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Aspirin shows

promise in treating

skin cancer

By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF

Aspirin and other non-steroidal, anti-inflammatorypainkillers may help protectagainst skin cancer, according toscientists at the School of Medi-cine, Aarhus University Hospitaland the Cancer Prevention Insti-tute in Fremont.

Researchers examined thedrugs impact by evaluating 19years of skin cancer records innorthern Denmark and comparingthe rates at which skin cancer ma-terialized in subjects who took oneor more drugs compared to thosewho didnt.

Researchers subsequentlyfound that the risk of developing

squamous cell carcinoma or malig-nant melanoma two forms ofskin cancer fell by 15 and 13percent respectively among peo-ple who had used aspirin-likedrugs. The lowered risk was morepronounced among those who hadused the drugs for a longer periodor more intensively.

Aspirin and other non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory

By ALICE PHILLIPSDESK EDITOR

Campus crime figures for the 2011-12 aca-demic year show little overall divergencefrom previous years, according to data com-piled by the Stanford University Departmentof Public Safety (SUDPS). Alcohol-relatedincidents, however, did increase by a signifi-cant margin.

The Stanford campus experienced a 45percent increase in medical alcohol trans-portations this school year as compared tolast year. Between September 2011 and April

2012, 77 people were transported for alcohol-related medical reasons. There were 53 trans-ports during the same time frame last year, ac-cording to SUDPS records.

Despite the uptick in transports, the Officeof Alcohol Policy and Education (OAPE) re-cently declared the first year of the CardinalNights alcohol-free entertainment initiativeto be a success in creating community on cam-pus for non-drinkers.

Forty-eight drivers were cited for being inpossession of alcohol during this academicyear, representing more than double the 23cited during the same time frame last year.Twenty-four citations were issued to minorsin possession of alcohol, only one more thanissued last year.

The rate of DUIs doubled to 16 from Sep-tember 2011 to April 2012 from the eight ar-rests made during that time frame last year.

Seven people were cited for possession ofa controlled substance this year, while 10were cited for that offense during the samemonths last year.

There were eight reported sex offensescompared with five reports last year: two bat-teries, one incident of indecent exposure, tworapes, one sexual assault and two unverifiedreport. Of the five reports from the previousyear, three were for incidents of rape.

Both vehicle and dorm burglaries de-creased this year. Fourteen vehicle burglariesand 15 dorm burglaries were reported. Last

Index Features/3 Opinions/4 Sports/5 Classifieds/6 Recycle Me

SPORTS/5

25 YEARS AGORemembering Stanfordsback-to-back titles

FEATURES/3

GIFTING

PARENTS

Tomorrow

Mostly Sunny

75 54

Today

Mostly Sunny

78 54

A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o nwww.stanforddaily.comThe Stanford DailyTTHURSDAY Volume 241May 31, 2012 Issue 71

NEWS BRIEF

SPEAKERS & EVENTS

Dropbox co-founder talksstart-ups, relays experience

Campus crime stable,alcohol incidents risingSUDPS figures show rise in DUIs and alcohol transportations,

OAPE calls alcohol-free programming a success

Please see BRIEF, page 2

Please see CRIME, page 2

By FELIX BOYEAUXCONTRIBUTING WRITER

The whole start-up world is sort oflike climbing Mount Doom, said DrewHouston, CEO and co-founder of thefile hosting service Dropbox, to apacked NVIDIA Auditorium onWednesday afternoon. You dont real-ly know how tall it is, but there is a lot offire and things exploding around you.Theres a lot of smoke and it is verysteep.

Houston, invited as part of the DFJEntrepreneurial Thoughts Leader Sem-inar, used the metaphor to explain theproblems associated with starting acompany as a recent college graduate.

Even if you know where you aregoing right now, things are going to getgnarly down the road, he said.

Rather than discouraging potentialentrepreneurs, however, Houston

sought instead to demystify the processof bringing a concept all the way to com-mercial actualization.

Drawing on his experience withDropbox, which was created on a busride to New York and which currentlyenjoys a market valuation of billions of

dollars, he encouraged students to leavethe beaten path.

People imagine that life is all about

filling checkboxes, Houston said.They think the right path to a start-upis getting a bunch of graduate degrees,be a really good engineer, get an MBA,then work at a lot of different compa-nies, and finally, sometime around theirthirties, forties or fifties, theyll be pre-pared to start a company.

Houston emphasized that successfulstart-ups have rarely followed that path.

Empirically, so many companiesthat you would think about in the hall offame were started by people who, basi-cally, didnt know what the hell theywere doing, he said.

Houston cited several of Silicon Val-leys most successful companies suchas Facebook, Google and Apple asexamples of firms that were started byfirst- or second-time entrepreneurs

learning how to run a successful busi-ness on the fly.

Dont be too daunted if you donthave all the answers, he advised the au-dience.

Jammin at the CoHo

IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily

Charged Particles, a jazz group featuring Communication Professor Jon Krosnick and Murray Low, director of the Afro-Latin Jazz program at Stanford, performed on cam-

pus for the first time in the bands 20-year history on Wednesday evening. The bands work was recently described by This Week as a superb example of mus ical artistry.

SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily

IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily

Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of file hosting service Dropbox, spoke Wednes-day afternoon about his experiences developing a multi-billion dollar firm. Houstonemphasized the importance of commitment and vision above business experience.

UNIVERSITY

Senior Gift awaits late spikeBy MARSHALL WATKINS

DESK EDITOR

With two weeks left before graduation, theClass of 2012 remains slightly behind lastyears record participation in Senior Gift do-nations. Gift organizers expressed optimism,however, that seniors contribution to the stu-dent-driven initiative will spike in the finalweeks.

The goal is to break the 2011 participa-

tion record and, since people tend to be verylast minute about everything, we do expect tosee a lot of people give in the next few weeks,wrote Felicity Meu, director of student andyoung alumni development, in an email toThe Daily.

The Class of 2011 set an all-time participa-

tion record with its Senior Gift, recording justover 82 percent of seniors donating to an ini-tiative intended largely through The Stan-ford Fund to support financial aid andother undergraduate programs.

This renewable, discretionary fund en-ables the president to respond to immediateneeds, unexpected opportunities and freshideas, Meu wrote. [Senior Gift donations]are an essential complement to endowmentgifts. Every undergraduate at Stanford is

touched by the Fund in some way and theSeniorGift is a way to say thank you and giveback.

As of May 29, more than halfof the Classof 2012 had contributed to this years Senior

Please see DROPBOX, page 2 Please see SENIORS, page 2

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year, 34 and 19 reports were filedfor those crimes, respectively.

Petty theft during this time pe-riod rose by nearly 68 percent,with 357 reported incidents thisyear compared with 241 reportedincidents for the same time framelast academic year.

Reported incidents of bothstructural and vehicle vandalismwere cut in half, with 13 structur-al vandalism incidents and six ve-hicle vandalism incidents thisyear compared with 26 and 11 lastyear, respectively.

People have asked through-out the year if there has been anincrease in the number of Alert-SUs [emergency notifications]

and if there has been an increasein crime, wrote Chief of Police

Laura Wilson 91 in an email toThe Daily. What people may notknow is that the University is re-quired to send these according toa federal law known as the CleryAct. We have modified some ofour practices over the past year inorder to ensure that we are com-plying with the law to the fullestextent possible.

Wilson also noted that her de-partment has received more com-munity requests for active shoot-er and active killer responsetraining sessions during this aca-demic year.

These training sessions pro-vide people with informationabout options they can take duringan active shooter incident as wellas the important steps the commu-nity can take to bring concerningbehavior to the attention of skilledprofessionals in an effort to pre-clude violence, Wilson wrote.

However, Wilson said that byfar the most prominent SUDPSinitiative during the 2011-12 aca-demic year has been its bicyclesafety program.

While acknowledging that stu-dents may not be happy with theincreased presence of SUDPS of-ficers near stop signs to issue tick-ets for traffic offences, Wilsonnoted that members of the Stan-ford community have yet to pro-pose viable alternative solutionsto the bicycle safety problem on

campus other than increased en-forcement.

What really became obviousis that a tremendous amount of

educating and informing stu-dents had been done but educa-tion alone wasnt changing theculture, Wilson wrote.

Many people are not only ex-asperated by bicyclists failing tostop at stop signs and riding atnight without proper lighting,they are altering their behavior inorder to avoid the possibility ofbeing involved in a collision witha bicyclist, Wilson wrote.

Wilson cited anecdotal evi-dence of greater cyclist caution atthe Campus Drive-EscondidoRoad stop sign and an increasednumber of bikers wearing helmetsat that intersection as potentialevidence of positive impact fromthe escalated enforcement.

Yesterday, in OAPE cites gainswith Cardinal Nights, The Dailyreported that there were 64 trans-

ports last year and 66 this year.This information came from An-gelina Cardona 11 of the Officeof Alcohol Policy Education; thestatisitics in todays article camefrom Laura Wilson, chief of po-lice and director of the StanfordDepartment of Public Safety.Representatives from OAPE andSUDPS were unreachable forcomment Wednesday evening.The Daily is currently working toexplain the discrepancy betweenthe statistics.

Contact Alice Phillips at alicep1@stanford.edu.

CRIMEContinued from front page

2N Thursday, May 31, 2012 The Stanford Daily

painkillers may protect againstskin cancer by inhibiting the func-tion of two enzymes responsiblefor the promotion of inflamma-tion and the formation of bloodvessels. Without such outlets forexpansion, tumors may be unableto grow, according to researchers.

Marshall Watkins

BRIEFContinued from front page

Gift. A month before graduationlast year, participation figures forthe Class of 2011 approached 60percent.

We do not want 2011 to be an

outlier we want their gift to bethe start of a trend, Meu wrote.Meu noted that Senior Gift

committee members have organ-ized a number of events to in-crease turnout and senior partici-pation, including house and dormvisits and in-person outreach asthe fundraising enters its final pe-riod.

We know students love Stan-ford and we know many of thembelieve it is important to supportthe University, Meu wrote. Thecommittee is working hard tobring down any possible barriers

to giving.Theres some social pressure

around it, said Kara Murray 12,who recently donated. Every-one gives so you sort of have togive. Some people may not evenfind out what its used for untillater.

With matching donations, theClass of 2011 exceeded $200,000in its fundraising total. The Class

of 2012s donations will bematched 2:1 by Peter Bing 55,with the Parent Advisory Boardcontributing a further $5,000 forevery 10 percent increase in par-ticipation among seniors.

Meu predicted that the vastmajority of Senior Gift dona-tions will be allocated to TheStanford Funds need-based fi-nancial aid program, which hasin recent years grown from ap-proximately half of the Fundsexpenditure to 81 percent in2010-11 as a result of financialaid policy changes and an inhos-

pitable economic climate.As a direct result of the eco-

nomic recession, this is likely tocontinue for several years, withstudent need surpassing the pay-out from endowed scholarshipfunds, Meu wrote.

The Senior Gift has seen agradual rise in class participationover the past decade. However,peer institutions such as Harvard,

Princeton and Dartmouth haveconsistently recorded even higherlevels of turnout. Meu acknowl-edged that work remains to bedone to ensure a consistentlycomparable turnout from Stan-ford seniors.

Our students chose Stanfordfor the caliber of education butalso for the Stanford ethos, Meuwrote. I only hope that, movingforward, that includes philanthro-py and gratitude.

Contact Marshall Watkins at mt-watkins@stanford.edu.

SENIORSContinued from front page

M.J MA/The Stanford Daily

Houston emphasized the ben-efits of an environment such asStanford for furthering entrepre-neurial ambitions among fellowstudents with shared desire tochange the world.

Someone once said that youare the average of your five clos-est friends, he said. Being in anenvironment where people arealso interested in start-ups andwhere you are all pushing eachother can really be helpful.

Houston originally moved toSilicon Valley, scrapping plans tofound an SAT test preparationcompany when inspired by afriends ability to easily accessfunding from investors.

I thought a lot about what Iwanted to do next, Houston said.It had to be something deeplytechnical. I also wanted some-thing that I could explain to peo-ple in a bar or a coffee shop andhave them vaguely know what Iwas talking about and, finally, Iwanted something with a workingbusiness model.

In 2006, according to Houston,cloud storage was seen as thenext big thing a parallel hedrew with social networks andmobile apps today but existingproducts were largely inade-

quate, with at least three items ofsoftware needed to back up, store

and share data over the Internet.I cant really imagine Tom

Cruise in Minority Report log-ging in to his Gmail to pick up theattachment he sent himself thatmorning, or forgetting his thumbdrive, Houston emphasized.

In fact, Houston cited the ex-perience of forgetting his thumbdrive as his prompt to start codingDropbox out of frustration at thelack of progress in cloud storage.A subsequent trip to Californiasecured him a co-founder, ArashFerdowsi, and funding from anumber of venture capital firms.

One thing you discover veryquickly as a technical co-founderis that you know a lot about theengineer, but very little about thebusiness side of things, Houstonsaid.

He added, however, that suchskills are rapidly acquired withexperience and pale in signifi-cance compared to being com-pletely invested in a project.

Audience member GeorgeBurgess 15, chief operating offi-cer at E2.0, expressed a favorableview of Houstons talk.

I pay for Dropbox and use itdaily, so it was great to learn a bitmore about what theyre workingon and their priorities, Burgesssaid. Drew offered great insightinto start-up life. It was particu-larly useful to hear about some ofthe mistakes he made in the earlydays of Dropbox.

Contact Felix Boyeaux atfboyeaux@stanford.edu.

DROPBOXContinued from front page

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Istared for a long time atMichelangelos Pietbefore noticing that Jesuswas missing a leg. Thestatue retains such a

grace, such a feeling of perfec-tion that it left me unconcernedwith such trivialities as the ab-sence of a limb. But the work is

decidedly unfinished thefigures grow out of rough, un-hewn stone and dark cracks runalong Jesus shoulder whereMichelangelo attempted toshatter it in anger.

This is not the famed Pietensconced in St. Peters Basili-ca, but a later work, begun whenMichelangelo was nearly 80. Itis now tucked in an alcove ofthe Opera del Duomo museumin Florence. The piece depictsNicodemus sculpted as aself-portrait of Michelangelo lowering the body of Jesusinto the arms of his motherMary and Mary Magdalene.The artist took on this work noton commission, but purely forhimself as he prepared for hisimpending death. The piece wasintended to adorn his tomb.

Michelangelo was regardedlike a god even during his life-time. His style was praised astheologically correct and an en-tire movement, Mannerism,was built to emulate it. In hisyouth, Michelangelos talenthad been his intuition for thesculpture that a block of marblewanted to be: he could sense theshape that it contained, and be-lieved it his task to bring thatshape out of the single block. Inthis Piet he failed adding

the leg would have thrown offthe balance, introduced a dan-gerously racy limb entangle-ment between Christ andMadonna, and required addi-tional marble. According to hiscontemporary biographer,Giorgio Vasari, he had beenworking on the sculpture by the

light of a single candle, whichmust reasonably have con-tributed to the problem.

He was in the throes of anend-of-life crisis, plagued by anuncertainty with art itself andhis lifes devotion to it. Hisworld was unsteady as well, stillreeling from the publication ofMartin Luthers 95 Thesessome30 years earlier. Doubt and dis-cord had shaken the founda-tions of the machine that hadmade the very Renaissance.

Michelangelos other worksare nearly reason enough tostudy in Italy; I got a crick in myneck from my inability to stopstaring at the Sistine Chapelceiling, and I am still awed by

the simplicity and perfection ofthe David. But this particularwork has stuck in my mind, andthe image of Michelangelosface looking upon death is one Iam not soon to forget. I cannotstop thinking of the deepness ofits expression and the poignan-cy of the imperfect sculpturethat holds it, the human strug-gle that it depicts and that itcontained. Once I found it diffi-cult to imagine Michelangelo asa human, but now I am begin-ning to understand.

Ann Tyler Moses

The Stanford Daily Thursday, May 31, 2012N 3

NOTES FROM ABROAD

FEATURES

More than a birthday giftdelivery service

By RAYMOND LUONG

W

e know them asthe organizationof nice peoplewho hand-deliv-er flowers and

delicious cakes to homesick stu-

dents craving some long-distancefamily affection on birthdays andspecial occasions. But the ParentsClub is more than just a birthday-gift-delivery service it boasts along tradition of bringing Stan-ford parents together.

In 1924, a group of facultywives, Stanford alumnae andmothers founded the ParentsClub, originally called the Moth-ers Club. They established thethree-fold mission that exists tothis day to bring together itsmembers in social and intellectualexchange, to keep in close touchwith the University life and, in allpracticable ways, aid the Universi-ty authorities in promoting thewelfare of the student body.

The Mothers Club establisheda speaker series and scholarshipprogram, both of which still existtoday. The Club also built a seriesof Rest Homes to nurse sick stu-dents who did not require hospi-talization. These Rest Homeswere given to the University oncethe Cowell Student Health Cen-ter now Vaden Health Center was completed in 1962.

In 1997 the Mothers Clubchanged its name to the ParentsClub to include all parents in theorganization. There are nowaround 1,000 international and300 local members.

The Parents Club is activethroughout the year, but especial-

ly active during New Student Ori-entation, Parents Weekend andAdmit Weekend. Members of theParents Club volunteer to coor-dinate speakers, facilitate check-in services, organize campus toursand sell merchandise to raise

money for the scholarship fund. Inaddition, during Parents Week-end, the Parents Club holds theEntertainment Extravaganza,which showcases student artistictalent.

One of the more popular andwell-known services is the deliv-

ery service through which par-ents can send their childrencakes, cookies, brownies, flowers,balloons and plants. Cakes andballoons are popular for birth-days, but the recently addedservice of cookies and brownieshave become quite popular, es-pecially around exam time. Pres-ident-Elect Marcia Hansennoted that deliveries overalltend to peak around ValentinesDay and finals.

Students really appreciatethe deliveries, said Vice Presi-dent of Fundraising Maria Cara-no. Its not embarrassing forthem at all. We are like an exten-sion of their family, not just deliv-ery people.

Our services allow parentswho are not local to bring joy totheir children, added PresidentSheree Williams.

Katherine Scavo 15 received asurprise from the Parents Clubfor her 19th birthday. Scavosmother ordered a cake and bal-loons online and had them deliv-ered to her daughters room onher birthday.

I was happy that my parentswere able to celebrate my birthdaywith me from far away, Scavo said.It was a nice surprise because Iwasnt expecting anything.

One aspect Scavo appreciatedabout the Parents Club is that theparents arent just strangers whodrop off a cake. They add a person-al touch to all of their deliveries.

The parent who delivered thecake and balloons was reallyfriendly and nice, which made theexperience more personable,Scavo said. She was like my mom

away from home. She was just asexcited as my mom would be.

According to the Parents Clubwebsite, the volunteers of the or-ganization make over 1,000 deliv-eries each academic year.

The money made from theParents Club delivery service, as

well as the money raised throughthe active fundraising efforts ofthe members is used to support anendowed scholarship program. Inthe past 80 years, the ParentsClub has granted over $1 millionin scholarship funds to under-graduates at Stanford.

A notable change in the pastfew years is that the Parents Clubhas become increasingly tech-savvy. The Club has improved itsFacebook image and updated itswebsite. One huge achievementwas the creation of an automatedonline ordering and purchasingsystem.

In addition to its gift deliveryservices, the Parents Club offers amechanism for parents to meet

other parents and develop friend-ships. Parents can find others whoare in similar situations and en-gage in meaningful conversations.

I like the people a lot,Hansen said. Its an incrediblyfun and smart group that centerson friendship and camaraderie.

The Parents Club is a verysocial club with monthly meetingsand seasonal lunches, Caranosaid.

President Williams noted thatthrough online communication,parents who are in town for just aweekend are able to find a warmand welcoming community ofother parents.

The Parents Club exists andis able to survive because of thegenerosity of the volunteers andtheir love of Stanford, Williamsadded.

Contact Raymond Luong at rayluong@stanford.edu.

PARENTS

M.J MA/The Stanford Daily

Courtesy of Ann Tyler Moses

Michelangelos Piet is a sculpture depicting Nicodemus lowering

the body of Jesus into the arms of Mary and Mary Magdalene.

FacingMichelangelo

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4N Thursday, May 31, 2012 The Stanford Daily

OPINIONS

The academic year is comingto an end, which means thatthis column is wrapping up

today. I have new respect for thestudents at The Daily who pumpout publishable material day afterday, because it is hard enough tomake something worth readingonce a week, as I have tried to do.Thank you to everyone who hasread any of my columns! Thereare lots of things you could bedoing with your free time, and Imhonored that you chose to spendpart of it reading my thoughts onlife at Stanford. Since this is my

last time on the soapbox, I wouldlike to tie up some loose ends andthrow out some opinions thatnever quite justified their owncolumns. In no particular order, Inow present a series of end-of-year memos.

Memo to Public Safety: Plant-ing police officers on Santa TeresaStreet has not conditioned me tostop at stop signs; it has taught meto look both ways for the policebefore crossing an intersection. Inyour favor, Ill admit that it wouldbe smarter if I watched out forcross traffic instead of scanningnearby bushes and parking lotsfor hidden law enforcement.

Memo to People Who ThinkAvatar Is Like Real Life: Lastweek, I was sitting next to a youngwoman having a deep conversa-tion with a male friend. At onepoint, as the two were lamentingthe lost joys of a simpler life, thewoman said something like Itwould be really great if we could

just live off the land, like inAvatar. You know, the blue peo-ple. I think this thought saysmore about the impact of the In-ternet age than any statistic abouthow much we are plugged intoour phones and laptops. If youwant to learn about a less techno-logical existence, Willa Cather orLaura Ingalls Wilder might be

more illuminating than a sci-fimovie featuring a computer-gen-erated war between humans and20-foot-tall aliens.

Memo to Pizza Lovers: My col-umn about the difficulty of findinggreat pizza in the Bay Area got mea lot of restaurant recommenda-tions. I havent gone to all of them

yet, but I did find some good Ital-ian-style pizza. The point of mycolumn still stands, though, be-cause none of them are cheapenough to be frequently enjoyedon a student budget. The threeplaces I recommend are all sit-down restaurants, and the cheap-est option is to order take-out. InMountain View, there is Napole-tana Pizzeria, where a decentmargherita pizza costs $15. Theother two places, which are defi-nitely superior, are Pizzeria Delfi-na and A16, where the margheritapizzas are $13 and $15, respective-ly. The pizzas are very good, andthey remind me of Italy. Unfortu-nately, Delfina and A16 are bothin San Francisco, and their upscaleatmospheres would prevent themfrom being everyday destinationseven if we were closer to Stanford.

Memo to the Suites KilldeerFamily: Congratulations to thekilldeer who nested in the tanbarkat Governors Corner on thehatching of their three precociouschicks. I saw the fluffy little guysrunning in the grass the day theywere born, smaller than tennisballs. And special thanks to who-ever put yellow caution tapearound the nest to keep it safe!

Contact Jeff at jeff2013@stanford.edu.

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

Sasha ArijantoManaging Editor of Intermission

Mehmet InonuManaging Editor of Photography

Amanda AchColumns Editor

Willa BrockHead Copy Editor

Serenity NguyenHead Graphics Editor

Alex AlifimoffWeb 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 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@stanforddaily.com. Op-eds are capped at 700 words and letters are capped at 500 words.

Tonights Desk Editors

Marshall WatkinsNews Editor

Jenny ThaiFeatures Editor

Jacob JaffeSports Editor

Ian Garcia-DotyPhoto Editor

Tori LewisCopy Editor

MODERNMANNERS

End-of-year memos

When I was small, the worddesert conjured im-ages of towering Saha-

ran dunes: windswept sand punc-tuated by rare oases, the only signof life an occasional animal track

quickly buried by the next sand-storm. Then, when I was 13, myparents took me to the Southwest.We visited Saguaro, Joshua Treeand other parts of the MojaveDesert, chased tarantulas, andwatched cactus wrens build nests.

Since then, Ive been hookedon the desert and the quirkyplants and animals adapted to itsharsh conditions. Ive returnedoften: to glimpse the winter rains,stand at the lowest point on thecontinent and even track raredesert tortoises. Though I will al-ways find my home in the dampforests of the Pacific Northwest,part of me is a born-again desert

rat.Over the course of American

history, however, most of ourcountrys citizens have held mychildhood view: that deserts arebarren wastelands full of deadly

hazards. They have often beencorrect; during the great westwardmigration of the mid-1800s, manywould-be settlers lost their liveson the hot, dry expanses. And withno available irrigation water,deserts have become mininggrounds or, where they lack min-eral value, military staging andtesting grounds. In general,though, deserts have been consid-ered rather useless.

So it was with delight that weturned to the deserts as theprospective site of massive newsolar installations. The sun, so longthe bane of desert-goers, could be-come the cornerstone for the newgreen economy by providing a po-tent, renewable source of electric-

ity. As solar panel technology hasimproved, installations have beenplanned across Americas deserts.

Many of these installations arelanding in California, whereextra-sunny environs are locatednext to the high electricity de-mands of sprawling populationcenters. And the state, whichhopes to produce a third of itselectricity from renewablesources by 2020, has mostly wel-comed the industry. Today, Cali-fornia has the largest installedsolar capacity of any state 1,877 megawatts, with another3,373 megawatts in the works.

Among the new installationsmay be the McCoy Solar EnergyProject, slated to add 750megawatts of capacity by 2016.Last week, the Bureau of LandManagement released a prelimi-nary Environmental ImpactsStatement for the project, whichwould cover 7,700 acres in theColorado Desert. For compari-son, Stanfords contiguous penin-sula property including theDish, SLAC, Jasper Ridge andvarious shopping and businesscomplexes, totals 8,180 acres.

But the plan will doubtlessfind critics in those who seedeserts as more than desolatedeathscapes. Past installationshave drawn criticism from Amer-ican Indian groups protecting cul-tural heritage sites, and from en-

vironmental groups worried overthe fate of more than 70 threat-ened and endangered species inthe region.

In an attempt to be proactive,Californian stakeholders havespent the last two years draftingthe Desert Renewable EnergyConservation Plan, which wouldstreamline permitting of renew-able energy across 22 millionacres of the Mojave and Col-orado deserts, while protectingspecies like the Mojave groundsquirrel, burrowing owl anddesert tortoise. The plan, due outnext month, should help recon-cile conservation and preserva-tion aims with the larger environ-mental and economic concerns

driving the renewable energy sec-tor, but it wont arrive in time forthe McCoy Project decision.

For now, deserts represent thelow-hanging fruit for industrymembers focused on centralized,large-scale solar installations. Notonly is the light right, but compet-ing land uses are rare whereelse in California would McCoyfind the space for enough solarpanels to power 260,000 homes?

Yet, the more of Earths sur-face we commandeer for our ownpurposes, the fewer of our co-in-habitants well share it with. Nomatter how carefully installationsites are selected or how many an-imals are relocated, an acre cov-ered by solar panels is an acre lostfrom the desert ecosystem.

Thats another good reason forkeeping solar energy supplies lo-calized. Solar panels are ideal fordistributed energy collection:they can be (and are) placed onroofs, alongside buildings andatop streetlights.

Back in 2007, a National Re-newable Energy Laboratory re-port calculated the area of in-stalled solar panels needed to meetthe average Americans electricityneeds. Using five-year-old technol-ogy, each person needs a photo-voltaic bank of 181 square meters less than a lane and a half of anOlympic-sized swimming pool to meet both personal and indus-

trial needs. Thats the areal equiva-lent of 12 percent of our developedarea footprint, or 22 percent of oururban area footprint.

Granted, we cant just enrobeour cities in a bubble of solar pan-els. Day lighting, rooftop gardensand a general desire to see the skypreempt that. But as economicsand technological advances driverenewable energy closer to viabil-ity, one can only hope that we takeserious steps towards integratingsolar panels into existing infra-structure needs.

Saving the deserts? Just anadded bonus.

Speaking of added bonuses, Hollywould be happy to talk to you more

about this or any other topic! Sendher an email at hollyvm@stanford.edu.

SEEINGGREEN

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The Stanford Daily Thursday, May 31, 2012N 5

By JACK BLANCHATMANAGING EDITOR

With the 2012 NCAA baseball tournamentopening up on Friday, its the season to re-member when, 25 years ago, the Stanfordbaseball team was the king of college baseball.

In a back-and-forth affair, the Cardinalbested the Oklahoma State Cowboys 9-5 atOmahas Rosenblatt Stadium to capture itsfirst College World Series title on June 7,1987.

Its the thrill of a lifetime, junior catcherDoug Robbins told The Daily on the dayafter the championship. Its one of the great-est things thats ever happened in my life.

I cant describe the feeling, said seniorleftfielder Ruben Amaro. Its the best thingin the world.

Buoyed by All-American starter Jack Mc-Dowell, who pitched seven innings on onlytwo days rest in his third start in the double-elimination world series, the Cardinal ralliedfrom a 3-2 deficit in the fifth inning to pullahead 6-4, then tacked on three insuranceruns in the ninth before the final out. Abouncing ball went straight back to closerSteve Chitren, who tossed it to first base to se-cure the title.

The Cardinal also benefited from short-

stop David Esquer, who turned four doubleplays for the second consecutive game, andonce again from freshman rightfielder PaulCarey, who continued his impressive hitting

in Omaha by going 3-for-5 with two RBI andscoring two runs of his own en route to beingnamed the MVP of the College World Series.

In its run to the title, Stanford beat Geor-gia 3-2, beat Texas 6-1 and lost to OklahomaState, 6-2, forcing it into an elimination gamewith Louisiana State.

Thats where Carey, even before the finalgame against the Cowboys, had made himselfthe MVP of the series.

Down 5-2 in the 10th inning to the Tigers,Carey, who was 2-for-13 so far in the series,smashed an opposite-field grand slam overthe left-field fence to give the Cardinal a 6-5win and eliminate LSU.

After that one, I kind of knew, to be hon-est with you, I mean, to come back and win itlike that, maybe it is our year, and it proved tobe our year, Stanford head coach Mark Mar-quess told ESPN after the title win.

With all the momentum in its favor, theCardinal bested Texas once again, 9-3, toreach the final game against the Cowboys.

Stanford had never finished higher thanthird in five previous trips to Omaha, and hadlost three straight to OSU over the last twoseasons, including the 6-2 loss the week be-fore, leading to some extra motivation for theCardinal well before the College World Se-ries.

At the beginning of the season in January,the team got together at my house for my 21stbirthday party, and we made a toast to a na-tional championship over Oklahoma State.

Im not making this up, McDowell told TheDaily.

Carey, in his post-title game interview withESPN, said the team knew that it was finallyits year after the LSU victory.

Yeah we felt destined, this is just an unbe-lievable feeling, we knew we could do it, wehad to do it against Texas when we playedthem tonight, we knew we could do it, we justhad to go out and swing the bats the way wecould, a breathless Carey responded.

I dont know if you know it, but you arethe most valuable player in this tournament,the reporter responded.

I dont know about that, but this team,this is the most valuable team by far, Careysaid in his heavy Boston accent. We cameback, fought, everybody got big hits for us thiswhole tournament.

The next year, the Cardinal would repeatas College World Series champions, taking aless dramatic route to the national title, win-ning every game in Omaha, including a 9-4win over Arizona State in the championshipgame. Perhaps the most impressive thingabout the repeat title run was that the Cardi-nal was without three of its stars from 1987 McDowell, Amaro and Esquer.

McDowell, who was picked fifth overall inthe draft by the White Sox in 1987, played in

the majors for 12 years and recorded a careerrecord of 127-87. The Van Nuys, Calif., native

SPORTSJack Blanchat

MLB lacksstars fromStanford

As the MLB draft ap-proaches and theNCAA tournamentopens up this Friday, itseasy to spend a lot of

time checking out the top prospectswho are hoping to spur their teams onto victory in Omaha this June.

Every season, one star will saddleup the rest of his team and carry

them along in the postseason, get-ting the big outs or hits when theteam needs it most, collect all the ac-colades he can hold, then go on to alucrative pro career.

But Stanford baseballs recentpostseason runs have had a distinctlack of these stars at least, its had adistinct lack of any players that havegone on to be real superstars at themajor league level. Since 1987, theCardinal has had 22 players picked inthe first round of the MLB draft, andyet, the casual baseball fan wouldprobably only know one or two ofthose 22 players.

Those two are Mike Mussina, afive-time All-Star with the Oriolesand Yankees who compiled a 270-153 record before retiring in 2008,

and Carlos Quentin, a two-time All-Star with the White Sox before hewas traded to the Padres this season.One is a potential Hall of Famer; theother is a pretty good player whomight be the fourth outfielder onyour fantasy team.

When looking at the list of namesthat havent worked out (players likeGreg Reynolds, Jeff Austin, DannyPutnam, Willie Adams and more), aquestion springs to mind: Does Stan-ford baseball have a developmentproblem? Or, more specifically, whyexactly have Stanfords players neverquite taken the leap into stardom?

Its hard to answer this because itdoes take a while before most playersmake any real difference to theirclubs guys like Buster Posey andBryce Harper, who come in andmake an impact right away, are ex-traordinarily rare in pro baseball. Sofor some former Stanford productslike Rick Helling and David McCar-ty, both of whom had 12-year MLBcareers, its far too harsh to say theydidnt exactly pan out.

That said, Stanford baseball prod-ucts seem to hit a ceiling of good-but-not-great once they reach TheShow. Does the college game some-how sap these players potential be-fore they reach the big leagues? Itshard to know. Every player is differ-ent, every farm system is different,and the nature of the game of base-ball has changed a lot over the past 25years, with the boom and bust of the

steroid era. Perhaps it just mightmean that the major league teamsthat picked these players incorrectlyevaluated just how talented theseplayers really were. Future Hall ofFamer Albert Pujols was a 13th-round pick.

However checkered the Cardi-nals past may have been, perhaps thisrecent group of Cardinal minor andmajor leaguers will buck that trend,although the Cardinals current crophas been plagued by injuries.

Drew Storen, who was picked10th overall in 2009, has been solidfor the Washington Nationals in hisrole as a setup man and closer,recording 43 saves a season ago be-fore an arm injury that has sidelinedhim so far in 2012.

Catcher Jason Castro starts be-hind the plate just about every otherday for the Houston Astros, but hesonly hit a meager .216 this year aftermissing all of last year with a tornACL.

Sean Ratliff, a member of the 2008Cardinal CWS team and a fourth-round pick of the New York Mets,was crushing his way through the mi-nors until he was hit in the eye with afoul ball last season. Four eye surger-ies later, Ratliff is closer to being backon track, but who knows where hemight be today or where he mighthave been in the future withoutthe unlucky and unfortunate injury?

Following them, current playerslike Mark Appel, Stephen Piscotty,Austin Wilson, Brian Ragira or Chris

Reed, the Cardinal closer who waspicked 16th overall by the Dodgers inlast years draft, could break throughthat ceiling and become Stanfordsnext major league star.

Hopefully, one of those guys willfirst take the 2012 Cardinal and lead itto a win in the College World Seriesthis year then use that new hard-ware to spring himself into a super-star professional career.

Jack Blanchat wants to make sure anyfuture stars remember him beforethey hit it big. Before you make mil-lions, connect with Jack atblanchat@stanford.edu or follow himon Twitter @jmblanchat.

Appel, Piscotty named to All-Pac-12 team

Stanfords top pitcher and top hitter bothmade the 25-man All-Pac-12 baseball teamafter strong junior seasons.

Mark Appel, the conferences leader instrikeouts with 116, has met the extraordinar-ily high expectations he has been given for histhird and likely final year on the Farm. Pickedby many to be the top overall pick in nextmonths MLB draft, Appel has stepped up tothe challenge, going 9-1 with a 2.37 ERA asStanfords Friday starter. He has gone at leastseven innings in 13 of his 14 starts, and he hasgiven up two earned runs or fewer in 12 of

those starts.Stephen Piscotty, another projected first-

round draft pick, has been one of Stanfordsbest hitters throughout his time on the Farm,and this year he has had to take on an addi-tional load. The teams starting third basemanat the start of the year, Piscotty has shifted toleft field and pitcher, where he has excelled asboth a starter and reliever. At the plate, Pis-cotty hit .319 with 54 RBI, good for third inthe conference. On the mound, Piscotty haswon all three of his weekend starts whilecompiling a 2.28 ERA.

In addition, sophomores Brian Ragira andAustin Wilson were named as honorable

mentions for the second straight year. Ragirahas started every game at first base and hit.318, while Wilson has manned right fieldevery game and smashed a team-high ninehome runs. The duo has also combined for 93RBI.

Womens golf coach CarolineOConnor resigns

Caroline OConnor has stepped down

from the post of Stanford womens golf headcoach after 17 years at the job. OConnor ledthe Cardinal to 15 appearances at the NCAAChampionships in her 17 seasons, includingthe programs best-ever finish, second placein 2000.

A former professional golf instructor, O-Connor came to the Farm and instantly tied aschool best by leading Stanford to a fourth-place NCAA finish in the 1996-1997 season.She went on to help the Cardinal win a Pac-10 title in 1999 at the Stanford Golf Courseand finish in the top five nationally threetimes.

Mens golf struggles in secondround of NCAAs

The Stanford mens golf team had a day toforget on Wednesday, shooting an 18-over-par 302 to drop from a tie for 13th to 22nd atthe 30-team NCAA Championships. Withonly one round remaining before the field isnarrowed to eight teams, the Cardinal sits 11strokes out of eighth place.

Freshman Patrick Rodgers once again ledStanford, shooting a one-over 72 to end thesecond round four strokes off the individuallead, currently held by Illinois sophomoreThomas Pieters. The problem for Stanford isthat no other Cardinal golfer is ranked in thetop 90 in the 155-player field.

Stanford will have one more chance tokeep its season alive, as the final round teesoff today from the Riviera Country Club inPacific Palisades, Calif.

Jacob Jaffe

SPORTS BRIEFS

JESSICA POPISH/The Stanford Daily

Stanford baseball head coach Mark Marquess (above) has led the Cardinal for 36 years, but his two best seasons came back-to-back, whenStanford won the national title in both 1987 and 1988. A quarter-century after the first title, Marquess and Stanford look to do it again this year.

IAN GARCIA-DOTY/The Stanford Daily

Junior Stephen Piscotty (above) has done it all for Stanford, leading the team in RBI while play-ing third base and left field, and even becoming a key member of the Cardinals pitching staff.

Please see BASEBALL, page 6

LOOK BACK AT 87- 88

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6N Thursday, May 31, 2012 The Stanford Daily

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went on to make three All-Starteams, and captured the 1993American League Cy YoungAward when he led the White Soxto the ALCS against the eventualworld champion Toronto Blue

Jays.Interestingly, series opponents

McDowell and Oklahoma StatesRobin Ventura, who had anNCAA Division I record 58-game hit streak in 1987, played to-gether on the Chicago White Soxfrom 1989 to 1994.

Amaro, who led the Cardinalin runs, triples and stolen bases asa senior, went on to an eight-yearMLB career with the Angels, Indi-ans and Phillies. After his playingcareer ended, Amaro joined thePhillies as the assistant generalmanager in 1998, and was promot-ed to general manager in 2008,where he remains one of the most

influential executives in the MLB.Esquer, who played three sea-

sons in the minors, became an as-sistant coach at Stanford in 1991,then became head coach of theCal Bears in 2000. In his 12 yearsat Berkeley, Esquer has beennamed Pac-10 Coach of the Yearin 2001 and NCAA Coach of theYear in 2011, when he took theBears to the College World Series.

Meanwhile, Carey, the 1987

World Series hero, never foundany footing in the majors, playingonly 18 games with the BaltimoreOrioles in 1993.

Today, its been 24 years sincethe Cardinal held the CollegeWorld Series trophy aloft inOmaha, despite making it to thetitle game in 2000, 2001 and 2003.But perhaps the 2012 Cardinalteam, hosting a regional for thefirst time since 2008, can return toOmaha and finally return the titleto the Farm after more than twodecades away.

Contact Jack Blanchat at blan-chat@stanford.edu.

BASEBALLContinued from page 5

Complete the grid soeach row, column and3-by-3 box (in bold

borders) containsevery digit, 1 to 9. Forstrategies on how tosolve Sudoku, visitwww.sudoku.org.uk

SOLUTION

Level:1 2

3 4

2012 The Mepham Group. Distributed byTribune Media Services. All rights reserved.

5/31/12