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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

SPEAKERS & EVENTS

SIEPR hostsCEO f GE

T

STUDENT LIFE

AxeComm requests special fees increase

By BRENDAN OBYRNEDEPUTY EDITOR

Despite having passed over 40pieces of legislation during itsterm thus far, the 13th ASSU Un-dergraduate Senate has struggledto make an impact this year dueto bureaucratic gridlock, opposi-tion from University officials andinconsistency in following its ownlegislation. The Senates actionshave proven largely internal orineffectual a far cry from therepresentatives platforms tout-ing transparency, accountability,and student life issues.

TransparencyOn May 31, near the start of its

term, the Senate unanimouslypassed UGS-S2011-20, a bill toimprove accountability of theUndergraduate Senate. The billsought to improve transparencyof Senate action by requiring sen-ators to put any individual andcommittee projects, accompaniedby timelines, on the Senate web-site for all students to see. Thethen-fresh senators recognizedstudent body sentiment of confu-

By JULIA ENTHOVENSTAFF WRITER

The Leland Stanford JuniorUniversity Marching Band (LSJUMB)

was placed on alcohol suspension Feb. 6by the Office for Student Affairs, following

incidents surrounding the abuse of alcohol atthe Fiesta Bowl, according to band manag-

er Brian Kooiman 12.

There were several alcohol-related inci-dents at the Fiesta Bowl that led to alcohol sus-pension, Kooiman said in an email to The Daily.

Kooiman denied, however, that the LSJUMBhas had an unusual amount of alcohol-relatedaccidents or hospitalizations this year.

When asked how the LSJUMB has respond-ed to the incidents in order to prevent similar

Please see LSJUMB, page 7

By SARAH MOORESTAFF WRITER

Two student groups, the Stanford Axe Com-mittee and the Viennese Ball Committee, haverequested significantly different amounts inspecial fees this year compared to their pastbudgets. The Axe Committees (AxeComm) re-quest increased by 319 percent from $9,161.19to $38,400, and the Viennese Ball Committees

request decreased 60 percent from $25,000 to$10,000.

Petitions were due Friday, March 9 at 5 p.m.The ASSU Elections Commission will validatethe petition signatures by Sunday, March 15.

AxeCommAccording to AxeComm Chairman Brad

Moylan 13, the student group is requestingmore funding than it received for the 2011-12

school year because it plans on adding to its pro-gramming and has lost substantial funding fromother sources.

We are completely revamping Big GameRally and adding a lot of components to it,which unfortunately costs more money, Moy-lan said. Were adding a big pyrotechnic ele-ment in tribute to the Big Game bonfires of the

Please see FEES, page 7

UNIVERSITY

XOX says

Irreverent group faces post-Fiesta Bowl sanction

WEDNESDAY Volume 241

March 14, 2012 Issue 28STUDENT

GOVERNMENT

ASSU Senatestruggles for

relevancy,lasting effect

LSJUMB reacts toalcohol suspension

SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily

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NEWS BRIEFS

ResEd responds

to Row Housealcohol salesBy THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

Residential Education (ResEd) dis-covered last week that some houses Rowhave been selling alcohol to students dur-ing all-campus events, according to Assis-tant Director of Residential EducationZac Sargeant. ResEd, which did not dis-close the names of houses charging stu-dents for alcohol, may partner with theOffice of Alcohol Policy and Education(OAPE) and other administrativegroups at the beginning of next quarterto address policy and regulations aroundstudent events, houses and alcohol,Sargeant said.

It is unclear whether the houses inquestion sold alcohol to underage stu-dents.

It has come to our attention that somehouses have been selling alcohol in addi-tion to food at all-campus events,Sargeant wrote in an email to Row housemanagers on March 7. The State of Cali-fornia and the University have regulationson the sale of alcohol, and we are current-ly working with the Office of Alcohol Ed-ucation to make our alcohol sale policymore clear. For now we ask that no housesell alcohol to students regardless of theirage. We will have more information soon.

According to California state law, noperson or entity is allowed to sell alcoholwithout a license.

Sargeant wrote in an email to The Dailythat the circumstances require clarifica-tion about University alcohol policies.

Clearly this situation raises seriousquestions about our current process of party registration, regulation of housefunds and proper venues for studentgroups hosting events, Sargeant said.

Sargeant added that ResEd and theOAPE may form a working group at thebeginning of spring quarter to explore al-cohol sales within the undergraduate com-munity.

This working group will likely be com-prised of University Administrators repre-senting various offices, and students repre-senting various parts of campus, Sargeantsaid. We hope to identify options that canbe put forth as a set of recommendationsto the University with the goal of meetingstudent needs while protecting the safetyof all involved. In the interim, we are ask-ing all of our student staff to make surethat they comply with both State and Fed-eral laws, as well as University policies.

Kristian Davis Bailey

UNIVERSITY

BOSP unconcerned by fall application numbers

LOCAL

Two student teams travel to StartupBus

By TAYLOR GROSSMANCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Though the Bing Overseas Studies Pro-gram (BOSP) is still accepting late applica-tions for six of its fall quarter programs,BOSP director Bob Sinclair said the exten-sions are a standard practice and that he isnot worried about the health of any of theprograms.

The BOSP programs in Florence,Madrid, Moscow and Santiago have notfilled to capacity and are still seeking appli-

cants for fall quarter. The Paris and Oxfordare accepting applicants for the waitlist.While the programs in Florence, Madrid andSantiago each have 40 spots, Florence re-ceived only 27 applications, Madrid received36 and Santiago received 32. In addition, theMoscow program, which is only offered fallquarter, had 18 applicants for a capacity of 25students.

Sinclair said he believes that the practiceof accepting late applications is linked to stu-dent interest in the overseas seminar pro-grams, which are offered for three weeksover the summer.

We are still accepting late applications totry and maximize the number of studentswho go overseas, Sinclair said. We had ahuge number of applicants for the overseasseminars, so if there were students who ap-plied for the seminar and not the regular pro-gram, then we wanted to give them an oppor-tunity to rethink applying for the regular

program.Sinclair noted that that the trend for the

Moscow program is not unusual.Moscow has always been at a little bit

less than capacity, but it is such an importantprogram that we dont worry about the num-bers, Sinclair said. When I visited last au-tumn, I was impressed with the students en-thusiasm. Moscow is a very unique opportu-nity amongst all the programs.

Although the Moscow program closed in2003 due to limited interest and high admin-istrative costs, and did not reopen until 2005,

Sinclair said he feels that the 2012 programdoes not face the same potential fate.We really have a lot of belief in the

strength and necessity of the program, Sin-clair said. As far as we are concerned, wewill offer it.

Faculty and students seem to agree withSinclairs positive assessment of the Moscowprogram. Over the past few weeks, numer-ous letters and testimonials have been wide-ly circulated through Stanford chat lists.

One such appeal written by professorsJack and Nancy Kollmann, two faculty-in-residence members from the 2010 program

in Moscow highlighted many of thestrengths of the program. Students, theywrote, can intern at a variety of companies inthe city and are also able to travel extensive-ly through Europe.

The thing about Moscow is that its aplace you might never go to on your own, butits a dynamic society with great things hap-

pening and fascinating political changes, thetwo professors wrote.

Moscow, the Kollmanns also noted, is oneof the few BOSP programs that does nothave a language requirement.

If you have no Russian, you can go inlate August to start an intensive languageprogram that gives you some basic function-ality before classes start, they wrote.

The other programs still accepting appli-cations, with the exception of the program inOxford, require at least three quarters of col-lege-level language classes. Madrid now re-

quires six quarters of language classes, achange from the 2011-12 requirements,which only expected students to have takena minimum of one year of Spanish, accordingto Sinclair.

This change is on a trial basis at first, sowe can see the results, Sinclair said. Proba-bly the main reason is that there is a prettystrong language pledge at Madrid. We wantto make sure that students are comfortablewith that.

The change in Madrids requirements,however, does not seem to have significantlyimpacted the application numbers for fall.

Application numbers dont seem to be somuch different, Sinclair said. Each pro-gram goes up and down . . . you just cant pre-dict it. Theres nothing of concern aboutMadrid applications.

Contact Taylor Grossman at taylormg@stan- ford.edu.

By ALLY ARRIETA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A group of aspiring entrepreneurs rep-resented Stanford this past week in thethird annual StartupBus competition.Working in two teams, the students had 74hours to brainstorm, develop and launcha start-up while traveling by bus fromStanford to Austin, Texas, before present-ing their concepts to a professional panelat the SXSW Interactive Conference.

The basic premise is to see how peo-ple stretch and push themselves with con-strained resources, said Chase Harmon13, CEO of E2.0, a student entrepreneur-ship group. So what is done in threeyears in some cases will be done in three

days.One hundred teams from across the

United States and Mexico participated inthe competition, pioneering ideas in con-strained settings and under severe timepressure. The teams from Stanford or-ganized by E2.0 and sponsored by Mi-crosoft were the first entirely colle-giate teams to enter the competition, withboth able to secure corporate deals by theend of the weekend.

Were all about entrepreneurship and

getting the juices flowing mentally andcreatively, so we thought that this wouldbe a great ou tlet for us, said Viraj Bindra15, E2.0s director of marketing. Twitterand Foursquare launched there [atSXSW], so its a great basis for amazingideas to take shape and gain traction.

E2.0 was only accepted into the com-petition five days before the departuredate. David Hornick partner at August

Capital and a member of the E2.0 boardof advisors helped put Harmon intouch with executives at Microsoft to se-cure a last-minute sponsorship.

Basically we called up Microsoft at 11a.m. on Wednesday, and they real ly pulledin last minute, so we need to thank themfor making all this possible, Harmonsaid.

E2.0 then worked quickly to distributeapplications across the Stanford campusand to locate a bus with the amenities

necessary for the competition, such as Wi-Fi. Harmon said E2.0 searched for agroup of students representing a nice, di-verse spread between hustlers, designersand coders.

Leaving Stanford at 7 a.m. on Tuesday,March 6, the group pitched ideas andformed teams in Palm Springs before

Please see STARTUP , page 7

Stanford fields first college teams inTexas entrepreneurship competition

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The Stanford Daily Wednesday, March 14, 2012 N 3

For the first time in seven years, afemale student was chosen asStanford Universitys unofficialmascot, the Tree, after the annualTree Week shenanigans. Nicoletta

von Heidegger 13 is a longtime member of the drum section of the Leland StanfordJunior University Marching Band(LSJUMB), a competitive equestri-an, staff activities coordinator at theSexual Health Peer Resource Cen-ter, a peer counselor at The BridgePeer Counseling Center, a Synergyresident, a psychology major and, rather fit-tingly, a lover of trees her favorite is theoak, an image of which is tattooed on the in-side of her wrist. For von Heidegger, beingthe Tree is both an honor and a chance toreinvent Stanfords arboreal mainstay. TheDaily sat down with von Heidegger to chatabout Tree Week and her plans for the fu-ture of our schools eccentric mascot:

The Stanford Daily (TSD):Why did youdecide to audition for the role of the Tree?Nicoletta von Heidegger (NH):Ive been inthe LSJUMB since freshman year, and Iobviously love the Band. I wanted to giveback and do something in that realm . . .There hasnt been a girl Tree in seven years,and I felt that I was a good, strong female-type role model who would really enjoydancing and representing Stanford in a waythat could be fun, but also be a good publicfigure in the social media hopefully!

TSD: What plans do you have in terms of designing the Trees costume?NH :There are all sorts of things you have tolook at when youre designing the Tree. Youwant something thats ergonomic, light andnice to dance in, but you also want some-thing that looks good on camera and looksbig enough from high up. I also want to addsome feminine aspect to the Tree like agiant red tutu.

TSD: What was the process of Tree Weeklike?

NH : Well, its basically just kind of a do-as-you wish sort of week, within reasonablelimits . . . For my introduction stunt, I rodein on horseback. Because I ride horses com-petitively, I rode into the Band Shack on a

friends horse, with chaps on and a longwig and a cowboy hat, with some-

one following me [carryingspeakers playing] the

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly sound-track. We [also] recreated a giant seesaw. Itwas 20-feet long, and it goes 13-feet high. Aformer senator of Wisconsin [Russell Fein-gold, distinguishedvisitor at the HaasCenter for PublicService] and hisfriend . . . hap-pened to walk

by, and [the friend] tried it out. Also, myBand nickname is Pac Man, so we did agiant game of Pac Man starting in the Circleof Death, running in between tour groupsand bicycles, and made our way throughTresidder and The Axe and Palm duringlunch, which was pretty busy. I also did a KYwrestling event at Sigma Nu, and it happenedto coincide with Parents Weekend, whichwas not ideal, but some of my friends broughttheir parents, and they thought it was fun.

TSD:Other than playing drums in the Band

and being the Tree, are you involved in anyother activities at Stanford?NH :It was a big decision to become the Treebecause Im very involved in a lot of otherthings on campus, so Im definitely going tohave to cut back on a lot of those things formy senior year, which is kind of bittersweet. . . Im super busy as it is, but now Im goingto be busy mostly doing Tree things instead.

TSD: Was there a formal process involvedwhen you were named the Tree?NH : When you are announced [as the newTree], the entire Band comes to your house

to roll you out. So at 2:30 a.m. you hear thewhistle blowing downstairs, and then theentire Band, however many people show upat that early in the morning . . . were allplaying. It was the best moment of my life.They had some of the old Trees there, andthey carried me down the stairs we weredancing on the tables, they were playingsongs for me and I was hugging all of myfriends in Band. It was like a blur of time justbecause it was so exciting.

TSD: Youre the first female Tree in sevenyears. Do you think that the role of the Tree

is affected by gender?NH : I suppose I consider myself a bit of afeminist, but at the same time I also consid-er myself a tomboy in some ways. Goinginto it, I definitely was assertive in terms of my femininity just because there hadntbeen a female tree in so long, but I also wantto be seen as an awesome Tree who happensto be female. That being said, [I am] the firstgirl [Tree] in a long time, and I would likethat to be a more commonplace thing. Idlike to make my Tree sort of representsomething more feminine, like I said, withthe tutu or . . . rhinestones, but who saysthat couldnt be a guys thing, too, if he wantsit to be? In terms of [the reputation of theTree as the most active kisser at] FMOTQ[Full Moon on the Quad], I think a girl setthe Tree record, so I dont have any con-cerns about that.

Molly Vorwerck

LANTINGHER ROOTS Q&A

withStanfordsnew Tree

P

Courtesy of Al Ponce

FEATURES

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O PINIONS

The justification foraffirmative action andits unforeseen effects

M ARKS M Y W ORDS

Managing 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 OByrneDeputy Editor

Kurt Chirbas & Billy GallagherManaging Editors of News

Jack BlanchatManaging Editor of Sports

Marwa FaragManaging Editor of Features

Andrea HintonManaging 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

Billy Gallagher, Molly Vorwerck& Zach ZimmermanStaff Development

Board of Directors

Margaret RawsonPresident and Editor in Chief

Anna SchuesslerChief Operating Officer

Sam SvobodaVice 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 eic@stanforddaily.com, op-eds to editorial@stanforddaily.com and photos or videos to multi-media@stanford daily.com. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.

E DITORIAL

A ffirmative action, and itsrole in the American uni-versity system, has al-ways been a contentious issue.With the Supreme Court granti-ng certiorari last month to Fisherv. The University of Texas, affir-mative action is once again at thefront of the debate over highereducation. The case involves twowhite applicants, both rejectedfrom the University of Texas atAustin, who filed suit claimingthat the universitys admissionspolicies unconstitutionally dis-criminated against them on thebasis of race. In Grutter v.Bollinger (2003), the most recentaffirmative action case before theCourt, the majority ruled that the

Constitution does not prohibitthe [University of Michigan LawSchools] narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions tofurther a compelling interest inobtaining the educational bene-fits that flow from a diverse stu-dent body.

Although many support affir-mative action as a way to correctfor past and/or present racial dis-crimination, universities rely onthis diversity argument to justifytheir race-based admissions poli-cies. Stanford is no different, ref-erencing on its web page a com-mitment to diversity that in-cludes, but is not limited to, diver-sity in terms of race and ethnicity.Were Stanford to eliminate affir-mative action practices, Stan-fords student body would be-

In Grutter, the majority af-firmed the Law Schools policy toadmit a diverse group of studentswho, among other things, wouldcontribute to the learning of those around them. On its face,this practice is hardly objection-able we all want our peers toimprove our overall experience.But at its core, this practice treatsthese diverse students as ameans to the education of thewhite/Asian majority. Althoughthis may not seem pernicious atfirst, in practice we often see theless appealing effects of the di-versity-as-a-means argument.

At Stanford, the debate overthe presence of ethnic themedorms is one such unforeseen ef-

fect. A 2010 article in the Stan-ford Review argued that thepresence of ethnic theme dormsdenies the significant benefitsof a diverse residence to the restof the Stanford community. Re-gardless of ones stance on ethnictheme dorms, the article pointsout a valid hypocrisy in the tradi-tional diversity justification.Stanford is committed to admit-ting minority students who,among other things, create aracially diverse class. But at whatpoint does this commitmentend? If we are to take the Reviewarticle at face value, some stu-dents clearly believe that whitestudents at Stanford have a rightto live with students from a diver-sity of racial and ethnic back-grounds, regardless of the wishes

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All aboutthe majorBy NATASHA WEASERDESK EDITOR

What are you majoring in? is aquestion we have all beenasked when making new ac-quaintances at Stanford ormeeting people out in thereal world. The query is usually followed by some

mumbling from those of us who are still unsure;a rat-tling off of two majors, two minors and a thesis fromthose overly sure; and a standard response from allthe rest.

To be fair, there are many possible answers. Stan-ford offers over 80 majors ranging from geo-physics to Slavic languages and literature in 70departments spread out over three schools: theSchool of Earth Sciences, the School of Engineeringand the School of Humanities and Sciences. Thereare options to double major, minor or pursue an in-dividually designed major.

According to the Office of the University Regis-trar, in the 2008-09 academic year, the most popularmajors, measured by number of degrees conferred,were human biology, economics and internationalrelations. In 2010-2011, computer science moved upto become the second most popular major.

[The major] provides a set of topics, a focus anddiscipline that becomes the locus for their intellectu-al development, said Julie Lythcott-Haims 89, deanof freshmen and undergraduate advising, in a July2011 interview.

The worst reason to pick a major is because youthink you should study that or everybody is studyingthat or this is the up-and-coming major, she added.

While Stanford offers a wide range of majors, stu-dents tend to classify options into techie andfuzzy categories, the former referring to hard andapplied sciences and the latter to the humanities. Al-though 80 percent of degrees are awarded in theSchool of Humanities and Sciences and Times High-er Education ranked Stanford first in humanities andarts subject rankings this past fall, the University hasdeveloped a reputation as a techie school due itslocation and connections to Silicon Valley.

pre-med or engineering because of time con-straints, said golfer Mariko Tumangan 15. I amconfident that athletes at Stanford could succeed attheir sport and a demanding major if we had morethan 24 hours in a day.

Despite Stanfords many resources, including ac-ademic advisors, pre-major advisors, workshops andfairs designed to help students find their passions, se-lecting a major can be particularly confusing forfreshman.

Eri Gamo 15, is unsure about her potentialmajor.

I am thinking about everything from symbolicsystems to computer science to neurology, she said.I did not come to Stanford with a concrete plan oridea because I wanted to explore.

Gamo said she believes her eventual choice willstem from her passions.

Freshmen reflect onchoosing a major

SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily

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I f youre on Facebook or if youve been compulsivelyplaying and replaying CarlyRae Jepsens hit single Call MeMaybe on YouTube, which I cer-tainly havent then you knowby now about KONY 2012, thenew campaign to arrest JosephKony and bring him before the In-ternational Criminal Court (ICC)by the end of 2012.

Youve probably also heardthat KONY 2012s parent organi-zation, Invisible Children, andICs head filmmaker, Jason Rus-sell, have received a great deal of criticism since the release of theirviral video on March 5th. Some of these criticisms are fair; some arewell-intended but ultimately mis-guided and some are simply irrel-evant.

Lets go through them one byone.

The Video Oversimplifies a Real-ly Complex Situation.

This frequently raised objec-tion is factually accurate but ulti-mately immaterial. Theres nodoubt that KONY 2012, clockingin at all of 30 minutes, fails topaint a nuanced picture of whatsreally going on in Uganda most notably the fact that JosephKony isnt actually there any-more.

But its a bit much to demandthat any half-watchable video de-signed to inspire millions to ac-tion also takes into account thefull intricacies of a decades-oldproblem stretching across fourcountries, all thousands of milesaway.

By adopting this clear, simplis-tic medium, Mr. Russell has suc-ceeded where all of his criticshave failed: in getting someonebesides policymakers and aca-demics to actually care about aproblem that doesnt affect themdirectly. Where we go from here,and whether we acknowledgeand move beyond the inherentlimitations of a 30-minuteYouTube video, is up to us butthanks to Mr. Russell, at leastwere talking about it, which is

better than you can say for Amer-icans most of the time.

But it advocates military inter-vention!

This objection is most oftenraised by people who love theidea of international law in theabstract but recoil in horror at thethought of it actually being en-forced. If the ICC is ever to be-come more than a pleasant-sounding mouthpiece that peri-odically issues useless arrest war-rants for powerful men, thensomebody eventually needs togive it some teeth.

And lets be fair: the continuedpresence of 100 military advisorswho will see no combat andwhose roles will be limited to pro-viding advice to Ugandan mili-tary units hardly constitutes in-tervention. If American inter-ventions looked more like whatIC is proposing and less like Iraqand Afghanistan, I think wed allbe pretty happy.

Isnt this just the White MansBurden all over again?

Critics of KONY 2012 on theanticolonial left see InvisibleChildren at best as a malevolentreincarnation of what Nigerian-American novelist Teju Colecalled the White Savior Industri-al Complex, and at worst a badlydisguised front group for Wash-ingtons ravenous, oil-grabbingmilitarists. According to this view,IC represents the cancer of whiteprivilege metastasized into coun-terproductive hipster slack-tivism on behalf of haplessAfricans who allegedly dontknow better. Even worse, Russelland his team at IC could simplybe what political scientist AdamBranch termed useful idiots,being used by those in the USgovernment who seek to milita-rize Africa unwitting tools inthe greedy hands of carbon-hun-gry neoimperialists.

The former charge, whichshould be taken seriously giventhe real history of Europeandomination justified by benevo-

lence, is a bit unfair in this case. 95percent of ICs staff is Ugandan,and its unclear exactly why beingwhite, or any color, should dis-qualify one from offering help toa fellow human being.

As for the conspiracy theoriesof imminent large-scale Americaninvasion, I have yet to see any proof that the state has had any role in thepromotion, financing or develop-ment of Invisible Children.

There are a lot of other problemsout there, and just arresting oneman wont solve them.

This objection, while of coursetrue, misses the point.

Most development initiativesare prospective and consequen-tialist: they hope to increase wel-fare in the future. A significantpart of the KONY 2012 cam-paign, on the other hand, is retro-spective and to some degree de-ontological. Arresting Kony is im-portant not only because it willprevent him from killing in the fu-ture (or deter others like him),but also because he has commit-ted heinous crimes in the past.When the police arrest a domes-tic criminal, they dont do it onthe grounds that he will probablycommit another crime later; theyrightfully lock him up on thegrounds that he has alreadystolen, injured or damaged.

Therefore, even if capturingKony had no positive effect onanyones future welfare (which itclearly would), arresting himwould still be a legitimate goal a goal that needs to be balancedagainst the costs and benefits of other goals, to be sure, but a legit-imate one nonetheless.

Buying a bracelet? Or clicking dis-like on YouTube? Let Miles knowat milesu1@stanford.edu.

I D O C HOOSE T O R UN

In defense of KONY 2012

MilesUnterreiner

that we are, we do what we dobest we start paddling likecrazy and we start freaking out.

My personal freak-out ses-sions are usually accompaniedby cookies (most recentlytheyve been Samoas, thanks tothe Girl Scouts camped out inWhite Plaza), brief Netflixbreaks and little rant sessionswith my best friends. During oneof these rant sessions, a friend of mine brought up a great pointabout how to deal with times likethese.

Stress can make it seem likethe world around you is about tocome crashing down, but its im-portant to realize that nothing isactually collapsing. People loveto say that everything is going tobe okay, but the other day, afriend made me realize some-thing muc h more accurate

everything already is okay. Itseasy to get caught up in stressand worry about everythingthats difficult in your life. Itseven easier to believe thatyouve fallen prey to circum-stance to think that yourclasses are too hard, that yourproblems are too big and thatthings are too difficult to fix. Butthe other day, I was remindedthat you control your state of mind, not the other way around.

So despite the fact that yourbrain may be screaming at youand trying to prompt a freak-outsession of your own, heres a re-minder that you can always takea moment to breathe and clearyour mind. As cheesy as it maysound, just remember that youare in charge of yourself. Some-times, its the obvious advice thatis the best.

So happy Dead Week, Stan-ford, and good luck on finals!

Have any other good advice for Ravali? Send her an email at ravreddy@stanford.edu.

REDDY Continued from page 4

that they were the next group tocome in, so I checked on the on-line room reservation system justto make sure we werent using theroom when we shouldnt be. Theroom wasnt booked until the topof the hour, so we continued towork.

At exactly 7 P.M., one person

from the group came into theroom to say, We have the roomnow, so... in a somewhat angryvoice. I then pointed to the brows-er on my laptop, which was opento the room reservation site andsaid, Yeah, right here? She re-sponded, Yes, this room! Shethen leaned forward to see what Iwas pointing at. When she real-ized that I was agreeing and notarguing about having to leave theroom, she was taken aback. I thenproceeded to say, Thats whywere leaving, with a smile.Stanford is made up of the stu-dents who go here. The quality of dorm life and the quality of your

classes depend in large part on

the positive participation of thestudents around you. The thingthat ties that all together is civili-ty. For academics, respectful dis-course is a necessity. Why shouldlife outside of class be any differ-ent? Indeed, the fabric of societyis woven by the polite, if absent-minded, good mornings andthank yous we so often ex-change.

Would you ever be rude to aprofessor if they were taking toolong to use the bathroom ahead

of you? Of course not. For thatsame reason, why would you berude to a classmate for using astudy room? One day, that personyou are rude to could work at thesame company as you, or even beyour boss. And even if they arent,if you get into the habit of beingrude to people that you dontknow, you could eventually takeon the habit of being rude to theones you do know. How can youexpect to succeed in life if youarent polite?

Complain about your rude class-mates to Sebastain at sjgould@

stanford.edu.

GOULDContinued from page 4

on you because they had any-thing from a headache to acutefood poisoning? You really canthold this against your friend; if

MARKSC i d f 4

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past.The Big Game bonfire traditionat Lake Lagunita dates back to1898. The University ended the tra-dition in 1994 to protect the habitatof the California tiger salamander.Next year, AxeComm hopes to re-vive bonfire memories through afireworks spectacular costing$12,000, according to the groupsrequested budget.

Moylan said that additional in-creased expenses for next year in-clude more spirit programmingand viewing parties for every roadfootball game.

This past year, AxeComm lostthe considerable financial supportof two alumni, one who moved outof the area and one who passedaway.

AxeComm is on a big upswingin the last couple years as far as howactive weve been on campus andexpanding our role, so thats whywere needing an increase in re-sources, Moylan said. As far as re-cent memory is concerned, the re-quest is a high.

Concerning spending adjust-ments for next year, Moylan saidthat AxeComm has reduced itsbudget for some operational as-pects of Big Game Week but ismainly focused on expanding itsimpact on campus. The spending in-creases therefore greatly outweighany cutbacks, he said. If the studentbody does not approve Ax-eComms request on the spring bal-lot, the group will struggle to sup-port the level of programming ithas had in the past, and most newplans will not be fulfilled, he added.

Viennese BallThe Viennese Ball Committee

reduced its 2012 fees request by$15,000 because last years requestwas not approved.

Were not in a dire position,said Viennese Ball CommitteeTreasury Chair JJ Liu 14. Werestill able to get revenue from theticket sales and different merchan-dise, but we hope to reduce prices if our petition is approved. That willbe up to next years committee.

Annually, the largest part of theViennese Ball Committees budgetis dedicated to renting facilities andequipment and hiring live bands.Next years budget will include ad-ditional expenses for new elementsbeing added to the ball.

Were trying to make the ball

into any competitions, but this yearwe got into some of the best com-petitions, so we want to continuethat competitive nature of Dil Se,said Stanford Dil Se Financial Offi-cer Kathy Zabrocka 13. Part of [the cost] is travel, but we also haveto pay for putting on the produc-tion with the costumes, set thewhole Bollywood production. Inorder to be competitive with othercollege teams, we have to be as pro-fessional as they are.

Dil Se, which receives fundingfrom TSF, is requesting $29,550.The group was granted around$9,000 in Special Fees in 2010 andpaid for its expenses this yearthrough TSF and group reserves.

If we dont get special fees, itwill put a big strain on the budget,Zbrocka said. We might be able togo to one local competition unlessthere are some team members whowant to contribute a lot of money tothe team, which is what happens ata lot of other colleges, but we dontwant to kick people out becausethey cant contribute a certainamount.

If Dil Se receives special fees,the group plans to participate infour competitions, the sameamount as this year. The group hasbudgeted to spend $14,000 on trav-el fares, $5,000 on accommodationsand $2,000 each on honoraria feesand equipment rentals.

Similarly, Sixth Man Club, themens basketball fan club, is peti-tioning for $27,355 in special fees.According to Sixth Man CFO MaxWernecke 13, this is the first timethe group has requested specialfees. He said that Sixth Man isdoing so because student sectionadmission was lowered to no costfor students beginning with the2010-11 season. Johnny Dawkins,head coach of mens basketball,made this decision with the goal of increasing attendance at games.

For the 2009-10 season, studentswere charged $65 to be part of SixthMan, which included season accessto home games. The Stanford Ath-letic Departments marketingbudget sustained the groups oper-ating costs last year and this yearsince the special fees deadline hadalready passed when the groupstopped charging students. Howev-er, promotions and food giveawaysat games decreased as a conse-quence.

Were trying to bring it back tohow it once was, Wernecke said.The marketing budget is verytight, so we need to look at othersources of funding.

If the group does not receivespecial fees giveaways will likely

FEESContinued from front page

ENVIRONMENT

Students, faculty support GMOtransparency legislation

By MARY ANN TOMAN-MILLERDESK EDITOR

Due to health and transparency concerns, someStanford students and faculty have expressed sup-port for a proposed ballot initiative that would re-quire the labeling of genetically modified food on re-tail grocery products in California. The CaliforniaRight to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act of 2012 requires 504,760 signatures to appear on theNov. 2012 ballot in California.

Hannah Kohrman, co-president of the StanfordFarm Project and a coterminal student in earth sys-

tems, said she fully supports the ballot initiative.Genetically engineered (GE) foods are highlycontroversial to begin with, Kohrman said. Manyconsumers dont trust their safety and think we dontknow enough about the consequences of eating andgrowing GE foods.

The Farm Project will discuss the ballot initiativeat its normal Wednesday night meeting this week.Kohrman said she will recommend that [thegroups] members sign the online petition at themeeting.

Kohrman called into question the rationale be-hind the food industrys reluctance to label foods.

The fact that the food industry would be soagainst labeling genetically modified crops makesme even more skeptical, she said.

According to Kari Nadeau, Stanford associateprofessor of pediatrics, if something has been genet-ically modified the public ought to know.

Nadeau stressed the importance of a label thatstates what type of genetic modification has oc-curred.

If to increase the protein content of a food youhave inserted nut proteins, the food product has to belabeled, Nadeau said.

The health risk of splicing peanut and tree nutproteins into other foods to enhance the proteincount is an issue that needs to be researched further,she said. According to Nadeau, seemingly minor al-terations can have unintended life-threatening rami-fications for the growing number of food allergy suf-ferers, and not labeling genetically modified foodsrisks creating serious anaphylactic allergic reactions.

Nadeau noted that doctors are curious if allergieswere as common among the population before therewere genetically modified (GM) foods.

When the soybean started to become genetical-ly modified, those modifications were at the fulcrum,

administrative costs of up to one million dollars an-nually to monitor compliance with the disclosure re-quirements specified in the measure. Legal costsdue to possible violations to the provisions of thismeasure to the courts and attorney general couldadd up to potentially significant costs.

Ruthie Schwab MBA 13, president of the Gradu-ate School of Business Food and Agricultural Re-

source Management Club, said she views informingconsumers and clearly labeling food as the best poli-cy. Schwab highlighted implications on a nationaland governmental level, nothing that it ensures ahigher level of transparency and accountabilityalong supply chains, which can be valuable from afood safety perspective.

While in the short term it may create an initialburden for industry, the European Union (EU) hasshown it can be done and, once implemented, doesnot seem to pose a significant ongoing challenge,Schwab continued.

A submission to the California Attorney Gener-als office by James Wheaton, attorney for the initia-tives proponents and visiting lecturer in the Stan-ford department of Communication, said that pollsconsistently show that more than 90 percent of thepublic want to know if their food was produced usinggenetic engineering.

The proponent findings statement continues, stat-ing no federal or California law requires that foodproducers identify whether foods were producedusing genetic engineering, whereas, fifty countries including the EU member states, Japan and otherkey U.S. trading partners have laws mandatingdisclosure of genetically engineered foods.

The initiative materials also note the environ-mental impact of increased GM food production,stressing the hundreds of millions of pounds of ad-ditional herbicides . . . used on U.S. farms on GEcrops that tolerate herbicides.

Organic farming is a significant and increasinglyimportant part of California agriculture, the state-ment continues. California has one out of every four

Students organize to supportCalifornia label requirement for genetically modified food

Its supporting the

consumers right toknow. HANNAH KOHRMAN,

Stanford Farm Project

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By JACK BLANCHATMANAGING EDITOR

With a dominant second-half performanceon Tuesday, the Stanford mens basketballteam captured its first postseason win in threeyears with a 76-65 victory over ClevelandState in the first round of the National Invita-tion Tournament (NIT).

Led by sophomore guard Aaron Brights17 points and complimented by sophomoreAnthony Brown and senior forward JoshOwens, who both added 15 points, the Cardi-nal (22-11, 10-8 Pac-12) blew away the Vikings(22-11, 12-6 Horizon) down the stretch tocruise to the second round of the nations sec-ond-best postseason tournament.

After Viking guard Tim Kamczyc made athree-pointer to give Cleveland State a 33-31lead just 11 seconds into the second half, Stan-ford rode the trio of Bright, Brown and Owenson a 27-9 run over the next 10 minutes to burythe Vikings for good.

Bright gave the Cardinal a much-neededspark on Tuesday, racking up all 17 of hispoints in the second half by going 4-for-7 from

the field and 8-for-10 from the free-throw line,while also adding three assists and two stealsto his stat line.

Brights quality performance off the pinemay have been the only one that outshoneBrown, though, as the sophomore from Foun-tain Valley, Calif., added a career-high 12 re-bounds to his 15 points and had three assists of his own.

On the whole, the Cardinal had one of itsmost efficient offensive nights all season,going 24-of-49 from the floor, even though itwas out-rebounded by 40-31 margin, includ-ing a 13-5 differential on the offensive glass.

While Bright, Brown and Owens were rocksolid all night, the Vikings also were their ownworst enemy on Tuesday night, as they turnedthe ball over 21 times, a number that stood instark contrast to the Cardinals 12 turnovers.Additionally, Cleveland State may have beenhampered by the loss of senior guard TreyHarmon, who limped off the court early in thesecond half, although he was a dismal 0-for-7from the floor before he headed to the locker

to a hot start. Just six minutes into the game,Stanford held a 17-7 lead, but Cleveland Stateanswered with a rally of its own momentslater. Led by guard Jeremy Montgomery, whofinished the day with 15 points, the Vikingstied the score at 18 just four minutes later.F th th t t d d b k t til

The Cardinal will now play the winner of Mississippi and Illinois State, but must waituntil tonight to find out whether it will travelto Oxford, Miss., to play the No. 1 seed Rebelsor welcome the No. 8 seed Redbirds intoMaples next week. Mississippi and IllinoisSt t l t i ht i O f d t 6 30 PST

8 N Wednesday, March 14, 2012 The Stanford Daily

NOT DONE YETNIT: Where

the realballers are

Its finally mid-March, whichmeans youve set aside yourtextbooks and notecards infavor of something muchmore important than finals:

March Madness. Youve been por-ing over the bracket in front of you,figuring out which low seeds canfind a way to knock off the big boysand which four teams will outlastthe rest to take the coveted spots atthe end.

Youve probably heard all thewisdom of past years: the team thatwants to be there more is the moredangerous team, where you playthe games matters and seedingsdont mean nearly as much as indi-vidual matchups.

You might even have scoutedsome of the teams. Drexel has won25 of its past 27, Iowa will be an un-derdog despite playing its firstgame at home and Middle Ten-nessee State shoots 50 percent fromthe field as a team.

Wait, those dont sound right toyou? Silly you. Youre probablythinking of that other tournament,the one with 68 teams and all thatmedia hype.

Im talking about the real MarchMadness: the NIT.

I mean, seriously, the BigDance was dumb enough to leaveStanford out for the fourth year in arow, which shows you how flawed

S PORTS

SIMON WARBY/The Stanford DailySenior forward Josh Owens (above) added 15 points on Tuesday night as the Cardinal breezed

past Cleveland State 76-65 in the first round of the NIT. Stanford will play the winner of tonightsmatchup between Mississippi and Illinois State in the second round of the tournament.

JosephBeyda

JacobJaffeStat on the Back

Please see JAFFE , page 13

CARDINAL STOMPS

CLEVELAND STATE

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10 N Wednesday, March 14, 2012 The Stanford Daily

MOSBACHER MINUTE

Baseball exceeds high expectations already By JACK MOSBACHER

Jack Mosbacher was a member of the Stan- ford baseball team from 2008-2011. Eachweek, hell take a look at the Cardinals ups and downs on its road to the College World Series.

Following a grueling nonconferenceschedule, the No. 2 Stanford baseball teamfinally has some time to breathe, as it headsinto a two-week break for finals. As always,the Cardinal opened its 2012 campaignwith series against some of the countrysmost prestigious programs, including No. 6Rice, No. 10 Vanderbilt, No. 13 Texas and2008 national champion Fresno State.

Frankly, this Stanford team is betterthan I expected it to be. A slew of playershave so far performed better than I couldhave imagined. The talented but largely un-

proven quartet of John Hochstatter, BrettMooneyham, David Schmidt and JakeStewart has been instrumental in helpingStanford to its most impressive start innearly a decade.

Before the season started, I hadnt heardmuch about the freshman Hochstatter. Atfirst blush, the highly touted recruit fromthe East Bay doesnt seem to have over-powering stuff. So far this season, however,Hochstatter has been a poster boy for theage-old pitching axiom, Keep the balldown in the strike zone and mix your pitch-es well, by using a good fastball and twosolid off-speed pitches to keep batters off balance. Its a good thing, too, as a CollegeWorld Series-caliber team requires threegood starting pitchers. Hochstatter hasbeen more than impressive so far, and Stan-fords success this season will rely greatlyon his continued performance.

Mooneyham showed flashes of bril-liance in his first two years at Stanford, butthe big leftys constant control issues ledsome to wonder if he would ever achievehis true potential on the Farm. To makematters worse, Mooneyham cut his fingerin a fluke can-opening accident last yearand eventually had to miss the entire sea-son. So far in 2012, though, Mooneyhamhas been a new man, dominating opposinglineups with a more consistent motion thathas led to increased command of his fast-ball and renewed confidence to attack bat-ters early in the count. If he continues topitch this way, expect the Cardinal to keepdoing big things, and dont be surprised if the lefty from the Central Valley has hisdraft stock skyrocket.

With the departure of first-round pickChris Reed from the bullpen, Stanfordsearly success this year has been buoyed by

the performance of the freshman Schmidt,who has compiled a dominant 0.73 ERAover eight appearances as Stanfords shut-down specialist. There are few things moreentertaining than watching a pitcher mowdown a lineup with a single pitch, asSchmidt has done with the almost exclusiveuse of his heavy 94-mph fastball. Dont lethis ever-present grin fool you: Schmidtsbullish, hit it if you can attitude is perfect-ly suited for a closer role, which will be vitalin late-season nail-biters.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of the firstfour weeks of the season has been the of-fensive performance of Stewart. A peerlessathlete with huge potential, the centerfield-er has been one of the countrys best defen-sive centerfielders over the past two years;unfortunately, his offensive output has

replace three departing startersfrom the 2011 team, also had agood first week.

W i h h l h

FOOTBALL

mikes dominance at the post de-fines Stanfords offense this year.The Cardinal has been getting tothe line consistently and is shootingfree throws at a .767 clip, its highestpercentage since 2003-04 and 10percent better than its rate justthree seasons ago.

Stanfords turnover numbershave improved as well; the Cardinalgives the ball up fewer than 13 timesa game, a statistic that reached ashigh as 15 three years ago. Two give-aways might not seem like much,but last years 63-62 Final Four lossto Texas A&M in which Stan-ford turned the ball over 22 times tothe Aggies 12 made the impor-tance of avoiding turnovers readilyapparent. The Ogwumikes have setan example in this area as well, com-bining for just 131 turnovers in 32games played; by contrast, Pohlenalone gave the ball up 111 times asthe 2011 Pac-10 Player of the Year.

But as steadily as the Ogwu-mike sisters have played, its theStanford bench that will likelymake the biggest difference this

postseason. Neither Chiney norNneka averages over 30 minutesper game, while each of the pastfour Final Four teams had at leasttwo players who did so. This yearsteam relies more on its depth,which could be key in winning sixgames in two weeks en route to thechampionship. A strong support-ing cast is useful in and of itself, butgetting the Ogwumike sisters off the floor for a periodic breatherkeeps them energized and makesthem that much more dangerousfor opponents.

Nobodys expecting an early exitfor Stanford this year, and rightfullyso, as the squad steamrolled the restof the weak Pac-12 with yet anotherperfect conference season. Its allabout what happens when the Car-dinal makes it to the late rounds.And even without a Wiggins, anAppel, a Pedersen or a Pohlen on itsside, Stanford has all it needs to fi-nally bring home its third nationaltitle in womens basketball: two Og-wumikes.

Joseph Beyda feels more confident about the Ogwumike sisters thaneven his own soon-to-be-perfect March Madness bracket. Send him

your picks at jbeyda@ stanford.edu.

BEYDA Continued from page 8

Please se e MOSBACH ER , page 12

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tion for the pre-meetings, thoughhe directed questions about themeetings to Vazquez. While sena-tors have maintained that they donot directly discuss bills at themeeting, they do acknowledgeusing the time to review agendaitems.

Disintegrating initiativesOf the 40 bills passed thus far,

six made internal ASSU ap-pointments, four created inter-nal divisions within the ASSUand three were resolutions onbehalf of the student body, eachof which ultimately failed to gar-ner response or action from theUniversity.

The Senate launched threeinitiatives this year that soughtto affect student life but failed togain traction.

After several weeks of debatein October, the Senate passedtwo bills creating the Division of Internal Review (DIR), headedby Andrew Aguilar 14. TheDIR, strongly supported byASSU Executive Michael Cruz12, was intended to promote ef-ficiency and reform within theASSU. Instead, it sufferedmonths of delay due to difficultyaccessing the necessary docu-mentation for review from SSE.

The DIR did not receive Sen-ate renewal in January followingcomplaints that Aguilar hadntbeen communicating with theSenate properly, and the groupfailed to produce any reports. Aform of the group now existsunder a different name in theASSU Executive branch, but hasnot produced any public docu-ments.

A second initiative sought tosupport the Stanford footballteam. Senators Ben Laufer 12and Nate Garcia 14 aimed tooffer students a package deal tomake the USC football game inLos Angeles affordable. Lauferand Garcia said after they se-

cured funding sources, NanciHowe, director of Student Activ-ities and Leadership (SAL),halted their project. Howe toldThe Daily that the trip didntmeet requirements from the Of-fice of Risk Management, which

recommended that the ASSUnot promote the event in theUniversitys name. Howe saidthe Senate was aware that thiswas a recommendation; howev-er, senators repeatedly referredto it as a prohibition.

What that made it difficultto do was market effectively,Garcia said. Technically, wewerent allowed to market it asan ASSU initiative.

The senators then transi-tioned to a rebate program, hop-ing to subsidize ticket costs. Theprogram received hundreds of submissions for the rebate; how-ever, since the Oct. 29 game,only one refund check has beenprocessed. Garcia blamed thehold-up on Stanford StudentEnterprises (SSE), the financialarm of the ASSU, but SSE CEONeveen Mahmoud 11 said theSenate has only submitted threecheck requests so far, and onlyone has been picked up.

In October, the Senate set upa Vaden Advisory Board to es-tablish a well-informed link be-tween Vaden Health Center andthe student body. The Senateappointed three members two of them senators to theadvisory committee in January.When asked this week, SenatorTara Trujillo 14 initially said thecommittee hadnt held any meet-ings or taken any action, but Sen-ator Lily Fu 14 clarified that theboard met with Vaden officials inFebruary to discuss increasingstudent access to off-campusmedical options.

We advise and keep openlines of communication withVaden, but do not necessarily

program nor legislate on Vadensactivities, Fu said in an email toThe Daily.

University oppositionOne attempt by the Senate to

address student need resulted inan empty call for action by Uni-versity officials who then object-ed to the legislation.

The CARDINAL Act, a reso-lution passed in February and co-authored by five senators in-cluding Brianna Pang 13 and

Dan DeLong 13, now runningtogether for ASSU Executive,and Cruz called upon theLanguage Center to modify itspolicy regarding attendance, ar-guing unfairness to disabled stu-dents.

The Senate called upon theOffice of Accessible Education(OAE), the University depart-ment responsible for ensuringaccess for disabled students, toact on behalf of disabled studentsregarding the issue. OAE Direc-tor Joan Bisagno had harshwords for the bills authors.

The author of that bill reallymisstated the issue and used ouroffice in an inappropriate way,Bisagno said in an interview withThe Daily. To use disability asthe reason to push this lawthrough is absolutely incorrect.

Bisagno said the LanguageCenters policy does not violateany laws and that the departmenthas been helpful in accommodat-ing disabled students in the past.

Buffer fund debateTwo bills and months of work

went into providing funding forthe Stanford Concert Network(SCN) and Blackfest concert or-

ganizers from an ASSU bufferfund. The fund, which many sena-tors didnt know existed beforeSCN organizer Stephen Trusheim13 requested money from it, isfunded from excess special feesand intended to fund groups thatdont receive enough votes forspecial fees. The Senate passedbills that granted $35,000 to SCN,but loaned Blackfest $40,000, adouble standard that has neverbeen explained.

In addition to these inequity

concerns, SSE CEO NeveenMahmoud 11 expressed con-cerns after the passage of the billabout the use of this buffer fund,saying, I dont believe that thisshould be a regular use for buffer-fund money.

Funding and advocacyWhen interviewed, no senator

listed any of the above bills or ini-tiatives as the most important ac-tion resulting from their term. In-stead, senators cited effective dis-bursement of funds to studentgroups and advocacy to adminis-trators as their top accomplish-ments for the year.

The funding of student groupsoccurs almost entirely in the ap-propriations committee. Whilesenators vote on funding bills as agroup, no funding bill has evermade it through the appropria-tions committee and then failed itsvote in the 13th Senate. Fundingbills are typically passed unani-mously and without discussion atthe start of every meeting.

While senators refer to meet-ings with administrators as a keypart of their service to the studentbody, this unique aspect of the roleis nearly impossible to quantify.These reported meetings occur be-hind closed doors, meaning thestudent body has no way of know-ing what is said or advocated on itsbehalf.

There are notable exceptions tothe Senates struggles with pro-grams this year. A one-on-one ad-vocacy program created by De-Long has served over 30 students,he said.

Another key outcome of thisyear may be a new version of theASSU governing documents,which were re-written and short-ened this year, almost entirely byCruz and Senator Alex Kindel 14,in the hopes of simplifying internalASSU rules and regulations. Thenew draft is currently in a feedbackphase. Former ASSU Executivessent Cruz and the current Senate aletter advising to delay the self-im-posed ratification deadline of April 14 for at least a quarter. Thisaction would push the ratificationprocess to the next Senate.

Prescient, if ineffectiveThe Senate predicted its woes

and diagnosed systemic problemsas far back as UGS-S2011-20 onMay 31.

Projects initiated by Senatorsare not always carried out withinthe initially determined time-frame, and sometimes disinte-grate altogether, read the legis-lation.

With elections for next yearapproaching and no current sena-tors running for re-election to theSenate, the window for action bythis years representatives isswiftly closing.

Contact Brendan OByrne at bobyrne@stanford.edu.

ASSUContinued from front page

11 N Wednesday, March 14, 2012 The Stanford Daily

Etchemendy said. With the pres-ident away, that doesnt happen.

To help fill his shoes as provostwhile he is serving as acting presi-dent, Etchemendy has askedRobert D. Simoni, the DonaldKennedy chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences and pro-fessor of biology, to assist withreading all of the faculty promo-tion and reappointment files thatare processed by the provost.

[Simoni] has extensive expe-rience as a member of the Adviso-ry Board, Etchemendy said, re-ferring to the committee of facul-

ty that advises on appointmentsand promotions. Hes been onthe advisory board for many,many years. Hes been the chair of the advisory board for manyyears, and so is extremely knowl-edgeable.

While Hennessy is on sabbati-cal, the University will continue itssearch for a new dean of theSchool of Medicine and a new di-rector of the SLAC National Ac-celerator Laboratory, as well asStanfords foray into the world of online education, according to

Etchemendy, who said that Hen-nessys sabbatical will not effectthose initiatives.

Things do come up out of theblue and you have to make a deci-sion day to day on lots of differentthings, Etchemendy said. But interms of the major overall proj-ects, there are no projects thatwerent in process before Presi-dent Hennessy went on sabbaticaland no projects that we didntthink about in advance.

I can still always ask him

questions if I feel that a decisionshouldnt be made without hisinput, he added. Its not as if hesdropped off the face of the earth.

Contact Alice Phillips at alicep1@ stanford.edu.

ETCHContinued from front page

The author of

that bill reallymisstated the

issue. JOAN BISAGNO,

OAE director

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12 N Wednesday, March 14, 2012 The Stanford Daily

been less than stellar. After mak-ing noticeable changes to his me-chanics and approach at the platethis fall, Stewart has arguablybeen the Cardinals most valu-able offensive player so far thisyear, pacing the team with a .404batting average. More tellingly,Stewart has drilled three homeruns in the first three weeks of theseason after hitting zero in 174 at-bats last year. Moreover, withStewart missing this past week-ends series against then-No. 4

Rice with a minor back injury, theCardinal had by far their worst of-fensive stretch of the year. Fearnot, Stanford fans: Stewart shouldbe back when play resumesagainst USC in two weeks. Thisweekend simply proved howvaluable Stewart has become tothe Cardinals offensive perform-ance.

The performances of thesefour players have been key toStanfords early success. Most im-portantly, the Stanford baseball

team itself seems to be allergic tolosing. It has seen two games gointo extra innings, winning both indramatic fashion. It followed itsfirst loss of the season in the seriesopener against Fresno State with

two decisive, vengeful victories.There are even positive outcomesassociated with Stanfords loss inthe series finale against Rice onSunday, as the frustrating defeatwill be motivation for improve-ment as the Cardinal head intothis two-week break.

Granted, Stanford still hasareas for improvement. On themound, too many free bases arebeing surrendered through walks,and pitchers have made the of-fense play catch-up too often by

giving up runs early. Offensively,Tyler Gaffney has yet to catch fire boy, will the offense be intimi-dating when he does. Defensively,the Cardinal has been a littleshaky in the infield, which Imsure they will shore up duringtheir time off.

Nonetheless, at 13-2, the No. 2Cardinal has plenty to be excitedabout.

Contact Jack Mosbacher at jack-mos@stanford.edu.

MOSBACHERContinued from page 10

bottom of the second, and juniorcatcher Eric Smith doubled hometwo more to make it 3-1. Piscottydoubled in the third, and sopho-more first baseman Brian Ragirasingled him home in response to atwo-run Owl half of the inning, asthe Cardinal retook the lead.

After that rally, though, Stan-ford wouldnt relinquish the ad-vantage again. Kauppila andSmith singled to lead off thefourth and came home on sopho-more rightfielder Austin Wilsons

third home run of the season, along fly ball that cleared the left-field fence with ease. A leadoff homer by Ragira in the fifth framefor his third hit of the afternoonmade it 8-3, and Piscotty tackedon another run by singling homeGaffney.

A Smith double and Wilson sin-gle added two more runs in the sev-enth to cap Stanfords scoring, yetRice kept fighting, dinging up jun-ior reliever Dean McArdle for

three scores in two innings. But theCardinal had built enough of a leadto get redshirt junior lefthanderBrett Mooneyham his fourth winof the year, as the Atwater, Calif.,native has yet to drop a decision in

his first four starts.For all the offense on Saturday,though, the series finale on Sundayturned into a duel between twofreshman righthanders, StanfordsJohn Hochstatter and Rices Jor-dan Stephens. The pair put up near-ly identical lines: 6.2 inningspitched, no earned runs, threewalks and two strikeouts apiece,with neither allowing more thanfive hits.

In the end it was the Cardinalsdefense that proved costly, as Pis-

cotty made his sixth error of theseason to put a second Owl runneron in the third with just one out.Junior rightfielder Jeremy Rathjenpromptly singled home the gamesonly run, and Stanfords offensefailed to back up Hochstatter (3-1),who still has a dominant 1.09 ERAin his first year on the Farm despitehis first career loss.

[1-0 games] are the excitingones, and this time we fell on thewrong side of it, but its always fun

to compete like that, Hochstattertold GoStanford.com. It was a biggame, but I think taking the serieswas big, and youve just got to lookforward. With a team like we have,were going to bounce back real

quick.The Cardinal now has twoweeks off for finals before openingthe Pac-12 season at home againstUSC. After a 7-0 start, the Trojans(12-3) fell out of the rankings com-ing into last weekend thanks tothree straight losses against Pep-perdine and North Carolina, butbounced back with a home sweepof CSU Bakersfield and No. 9UCLA in the third annual Dodger-town Classic on Tuesday night.

USC will actually begin its con-ference season a week in advanceof its trip to the Farm, hosting Utahin a three-game tilt this comingweekend.

The Cardinal and Trojans willplay next Saturday, Sunday andMonday at Sunken Diamond, andStanford will continue its busy startto spring quarter with a one-gametrip to UC-Davis on Tuesday.

Contact Joseph Beyda at jbeyda@ stanford.edu.

BASEBALLContinued from page 9

the Cardinal nearly eclipsed itsseason-high score once again,beating host University of Illinois-Chicago 355.500-337.800 in aneasy win to close out the regularseason.Stanford won all six teamevents and had five individual win-ners: junior John Martin on pom-mel horse (15.700), Fosco on rings(16.000), freshman Sean Senterson vault (14.900), Foreman on par-allel bars (15.200) and Penev onhigh bar (14.400).

The Cardinal next competes onApril 7 at the Mountain PacificSports Federation Championshipsin Colorado. The extended breakwill help the team recover some of its injured competitors and allowthe squad to field a more completesquad as playoffs begin.

In addition to the mens teamcapturing a pair of wins this week-end, the No. 11 Stanford womensgymnastics team wrapped up itsregular season at Arizona State onFriday by earning its third consec-utive victory. The Cardinal

its winning streak over the SunDevils to 19 matches.

The meet was highlighted bythe Cardinals effort on beam, asthe team posted a season-high49.350 in the event, beating its pre-vious best score of 49.175. Onlytwice has the team had a betterevent score than 49.350, both49.400s on the uneven bars. SeniorAlyssa Brown won the event witha score of 9.925, one of three scoresof 9.9 or better in the event. Soph-omore Amanda Spinner andfreshman Ivana Hong both scored9.900s on beam, as all three eitherset or tied their season-high scoresin the event.

Senior Nicole Pechanec post-ed a career-best 9.950 in unevenbars to win the event, a score thathas only been achieved once be-fore for the Cardinal this season,as junior Ashley Morgan put upthe same score on floor last week.Morgan won floor again thisweek, scoring a 9.850 to tie withHong.

The teams score of 196.475was its second best of the season.The teams win improved the Car-dinals record to 10-3 as it goes intothe Pac-12 Championships in twoweeks at Utah.

GYMContinued from page 9

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The Stanford Daily Wednesday, March 14, 2012 N 13

that tournament is. But as Stanfordfans, its probably better this way.

Think about it: The NIT doesnthave any teams with losingrecords, but that other tourneydoes. The champion of Stanfordsconference isnt wasting its time inthat 68-team field; its in the NIT.Fans of schools in the NIT get towatch their teams play on campusinstead of paying hundreds of dol-lars to follow them around thecountry like those supporters of other schools. And you want the

toughest competition? Stanford is5-3 against teams in The Tourna-ment That Must Not Be Named,but the Cardinal is 0-4 against NIT

teams. Challenge accepted.So with all the media idiotically

focused on You Know What, youprobably havent gotten a realsense of what March Madness is allabout. Luckily for you, heres a

glimpse at what the NIT has in storefor true college basketball fans thismonth.

The format is simple. Ratherthan having crazy play-in gamesand regional sites, the NIT workslike this: 32 teams are split up intofour brackets of eight teams each,and the teams are seeded onethrough eight. For the first threerounds, the games take place at thehome of the team with the betterseed (except Dayton, which unfor-tunately sold out to The Man and

has to play all its games on the roadbecause its arena is hosting theother tournament). The real FinalFour teams will square off in the

most famous arena in the world:Madison Square Garden. Yep, theNIT plays its basketball games in abasketball arena, not a football sta-dium.

Washington, Tennessee, Seton

Hall and Arizona are the four No. 1seeds, with Dayton, Miami, St.Josephs and Ole Miss as the No. 2seeds. Stanford checks in at a No. 3seed, giving the Cardinal a first-round home game Tuesday againstsixth-seeded Cleveland State. Ore-gon is also a No. 3 seed, giving thePac-12 four bids, tied with the At-lantic-10 for the most in the tour-nament.

In order for any team to hoist thetrophy, it will need to win fivegames. For Stanford, if seedings

hold, that would mean a home winover Cleveland State, road winsover Ole Miss and Arizona and neu-tral-site wins over Seton Hall and ei-

ther Washington or Tennessee.Of course, as in any tournament,

upsets will greatly alter the expect-ed matchups. Ole Miss could haveits hands full with Illinois State, ateam whose 13-loss record is

skewed by five losses to WichitaState and Creighton. Oral Robertswill be a very difficult second-round matchup for Arizona afterwinning 20 of its past 22 contests.Either of these potential upsetscould pave the way for Stanford toplay more home games and possi-bly advance all the way to the finals.

In other parts of the bracket,teams are lurking for a potentialrun to the title. Northwestern,sporting a well-known drought of never having reached the NIT

semifinals, could ruin Washingtonstournament in the second round,while Tennessee could face a daunt-ing challenge from in-state rival

Middle Tennessee State, which en-ters the tournament at 25-6 on theyear. And dont sleep on Mississip-pi State. The fourth-seeded Bull-dogs have lost six of their past eight,but they still boast wins over No. 1

seeds Arizona and Tennessee.So there are some hints for allyour bracket competitions. Thisseems like a year of upsets, so I en-vision only one No. 1 seed reachingMadison Square Garden, with ateam from a smaller conferenceeventually winning the crown.

No matter who wins, though, theNIT will surely make college bas-ketball fans forget about that othertournament.

Jacob Jaffe is not all about the U.

Give him reasons why Miami will win the NIT at jwjaffe@ stanford.edu and follow him onTwitter @ Jacob_Jaffe.

JAFFEContinued from page 8

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BY AARON PLOURDE

A ndy Brown stood atthe free-throw line onJan. 14, 2012, waitingto take two foul shots.Stanford led Col-

orado 82-61, and less than a minuteremained. These two free throwswouldnt impact the game. As the6-foot-7 junior forward stepped tothe line and dribbled three times,he didnt even notice the crowd,the bench or anything else aroundhim. All that Brown focused onwere the 15 feet between him andthe basket.

Browns trip to the foul linebegan well before he snatched anoffensive rebound and was fouledby Colorado forward DamieneCain. In fact, his trip to the line hadbegun three years before, whenBrown was still a senior in highschool.

In high school, Brown was atwo-time state champion whileplaying for Southern Californiapowerhouse Mater Dei. Mater Deisustained just 10 losses duringBrowns four years, with a few of them coming against the teamsthat boasted future NBA stars likeKevin Love and Jeremy Lin.Browns high school coach used torefer to him as The Iceman forhis ability to handle pressure latein games.

In January 2009, during Brownssenior year, Mater Dei was unde-feated and the top-ranked highschool basketball team in the na-tion. In the second half of a rivalrygame against Servite High School,Mater Dei led by more than 20points. Brown stole the ball in theopen court and sprinted across thehardwood to hammer in a break-away slam dunk.

When I came down [from thedunk], Brown said, I landed awk-wardly and my knee just kind of popped.

At first, Brown thought the pophe heard was only a sprain. Helater learned that he had torn theanterior cruciate ligament in hisleft knee, ending his high school ca-reer. Initially upset that he would

2009, Brown underwent an intenseregimen of physical therapy de-signed to help him redevelop hisrange of motion and strengthen hisknee. Eight months later, Brownreturned to the court and beganpracticing with Stanford on Oct.16.

During his first college practice,Brown felt a little slower than nor-mal, but his left knee felt strong.About half an hour into practice,Brown soared into the air to grab arebound.

I jumped in off one foot,Brown said. I landed on one foot,and my knee popped out again.

Right away, Brown knew hehad torn his ACL again his leftknee. After being forced to missthe end of his last season of highschool basketball, Brown would beforced to miss his entire first sea-son of college basketball.

Yet Brown remained positive inthe face of his latest setback. Theinjury forced him to medically red-shirt, which allowed him to take ayear to figure out college, both onand off the court.

In order to improve himself as aplayer, Brown spent his freshmanyear getting stronger in the weightroom and learning about the col-lege game from his mentor, then-senior Landry Fields. Off the court,Browns injury not only gave himmore time to focus on his studies; itassisted him socially as well.Brown met other students viaphysical therapy, as well as byvirtue of his golf cart, as studentsrepeatedly asked him for rides.

While Brown looked at his sec-ond ACL tear as a blessing in dis-guise, he still itched to get back onthe court. He underwent the sameregimen of physical therapy as be-fore, and it took him 10 months toreturn to the court.

In August 2010, Brown wasback on the court playing a seriesof pick-up games with his team-mates. It was the most basketballhe had played since high school.During the games, Brown felt likehis old self again, draining sixthree-pointers. Toward the end of the open-court session, Brown andhis teammates were playing a short

f h

foot and my knee gave out again.The all-too-familiar pop and

shooting pain let Brown know im-mediately that he had torn theACL in his left knee for the thirdtime. According to Dr. MarcSafran, who conducted Brownssecond and third ACL surgeries,there is about a 4- to 15-percentchance that a patient with an ACLtear will tear the ACL a secondtime. According to Safran, Browntearing his ACL three times wasdefinitely out of the norm.

That killed me, Brown said.It was tough because it wasntabout my passion for the gameanymore but if my body and myknee would actually allow me toplay.

For the third time, Brown un-derwent reconstructive knee sur-gery. This time, however, Safranused a different, older procedureon Browns knee. The surgery in-volved tightening Browns lateralcollateral ligament to providemore support for his ACL. Thisolder procedure was the same pro-cedure that Browns college coach,Johnny Dawkins, underwent whilehe played in the NBA.

After nearly two years of rehaband physical therapy, Brown wasback to square one. He would onlyget one more shot to play collegebasketball: a fourth knee injurywouldnt heal before Brown grad-uated. Brown went back to his oldregimen, but this time he had torehab for more than a year.

Having endured three surgeriesand nearly three years of rehab,Brown finally suited up for theCardinal on Nov. 23, 2011. Helogged his first minute of actionthat night against Oklahoma Statein Madison Square Garden.Browns knee still hurt at thatpoint, though, so he just stood near

half court and waited for the clockto run out.As the season progressed,

Browns knee continued to heal.On Jan. 14, he entered his first-ever home game at Maples Pavil-ion. After being fouled whilegrabbing an offensive rebound,Brown went to the foul line,where hed have the chance to

h f ll

Once called The Iceman, anervous Brown stepped to the line.

He took three dribbles, bent hisrehabilitated knee, rose up andfired his first in-game shot in years.

As the ball swished through thehoop, the Maples Pavilion crowdand Stanford bench lost control,cheering wildly as they witnessedBrowns three-year struggle finallypay off.

I f li

Brown said. I honestly couldntcare less about the second one.

Brown missed the second freethrow, but it didnt matter. Afterthree years at Stanford, Brown hadthree surgeries, a knee littered withdark surgery scars and discol-orations from cortisone shots, and,finally, one point.

Contact Aaron Plourde at aplourde@ t f d d

14 N Wednesday, March 14, 2012 The Stanford Daily

The high price of a single free throw

DANI VERNON/Courtesy of StanfordPhoto.comJunior forward Andy Brown (above) has lost most of his college career tothree ACL tears in his left knee, but the 6-foot-7 forward finally hit thecourt for the first time this season. After a long, intensive rehab process,Brown finally notched his first-ever point on Jan. 14 against Colorado.

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3 5

2

THE 5 THINGS YOUSHOULD BE DOING

THIS SPRING BREAKA week and a half from now, youll bein the midst of spring break, thathappy hiatus between the bleakestand the brightest quarters. In oneweeks time you will molt from stud-ied hermit into prancing Californiacollege kid. Heres how to do it.

Not Checking GradesSure, you know that grades will be dueat 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 27 and willbe available as soon as your professorhas posted them providing youhave completed your evaluations.Obviously. But this isnt a time forgrades, its a time for spring and breakand everything non-Stanford related.

Bronzing Your LargestOrganWilbur Field, that grassy patch nearGovCo and the Claw are crooningyour name. Fountain hopping is aStanford tradition for a reason werelocated in sunny California, so makesure your sun-bathed bod matchesthat bathing suit and get ready forspring quarter, partially clothed. Of course, remember to stay healthy andhit up that 30 SPF. Sunburn never

looks good in a fountain.

Catching Up onTelevision

We would tell you this is importantbecause youll be so busy with schoolduring spring quarter, but who are wekidding? Youll be busy alright par-ties, concerts and being outside (andnot near study materials) will occupy somuch of your time that youll want tocatch up on your two-dimensional

friends lives before resuming your realone come spring quarter. And withentire discographies of shows likeMad Men and Skins accessible onNetflix and Hulu, we think youll haveplenty of watchin to do.

Starting up that Start-UpThis ones for all those fuzzies outthere techies be doing this one on

the daily. Now that you can put downyour first edition Hamlet, find sometime to do that project youve alwayswanted to do. Make a Stuff TechiesSay video, write your first screenplay,experiment with web design heck!The possibilities are endless! Just makesure you dont recruit any overzealoustechies to help with the programming.#SawThatMovie

Recreating YourselfBy this point in your Stanford career,youve probably heard it in some formor another: We were all nerds in highschool! If this doesnt apply to you,youre probably just in denial. If by thispoint at Stanford you havent com-pletely recreated yourself from a bash-ful dork into a robust popular kid, letyour spring break transform you intothe proverbial badass youve alwaysaspired to. That, or read StewartMacGregor-Dennis 40-page life plan.

Courtesy MCT

intermission2

FEATURE3Will Ferrell dishes on why Mexico lovesCasa de mi Padre

MOVIES4Friends with Kids proves hilarious yetpoignant

MUSIC 5La Sera shines on stage in SanFrancisco

MOVIES5John Carter successfully tackles the

immortal movie theme

VIDEO GAMES 6Our video games guru breaks downZelda

MOVIES7Casa de mi Padre is really funny. Gosee it.

FOOD 8Town & Country opens up two newlunch stops

WWLT 8Check out Intermissions favorite songs

of the week

Courtesy Stefanie OkudaFour Little Injuns, written and directed by Stanford graduate student MyrtonRunning Wolf, premiered on Wednesday, March 7 in the Nitery Theater as part of the Drama Graduate Student Showcase.

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wednesday march 14 2012 3

Will Ferrell first made a name for him-self in the 1990s as a cast member onthe NBC sketch show Saturday

Night Live before embarking on a successful filmcareer with hits like Elf, Anchorman andTalladega Nights. As an unofficial member of the critic-dubbed Frat Pack, he is best knownfor his juvenile man-child characters and pro-longed comedic timing. Casa de mi Padre, how-ever, casts him in an entirely different light: as anave Mexican cowboy who gets caught in thecrossfire between two rival drug lords.

Although the film pushes boundaries for itsgenre, the greatest departure for Ferrell fans willbe seeing the comedian act entirely in Spanish.

I didnt want the joke of the movie to bethat I spoke Spanish poorly, the actor said in aninterview with The Daily. I wanted it to be a

thing where halfway through the movie it sneaksup on you Oh my god! I forgot he doesntspeak Spanish.

For a month before filming Ferrell workedextensively with a tutor to master his charactersMexican accent, and even during the shoot wouldpractice his lines relentlessly on the way to andfrom set. But aside from the preparation, acting ina foreign language presented other challenges,especially for someone used to improvising.

It [was] kind of an out of body experience,

he recalls. Acting almost came third because itwas all I could do to memorize in Spanish andthen my focus was on pronunciation.

Even so, Ferrell and his cast mates relishedthe opportunity to be completely over the top.

[Co-star] Diego Luna described it as wereall characters playing characters, says Ferrell.Were like really bad actors trying to win anAcademy Award with every scene.

Set just south of the border, Casa de miPadre toys with the issue of transnational drugtrafficking, replete with bumbling DEA agentsdispatched from the Department of Justice. But

as Americans, the creative team, which alsoincludes writer Andrew Steele and director MattPiedmont, was sensitive to how the trade and thecharacters were portrayed.

We wanted this movie, while also beingoutlandish and funny and different, be a littlesatirical in the way that we comment on ourclich views of Mexico and vice versa, saysFerrell. The fact that Im an American playing aMexican talking about the crazy shit-eatingmonster babies of America that shows thatwe have an understanding.

The films style exhibits a similarly shrewdirreverence, continually breaking the fourth walland reminding audiences that theyre watching afilm. While creating continuity errors and visualgags became like a game for the cast, getting thecrew to cooperate was another matter.

In a business where youre not supposed tomake mistakes, it was so hard to get [the crew] tomess up on purpose, laughs Ferrell. So in someways I think we could have even had more mis-takes.

Of course, the films many quirks and sub-versive elements have come at a price. Sensingthat the material would be much less accessiblethan Ferrells previous films, studios have beenslow to reach a distribution deal. This doesntseem to faze the actor at all, who is proud of the

finished product and optimistic about its future.Its like any of these movies weve done,

whether theyre commercial successes or not, hesaid breezily. We firmly believe in what weredoing, but we have no idea if it will work.

Its a bigger release in Mexico, actually, thanit is here, he continues. So what would be greatis if it were a big hit in Mexico and not so here[in the States]. That would make me laugh hard-er than anything.

misa SHIKUMAcontact misa:

mshikuma@stanford.edu

talks man-child characters and cowboys W ILL F ERRELL

Courtesy Pantelion Films

FEATURE

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Ten years ago, Jennifer Westfeldtlaunched onto the independent filmscene as the co-writer and star of the

hilarious sleeper hit Kissing Jessica Stein, anedgy film about a straight woman who sur-prisingly finds herself embarking on a same-sex relationship. Westfeldt has it all: looks,wit, comic timing, dramatic skill and writingchops. Its a delight to see her back in actionin Friends with Kids a tamer conceptwith more mainstream appeal, but with thesame clever writing for smart people aboutsmart people, thats both funny and emo-tionally resonant. Kissing Jessica Steinlaunched Jon Hamms screen career by giv-ing him his first substantial speaking part;heres hoping Friends with Kids will bringWestfeldt into the mainstream.

Friends with Kids is another pre-dictable yet fresh story about how bestfriends in this case, single, neurotic NewYorkers approaching forty, Jason (AdamScott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) eventu-ally find themselves realizing, after 20 years,that they dont just have good banter but arealso in love. All it takes is for them to decideto have a child together as friends, com-

mitted 100 per-cent, half thetime to realizethat they are soulmates in and outof the bedroom.

Jason and Julie, however, have watchedtheir friends have kids and then turn intoseemingly unrecognizable people. Theirfriends Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris

ODowd) have moved to lowly Brooklyn andseem to have become inexplicably mean.Missy (Kristin Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm),who used to be incapable of keeping theirhands off one another, after having kids, nowonly resent each other. Superficially, at first, itseems to our rom-com stars that children ruinmarriages.

There are a lot of laughs to be had asJason and Julie decide and plan to conceive.They like to play a game of picking whichdeath would be worse by alligators or by shark on the phone while in bed with otherpeople. They comment, wittily, on all theabsurdities of parenthood: that parents bringrowdy kids to $100-a-meal restaurants, neversleep and throw tantrums because of it and

obsessively inform other people of their childsprogress, including their first successful visit tothe toilet. Westfeldt, like Woody Allen, has aknack for accurately writing neuroses in a way that allows us to laugh at them, and Juliesneuroses provide a lot of comedic material.

Jason and Julies child-rearing arrange-ment works in the beginning. They are greatfriends and can communicate healthily toshare responsibility civilly and find a way toget sleep, eat and not turn their respective

apartments into unlivable dumps. In oneadorable scene, Jason comes downstairs in themiddle of the night to feed the baby withbreast milk from the fridge, helpfully labeled:pure, one latte, one glass of wine andsushi for dinner.

But of course, the pair starts to get jeal-ous and has problems when they each meeta cute someone new: he the young in every way, lithe, gorgeous, but smart and quip-y Mary Jane (Megan Fox), and she the goodlooking, mature Kurt (Edward Burns). Itsaround this time when the film shifts from alightweight sitcom vibe to a more emotion-ally complicated place. On a ski tri