observes Lent, but
also worships food. (When my little
brother was twelve, he put white truf-
fles on his Christmas list.) Piecing
those two things together can be hard;
Anthony Bourdain isn’t exactly run-
ning around telling everyone to forsake
their gastronomic excesses, and the
popular-
ity of the
YouTube video series “Epic Mealtime”
speaks to our fascination with over-
abundance. But as the nation becomes
increasingly conscious of where exactly
our food comes from, the post-Mardi
Gras period is a great excuse to pare
down, cut back on wasteful consump-
tion patterns and really think about
how luxurious some of the foods we
take for granted are. So what are you
giving up for Lent?
— e v i e D A N F O RT H
contact evie:
e rd a n f o r @ s t a n f o rd . e d u
performance
Spoken Word
wows in winter
showcase
I
wish that that it were possible to
share the experience of the Spoken
Word Collective through this arti-
cle, but it’s not. That’s the whole point
of Spoken Word, really — it’s spoken.
The words alone are lyrical and fluid,
harsh and beautiful, but the power of
the show is in the pacing, personality
and presence. I could quote those
beautiful people for 600 words
straight, and still, I couldn’t explain
why the show was so powerful.What I
can do is share how it felt.
The first prevailing impression of
the place was of warmth. There was
wednesday march 9 2011
John Alvin/MCT
an air of comfort and
familiarity upon enter-
ing the room; the collec-
tive was a family, but the most inclu-
sive family I’ve ever had the privilege
of meeting. There were a few mem-
bers of the group who forgot their
next line partway through a poem, but
it didn’t result in that awkward frigidi-
ty that usually fills the room when an
actor forgets a line in a play — the
audience snapped and murmured
encouragingly, beaming their love at
the performer. The result was that the
mistake didn’t feel like any sort of
problem. If anything, those dropped
lines highlighted the entire feel of the
show, bringing the collective’s love for
each other to the front of the stage.
Raina Sun ‘13, our self-professed
“awkward MC of the night,” was
unbearably charming. She invited us
onto the blankets and pillows that
they’d spread out for us at the front of
| continued on page 8 |
7

Roxy Sass Determines the
Relationship . . . at the Zoo
A
h, the DTR talk. Essential and
often unavoidable (believe
me, Roxy has tried). But
Facebook-esque categories of rela-
tionships are far too restrictive:
there’s so much more than “it’s com-
plicated” and “open relationship” in
that beautiful in-between from single
to do-not-mingle.
Unsure of how to classify your
quasi-relationship when your
hookup sits you down to DTR? Try
one of Roxy’s animal metaphor
terms (patent pending) to perfectly
encapsulate the expectations and
tendencies of your protracted liaison.
The Barnacle
Roxy’s had a few barnacles stuck to
her hull over the years. The barnacle is
dependable — always texts back, picks
Roxy up from the airport, walks her
home when she’s been creeped on
enough for one night. But when she’s
trying to lure that hottie back to her
dorm, the barnacle’s unfortunately
there as well (“hey! where’d you go?”).
Yet Roxy finds they have a certain
charm. Or maybe she’s remembering
that barnacles have the largest penis-
size-to-body-size ratio of any animal?
There’s food for thought.
The Vampire
Relax — Roxy’s not referring to
Pattinson the Pale (for the record,
she prefers his werewolf rival because
of his striking resemblance to a very
muscular hedgehog) — but rather to
the couple whose relationship cannot
stand the light of day. Do you shoot
awkward glances at each other in
class yet slam against the wall in vig-
orous make-outs when the party’s
rolling? Leave before sunrise and
8 her most intimate secrets and humiliat-
intermission
advice
only meet up again after a 1:30 a.m.
booty text? Vampire. Roxy finds the
double-life (and sharp teeth) some-
what intriguing. Anyone want to take
that hickey to the next level?
The Tiger
It roars at Roxy one day then paws
her gently the next. She knows it’s
pretty antifeminist, but Roxy kind of
digs the barely veiled rage and the
way it growls possessively over her.
Roxy’s not concerned about taming
the tiger (she knows they never
change their stripes) — just happy to
have a chance to crack a whip every
once in a while.
The Three-Legged Dog
Roxy thought it was cute at first (aw,
look at the widdle puppy!), but once
it started licking her face, she was
pretty much over it. Unfortunately, a
three-legged dog makes up for its
missing leg with extra devotion. It’s a
handy companion to have when
braving the scary path between 680
and EBF, but be careful — even cold-
hearted Roxy has a hard time not
tearing up when she hurts the dog’s
feelings and it hits her back with sad
puppy eyes. Tread carefully.
The Unicorn
The relationship that’s too good to
be true. The unicorn usually expires
in about a month, after which Roxy
realizes she’s been rolling around in
the hay with a white horse wearing a
shiny carrot on its forehead.
More interested in DTF than DTR?
Shoot Roxy an e-mail at intermis-
sion@stanforddaily.com.
CONTINUED FROM “JAMES FRANCO” PAGE 3
never know what’s going to happen, so
a lot of it was just, in the beginning, me
being here with a camera with a crew
and just getting everything . . . learning
who these teens are, what their stories
are, what’s compelling,” Lacey said.
“And then identifying teens whose sto-
ries will tell that and reflect themes of
the book as they go through it.”
But getting to know the kids on
the level Lacey did made it hard to see
some of them cut in the audition
process.
“It was hard to put up a barrier
between being an aunt or something
to them and being a documentary
maker.”
The teens finish up with the play
on March 12, and shooting will wrap
shortly after. Production then moves
down to Los Angeles for editing. Lacey
has only one class left and plans on liv-
ing in LA and commuting up to
CONTINUED FROM “SPOKEN WORD” PAGE 7
the stage, laughing with us as she called
the open mic volunteers onto the stage.
She taunted our timidity and dared us
to shout and cheer and moan our
approval of each speaker — “we are sex-
positive, you guys!” — and fiercely
threatened anyone who would dare
leave his or her phone on during the
show. She was tiny and Asian and
absolutely ferocious, and I think we all
fell a little bit in love with her.
What sets Spoken Word apart
from the written word is the charisma of
the people behind the words. Every
speaker was willing to throw their entire
selves into their words, cracking open
their ribcages and showing an entire
audience of people exactly what was
going on inside. The concept is absolute-
ly terrifying, and the speakers made it
seem effortless. Every one of them is tal-
ented beyond belief, but there were a few
strong personalities who stuck with me
for hours after I walked out of that
dimly lit room.
A high point was found in
Mercedes Zapata ‘11, whose poems were
painfully hilarious and yet still poignant.
She told the stories of her youth, sharing
Courtesy Light at 11B
Tom Franco worked on the set design and illustrations.
Stanford once a week to go to class. for me as a young filmmaker. Really, I
“This is my biggest priority right couldn’t have asked for any better of an
now, so I’m going to make it work,” opportunity.”
Lacey said.“This will be put into film
festivals. It’s an amazing thing for me —lauren WILSON
to be working with James and the contact lauren:
team . . . They’ve been great mentors lhwilson@stanford.edu
ing stories, weaving them all together to isolation or longing or for anyone who
take a hard look at self-esteem and body has ever really felt at all. I would
image. I made the mistake of drinking a strongly encourage everyone to try and
soda while listening to her speak and lit- catch its next show, as it is not an expe-
erally sprayed it out my nose as she rience that anyone should have to hear
berated the classic love poets for their about secondhand.
idealism (“She’s not gonna believe you,
love poet!”). —eliana CARMONA
Other memorable moments:Yaa contact eliana:
Gyasi ‘11 and Raina’s brilliant collabora- carmona@stanford.edu
tive work was wildly relatable and a WEDNESDAY
03.09.11
beautiful intermingling of the silly with
the somber.Watching Alok Vaid-Menon
‘13’s sinuous movements offset his fren-
zied pacing was like an aural drug,filling BONE TO PICK?
our perception with proud brokenness
and defiance.When Lyla Johnston ‘11
well then, e-mail us!
urged us to “Close your eyes,just feel for intermission@stanforddaily.com
once.I’ll take care of it,” and against our
deeply ingrained Stanford instincts,we
actually did.Seeing Brian Yoo ‘11 channel
Charlie Sheen in his dismissal of
MANAGING EDITOR
Stanford’s watered-down lifestyle,which
filled the audience with adrenaline and Lauren Wilson
fire.Feeling the yearning in Shawn Dye DESK EDITOR
‘14 and Simon Neely ‘11,feeling the quiet Sarah Guan
assurance of Yaa . . . it was unforgettable.
COPY EDITOR
The Spoken Word Collective, in
Stephanie Weber
short, is a beautiful outlet for anyone
who has ever felt passion or rage or COVER
Anastasia Yee