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A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o n www.stanforddaily.com

The Stanford Daily TFRIDAY Volume 241

May 18, 2012 Issue 63

F B i i hP i Mi i S d d

Tony Blair visits Farm, sparking controversy

ALISA ROYER/The Stanford DailyStudents protested the visit of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair outside Cemex Auditorium yesterday afternoon, in advance of Blair’s Thursday talk on African development.Campus emails advertising the demonstration likened Blair to Darth Vader due to his involvement in the Iraq War and ‘neocolonial’ business interests in Africa.

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2N Friday, May 18, 2012 The Stanford Daily

POLICE BLOTTER

By ALICE PHILLIPSDESK EDITOR

This report covers a selectionof incidents from May 11 throughMay 15 as recorded in the Stan-ford Department of Public Safety

bulletin.

FRIDAY, MAY 11

IA bike was stolen from outsidethe Thornton Center in the Ter-man Annex between 11 a.m.and 11:50 a.m.

IA male was cited and releasedfor driving on a suspended li

Campus Drive and CowellLane at 1:40 a.m.

IA GPS device and CDs werestolen from a vehicle parkednear 114 Jenkins Ct. between1:30 a.m. on May 11 and 9:40

a.m. on May 12.IA GPS device was stolen from a

vehicle parked near the Escon-dido IV high rise between 10:30p.m. the previous night and11:30 a.m.

IA golf cart was stolen from out-side of Kimball Hall between11:50 p m the previous night

IA cable and a headset werestolen from a vehicle parkednear 112 Jenkins Ct. between 9a.m. on May 11 and 7:40 p.m. onMay 13.

MONDAY, MAY 14IA bike was stolen from outside

of Polya Hall between 10 a.m.on May 10 and 9 a.m. on May14.

IA bike was stolen from outsidethe Mitchell Earth SciencesBuilding between 4:45 p.m. and6 p m

dards and Policies (C-USP) in re-sponse to the document. C-USPhas recommended that under-graduates take eight breadth re-quirement courses, despite thefact that that the SUES reportsuggested students take 11.

The Senate discussed anamendment, which would returnto the original SUES recommen-dation for 11 breadth courses. Theamendment would require stu-dents to take courses that fit intothe seven “Ways of Thinking,Ways of Doing” categories firstcreated by the SUES report. Stu-dents would be required to taketwo courses in “Aesthetic and In-terpretive Inquiry,” two in “SocialInquiry,” two in “Scientific Analy-sis,” two in “Formal and Quantita-tive Reasoning” (with one in eachbranch), one course in “EngagingDifference,” one in “Moral andEthical Reasoning” and one in“Creative Expression.”

C-USP, however, has recom-

mended double course require-ments in only one of those cate-gories.

“Requiring one course in eachcategory would be an invitation tosuperficiality,” said Susan Mc-Connell, SUES co-chair, as to whyher committee originally suggest-ed requiring two courses in somecategories, but not all. “For in-stance, it can be difficult for stu-dents to engage with science in

just one course because there’s alanguage barrier. By requiring

two courses, we create opportuni-ties for students to gain familiari-

ty with the subject and then get indepth.”

“The proposal does not in-crease the general educationblueprint or narrow the space forexploration,” McConnell added.

Debra Satz, senior associatedean for the Humanities and Arts,expressed approval toward theamendment, but said she feels thatstudents should have more flexi-bility to take different courses.

“I support a bigger footstepbecause I believe that studentsshould have a wider breadth,” shesaid.

Satz added a friendly amend-ment to the proposal to split the“Formal and Quantitative Rea-

soning” requirement into two dif-ferent categories, stating that thisdivision would add transparency.

Faculty senators who spokeappeared split on which proposalto move forward. Many cited theneed for students to have aca-demic freedom as a reason tokeep C-USP’s recommendationof fewer requirements. Otherssupported the amendment be-cause it would result in increasedexposure to breadth and depart-ment, which Biology Professor

Patricia Jones said is similar to therequirements at Stanford’s peerinstitutions.

The Senate ended up voting infavor of the amendment, and thehigher number of breadth re-quirements.

The senators then moved on toa discussion of the “governance”section of the amendment. Somefaculty members said they feltthat the Governing Board wasbeing given less freedom — andmore constraints — in an amend-

ment.Most of the senators were in

favor of the current wording inthe C-USP proposal, which theysaid would allow for more flexi-bility and freedom for the boardin making decisions.

Senior Associate Vice Provostof Undergraduate Education andBiology Professor Martha Cyertdrew the Senate’s attention to asection of the amendment, whichshe said tasked the board with the

job of figuring out how to deter-mine whether the courses it hasdesignated as satisfying a catego-ry “are in fact attaining the major-ity of the learning goals associat-ed with that category.”

“Those assessment processesare a really, really important, huge

task,” Cyert said. “Assigning thatto the board is not realistic. Noneof us would agree to being on theboard. It is not practical to givethe board that task as well.”

In response, Economics Pro-fessor Caroline Hoxby said shedid not think the task would betoo difficult for the board.

“If it walks like a duck andtalks like a duck, it’s a duck,”Hoxby said. “We wouldn’t have tostudy every chemistry class be-fore deciding which requirement

it fulfills. The board would focuson a small set of courses that weremuch less clear [about theirbreadth distribution].”

The Senate voted to opposethe amendment to Board Gover-nance, preferring the original C-USP wording.

The Senate will discuss recom-mendations about the Program inWriting and Rhetoric (PWR) andthe annual budget report at itsnext meeting on May 31.

Contact Josee Smith at [email protected].

FACSENContinued from front page

Students for life

ALISA ROYER/The Stanford Daily

Rhodes Scholar and Ph.D. candidate Sherif Girgis, co-author of “Whatis Marriage?”, addressed students at the First Annual Pro-Life and Pro-F il R ti Th d i

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The Stanford Daily Friday, May 18, 2012N 3

Continued from front page

PROTEST|Mixed greeting for Blairnerstone to their opposition.

“I wanted to organize a protestagainst Tony Blair because he liedto the international community,along with [former U.S. President]Bush, that Saddam Hussein hadWMDs and that if we didn’t re-move him from power then hewould destroy the free world withthose weapons, which is proven tobe not only false, but lies,” saidJosh Schott ’14. “He is a war crim-inal, and it is disgusting that thisUniversity is welcoming him. He

should be in prison.”Students expressed frustrationwith Blair’s decisions as a politicalleader, as well as Stanford’s im-plicit “endorsement” of Blair’spolicies through hosting his talk.

“It frustrates me how Stanfordstudents are often seduced bycelebrity status and fail to actuallyhold (Western) leaders account-able for their violence and perpet-uation of injustice,” wrote AlokVaid-Menon ’13 in an email to TheDaily. “Our silence is a tacit en-

dorsement of Blair’s violent andcriminal activities.”Protesters were angered by

Blair’s actions as a prime ministeras well as his current projects thatfocus on providing aid to six sub-Saharan African nations.

Vaid-Menon called the specificsubject matter “offensive.”

“‘A New Approach for a NewAfrica,’ are you kidding me ?”Vaid-Menon wrote. “The British

Empire was one of the most dom-inating and violent empires and isdirectly implicated in the under-development of Africa. HavingBlair speak about ‘Africa’ (as if there were solutions that appliedto all of Africa, a continent com-posed of many different nationsand countries) constitutes, in myeyes, a pernicious form of neo colo-nialism.”

Blair expressed a need for west-ern involvement in African devel-opment during his talk.

“When countries have emergedfrom prolonged periods of insecu-rity and conflict, the basic appara-tus of government can be missing,”he said. “We have the means tohelp supply it.”

However, Blair also mentionedthird parties — among them “newdonors” in China, India and Brazil— as necessary contributors to thedevelopment of sub-SaharanAfrica.

“You start at your most popularand least capable and you end at

your least popular and most capa-ble,” he said.Blair directly addressed the

protests when speaking with TheDaily after his talk.

“It’s great that we live in a vi-brant democracy, but sometimeswhat people protest about,” Blairsaid. “If you’re in Africa and you’redesperate to get a decent standardof life, some change of prosperityand proper education and health-

care, you actually need the outsideworld to be your partner in this. Wedon’t go into any of these countriesunless people want us.”

Blair did not address his time asprime minister with regard to hisinvolvement in the Iraq war.

Though Tony 2012 is an interna-tional movement — it had approx-imately 8,250 likes on its Facebookpage as of publication — Stanfordstudents were not involved untilBlair’s visit to campus, according toVaid-Menon.

According to Schott, theprotests were a singular effortagainst Thursday’s event and willnot persist.

Vaid-Menon said he waspleased with the turnout and pas-sion of the demonstrators, butcommented that he was disap-pointed in the way the Universitytreated the protest.

“They also prohibited us fromusing our megaphone, citing uni-versity policy, and had police watchour every move,” Vaid-Menon

wrote, noting some irony in the sit-uation.“We found it ironic that the

University feels the need to takesuch safety precautions for peace-ful demonstrators and yet allows adocumented war criminal to freelyspeak.”

Contact Ellora Israni at ellora@ stanford.edu.

sertion, outlining the role of the ex-ecutive branch, infrastructure, for-eign investment, education andhealthcare, and social capital.Characterizing his organization as“differing from traditional consult-ants,” Blair argued that AGI “didnot simply fly in and fly out, butworks hard on transferring skills.”He outlined the key principles of AGI, which he said are working di-rectly with the “key decision-maker” and focusing on “prioritiza-tion.”

“Show me a leader with 100 pri-orities, and I will show you some-one who will achieve nothing,”Blair said.

He then discussed the progressAGI has made in countries such asSierra Leone and Liberia by coor-dinating on investments in the en-ergy sector. According to Blair, put-ting resources into these types of ef-forts was more fruitful than small-scale projects.

“[Small-scale projects] may be

very worthy in themselves, butdon’t get a nation on its feet,” hesaid.

Echoing his belief in part-nership, and drawing lessonsfrom a variety of sources, Blairsaid that emerging nationsshould, in the spheres of educa-tion and healthcare, “leapfrogmany of the constraints and lim-itations which the legacy of oursystems have created.”

He also discussed the role of technology, which he said can be

“something that generates extraor-dinary waves of emotion, feelingand impact.” Noting Stanford’s in-extricable link to Silicon Valley,Blair challenged the audience to in-novate and design new technolo-gies to be leveraged for politicalgood.

Blair followed his formal addresswith a conversation with Graduate

School of Business (GSB) DeanGarth Saloner, during which he re-marked on the difficulties of manag-ing political realities with the publicexpectations.

“In my profession, you start asthe most popular and least capable,and you leave the least popular butmost capable,” Blair said.

He then praised the leadershipphilosophy of Lee Kuan Yew, stat-ing that “the best leaders do notcare who brings the expertise, but

just is concerned with getting the job done.”

Blair noted that the world is ex-periencing “a paradigm change,where footloose capital comingfrom China, India and other coun-tries means investors are lookingfor new opportunities.” Accordingto Blair, African nations could ben-efit from this shift if they are able to“get their private sector frameworkright.”

Student sentiments towardBlair’s visit varied, with roughly 20students protesting Blair’s allegedwar crimes in the Iraq War, and thefact that the University allowedhim to speak on campus.

Nicholas Moores ’15, who at-tended the event, said he thought it

was well-received.“I thought that he presented aclear, progressive, perhaps simplis-tic at times, but overall, open-mind-ed agenda to allow Africa to set thegovernment framework it needsto, and ultimately take the matterof development into its ownhands,” Moores said.

Contact Aaron Sekhri at [email protected].

BLAIRContinued from front page

Designing with health in mind

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I

f you asked any undergrad todescribe themself in one adjec-tive right now, they’d almost

definitely answer with “tired” or“busy.” Someone with a littlemore creativity or a tendency to-ward being overdramatic will usea better synonym — exhausted,swamped, crushed, etc. Prettymuch everyone on the Stanfordcampus is some level of “busy.”But the question is, how does thismake you behave?

Think about a group project.Let’s say that you and four othershave to compile a paper together,so you divide up the tasks in a rel-atively equal way. As soon as youassign sections, someone tenta-tively frowns, slowly raises a handand fills you in.

“Hey, so, I’m sorry, but I’m ac-tually pretty busy right now. I’mgoing to this conference and I’malso taking 21 units. I’m the presi-dent of a student group, I have towrite five papers by next week

will stop you. And you’ll be very,very busy.

But the real issue, and one of

the most common symptoms of the overcommitted student, is thepoint where they can’t under-stand how anyone else could pos-sibly be as busy as they are. Thestudents writing honors theseslook at you and scoff, “Um, you’renot writing an honors thesis.You’re not busy.” The students onthe Undergraduate Senate rolltheir eyes and say, “You’re not onASSU; you’re not busy at all.” Re-peat for any overcommitted stu-dent: Their thing is the most im-portant, busy thing.

Suddenly people are sowrapped up in their own sched-ules that anything you’re doing iscompletely unimportant. Theycan slack off on the group project;they can cut back on their dutiesin an extracurricular group, and if you subtly try to prod them intodoing something, you get a groups and events but they don’t


Not just apathy - activistsundermine participation

EDITORIAL

Stanford is effective at pro-ducing many things, fromparadigm-shifting research

to groundbreaking patents. Yet interms of on-campus conversation,Stanford is also a place that pro-duces ideological echo chambers,to the detriment of campus con-versation. The Stanford blog Stat-ic is one space that tries to breakthis trend, by providing a forum inwhich campus activists can share

their ideas and projects with thebroader campus and online com-munities. A recent post on Staticby Lizzie Quinlan ’13, titled “AFew Thoughts on Activism andStanford Culture,” examined whyactivism is not more prevalent oncampus, pointing to student com-placency, belief in the system anduse of social media as primarydrivers of apathy. While these areall valid critiques of Stanford cul-

ture, the Editorial Board wouldlike to offer an additional explana-tion: the structure of activist col-lectives on campus provide a bar-rier to entry that deters interestedindividuals whose beliefs may notperfectly align with the dominantparadigm.

Stanford students do not join ac-tivist groups in part because theymay not subscribe to the multiple,intersecting ideologies that they

perceive as the foundation of cam-pus activism. Is there a place in theOccupy movement for a studentwho supports income redistribu-tion but opposes gay marriage?Would a student feel comfortable

joining Stanford Says No to War if she does not support the divest-me t petitio that the group has

feel unsure about where theirplace is in an activist collective if they support one part of thegroup’s ideology but strongly op-pose another. Simply put, thereappears to be little space for ideo-logical frameworks that are notperfectly congruous with activismwrit large. We do not mean to sug-gest that campus activists are amonolithic ideological entity; in-deed, we know that members of

the same group are likely to havenuanced, different views abouttheir own cause. Rather, we be-lieve that because activist groupson campus are often so closely tiedtogether, interested students whoare ‘outside’ feel unsure aboutwhether or not there is a space fortheir dissenting views in the cam-pus activist community. Even if itseems self-evident to group mem-bers that their group is a safe

space, a student may feel uncom-fortable joining without a moreexplicit acknowledgment thattheir opposing views on a topicwon’t be seen to diminish theirparticipation.

An added complication is thatstudents may feel confused oralienated by the rhetoric of revo-lution that often accompanies dis-cussions of social change. Quin-lan’s article aptly pointed out that

Stanford students generally feelvalidated by and comfortableworking within a system. Whilemost activist groups on campushave websites that state their mis-sion and projects, students outsidethe activist community may stillfeel confused as to what the tangi-ble end goals of campus activists

OPINIONSManaging Editors

The Stanford DailyE s t a b l i s h e d 1 8 9 2 A N I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S P A P E R I n c o r p o r a t e d 1 9 7 3

Brendan O’ByrneDeputy Editor

Kurt Chirbas & Billy GallagherManaging Editors of News

Jack BlanchatManaging Editor of Sports

Marwa FaragManaging Editor of Features

Sasha ArijantoManaging Editor of Intermission

Mehmet InonuManaging Editor of Photography

Amanda AchColumns Editor

Willa BrockHead Copy Editor

Serenity NguyenHead Graphics Editor

Alex Alifimoff Web and Multimedia Editor

Nate AdamsMultimedia Director

Molly Vorwerck & Zach ZimmermanStaff Development

Board of Directors

Margaret RawsonPresident and Editor in Chief

Anna SchuesslerChief Operating Officer

Sam Svoboda

Vice President of Advertising

Theodore L. Glasser

Michael Londgren

Robert Michitarian

Nate Adams

Tenzin Seldon

Rich Jaroslovsky

Contacting The Daily: Section editors can be reached at (650) 721-5815 from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. The Advertising Department can bereached at (650) 721-5803, and the Classified Advertising Department can be reached at (650) 721-5801 during normal businesshours. Send letters to the editor to [email protected], op-eds to [email protected] and photos or videos to multi-

[email protected]. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.

Tonight’s Desk Editors

Kristian Davis BaileyNews Editor

George ChenSports Editor

Alisa Royer

Photo Editor

Charlotte WayneCopy Editor

M ARKSMYWORDS

Overcommitted? Get over it.

MiriamMarks

Being busy at

Stanford is a

choice, a decision

that anyone can

make.

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most effectively taught outside theclassroom, be incorporated intoStanford undergraduate life. Howshould Stanford build communi-ty?

An entire department of theOffice of Student Affairs is dedi-cated to cultivating a rich andmeaningful residential experienceat Stanford, Residential Educa-tion. Through themed houses, Res-ident Fellows and dorm staff,ResEd tries to create mini-com-munities that fit students’ needs.

It’s funny, though, how an institu-tion that prides itself on commit-ment to community left me “com-munity-less” for two of my under-graduate years. I lived in Yost mysophomore year; I shared a roomwith my best friend, and yet, I’dnever felt so alone. I didn’t learnthe names of the other residents inthe dorm until the middle of win-ter quarter, and I can’t even knowfor sure that I knew everyone’sname because I think there weresome residents that I never met.

They will forever remain, in myeyes, the “Ghosts of Yost.”

Abroad at Oxford the fall of my junior year, with nothing to gluethe residents together into a cohe-sive unit, I felt that I never reallybelonged to one of the manycliques that emerged in the secondand third week. It didn’t help that

when I returned to campus, I wasassigned to live in Oak Creek, twomiles away from the heart of cam-pus. It wasn’t until my senior year,when I made the commitment tolive in a co-op as a resident in Chi

Theta Chi, that I felt like I truly be-longed and mattered. If I didn’t domy weekly chore, everyone cared.And if I didn’t show up to my cookcrew, my housemates worried.

As much as Stanford empha-sizes community in its academicand entrepreneurial pursuits, Ididn’t find community until myfinal year. Stanford also strugglesto provide students with an ade-quate mental health support sys-tem, as has been covered exten-sively in the pages of this paper. If

loneliness is a feeling more preva-lent on this campus than we mayacknowledge, then what shouldresidential life at Stanford looklike? How can Stanford build true,genuine communities that teachstudents compassion and account-ability while encouraging inde-pendence and creativity?

We are a generation thatspends more time on the comput-er than doing just about anythingelse. We ask each other out ondates via email and via text, if we

ask each other out on a properdate at all. So I question the motivebehind some of Stanford’s recentactions. Is threatening to paintover the murals at the “Social Ac-tion through Non-violence” co-operative, Columbae, going toteach students about buildingcommunity? Does revoking the

Chi Theta Chi lease show studentshow effective open communica-tion and negotiation can be? Doesbuilding a graduate residence likeMunger, that looks and feels morelike a hotel, make students feel at

home?One new massive dining hall,

like Arrillaga Commons, may be amore cost-effective and efficientway to feed students, but making astudent feel like just another kid inthe buffet line doesn’t spark mycreative appetite. AndreasWeigend, former chief of technol-ogy at Amazon.com, director of the Social Data Lab at Stanford,and former Chi Theta Chi eatingassociate writes, “Sharing is centralto humans. We eat together, learn

together, play together.” Our stu-dents, the leaders of tomorrow,need to know what it feels like tosit at a dinner table and breakbread with their peers in a close-knit, intimate environment. Stu-dents need to feel like they own astake, otherwise they might justpass through their Stanford expe-rience, like I did for my first threeyears, without feeling anything. If community is what cultivates in-novation, then this is where Stan-ford’s focus should be. Because

chances are, one day after they’vefounded and sold a company toFacebook and made a few millionsmore after investing in another,they’ll be invited to a private din-ner to share a toast with the presi-dent.

NATALIE GOODIS ’11

OP-EDContinued from page 5

resulting skepticism facing these“activist” groups is undeserved butought to be acknowledged and ad-dressed with more productive en-gagement with the rest of campus.

There are ways, of course, to ame-liorate this problem. The contribut-ing reasons that Quinlan outlines forstudent apathy are accurate, and stu-dents should meet activism on cam-pus with more of an open mind. Atthe same time, campus activists needto move beyond the mentality of “What’s wrong with other stu-

dents?” and examine the structureswithin their own organizations thatmight alienate their peers. This is notto say that there is something wrongwith activist collectives as they stand— on the contrary, the construction

of successful cross-group coalitionshas been instrumental to many of the successes of campus activism.However, if campus echo chambersare to be successfully dismantled, itwould behoove Stanford activists togo beyond the Stanford culture as anexplanation for student disinterest.Examining the culture of campus ac-tivism and its relationship with therest of the student body is equallyimportant when discussing why stu-dents don’t engage more with ac-tivist collectives at Stanford.

EDITORIALContinued from page 5

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By JOSEPH BEYDA DESK EDITOR

No. 10 Oregon is three and a half gamesahead of Stanford and has three fewer gamesleft, meaning that any Duck win or Cardinalloss in Pac-12 play would eliminate Stan-ford’s outright conference title hopes.

No. 11 UCLA (36-13, 15-9) and No. 17 Ari-zona (33-15, 16-8), meanwhile, are still withinthe Cardinal’s reach. Stanford’s remainingPac 12 schedule is the easiest of the bunch

“I think we’re learning some things,” Mar-quess said, “and that’s what you need whenyou get to the postseason.”

“Piscotty was the biggest thing,” he added.“We know he can start now.”

Junior Stephen Piscotty had a stellar per-formance in his first career start on Saturday,giving up one earned run in 6.1 innings toearn his third win of the season Even though

SPORTS

THE HOME STRETCH Searchingfor some

stability

Men’s swimmingcoach Skip Kenneywas here whenJimmy Carter waspresident, gas cost

under a dollar per gallon and manyof our parents were doing “TheHustle” in high school gyms acrossthe country.

In a month and a half, he’ll begone.

The famed coach announced hisretirement on Wednesday, ending astoried 33 years with the Cardinalthat saw him guide 31 straight teamsto Pac-10/12 conference titles andbring seven national championshipsto the Farm.

It’s hard to imagine doing thesame thing in the same place for thatlong, and that well. But — not to di-minish his achievements — Kenneyis not alone in the world of collegesports. At Stanford, 13 of our 35 var-sity teams are led by a head coachwho has held that position for atleast 10 years. Baseball’s Mark Mar-quess, in the home stretch of his 36thyear as the Cardinal’s lead man, isthe only coach who has been herelonger than Kenney, with women’sbasketball’s Tara VanDerveer hav-ing held her post for 26 seasons.

When a coach shows that kind of commitment to a program — andto a university — you’ve got toimagine that it trickles down to theplayers. The fans definitely appreci-

ate it too, especially in big-namesports like football or men’s basket-ball, where there’s always a biggerbuck to be made at the pro level.That’s why coaches like MikeKrzyzewski, who has been withDuke men’s basketball for 32 years,become the faces of their respectivesports. Despite his recent fall fromgrace, Joe Paterno’s 46 years at PennStatemadehimalocaldemigodand

Joseph Beyda

CARD PAYS A

VISIT TO UTAH

MIKE KHEIR/The Stanford Daily

Freshman pitcher David Schmidt (above) and the No. 12 Stanford baseball squad travel to Salt Lake City for a three-game series against Utahtoday. The Cardinal hopes to maintain its late-season momentum against the Utes, who are currently sitting in last place in the Pac-12.

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with scores of 7-5 and 6-3. Follow-ing suit, Tsay dominated against

junior Bri ttany Wowchu k oncourt three while Tan beat sopho-more Veronica Corning on courtfour.

“We’re just happy to have wontoday,” said head coach LeleForood. “We have to tighten upsome things . . . if we are going tobe contenders here.”

Sophomore All-AmericanKristie Ahn did not make an ap-pearance in Thursday’s match, and

her condition is still day-to-day.She has been out with a foot injuryfor almost the entire year, but thecoaches have not ruled out thepossibility of her playing at somepoint during this tournament.

Stanford started the day theright way by seizing the doublespoint, which it did not do in lastyear’s meeting. Burdette andGibbs highlighted the doublesplay, winning 8-1 on court one. Thedoubles team of Tsay and Tan alsomanaged to defeat the Wildcat

duo of Wowchuk and sophomoreNida Hamilton 8-5. The duo of Burdette and Gibbs has some-thing to prove in Saturday’s matchwith USC, as the Trojans’ top teambeat the pair in the finals of thisyear’s Pac-12 doubles champi-onship.

“We’re hoping it’s USC [in thequarterfinals] for a little bit of aPac-12 grudge match,” Gibbs saidprior to USC’s 4-1 win over Bay-lor in the round of 16.

The upcoming match against

USC should be considerablytougher with the stakes increasingin the deeper rounds of theNCAA tournament. Stanford willsquare off against the Trojans inthe quarterfinals on Saturday at 9a.m. PDT in Athens, GA.

Contact David Perez at [email protected].

WTENNISContinued from page 8


tor? There are several possible suc-cessors to Bob Bowlsby, who is leav-ing to head the Big 12 next month,but my guess is that Stanford willconsider longevity one of the mostimportant factors in making its de

athlete on the Farm, however, Mar-quess has stayed put at his almamater and continued to build a win-ning tradition here.

That’s why I was skeptical whenWest Virgina athletic director Oliv-er Luck (who, by the way, saidThursday that he wasn’t interestedin the Stanford job) became one of the biggest names thrown out thereto replace Bowlsby. Two of his kidshave been very successful Cardinal

BEYDA Continued from page 8

IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily

Freshman Ellen Tsay (above) and the fourth-seed Stanford women’stennis team beat Northwestern 4-1 in the NCAA tournament round of16 and will now move on to the quarterfinals to battle fifth-seed USC.

their 5.30 ERA is the worst in theconference by over half a point,despite the presence of two sec-ond-year starters in juniorrighthanders Brock Duke andJoe Pond.

The Cardinal still has somehitters of note who have put to-gether underwhelming seasonsand could really gain some confi-dence off those Utah hurlers.Kenny Diekroeger, winner of the2010 Pac-10 Freshman of theYear award, is batting .291, the

worst mark of his career, and at ju st .2 39 , ou tf ie ld er Tyle rGaffney’s batting average isdown nearly a hundred pointsfrom a season ago. Gaffney, whohelped lead Stanford past KansasState and No. 8 Cal State-Fuller-ton in its 2011 regional, only gotone start last weekend in light of

his struggles, and needs to ignitehis bat down the stretch run tobecome a regular contributoronce again.

The Utes saw an uptick in theirown offensive production on

Tuesday against in-state foe UtahValley, which came into thematchup riding a 32-game winstreak. Also the worst hittingteam in the Pac-12 with a teambatting average of .248, Utah ral-lied from a 7-1 deficit to beat theWolverines, which coincidentallyhold the best batting average inthe country (.348), 11-10.

The Cardinal is 23-1 when out-hitting its opponents, so if Stan-ford can best Utah at the plate itshould continue its winning ways

and push the Pac-12 race rightdown to the wire.

Tonight’s opener in Salt LakeCity is scheduled for 5 p.m. PDT,with a 3 p.m. start tomorrow andan 11:30 a.m. finale on Sunday.

Contact Joseph Beyda at [email protected].

BASEBALLContinued from page 8

Klahn and fellow senior RyanThacher, who finished as the run-ners-up in last years NCAA dou-bles championship.

As has been the case with sev-eral of Stanford’s matches lately,the back singles courts — beyondthe stable top-three singles trio of Klahn, Thacher, and junior MattKandath — will undoubtedlyprove pivotal in determining the

success of the team. The three un-derclassmen that have been man-ning those back courts for Stan-ford — freshmen John Morrissey,Robert Stinemann and sopho-more Daniel Ho — have allplayed like seasoned upperclass-men and have been steady win-ners, contributing to the team’s.580 winning percentage on the

back courts this season.The Stanford men’s tennis

team is the most storied program

in the history of college tennis,having won a record 18 nationalchampionships. The Cardinal’ssuccess shows in its incredible102-17 all-time record in theNCAA tournament.

In recent years, however, Stan-ford has uncharacteristically un-derachieved in the NCAAs. Lastseason’s quarterfinal was deepestthe team has gone since 2006. Thelast time the Cardinal won thewhole thing and took home theNCAA crown was back in 2000,

twelve long years ago.Tomorrow’s match against

Kentucky will be a tough test forwhat has been an unpredictableStanford team thus far this sea-son. The Cardinal will square off against Kentucky at 1 p.m. PDT.

Contact Dash Davidson at [email protected].

MTENNISContinued from page 8

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inside: YOUR GUIDE TO THE

TED TALKS

vol. 241 i. 13 fri. 05.18.12

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41

3

52

intermission2

On a recent Monday morning inDrama 103: Beginning

Improvisation, two students sit on

stage as their classmates watch. They’ve vol-

unteered to act out an exercise about “sta-

tus.” For example, a British lord would prob-

ably play “high” status, while an indentured

servant most likely plays “low.” Standing on

the side, teacher ’91 instructs the

two to try to “one up” each other in status.

They begin discussing their majors. “Oh,

you’re a psych major?” the girl asks, oneknee crossed over the other haughtily.

“That’s so cute,’” Klein suggests. “That’s so

cute,” she utters sweetly, rife with condescen-

sion. The class laughs, marveling at the

transformation of the (otherwise kindheart-

ed) student.

Klein makes suggestions in a gentle

voice. When he speaks in front of the class,

his arms hang by his sides innocuously, and

when he talks, there’s an irrepressible smile

on his lips. He has a certain peacefulness

about him; it’s the stillness of limbs, yes, and

the steady deliverance of his words, but one

gets the sense it’s something within. Klein is

the kind of guy you want to ask, what’s it all

about? Where does one find such serenity,

such unspoken happiness? Long gone is the

middle school theater director shrilly com-

manding his students to enunciate . Klein is

like the Buddhist master of theater, but

instead of daily meditation, his practice of

choice is improvisation. But as it turns out,

the two have more in common than you

might think.

How does one get “professional

improviser” on a business card? For Klein,

it started, incidentally, when he was a soph-

omore at Stanford and took Drama 103.

“There was a girl involved,” he admits. A

good friend of his. “She was funny and

playful, and I sort of had this crush on her.”

He smiles. “It was thrilling, it was scary. Inever really fully let go when I first took it. I

got the idea that I’m so supposed to talk

without thinking beforehand, without edit-

ing and censoring, but I still couldn’t quite

let go.”Then, in the beginning of junior year,

Klein suffered a serious car accident and had

to miss a full year of school. As part of his

recovery for his head injury the following

year, he took different types of classes to

stimulate different parts of his brain. That’s

when he remembered improv. Problem was,

you weren’t allowed to take the class a sec-

ond time. He thought he found a solution

when the teacher at the time, Patricia Ryan,

asked him to be her teaching assistant. Herecalls sitting in class on that first day. “Dan,

will you be the TA?” Ryan asked. Another

guy named Dan stood up. “Sure,” he

answered. Luckily, other-Dan was absent at

the second class. Dan Klein got the job. He

would TA the next year, too. That quarter he

joined Ryan as she created SImps — a quasi-

acronym (at Stanford? who knew!) for the

| continued on page 4 |

TOP 5: SCARIEST

ANIMATED DISNEY

CHARACTERSRemember all those years of cringingaway from the television as youwatched VHS animated movies andthe evil characters chanted theirtheme songs? Yeah, we and ourbeloved stuffed animals do, too.Luckily, we can usually count onDisney to give its villains their justdeserts. Read on for Intermission’s toppicks of the creepiest, meanest ani-

mated Disney foes.

The wolves in “Beautyand the Beast.”

They wait in the dark, two-dimension-al woods, teeth gnashing, and thenpounce on the smartest female char-acter to grace the Disney opus. Thesewolves are the source of 85 percent of lupophobes. Plus, because they’re

not technically the villains of the story,they survive to circle the castle for alleternity!

Frollo in “TheHunchback of Notre-Dame.”

Actually, the entire film is a sordid,age-inappropriate romp. The movie’sredeeming innovation is having thehero be ugly, but we have Victor Hugoto thank for that. But you can just tellthat the minister of justice is evilbecause he is old and has an accent,sure indicators in the Disney worldthat we’re dealing with a villain. Frollokills the baby hunchback’s mother andtries to kill him too, but instead keepsQuasimodo cooped up Rapunzel-style. He constantly sings about helleven as he lusts after gypsies. This guy

is evil and claims the support of thegovernment and the religious powers,which only compounds his power.

Spiker and Sponge in“James and GiantPeach.”

Most of this story is pretty awful, too,but the abusive aunts who take cus-tody of James after his orphaning run-in with a rhinoceros are especiallyawful. They force him to work all day,threaten to beat him and eventuallytry to kill him. Luckily they arewrapped up in spider silk and arrest-ed, which shows that law enforcementreally is looking out for the well-beingof the psychedelics.

Scar from “Lion King.”Spoiler alert! He killed Mufasa. Thisprobably goes without saying, giventhe fratricide incident, but this is thecruelest lion to ever grace the bigscreen. From his habit of sadisticallytoying with his prey to his dumbhyena coven to the way he leads thekingdom of Pride Rock into a periodof starvation and sorrow, he’s a back-stabbing dictator of an uncle.

Ursula in “The LittleMermaid.”This manipulative octopus-humanhybrid takes Ariel’s voice and thentransforms herself into a beautifulraven-haired woman to steal PrinceEric’s heart away from bumbling littlemute Ariel. A chameleon-villain is theworst kind of villain because she caneven look pretty. Most villains areugly, according to Disney, so whensurface appearance can be altered,

you’d better watch out.

DAN KLEINimprovisor, inspirat ion

05.18.12BONE TO PICK?

MANAGING EDITORSasha Arijanto

DEPUTY EDITORIsaac Halyard

DESK EDITORMisa Shikuma

COPY EDITORWilla Brock

COVERSerenity Nguyen

well then, email [email protected]

7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


JASON

MAYDEN“I

’m going to focus on the 180 seconds

in my life that started the race

towards my destiny,” said designer

and Stanford grad ’11. “It was

an event that’s rather played out in impover-

ished neighborhoods, but for me, it becamethe catalyst towards my goals and dreams.”

At TEDxStanford 2012 this coming

Friday, Mayden will share with the Stanford

community how this life-changing experience

set him on the correct path toward achieving

his goal of designing Air Jordan sneakers.

Current director of innovation for Nike Inc.’s

Digital Sport, Mayden will exhibit the various

steps to success he has taken, ranging from

community involvement to his fellowship at

the Stanford Graduate School of Business

(GSB).

A native of the South Side of Chicago,

Mayden grew up with a knack for two things:

sports and creativity. In love with sneaker cul-

ture, Mayden aspired to the ultimate goal in

footwear: to design Air Jordan sneakers. To

accomplish this goal, Mayden packed his bags

and left for design school, where he majored

in industrial design with a minor in graphic

design.“I got an internship at Nike, and there I

immediately began to work towards my goal

of designing the Air Jordan,” Mayden said.

Working his way up the corporate

food chain, Mayden eventually

achieved that goal, obtaining

the position of senior

footwear/innovation

designer for Jordan Brand.

Mayden’s cre-

ativity shines

through in

pairs of J’s suchas the “Old

School” and the

“Air Jordan

2009,” as well as

signature kicks

for L.A. Clipper

point guard,

Chris Paul, and

New York Yankee

shortstop, Derek

Jeter. However,

Mayden’s aspirations did not end at Jordan.

He aimed his sights and applied to the

Stanford GSB.

“Stanford, to me, was just as big of a des-

tination or opportunity as Nike was,”

Mayden said. “I knew it was a place where I

could become what I wanted to become. I

knew Phil Knight [the founder of Nike] had

attended the Graduate School of

Business, and it was always in the

back of my mind as the place

where dreams cometrue.”

In 2010, Mayden entered the

GSB as a Sloan Fellow and received a mas-ter’s degree in science with a concentration in

general management. For a couple of years,

Mayden was another student on campus who

loved to chill in the same places students

today know and love.

“I was always sneaking my way over to

Arrillaga to play ball or hang out,” he said.

“Another interesting place is Tresidder! I

loved it. I loved sitting there and just peo-

ple-watching. Looking at all the people

come and go, wondering to myself, what are

their goals? What are their dreams?”

With an obvious interest in people, it is

no wonder Mayden is inclined toward com-

munity involvement. At Jordan, he was the

lead designer for the Doernbecher Freestyle, a

project with Nike and the Doernbecher

Children’s Hospital.

“[The Doernbecher footwear] directly

connects to a charity and to kids that need it

the most,” he said. “I’m so fortunate to be apart of the process, and each year that’s my

favorite shoe. There’s nothing more special

to me than seeing a kid’s face light up when

they see this design or sketch that’s inspired

by them and to make them feel like they’re

the celebrities, that they’re the athletes — I

would look at that as the best product that

I’ve worked on.”

In addition to his work for the

Doernbecher project, Maydenis a mentor for Big Brother’s

Big Sisters and the Fellowship

of Christian Athletes.

However, he has a different

take on his mentoring role.

“Most people give back to

help those who are less fortunate,” he said.

“I give back because I feel like I would be less

fortunate if I didn’t allow myself to learn and

see what other people are struggling with and

what other people are concerned about. I

remind myself of how much more I can give,

how blessed I am and how far I’ve come. It

really keeps me grounded and focused on

identifying what’s best. I don’t look at is as

giving back; I look at it as mentoring and cul-

tivating the next generation of great, responsi-

ble, ethical leaders.”

Blessed with artistic inspiration and a

drive for success, Mayden has succeeded in

ways others have only dreamed of. His story of achievement continues to this day, as he

currently holds the role of director of innova-

tion at the developing Nike Digital Sport. His

focus on great things to come runs parallel to

his wish to collaborate with such innovators

as the street artist Banksy, fashion designer

Jean Paul Gaultier and Facebook CEO Mark

Zuckerberg.

High aspirations in impressive company

exhibit Mayden’s way of thinking — a think-

ing that is evident in the advice he offers to

3

SPEAKERS

KICKIN’IT WITH

Courtesy SoleCollector

Courtesy SoleCollector

friday may 18 2012


7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


intermission4

SPEAKERS

Stanford Improvisers — a campus

improv troupe that’s still thriving

today.

“After my car accident, I hada different sense of what it meant

to take a risk. Like, the idea of

saying something in front of a

group of classmates I hadn’t edit-

ed yet wasn’t quite as scary as get-

ting hit by a drunk driver on El

Camino. And so I was able to let

go, just a little bit more, and I felt,

I just kind of got it,” Klein recalls,

beaming. His foray into improv

has since blossomed into a careernot only teaching Stanford stu-

dents, but also leading workshops

around the world. He recalls per-

forming in front of Japanese den-

tal implant salesmen using trans-

lator headphones (there’d be a

joke, followed by a few seconds of

painful silence, and then finally,

laughter); performing on a high-

definition video conference in

Copenhagen; performing along-

side the CEO of the Nordic Stock

Exchange in Stockholm after a

workshop. “How did I get here?”

he remembers thinking.

Stanford students, Klein says,

offer a particular gift. “When I

tell students to shoot for average

and fail cheerfully, I can feel this

burden being lifted, and it’s one

of my favorite things aboutteaching this population in par-

ticular,” he says.

For a university marked by its

high academic standards and its

career-driven students, it’s tempt-

ing to think the cores of improv

are incongruent, even contradicto-

ry, with the Stanford mentality.

But Klein is quick to point out that

the improv spirit is embraced on

many levels. He brings up PatriciaRyan. During her thirty years

teaching at Stanford, she formed a

fruitful alliance with the product

design faculty. What has emerged

in part out of that relationship is

the d.school, which Klein sees asthe embodiment of improv’s spirit

of collaboration, the notion of

allowing mistakes to be gifts and a

selfless desire “to make your part-

ner look good.”

But perhaps the most surpris-

ing thing to learn from this

improv expert is that very little of

improv is being funny. “That’s

really about a third of it, if that,” he

says. That’s also one of the hurdlesof teaching newcomers to the

practice: They come in believing

that to succeed as improvisers,

they have to be relentlessly funny.

Having traveled around the

world, Klein has come to believe

that anyone’s capable of being

funny. How? It turns out some of

the funniest moments come from

just being authentic .

“I’m addicted to the pure, hon-

est moments in the classroom

when someone discovers some-

thing right there; it’s totally fresh

and unexpected, and it surprises

them, and it gets a huge house

laugh . . . That’s what I’m going

for. And I find that moment comes

from anyone.”

Klein admits it’s the laughs that

got him into it. But he’s come to real-ize that improv is about so much

more than that.

“What I really love is changing

for the audience’s emotion,” he says.

“Laughter is the easiest one to hear,

but to do something that has an

effect on the audience, that’s really

amazing.”

There’s a distinctly humanist

element to how Klein explains

improv. In some ways it’s even spiri-tual. He discusses “masks,” the char-

acters people put on to obscure their

true selves, not just in performance

but in life.

“To be as simple as possible,

some people hide by retreating, andsome people hide by advancing,” he

explains. The great beauty of improv,

and theater by extension, is that it

allows people to peel away their

defenses. If there’s an irony to this,

that the artifice of the stage gives

voice to this wonderful authenticity,

it’s quite a fascinating one. The core

of theater, Klein says, is about con-

necting and being authentic. There’s

got to be something truthful at thecore of the performance. That’s

where the humor comes in: when an

audience is watching a person, a per-

former, “having an authentic reac-

tion in the moment.”

In the process, Klein has learned

a thing or two about humans. He

recalls being intimidated 12 years ago

when he first started leading work-

shops with corporations. He expect-

ed these people to be serious, high-

powered, demanding, critical. It took

a while to realize that every group is

just people . Everyone, even the most

high-powered CEO, has insecurities,

things they’re working on and

strengths. And most importantly,

“everyone needs to be witnessed.”

Klein’s great ability is to create a

space where people can feel safe tak-

ing a risk, in front of colleagues oreven strangers.

“I can’t believe this is my job; I

really can’t believe it,” he says. “It’s

almost like all those lessons about

improv really were true: say yes, pay

attention, notice what are the offers

and gifts, make use of the mistakes

and twists and turns and see where it

takes you. And it’s kind of amazing

that I find that it’s taken me here,

where I literally get to play every day,and that’s my job.”

Klein smiles wide. “Whatever it

was that made me feel like this was

valuable and worthwhile to me, I

think this is really true for other peo-

ple. People want to connect witheach other. They want permission to

mess up and do it together and be

witnessed. And they want to some-

times be brilliant and have it be okay

if they’re not.

“I’m just lucky,” he continues. “I

think improvisers are lucky because

some of the skills improvisers are

taught actually make you luckier.

You’re able to notice more things,

you’re able to turn negative thingsinto positive things and you’re

more likely to connect with people

and increase the chances of some-

thing fortuitous happening.” He

leans over and whispers: “That’s

what my Ted Talk is about .”

How does one become a pro-

fessional improviser? Klein might

give you this simple advice: by

being an improviser in life. To

improvise is to say yes, embrace

mistakes, live in the moment and

listen, closely, to others. Is it any

wonder, then, that students flock

to Klein’s classes and, at the tail

end, marvel at how much they’ve

grown not just as improvisers, but

as people? Perhaps this proves that

the essence of improv is authentic-

ity, which everyone possesses in

bucket loads. And how aboutKlein’s remarkable serenity? That,

too, is solvable. When you’ve cho-

sen to live with fresh eyes, keen

ears and an open heart, and what’s

more, spend your time giving

these abilities, these gifts, to others,

you court a lot of good in your

life. And surely, a lot of laughs.

— alex BAYER

contact ALEX:[email protected]

Stanford students.

“Dream out loud,” he said. “A

lot of times, when you go to a uni-

versity, so many people have bigdreams and big goals, but what’s

funny about it is that so many peo-

ple keep it inside of themselves

because they don’t know if people

will think their goals are attainable.

At Stanford, people are typically

more outspoken than the average

person, so you have the ability to

dream out loud.”

An athlete, artist, designer,

mentor, observer and collaborator,Jason Mayden has experienced quite

a bit. The events that sparked him

to leave Chicago and the paths that

have led him to Jordan, Nike and

Stanford will be unveiled on Friday,

May 19, at his TEDxStanford talk.

— isaac HALYARD

contact isaac:[email protected]

CONTINUED FROM“MAYDEN,” PAGE 3

CONTINUED FROM “KLEIN,” PAGE 2

7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


“W

hen you’re a

young adult,

your own voiceneeds to be the strongest one you

hear. It is your college experience

to own, to have agency over —

you need to be the author of it,”

said Dean of Freshmen and

Undergraduate Advising Julie

Lythcott-Haims’89, known affec-

tionately as Dean Julie, who will

speak at Stanford inaugural TEDx

event this Saturday.

The charismatic Lythcott-Haims is taking her own advice

— listening to her own voice — as

she leaves Stanford at the end of

this quarter to embark on a new

career: writing. In fact, she plans

to use her TEDx talk to “try out

ideas with the audience” for a

book she hopes to write about the

role of parents in the lives of col-

lege students and young adults.

“The over-involvement of

parents,” she said, “is leading to the under-

construction of young adults” who followed a

“checklisted childhood” of demanding expec-tations devised by parents, schools and socie-

ty. Lythcott-Haims wants to help parents

understand that “their job as parents is to put

themselves out of a job,” to step back enough

that they don’t get in the way of their child’s

creativity and self-discovery. She also has a

message for young people: The way to lead an

authentic life is to know yourself and have the

courage to be true to yourself. Everyone, she

said, needs the process of self-discovery, to

learn to focus on what is meaningful and tofollow through.

Lythcott-Haims underwent a similar

process: After earning her undergraduate

degree in 1989 from Stanford and then a law

degree at Harvard, she began practicing law in

Silicon Valley. It was lucrative and prestigious,

she recalled, but after four years, “I was miser-

able. It was difficult to turn away and say I’m

choosing something different.” But she did,

A

mid bright green rubber

and metal mechanisms, a

prosthetic leg leaning on a

table and muffled noises from the

back room, Krista Donaldson,

CEO of D-Rev, a nonprofit that

develops products to help the health

and income of the impoverished on

a global level, is busy at work.

For Donaldson, who will be a

speaker at Stanford’s first-ever

TEDx conference, working at D-

Rev is exactly what she wanted to

do. Donaldson, who also currently serves as a lecturer and researcher at

the Hasso Plattner Institute of

Design (“the d.school”), knew from

the start that she wanted to be

involved in the intersection of tech-

nology and development.

“It’s funny — you usually hear

about people making a big discov-

ery about what they want to do,

but, for me, I’ve always been inter-

ested in engineering for social

good,” Donaldson said.

“It really started when I was at

Vanderbilt and led an alternative

spring break trip that got me think-

ing about how to involve public

interest in engineering,” she added.Donaldson’s enthusiasm led her on

a journey in design, both in the

United States and abroad.

After becoming the first intern

at KickStart International, an organ-

ization aimed at using product

development and design to eradi-

cate poverty, Donaldson spent four

years working in Kenya. The lessons

she learned in Kenya have influ-

enced her philosophy on design and

engineering for change.“My time in Kenya made me

take a more systematic approach to

design, from the input to the out-

put,” she said. “It made me see the

critical questions, such as who is

selling the product, who is going to

be paying for it, how do we know

that the product will be used cor-

rectly — if at all?

“For social innovation, you

have to get at the core; you have to

use product design and develop-

ment with a renewed look at the

social sector,” she added.

Through her innovative ideas

and passion, Donaldson was award-

ed a fellowship with the American

Association for the Advancement of

Science to use her unique perspec-

tive on design and engineering in

Iraq. Her time abroad also gave her

insight to making a meaningfulimpact through design.

“It really is where rubber meets

the road,” Donaldson said with a

laugh. “The products need to be

manufacturable.”

“You need to bear in mind that

you are designing products in

emerging markets and for popula-

tions that haven’t used that prod-

uct,” she said.

Donaldson’s experiences have

led to a change in D-Rev’s philoso-

phy. Though D-Rev once had a

strong emphasis on advocacy, it has

changed to producing more physi-

cal products.

“Unlike just donating money

or items, the key difference in devel-

opment is designing products that

have value,” she said.

D-Rev’s design process focuses

on creating value from humanneeds. From using medical devices

to address jaundice in infants to

rubber knee joints for amputees, D-

Rev’s approach is to constantly try

to improve its products and the way

they are integrated in the life of the

user. For Donaldson, understanding

for whom one is designing is criti-

cal. To gain this understanding,

Donaldson goes straight to the

source.

SPEAKERS

5

student of life

talking tech & development with

KRISTA DONALDSON



Courtesy Julie Lythcott-Haims

DEAN JULIE

friday may 18 2012

7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


intermission6

MOVIES

CONTINUED FROM “DONALDSON,” PAGE 5

One of the most exciting

and avant-garde events at

this year’s San Francisco

International Film Festival was the

live documentary presentation of

director Sam Green’s “The Love

Song for R. Buckminster Fuller.” It

screened twice at the SFMOMA on

May 1, a presentation facilitated in

tandem with the SFMOMA, which

has a current exhibit on

Buckminster Fuller in the Bay Area.

Sam Green provided live

voice-over commentary for the

film, and indie rock band Yo LaTengo performed the film’s score

live. In this setting, the film became

a hybrid of cinema and theatre and

the images on screen more like a

visual aid to a live performance

than a stand-alone piece.

Buckminster Fuller was the

quintessential Renaissance man: a

designer, thinker, architect, innova-

tor, writer and lecturer decades

ahead of his time. Although per-

haps most widely known for his

thick, black glasses and geodesic

domes, Fuller’s legacy extends far

beyond that. He was a strong pro-

ponent of big-picture thinking andwas, in many ways, a champion of

design thinking. Although some of

his ideas can be easily dismissed as

far-fetched, the point wasn’t always

to build everything he proposed

but to expand people’s horizons

about how they think about theworld and making things work.

As we learn through the film,

Fuller kept an archive of all of his

activities — including every

receipt, every memo and every tel-

evision appearance — in what is

now known as the Dymaxion

Chronofile. It is the most extensive

archive of any single person’s activ-

ities, owned and housed by

Stanford University’s libraries, andwas the primary source material

for the film and the exhibit. There

are excerpts in the film showing

Buckminster Fuller meeting the

hippies on Hippie Hill in Golden

Gate Park, as well as some of his

television appearances. The film is

essentially a montage of photo-

graphs and archival footage of

Fuller and his work, with a few

present-day interviews with schol-

ars of the Chronofile.

The difficulty with both the

SFMOMA exhibit and Green’s film

is that, by choosing to focus on

Fuller in the Bay Area, they have

also chosen to ignore the greater

context of his work. In fact, Green

did not interview anyone for his

documentary who actually knew

or worked with Fuller personally,despite the fact that many of them

are still alive and active. Without

this context, it becomes far too easy

to dismiss him and some of his far-

fetched ideas as the products of a

crackpot rather than an innovator

trying to challenge the status quo.For example, the World

Games workshops Fuller ran —

where motivated people came

together to hear him speak, get

inspired and work to solve the

world’s biggest problems from

food security to sustainable devel-

opment — weren’t in the Bay Area,

and thus they are altogether

ignored in the film. Because

Fuller’s concept of “SpaceshipEarth,” a place that we all have to

share with limited resources that

we need to preserve, was not a Bay

Area specific idea, it too is ignored.

Yet these are two of Fuller’s key

legacies and proof that he was a

leading-edge thinker.

The reference to T.S. Eliot’s

“Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock”,

a poem about a lovable but pathet-ic man, in the film’s title is no coin-

cidence. It’s sadly an apt metaphor

for Green’s view of Fuller: affec-

tionate, but somewhat unim-

pressed. Perhaps the film would

have done better to draw its inspi-

ration from the Beatles’ song “Fool

on the Hill,” in what could have

been a much less ignorantly critical

ode to Fuller without ignoring his

controversial idiosyncrasies.

— alexandra HEENEY

contact alexandra:[email protected]

‘ L O V E SO N G ’

“When we went to India, we asked a

young man about his thoughts on the knee

joint, and he said that he didn’t like the click-

ing sound that the knee joints made since it

made it hard for him to blend in,” Donaldson

said. “We took what he said and designed a

new version that doesn’t make any noise, andnow the prosthetic leg blends in better.”

This philosophy on the intersection

between engineering and international devel-

opment is one that Donaldson is excited to

share at Stanford’s TEDx conference.

“I am honored to be asked to speak at

the conference,” Donaldson said. “I think it’s

going to be a really good dialogue that is

going to push us to think about the role of technology and ingenuity in society.”

Donaldson said she believes that engi-

neering and design are powerful tools that can

bring about social change and make a true

impact.

“It’s really inspiring because everyday,

everywhere you look, you see something that

has been developed on some level by an engi-

neer,” she said.Using engineering and design in an

affordable, effective way for social good is

what Donaldson and D-Rev continue to

explore.

“Enabling people to help themselves is

what it’s really about,” Donaldson said.

— issra OMER

contact issra:[email protected]

CourtesySan Francisco Film Society

Courtesy San Francisco Film Society

7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


joining the administration at

Stanford.

Now she is embarking on a

new challenge: earning a master’s

of fine arts and pursuing writing,

in particular poetry, at a master of

fine arts program at the California

College of the Arts in San

Francisco. When she was a fresh-

man, her professors said her writ-

ing needed a lot of work — “and

they were right,” she said — so she

set about improving it. “The

things we fear feel like a big wave

we’re running away from, and I

had to turn around and face the

wave,” she said.

In 2007, she read a poetry

collection by Lucille Clifton called

“Good Woman.” Never before a

poetry fan, she was mesmerized,

recognizing a voice that resonated

with her own. She began writing

her own song lyrics. Now her

poetry touches on identity issues,

relationships and political com-

mentary.

“When you get to be my age,

you appreciate more and more

that life is short, and if there’s a

voice telling you there’s something

out there you want to do, you have

to listen,” Lythcott-Haims said. But

she won’t lose sight of her time at

Stanford — “it has been a great

laboratory and observatory” —

and wants to use what she has

learned here to make a difference

elsewhere. She leaves an

incredible legacy at Stanford, espe-

cially with the Reflections program

she created for future classes. The

biggest lesson? “Things are going

to go wrong, but you’ll be okay,”

she said. “You’ll learn from it —

that is what life is about.”

— katie KRAMON

contact katie:[email protected]

One late night in the sum-

mer of 2009, I sat

bleary-eyed and jittery

over a rickety card table in my

parents’ basement. I’d been there

for what felt like days. A com-pletely disassembled Xbox 360

lay strewn in pieces before me,

each component resting gently

on its own six-inch square of

newspaper. A clap of thunder rat-

tled the window as I steadied the

screwdriver in my hand.

By the next morning, I’d

brought a console back from the

brink of death — and even man-

aged to trick it out with a newheat sink and some other goodies.

I’m hardly a bona fide techie, and

frankly, that was some hard shit.

But when that pile of bolts

sparked to life and I heard that

disc drive purr . . . let me tell you,

it felt damn good.

Most people don’t ever think

to open up a console. Or a phone,

a calculator or even an alarm

clock — and certainly not a prop-

er computer. But as anyone who’s

built a PC from scratch can tell

you, there’s an unexpected emo-

tionality to the experience of

powering something on when

you can think to yourself,I had a

hand in making that .

If more people are going to

experience that quiet euphoria,

the barrier for entry

needs to be lower.

People also need a

better reason to

break out the toolkit in

the first place — in this era of mass-

produced laptops and AppleCare,

we’re getting used to the (very

incorrect) idea that if we ever wanta different experience from our

computer, we should just hand it to

a Genius or pony up for the next

year’s model. And with the way we

are taught to use our technology —

companies emphasize computer-

generated software more than par-

ents encourage their kids to be

astronauts — we occupy ourselves

with software-based tech start-ups

and settle for the hardware they

hand us. For better or worse, we’re

sheltered from ever encountering

the inner workings of a computer,

even as we become increasingly

dependent on them. Ironically, that

trend is concurrent with an almost

opposite one: Hardware prices have

absolutely plummeted in recent

years, and it’s never been easier to

piece together computer

parts from different

marketplaces on the

Web.

For the mainstream consumer,

we need something in between

those disparate extremes.

Something, that is to say, must

change. I have to wonder if consolemanufacturers could make the dif-

ference — after all, it certainly

would’ve made that summer night

a little less nerve-wracking if my

Xbox had beenmeant to be

opened.

For the uninitiated, it might

be instructive to explain what a

radical shift it would be for a

company like Nintendo or Sony

to sell a console with exchange-

able components. Since their

inception, video game consoles

have been all about minimizing

maintenance and maximizing

entertainment. You sit down on

your couch, turn the thing on and

forget about it — there are no

files to manage, no drivers to

hunt down and certainly no

graphics cards to update.

It’s a trade-off, of course. It

opens the gaming experience to

more people, but closes off the

technical tweaking that enthusi-

asts crave. (And let’s be honest: Aunified, simple device is always

going to be easier to market.)

I should note that modifiable

consoles aren’t entirely hypotheti-

cal, but most historical examples

are fairly cringe-worthy. The Sega

Genesis 32X was overpriced and

under-supported, while the

Nintendo 64 disc drive never even

saw release outside of Japan. The

Nintendo 64 also had an interest-ing expansion pack to add a

whopping four megabytes of

RAM, but only two games ever

truly took advantage of it. The

only example in the current gen-

eration might be the PlayStation

3, which allows users to swap in a

new hard drive.

Those examples are outdated

and mostly superficial, and the

industry has changed since they

came along. I’m not sure if the

industry is ready for properly cus-

tomizable consoles, but at the

very least, it’s time to re-evaluate

the question.

— nate ADAMS

contact nate:[email protected]

CUSTOM

CONSOLESnme

friday may 18 2012 7

WHATWE’RELISTENINGTOA list of songs Intermission staffersare jamming to this week, forwhen EDM just isn’t enough.

“DISPARATE YOUTH”

SANTIGOLD

“WHATBECOMES OFTHE BROKEN

HEARTED”JIMMYRUFFIN

“212”AZEALIA

BANKS

“SOME-THING GOES

RIGHT”SBTRKT

“BOYFRIEND”JUSTINBEIBER

PART

ONE

VIDEO GAMES

CONTINUED FROM “DEAN,” PAGE 5

7/31/2019 DAILY 05.18.12


intermission8

ADVICE

ROXY

B R E A K S F O R T H E

WEEKENDS

chool may be out for our

friends at semester schools,

but here at Stanford we’re still

working, playing and getting hard.

Roxy’s midterm schedule may be

unrelenting, but so is her desire to

party. And fortunately, this coming

weekend offers plenty of opportu-

nity — here’s how to get the mostout of (and get the most action

during) the next few days.

What more could Roxy possibly

want out of a party? No explana-

tion needed.

Stanford Concert Network hopes

that the upcoming concert in Frostwill restore the venue, which host-

ed the Grateful Dead in the 1970s,

to its former glory. Roxy’s more

concerned with whether there will

also be a revival of the ’70s atti-

tudes about free love. If so, there

are plenty of conveniently located

trees and bushes to explore en

route to a little one-on-one explo-

ration, and no need to be modest.

For those of you who missed

Coachella, Frost Revival will be a

great chance to channel the hipster

inside you — but fortunately for

those also trying to get inside a hip-

ster, people will probably have

showered more recently (Roxy likes

it dirty in all but the literal sense).

More into high profile than hip-

ster? Roxy certainly wouldn’t be

coy about hooking up with a

member of Modest Mouse. She’s

willing to accept a little competi-

tion — Roxy knows she’s the one

who’s going to end up in the “little

motel” or, more likely, a mega-

fancy hotel downtown after the

show.

Every year, Stanford students make

the pilgrimage to San Francisco to

participate in Bay to Breakers. The

event provides a pretense for every

undergrad’s favorite hobbies: day

drinking and wearing costumes.

Of course, the only thing better

than putting on rally is taking it

off. Bay to Breakers may technically

be a race, but for Roxy, it’s moreabout the journey than the desti-

nation. After all the drinking and

running around, not everyone

reaches the official finish line —

but there are plenty of opportuni-

ties to finish elsewhere. Have your

own, private marathon somewhere

along the course. Starting to feel

that your current hook-up is a little

stagnant? There’s no better oppor-

tunity to get some fresh air than by hooking up outside.

It’s definitely going to be a big

weekend. Roxy’s got enough stami-

na . . . do you?

Looking to train for your

“marathon” at Bay to Breakers?

Roxy’s got plenty of experience.

Schedule some one-on-one workouts

at [email protected].

daily 05.18.12

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