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MIND METAPHORS

BUCKING BRONCOS

Computer scientists write a program to mine millions of mind metaphors

Baseball unable to overcome early deficit in 13-9 loss to Santa Clara

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The Stanford Daily An Independent Publication

THURSDAY May 7, 2009

HOUSING

Sororities feel left out of housing talks Administration promises to work with Greek system on new rules By ERIC MESSINGER DESK EDITOR

Last week, the University administration announced that housed sororities at Stanford must give in-house preference to seniors and juniors, causing sorority leaders to express concern over the effect that the new housing rules will have on the Greek experience. In a letter to all housed sorority members, Office of Student Activities (OSA) Director Nanci Howe and Residential Education Director Deborah Golder said that the new policy was the result of the dilemma posed by bringing a larger-than-normal pledge class into the sorority system, while still catering to the wishes of seniors. “Although we recognize the value of all new members living together, we felt that priority for senior honors recent sorority housing practices and fulfills the tenets of the University Housing Master Plan and the Draw Task Force,” they wrote. Howe told The Daily that one of the main reasons for the new rules being implemented was the unexpected surge in the size of pledge classes, which was a result of an increase of over 20 percent in the number of women rushing. However, she promised to work closely with the students in order to resolve any issues that the new rules may have caused. She commended the student leaders in the Greek system for their cooper-

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Ballmer

OLLING R By KAMIL DADA DESK EDITOR

After laying off 3,000 employees on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave an upbeat speech at a packed Memorial Auditorium yesterday afternoon, telling the audience that his company is hiring and that there is no better time to start a business. “These are tough economic times, but these are times that are rich in opportunity,” Ballmer said. “I don’t think the contraction is dramatic enough that we’re

not going to see strong ideas come through.” He argued that that the poor state of the economy forces entrepreneurs to focus on innovation and the success of their products, services and companies. “The fact that there is more of a ‘critical screen,’ the fact that customers are pickier with their money — all of that is really a chance to make products better,” Ballmer said. While he accepted that the economic crunch meant that funding has been cut down, he argued that there is still more money

SCIENCE & TECH

Stanford researchers tackle swine flu Scientists say there are no easy treatments for potential pandemic

viduals do not immediately start borrowing again. Ballmer, to the amusement of the audience, recounted his early days at Microsoft, including when he dropped out of Stanford’s business school to join Bill Gates at the thenfledging company. He pointed out that, though he knew how to read a balance sheet, he did not have real business experience. “All I’d ever done is interview for jobs and market brownie bits,” Ballmer said, referring to his two-year stint at Proctor and Gamble as an assistant product manager. But, Ballmer noted, it was not much of a risk to leave school, as he could return to Stanford if the business failed. “They still have a spot for me if I want to go back and finish my MBA,” he joked. Yet his decision to drop out of business was not well-received at home. “My parents thought I had lost my mind,” he said. “My dad said ‘What the heck is software?’ and my mom said ‘Why the heck would anyone want a computer?’” Please see BALLMER, page 6

— STEVE BALLMER, Microsoft CEO

STAFF WRITER

Please see FLU, page 6

available than there are good, innovative ideas. “I don’t think the contraction will be strong enough that really big ideas aren’t going to get funding,” Ballmer said. Indeed, he cited both Microsoft and General Electric as evidence of companies that were both started in recessionary periods. The software executive called the economy “really bad,” and gave a simple explanation for the worldwide financial crisis. “The world borrowed too much money,” he said. “It really is a tough, tough, tough environment.” The Microsoft chief then argued that the economy is in a multiyear phase of resetting at a lower level than it was before this economic crisis. He argued that all the consumer and business debt was now being flushed out of the financial system and that it won’t be replaced quickly, because after an economic crisis, indi-

“These are times that are rich in opportunity.”

By CASSANDRA FELICIANO Research teams at Stanford Medical Center are hard at work conducting different studies in an effort to find treatment for the H1N1 influenza strain — more commonly known as swine flu — that has sparked fears of a global pandemic in recent weeks. Dr. Nayer Khazeni, an instructor in pulmonary and critical care medicine and an associate at Stanford’s Center for Health Policy, has led her team to adapt their past research on influenza to the demands of the current health climate. One study entails a computer simulation of a pandemic influenza outbreak in areas such as New York City. Designed over two years ago to cope with the H5N1 strain, known as avian flu, this research is geared toward developing strategies in the event of a pandemic. The second research area focuses on using treatment drugs against influenza, such as Antiflu and Relenza, in a preventative manner over long periods of time. “Pandemic ways can go on for very long periods of time — usually at least six to eight weeks,” Khazeni said. “So, we are doing a special quantitative statistical analysis of all the data on trials that have administered preventative antivirals for long durations to get a sense of how safe and effective they would be for prevention in a pandemic setting.” While both of Khazeni’s teams are close

ALEX YU/The Stanford Daily

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told students in a packed Memorial Auditorium that the current economic environment has created great opportunities for start-ups.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer encourages students to pursue entrepreneurship

Please see SORORITIES, page 6

Index

Volume 235 Issue 53

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HOUSING

Draw deadline nears for students Housing encourages students to apply long before 6 p.m. Sunday deadline By CHRISTINE MCFADDEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

With the May 10 deadline for housing applications approaching quickly, Housing Front Desks across campus are becoming more and more popular, as a swell of students with last-minute questions concerning their living situations next year seek advice and information, especially with this year’s changes to the Draw. “There are always many questions from students around the Draw, but we have seen a slight increase (probably about

20 percent) in the traffic in our office and at the Housing Front Desks this year,” said Sue Nunan, director of Housing Assignments. With several changes to the Draw this year, including a three-tiered preference system put in place, Student Housing is doing its best to answer any questions students may have by providing several information sessions in dining halls and elsewhere around campus. “Student Housing is committed to informing students about the changes to the 2009 Draw,” said Executive Director of Student Housing Rodger Whitney. Whitney went on to list the three Draw forums conducted by Housing, in addition to numerous information tables put out in dining rooms and in White Plaza. “Students are turning out for the forums and visiting the information tables with their questions, so we feel these efforts are very effective,” he added. Information tables have been held daily from 11:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. during the past week. Remaining tables are scheduled for Florence Moore on Thursday and Branner on Friday. Housing Assignment staff members have also been attending house meetings when invited, and according to Whitney, they will be available from 1-5 p.m. this Sunday to answer last-minute questions. Applications are due at 6 p.m. that day. “We encourage students not to wait until the last minute to apply for housing as Axess only allows a certain number of students in the system at one time,” Nunan said. “If you still have questions, visit an information table, stop by your

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Housing Front Desk, stop by Housing Assignments or write to us at [email protected].” Whitney added that a special newsletter has been created this year detailing changes made to the Draw. Emailed to all students twice, it contains a worksheet students can use in preparation for entering their application. According to Whitney, paper copies of the newsletter, as well as the worksheet, are available at Housing Front Desks, the Housing Assignments Office, and at the information tables. The Housing Web site has also been revised, with information available at http://Draw2009.stanford.edu.

Number of pre-assignments increases from last year Pre-assignment results for select housing options came out on April 27, which include houses that are ethnic-, academic- or focus-themed, as well as co-ops. Associate Director of Residential Education Nathaniel Boswell noted that Branner, which will become a public service focus dorm for upperclassmen next year, had the highest number of applicants based on approximate numbers of total applications. Casa Italiana and Freshman Sophomore College followed with similar popularity. When asked if more pre-assignment applications were

Please see HOUSING, page 6

Recycle Me

2 N Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Stanford Daily

FEATURES GOLD MINE OF METAPHORS Stanford grad Brad Pasanek ‘06 creates a searchable data mine of mind metaphors By AMY JULIA HARRIS DESK EDITOR

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ccording to Aristotle, metaphors cannot be taught. But metaphors of the mind can be, proved Brad Pasanek Ph.D ‘06, an 18th-century literary historian and assistant professor of English at the University of Virginia, and D. Sculley, a Pittsburg computer scientist. Pasanek provided the literary expertise and Sculley the technical background to create the now immense online dictionary of searchable metaphors of the mind called The Mind is a Metaphor. The metaphor database holds more than 8,700 entries and can be searched by author, genre or subject. Mind metaphors run the gamut from the conventional — the mind is a blank slate — to the bizarre — the mind is meat smoking on a smoke-jack. This vast ocean of mind metaphors, boasts the Web site, gives historians and users the ability to track the evolution of thought from Plato to Pynchon. The Metaphor Packrat Pasanek piloted The Mind is a Metaphor project as an English graduate student at Stanford in 2005 while working on his dissertation. He was interested in tracking the evolution of metaphors of the mind through the 18th century, and had been obsessively indexing his findings in the backs of books and on notecards. Matt Jockers, an academic technology specialist in Stanford’s English department, was aghast at the thought of compiling all this

information by hand, and built Pasanek a Filemaker program to house his metaphor collection. To compile the now almost 9,000 entries on the site, Pasanek took what he calls a “hunt-and-peck” approach. He browsed online collections of digital archives by hand, searching key words like ‘mind’ and then filtering through the thousands of hits, determining which qualified as metaphors. “This was a draining exercise,” Pasanek confessed, so he jumped on the opportunity to automate the collection process. From Spam to Shakespeare “Metaphors are a very human-understood sort of thing,” Jockers said. “If I say that my love is a rose, how are we going to write a program that understands that that’s not to be taken literally?” That was the challenge for D. Sculley, a machine-learning specialist and childhood friend of Pasanek’s who keeps his first name secret. Sculley was working for Google at a Pittsburg office on email spam classification, but after reuniting with Pasanek at a wedding, decided to collaborate on The Mind is a Metaphor project. Sculley trained his email spam classifier, an application in the field of “machine learning” that discriminates spam-filled emails from normal messages, to hunt for metaphors of the mind instead of spam. “If you could give a computer program a whole bunch of examples of the thing that you’re looking for, it could potentially learn to identify those things in the wild,” Jockers said, explaining the benefits of a machinelearning approach. Sculley’s classifier program breaks a piece

of text down into many different features or variables, i.e. the presence or absence of a word. The program then processes all these variables and predicts whether or not a body of work contains a metaphor of the mind. “We were really surprised by how well the program was able to identify the metaphors,” Pasanek said, citing the software’s overall accuracy of 87 percent. Pasanek is actively working to expand the training set by uploading more metaphors, which improves accuracy, and Sculley is pursuing improvements on the machine-learning end. “I’m trying to find phonetic relationships around words automatically,” Sculley explained. “For instance, if we could find the phonetic relationship between ‘mirror’ and ‘looking glass,’ you may be able to get more bang for your buck out of your training data.” Great Text-pectations So what does one do with a vast database of 18th century metaphors? Pasanek says it provides a window into the evolution of how man has thought about the mind. He said his research has shown that metaphors of the mind display an astonishing persistence despite the Enlightenment ferment and revolutionary change that racked the 18th century. “This is where the new knowledge is,” Jockers said. “How has fire been used in metaphors of the mind throughout this 100year period? Is it like a stone that gets thrown into a pond and ripples outward? Are there repercussions?” Pasanek says it is the ability to track the careers of various mind metaphors that makes his database rich.

“The classifier is particular good for clustering,” he said. “For instance, when I clustered ‘court metaphors’ during the 18th century, I found that the Whigs and Tories, despite holding opposed philosophies, shared many of the same rhetorical usages. I wouldn’t have realized this without the program.” The program also offers a map to explore previously unchartered literary waters. “If, like me, you want to explore more of the archives than have been read, there are all of these books that people just haven’t opened in hundreds of years. In some ways, this is a call to arms for literary history to navigate the ‘great unread,’” Pasanek said. “These are tools for exploring the great unread.” A New Frontier “We are at one of those watershed moments in time where in the last 10 years, something revolutionary has happened and that something is the digitization of all books,” Jockers said. “It’s even bigger than the library of Alexandria, which you couldn’t process or mine. We now have the opportunity to step back from the individual texts and look at something else, which is not antithetical to the close reading of the text. I call it

CRIS BAUTISTA /The Stanford Daily

‘macroanalysis.’” Jockers says we may have reached a new frontier of humanities where future study will be computer-based. The Mind is a Metaphor is a step in that direction. “I have a pseudo-imperial fantasy in which the database would expand in either direction,” Pasanek laughed. “There’s this idea that we could expand the metaphoric field backward and forward in time. While the site does boast that it houses metaphors from Plato to Pynchon, the density is really in the 18th century because those are the metaphors I’ve collected.” But will it be possible to use a metaphor of the mind detector to create a straight metaphor detector to mine through the great unread? Jockers doubts its possibility, but admits Pasanek and Sculley have the best shot of anyone. If they succeed, Jockers said, digital humanities will have reached the Holy Grail — metaphorically speaking. Check out The Mind is a Metaphor at http://mind.textdriven.com. Contact Amy Harris at [email protected].

Thursday, May 7, 2009 N 3

The Stanford Daily

OPINIONS EDITORIAL

The Stanford Daily AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER

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Rice debate struggles to find right tone or much of last week, the national media was abuzz with commentary about a conversation between Condoleezza Rice and a Stanford undergraduate that was caught on video and uploaded to YouTube. ABC’s political guru George Stephanopoulos noted on his blog that it was the “first time anyone has gotten Rice on the record” about the Bush administration’s controversial interrogation tactics since the recent release of Justice Department memos. Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” featured portions of the YouTube clip on his show, as did Comedy Central master of satire Stephen Colbert. While Rice’s revealing comments on her perceptions of the boundaries of Executive power have been picked apart by the pundits, the editorial board feels it is also important to draw attention to the way this conversation came about and how we would like to see a respectful, serious and ongoing dialogue develop on campus between Rice and her detractors. But some of Rice’s actions in the video — as well as the behavior of student groups behind the recent “Condival” — leave the editorial board pessimistic about the prospect that any actual constructive conversation will develop from this. First, congratulation is in order for the students of Roble for posing tough questions — and in some cases rebuttals — to Rice, instead of allowing the pressure of the spotlight and her level of authority coax them into selfcensorship. Particular kudos must be given to the student whose exchange with Rice was featured in the YouTube video,and,of course, to the student who was able to capture the exchange on video. Here we find examples of how two students can be politically involved in two very different ways — one through discourse, the other through documentation. In the end, both students helped bring the Stanford community into the larger discussion currently affecting our national culture. While the students involved with the discussion should be commended for their involvement, the Q&A with Rice did not go nearly far enough in terms of fostering real engagement between the former Secretary of State and the students. For all the serious policy debate that the talk did create, it still fell short of reaching a real academic level of discourse. Much of the fault for this must be

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laid on Rice, who at times appeared condescending and dismissive toward the students. Some of her advice to the student daring to call her out on her claims — “No, dear, you’re wrong” and “do your homework” — bordered on hostile. At the same time, it is important to consider the charged atmosphere that greeted Rice at Roble. Unlike her dinner with students at FroSoCo last quarter — where there were no protestors, and students applauded as she entered — the event at Roble was replete with students dressed up as mock torture subjects, and featured, of course, the conversation now on YouTube. While we remain skeptical that Rice’s dining-hall tour is as much about academic discourse as it is about stabilizing her public image, we give her credit for taking the tough questions from students.At least once in the YouTube conversation, Rice waves off handlers as they urge her to end the exchange. We have to give her credit for not blowing off the student as soon as the line of questioning become uncomfortable. While Rice’s statements have not always contributed to constructive discussion, it would be remiss not to address those on the other side of the issue who have contributed to the poisoned public atmosphere. Last week’s “Condival” made light of waterboarding and other serious issues, which brings down the level of public discourse. The festival’s repulsive tagline — so much fun, it’s a war crime! — and its spoofed support from fake conservative organizations only serve to widen the gulf between liberal and conservative groups on campus. The editorial board thinks the community — and the country — would benefit from a frank, academic and public exchange of ideas with Rice and other experts in her field. Envision a highly anticipated forum at Kresge or Memorial Auditorium where Rice publicly debated the merits of the Bush administration’s detainee policies with Stanford faculty members such as Philip Zimbardo or Lawrence Lessig.Whether Rice would ever agree to such a forum is doubtful, but it may just be what is needed to bring forth a real level of discussion about this issue. Until both sides of the issue are willing to address it like responsible adults, passions and controversies will continue to rise in unison.

Unsigned editorials in the space above represent the views of The Stanford Daily's editorial board and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Daily staff. The editorial board is comprised of two former Daily staffers, three at-large student members and the two editorial board co-chairs. Any signed columns and contributions are the views of their respective writers and do not necessarily represent the views of the entire editorial board. To contact the editorial board for an issue to be considered, or to submit an op-ed, please email [email protected].

L ETTER

TO THE

Eyes to see and ears to hear In the midst of swine flu, a global recession and the most eventful first 100 days of a new American administration, one questions the need to cast into months past for news to rant about. However, some might condemn a rant on swine flu as inappropriate, a rant on the economic crisis as tiresome or a rant on Obama as unacceptable prejudice. Instead, Matt Gillespie offered in his Monday column something that is appropriate, fresh and acceptable prejudice: a rant on Catholicism. The controversy surrounds remarks Pope Benedict made concerning AIDS in Africa. Curiously, Gillespie omitted Benedict’s actual statement. Perhaps he was shielding us from the “very creepy old German,” or perhaps he needed the space for his ad hominem rambles. Anyway, here are the Pope’s words: “I would say that one cannot overcome this problem of AIDS only with money — which is important, but if there is no soul, no people who know how to use it (money), doesn’t help . . . One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.” Despite Mr. Gillespie’s pontificating that this “[has] nothing to do with science and everything to do with archaic, centuriesold beliefs,” our dilettante columnist remains factually challenged. Dr. Edward Green of the Harvard School of Public Health said, “There is a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates.” In the journal Science, Rand Stoneburner reported “Uganda has shown a 70 percent decline in HIV prevalence since the early 1990s, linked to a 60 percent reduction in casual sex . . . equivalent to a vaccine of 80 percent effectiveness.” And he noted, “Despite substantial condom use and promotion of biomedical approaches, other African countries have shown neither similar behavioral responses nor HIV prevalence declines of the same scale.” Similar findings are available in other journals such as The Lancet and BMJ. Empirical science supports Benedict. Not just the science, but also the Africans. Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan AIDS activist,

E DITOR

said,“Our successful policy always put abstinence and being faithful ahead of any medical products such as condoms and testing.” Like the Church, Africans see AIDS also as a social ill, to be addressed at a deeper level than technology affords. Biologist Helen Epstein wisely explained, “When it comes to fighting AIDS, our greatest mistake may have been to overlook the fact that, in spite of everything, African people often know best how to solve their own problems.” Thus I find it amusing, being African, when undergrads in California or politicians in Belgium dramatically play the victim on our behalf, certainly not at our behest. They would do well to heed their own advice and remain quiet about that which they little comprehend. For our self-admittedly “very amateurish” columnist, that would include science, history, Africa, AIDS and Catholicism. By my tally, that still leaves Gillespie to comment on USC and creative fiction. KEVIN KAMBO ‘08 Editor Emeritus,Vox Clara

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Down the stretch we come “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” — me, trying to think of the most appropriate John Lennon quote for this column t was on the 280 freeway, on the way back to campus after having taken in a minorleague San Jose Giants game against the Modesto Nuts (yes, that’s their real name), when I got to thinking. It happened in a flash, while I was talking with my buddies Cam, Peter, Diaz and Spencer in the car about graduation weekend plans. Suddenly, as the conversation ended and I watched the cars on the freeway make their way past ours, I realized: it’s for real. Graduation — my graduation from college — is coming. These moments, with these friends, will soon be nothing more than a memory. It hasn’t happened yet, but, as Sally once wept to Harry, it’s there. Graduation, the end of an era, is just sitting there, waiting. (I must include one anecdote from the game before continuing, even though it isn’t related: at around the third inning, I got the shock of my life when a man three rows in front of me got up, asked if I was Mark Donig and handed me a folder with my name on it. He told me his client was filing a defamation lawsuit for a recent Stanford Daily column I had written. “You’ve been served,” he announced before re-taking his seat. My friends laughed uproariously. It was only after I opened up the folder that I joined in the laughter.The law firm? Dewey, Cheathem, & Howe. The client? Al (See “My Pal Al,” April 22). The lengths my dad will go to in order to continue his war on conventional parenthood? Beyond belief. Back to the article.)

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The feeling that swept over me as we went up 280 that evening was startlingly new to me here. I’ve felt it — that in-moment nostalgia — in other places, but I grew up right nearby Stanford. This area is my home. This was the first time I ever felt that while in the Bay Area. The feeling is frustrating, though, and we all know why. As soon as we get that wave of nostalgia, we vow to ourselves that we will enjoy the moment for all that it is, because it will soon be gone. We envision ourselves years from now, reminiscing about exactly moments such as these, when we had not a care in the world. We imagine ourselves as fifty-year-olds, waxing nostalgic about those moments when we thought to ourselves as young little kiddos, “I am gonna be pretty nostalgic about this some day.” The only problem with this particular nostalgia is that, well, it’s a lie. How many of us really have moments when we don’t have a care in the world? How many of us ever have a single moment in our purportedly care-free youth without thinking something like, “Damn it, this midterm is gonna kick my ass,” or “Crap, I hope my girlfriend isn’t pissed at me for what I did at pub night,” or “I am way past deadline for a column.My editor is going to assassinate me in the heart”? The fact is, when we reminisce, we romanticize. We forget that those times in our lives when we were supposedly absolutely and completely fulfilled and content were in fact filled with incessant worrying and, in some cases, legitimate hardship. As a species, staying in the present is not exactly our strongest suit. When we are in the race, we are worried about preparing for the next turn — and the finish line — rather than

D EMBY D OWNER

Mark Donig

how we feel in the moment. To which I say, I guess human nature has a point, but on the whole, evolution got this one wrong. I genuinely wish I could enjoy the present more, but I really don’t know how; I am not wired for it. This is such a happy time for me — Spring Quarter senior year, for the sake of goodness! And yet, how have I truly appreciated this for what it is? Sure, I’ve been having a good time, but I’m also spending a lot of my time worrying about what the future holds. In fact, I can’t think of a single time I’ve stopped to smell the roses this spring. And even if I had, I wonder, would I be able to appreciate the smell without worrying that I was wasting my precious time? Even as images from that Monday night freeway ride are etched in my head, if I am honest with myself, I was not concentrating then on being happy; frankly, just the opposite. I was deeply saddened that moments such as these are fleeting and soon to be gone. Ah, to be content in the middle of the moment — what a seemingly unreachable goal. What a noble one, nonetheless. And so, Class of 2009, down the stretch we come. Years from now, we’ll look back at these last few months of college, and we may well say, “Those were the most exciting two minutes of our lives.” But for now, I just want to make sure that when I say that, it will have been true. I hope that in these last few precious moments, I can learn how to make it so. Mark is learning to meditate. Contact him at [email protected].

Nicole Demby

Facebook thinks I’m a pretentious ass pparently, I am a “post-modernist,” a typical representative of the bourgeois intelligentsia. Well-read and witty, but lacking both true understanding of the material conditions of society (which I disdainfully dismiss as a mere side product of speech acts) and the courage necessary for revolutionary action (which I, again, disdainfully wave off as a manifestation of masculine domination). Or so was the verdict of the Facebook quiz “Which Deviation are You?”, recommended to me by my political theory-majoring sister. Though these were rough words to hear, they presented a not-uncommon caricature of people who like to read Derrida and talk about things like “the structure of reality.”I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fall into this category. I’ve never been much of a doer. With few hobbies and no sharply honed talents to speak of, I generally just sit around and think a lot.A large part of me feels that it’s OK to succumb

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to this tendency because it’s simply reflective of who I am. If I was disposed to be a star athlete, or the President of the United States, then I would undoubtedly do the things an athlete or a future politician do.Yet sometimes I wonder if there isn’t some categorical imperative that says that being “a doer” is ideal. People at Stanford generally seem to feel this way, their ambition leading them to compulsively apply for things,organize meetings and plan projects. No doubt there’s some virtue to being able to analyze and write about the world in the way that I do, yet sometimes I glance longingly at product designers and pre-meds and envy how immediately what they do affects the real world. In his essay, “The New Cultural Politics of Difference,” Cornel West elegantly articulates a problem that faces anyone who tries to understand the world with the aim of changing it: “few cultural workers of whatever stripe can walk the tightrope between the Scylla of reductionism and the Charybdis of aestheticism,” he says. For him, reductionists take too simple a view of the world, thinking, for example, that everything can be explained using the correct single-factor theory, such as “crude” Marxism, feminism, etc. The aestheticians, by contrast, hold a “hyper-subtle analytical perspective that loses touch with the specificity of an art work’s form and the context of its reception.” Perhaps, as Facebook suggests, I fall into this latter category. Maybe I attribute so much significance to things like “signs and signifiers” to the point where I am totally out of touch with material reality. I write about political change, I take a stance on what I think is right and wrong in society, yet how often do I descend from my ivory tower to be politically active or to try to correct what I perceive to be the ills of society? Moreover, the views I express about politics are often not ones that suggest any simple and corrective course of action. There’s some way in which it’s more convenient to explain everything away in words. Theorists often get themselves into masturbatory traps like, if every thing, especially language, is deconstructable, how is it possible to say anything true? Or, if politics in postmod-

With few hobbies and no sharply honed talents to speak of,I generally just sit around and think a lot. ern society is just pure aesthetic spectacle,then how can I escape this and actually enact political change? These traps are frustrating for both the theorist and the reader, but also convenient in a funny way.To those who subscribe to them, they render any action problematic at best, futile at worst. In this capacity, they can easily be used as excuses to justify laziness. If this all sounds awfully highfalutin’, let me say that I think the tension between thinking and doing is one that plays itself out in all our lives.We like to think of the decisions we make as being the product of rational choices. Because of this, we justify doing what we do, but also not doing what we don’t do. Yet often, under the guise of intellectual justification, we try to rationalize decisions that may not be so justifiable. For example, do I write about politics more that I engage in them because I think there’s only so much political activity can achieve? Or do I only convince myself that most politics are futile in order to excuse my own complacency? In other words, do I sit on my ass reading and writing instead of volunteering or protesting because I honestly believe that the former has equal, if not more, merit? Of course, when it comes down to it, I feel that both theorizing and acting are important. We have to conceive of a working notion of the way the world is before we can decide what actions are worth devoting our time to. Nicole is sorry for the Cornel West reference. Email her at [email protected].

4 N Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Stanford Daily

SPORTS CARD FALTERS ON ROAD Stanford comeback attempt not enough to overcome early deficit against Santa Clara 5/6 vs. Santa Clara L 13-9

UP NEXT NEW MEXICO (32-16) COVERAGE: RADIO KZSU 90.1 FM (kzsu.stanford.edu) GAME NOTES: Stanford first baseman Brent Milleville has eight home runs and 14 RBI in the team’s last 20 games. The meeting vs. Santa Clara marked the 350th game between the two teams. Stanford second baseman Colin Walsh has reached base in 28 straight games By JACK SALISBURY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

TAYLOR CONE/The Stanford Daily

Despite scoring nine runs on 15 hits from the offensive side of the plate, the Cardinal was unable to beat the Broncos on Wednesday night. Stanford allowed 13 runs in a game that turned into a slugfest. The Cardinal is desparately seeking wins to keep its postseason hopes alive. pitched four and two thirds innings on the way to earning his first win of the year. Hall notched the win, despite allowing six earned runs, a testament to the nature of a game that saw 22 runs scored in all. The loss was a disappointing one for the Cardinal,which was coming into Wednesday night’s game on a three-game winning streak. The Broncos are certainly on the lower end of the spectrum of teams Stanford will face the rest of

base and only one man out. Broncos reliever J.R. Graham came in and shut things down, however, earning his first save of the year. “We got down big early, which makes it tough to come back,” sophomore second baseman Colin Walsh said.“We battled well,though, and made it a close game.” Freshman right-hander Brian Busick was credited with the loss, moving his record to 1-1 on the season, while the Broncos’ Cory Hall

this season as it tries to qualify for the postseason — despite last night’s victory, Santa Clara is 17-28 overall and only 4-11 in the West Coast Conference. Though the loss may have been a tough one to swallow, Stanford saw strong performances on the offensive side of things. Walsh, the lead-

Please see BASEBALL, page 5

Tough road ahead Softball closes Pac-10 season with difficult three-game trip By CHRIS FITZGERALD DAILY SPORTS INTERN

Stanford softball, dominant for most of the season, finishes Pacific-10 Conference play with arguably the toughest three-game stretch of any team in the country. The No. 2 Card (44-6, 13-5 Pac-10) travels to No. 4 Washington to play on Thursday, before flying south where a three-day, three-game stretch culminates with No. 3 UCLA (38-9, 13-5). Washington (39-9, 12-6) boasts a flawless 130 record on its own turf and is the only Pac-10 team unbeaten at home. “I don’t think Washington’s home field advantage is any different than it is for other teams,” said Stanford head coach John Rittman. “It starts with their pitching.” But Washington’s pristine slate at home will be challenged in the early weekend, as Stanford has already bettered the Huskies twice this season. The Cardinal has shutout the Huskies over 18 innings thus far. Rittman looks to build on what his team learned about Washington in Palo Alto. “The game plan will be the same,” he said. “We need to work the count and be aggressive; taking advantage of all opportunities is key.” Junior Danielle Lawrie allowed only a halfdozen hits between two games at Stanford, but earned a loss in both games. Her effort included a complete game two-hitter, and a four-hit, 11inning effort at Smith Family Stadium in late March. Stanford picked up wins by scores of 1-0 and 2-0. Lawrie is coming off Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week honors for a record-breaking sixth time this year.The Canadian National Team member, who represented her home country in Beijing over the summer, helped the Huskies top Oregon in consecutive games last weekend. Lawrie

SOFTBALL 5/3 vs. Arizona W 2-1

UP NEXT WASHINGTON (39-9, 12-6 Pac-10) 5/7

Seattle 1 P.M.

GAME NOTES: Washington has a perfect 13-0 record at home. Stanford has shut out the Huskies in two previous meetings this season. Cardinal junior Danielle Lawrie is coming off Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week honors for a record sixth time this year. blanked the Ducks with 18 strikeouts on Sunday. When Stanford flies to Los Angeles for a pair of games on Friday and Saturday, it will undoubtedly be jousting for the Pac-10 title, with current conference co-leaders UCLA. The travel, as much as the competition, creates a problem for schools that face Washington, then UCLA, in three days. But Rittman downplayed the effects of travel fatigue. “Every team makes this trip,” he said.“It’s different because we need to get on a plane, but the team is young and our players can handle it.” The Bruins escaped an uncharacteristically close game against Oregon State on Saturday. UCLA managed a 4-3 win, then proceeded to wallop the Beavers 9-1 on Sunday. Despite the slip-up, the Bruins have dropped only one of their last 13 conference games.

Please see SOFTBALL, page 5

AGUSTIN RAMIREZ/The Stanford Daily

Stanford will look to continue its Pac-10 dominance as it travels to Seattle to face Washington today. The Huskies are a perfect 13-0 at home, but have twice lost to the Cardinal this year.

WOMEN’S ROWING

By ZACH ZIMMERMAN DESK EDITOR

With the title of best in the Bay on the line, Stanford women’s rowing refused to disappoint its fans that made the journey to Redwood Shores, despite the less-than-favorable conditions.The No. 4 Cardinal swept Cal in The Big Row, capturing the Lambert Cup for the first time since 2002 last Satur-

ast week, this column focused on the remaining hope for the Stanford baseball team’s return to Omaha, and since that column was written,the Card is 3-2 and is picking up clutch hits seemingly at will.Going back even further,Stanford is 9-3 in 11 games played since being swept at Arizona State,and had won 11 straight midweek before falling to Santa Clara 13-9. Suddenly, it seems like the Card might be able to make the postseason simply by playing well the rest of the way and won’t need a lot of outside help if it takes care of things on its end. Currently,Stanford sits six games out in the Pacific-10 Conference, but just three games out of second place, with six conference games remaining. If Stanford continues the midweek dominance and keeps finding ways to win on the weekend, a postseason berth seems very likely. Of course it is a lot to ask for a series sweep no matter who the opponent is, and with a non-conference series against a very tough New Mexico team this weekend before the final two series of the season against USC and Oregon State,winning all nine remaining weekend games is almost close to impossible. But this team has the hitting, the starting pitching and the bullpen to win every single game it plays. Only 12 games remain,and going 9-3 or better is something this team is more than capable of. Brent Milleville has completely shrugged off his cold start and is reinventing himself as “Mr. Clutch,” and Colin Walsh is getting on base seemingly with ease and is now driving in big runs as well. Kellen Kiilsgaard and Toby Gerhart are becoming tougher outs each game, and both are always threats to drive the ball to — or over — the wall. Zach Jones is making his hits count, and gobbling up base runners at an amazing pace from behind the plate. Jake Schlander and Adam Gaylord have been putting together at least one huge at-bat a game from the bottom two spots of the order for weeks, and Ben Clowe’s bat is as hot as they come. Jeffrey Inman and Jordan Pries were phenomenal last weekend, and Brett Mooneyham looked great until the wind turned easy fly-balls into nightmares. Max Fearnow is coming out of the bullpen and shutting teams down for three or more innings at a time, and Michael Marshall is quietly putting together excellent statistics. And then there is Drew Storen, who has picked up a win or a save in four straight outings and is getting it done even when teams are capitalizing on his rare mistakes. This team looks the best it has all year right now, and just in time for a late-season run. It would be a shame to not see this squad play beyond the end of May just because of a slow start.The Cardinal can hit, pitch and is playing some of the best defense in the entire country, and it finally has that magic aura back that the 2008 club carried all the way to Rosenblatt. The team is easily within the top 64 in the country talent-wise, and with a strong finish, Stanford certainly deserves a chance to prove it. And if it does make it, whoever faces Stanford better be ready, because this team has shown it takes a heck of a lot to knock it down. This is Erik Adams’ last column of the year.Bid him farewell at [email protected].

SPORTS BRIEFS

Stanford steals show at The Big Row Women’s rowing sweeps Cal, wins Lambert Cup

The Inside Pitch

L

Sunken Diamond 5:30 P.M.

On Tuesday, Stanford came back from a steep deficit — six runs — to win against San Jose State.On Wednesday,though,the eight-run hole the team found itself in at Santa Clara was just too much to overcome, as the Broncos walked away with a 13-9 victory. The Cardinal (23-20, 10-11 Pacific-10 Conference) dropped its first non-conference game in 11 outings,falling behind 11-3 after the fourth inning. Stanford quickly worked to reduce the deficit, scoring five runs in the top of the fifth, powered by first baseman Brent Milleville’s grand slam; it was his team-leading 11th home run of the year. Milleville’s bat has helped carry the Cardinal afloat down the stretch, as the senior has eight home runs and 14 RBI in the team’s last 20 games. Stanford got within two runs at 11-9 in the eighth inning, with the go-ahead runners on

Adams

Omaha still in sight for baseball

BASEBALL

5/8

Erik

day. One of collegiate rowing’s greatest rivalries, The Big Row was filled with drama, peaking in the first varsity eight race. Cal was victorious over Stanford’s top eight just two weeks before at the Lake Natoma Challenge, beating the Cardinal by nine seconds and making Stanford the underdog heading into the race. The Cardinal knew it had to jump on Cal early, and did just that, notching a slim lead after battling for the initial 1,000 meters. Fueled by the cheers of its fans, Stanford held on, crossing the finish line in 6:25.6, nearly four seconds ahead of the Bears’ 6:29.5. The tense atmosphere did not let up, how-

ever, as the varsity four race proved to be the tightest of the regatta. At the start, Stanford appeared to be dominant, coasting to an open water lead shortly after the gun. Stanford’s second varsity, although experiencing some difficulty in the third 500 meters, easily defeated Cal’s second eight with a time of 6:42.5. Cal fought back, closing the gap to just a second at the 1,500-meter mark. Unfortunately for Bears fans, this move only catalyzed a final attack by the Cardinal. The two boats clashed, but Stanford managed to prevail, besting Cal’s time of 7:39.25 with a mark of 7:37.66.

Please see WROWING, page 5

USA Basketball invites three Stanford players to trials Junior Jayne Appel and sophomores Kayla Pedersen and Jeanette Pohlen will be three of the 29 players competing for roster spots on the United States’ World University Games team. The three Cardinal will head to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs next weekend to try and secure one of the 12 places on the national team, which will compete in Belgrade, Serbia this summer.All team members must have collegiate eligibility to play in the biannual contest, which is organized by the International University Sports Federation. Appel and Pedersen, the Cardinal’s starting post players, are USA Basketball veterans, having both won a gold medal with the

2006 U18 squad.Appel and Pedersen added their second golds with wins at the PanAmerican Games and FIBA U-19 Championships, respectively. Pohlen, Stanford’s starting point guard this past season, has yet to play with USA Basketball. If the three Cardinal makes it past the trials, they will head back to Colorado Springs after the end of the quarter for further training, and then travel to Europe, where the Games will begin in early July.

Stanford teams post impressive NCAA Academic Progress Rate scores Six Cardinal teams earned perfect 1000 scores in the fourth annual set of APR num-

Please see BRIEFS, page 5

Thursday, May 7, 2009 N 5

The Stanford Daily

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HOUSING

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BASEBALL Continued from page 4 off hitter, reached base for his 28th game in a row,going 2-for-4 and drawing a walk. Stanford’s currently most prominent two-sport athlete, junior Toby Gerhart, went 3-for-5 on the night with a double and two RBI, while outfielder Joey August collected two hits and an RBI. The Cardinal’s pitching was shaky once again,with seven different pitchers taking to the mound throughout the night; 10 of the Broncos’ 13 runs were spread among Busick, sophomore right-hander Will Krasne and senior lefty Blake Hancock. “It’s a bit frustrating, but baseball is a team game — it goes both ways,” Walsh said regarding Stanford pitchers having trouble getting outs. “I’m sure they get frustrated if we don’t get hits, too.” Stanford will look to recover from the loss this weekend when it takes on the New Mexico Lobos in a threegame home series. Though the Lobos play in the Mountain West Conference, certainly a step down from the Pac-10, they have been solid all year with a record of 32-16 overall and 128 in conference.In any case,the Cardinal knows this weekend’s series will be a pivotal one if it is going to qualify for the postseason. “Overall we are playing pretty well right now,”Walsh said.“We know this

BUNNIES! So two days in a row now, huh?

Wez in ur Daily, takin up ur spayce.

The Bunnies return with more regularity.

coming weekend is really important.” Dan Bohm contributed to this report. Contact Jack Salisbury at [email protected]. STANFORD 9

SANTA CLARA 13

5/6/09 STANFORD

Santa Clara

Walsh 2b August cf Gerhart lf Kiilsgaard rf Milleville 1b Pries dh Clowe ph/dh Jones c Gaylord 3b Schlander Busick p Kranse p Pracher p Hancock p Schwartz p Walker p Fearnow p

AB 4 5 5 4 1 0 5 5 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

R 1 2 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Totals

41 9

H 2 2 3 2 1 0 1 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

BI 0 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Long cf Madden lf/rf Karcich ss Klein c Fuerst 2b Wagner 1b Biancardi dh Herbst pr Parra lf Van Dusen 3b Graham rf/p Twining p Hall p

15 9

39

Sacramento State 340 400 02X Stanford 201 050 010

AB 4 4 5 5 4 5 4 0 1 3 4 0 0

R 2 3 1 2 2 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0

H 1 4 1 3 2 2 3 0 0 1 1 0 0

BI 0 1 0 1 4 3 1 0 0 0 2 0 0

IP

H R ER BB SO

1 0.1 1.2 0.2 1.0 2.1 1.0

3 2 3 4 2 2 2

2.1 5 4.2 7 2.0 3

3 3 1 4 0 1 1

3 3 1 4 0 1 1

0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 1 0 1 1 1

3 2 6 6 0 0

1 1 1

4 2 3

— Compiled by Zach Zimmerman

Continued from page 4 This is quite a turnaround for a team that lost four of their first five Pac-10 games, with their only win against Stanford. When the Card touches down in Los Angeles, it will remember that UCLA handed the team its first Pac-10 loss, breaking a national-best 28-game win streak. Upended 7-4 on the back of sophomore Monica Harrison’s 4 RBI, the Card struggled to touch ace Donna Kerr as well. Stanford hits just under .300 as a team, but mustered only four knocks of any kind against the baby blue on March 27. But the Cardinal can back up its

Contact Chris Fitzgerald at [email protected]

13 18 12

R H E 13 18 3 9 15 0

E—Long (1); Madden (3); Twining (2) . LOB—Santa Clara 6; Stanford 8. 2B—Gerhart (9); Schlander (8); Madden 2(9); Fuerst (18); Wagner (11); Biancardi (7); Van Dusen (2) . HR—RMilleville (11); Fuerst (2); Graham (1). SH—Madden (3); Fuerst (3); Van Dusen (3). SB—Milleville (6). Pitchers Stanford Busick L (1-1) Kranse Pracher Hancock Schwartz Walker Fearnow Santa Clara Twining Hall W (1-4) Graham

SOFTBALL

No. 2 national ranking. Winner of seven straight, Stanford swept the Arizona schools last weekend, and senior Stanford ace Missy Penna was almost perfect. Now 35-4 on the season, Penna fanned 24 hitters and allowed just three hits in two complete games. Also noteworthy is that Stanford possesses another prominent righthander in the circle, with the emergence of sophomore Ashley Chinn. Chinn, who no-hit San Jose State on April 22, garnered her first win ever against a ranked opponent on Saturday. The tandem will work to shut down Washington one more time on Thursday. The first pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. in the Pacific Northwest.

BRIEFS Continued from page 4 bers released yesterday by the NCAA. The APR measures the eligibility, retention and graduation of student-athletes competing on every Division 1 sports team. All 35 of Stanford’s programs exceeded the NCAA’s standards. The teams receiving perfect scores were men’s golf, women’s gymnastics, softball, women’s tennis, women’s volleyball and women’s water polo.

WROWING Continued from page 4 The Stanford lightweights were not to be outdone, as they overcame an early deficit to smash Cal’s openweight third varsity by nearly eight seconds. “It was a great showing for the Stanford women’s team, both openweight and lightweight,” said Stanford sophomore lightweight Katherine Heflin. “It was fun as a lightweight team to take on the next varsity eight of Cal openweights.” Both the openweights and the lightweights will look to correct any errors shown at The Big Race be-

In addition, Stanford football received the highest rating among all FBS teams since 2004-05.The Cardinal received a score of 984, one ahead of second place Air Force (983). The national score is up three points from last year to 964. Furthermore, athletes failing to meet the eligibility and retention point are declining in number. This bodes well for the NCAA, which, in 2003, recently implemented rules intended on increasing academic focus. — By Wyndam Makowsky and Zach Zimmerman

fore the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, which begin next weekend. “We want to use the Pac-10s as a final stepping-stone to solidifying our technical improvements in a race setting, and most notably, on the same Sacramento course where we will soon face all of our rigid East-Coast competition in June,” Heflin said. The next stop for Stanford women’s openweights is the Pac-10 Championships in Gold River, Calif., while the lightweights travel to Sacramento for the Pacific Coast Championships. Both are scheduled for May 16. Contact Zach Zimmerman at [email protected].

THE STRENGTH TO HEAL

6 N Thursday, May 7, 2009 STUDENT GOV’T

GSC discusses fate of 750 Pub,replacement Goubaud provides details on new advisory committee By ALAN GUO STAFF WRITER

Last night, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) discussed the future of 750 Pub, the student bar located in the ground floor of the Graduate Community Center. The owner of the pub has recently filed a termination of service notification to the University, spurring the University to search for a new occupant for the space. According to the representatives, the owner is not breaking even, and no longer wants to operate the pub. During the meeting, representatives voiced students’ complaints about the pub, raising questions about costs and management of the business. “In the survey I conducted, students reported that the drinks at the pub are overpriced and the owner is hostile to students,” said Earth Science representative Mary Hoven. “The management is running it solely as a for-profit business, it does not have the interest of the student in mind.” Ryan Peacock, representative atlarge and financial officer, echoed Mary sentiments. “The pub is not a student bar, it is really a business that charges more than other bars in Palo Alto,” he said. Several options were tossed on the table for the future of the space. Matt McLaughlin, president of Stanford Student Enterprises, the financial arm of the ASSU, suggested a a grocery store, in the style of Safeway, as a replacement. “Since the 750 pub clearly has failed, I doubted the business model of the bar is the way to go,” McLaughlin said. Others reasoned that that the space should remain as a bar and a place where graduate students come to relax and socialize. They pointed out the failure of the pub was

BALLMER Continued from front page The problem with software, however, was not that people did not want to buy computers. The difficulty, Ballmer explained, is that unlike physical goods, software does not break over time, so companies need to work hard to ensure people want to upgrade their software. At the same time, software products are only as good as their last couple of versions. “Windows is only as good as its last release . . . or two,” Ballmer said, as the audience laughed at the subtle reference to Windows Vista, a

FLU Continued from front page to reaching conclusions and preparing publications of their results, she declined to discuss their findings in detail. The constant mutation of the influenza virus makes it incredibly unpredictable and hinders experts from providing a one-time cure for the influenza. “These situations are difficult and we don’t have sort of black-andwhite answers and treatments,” Khazeni said. “I don’t anticipate that something necessarily dramatically different in terms of treatment is going to emerge during this current epidemic. But, there are still very interesting potential vaccination strategies for the future.” In fact, she pointed out that other research endeavors at Stanford are focusing on the development of a universal influenza vaccine, which

inevitable due to the managing structure of the building. “Because the rent of place is so high, no business can succeed in that place,” said former representative Adam Beberg. Unlike other community centers, which are under the jurisdiction of the Vice Provost of Student Affairs (VPSA), the GCC and the pub space are co-managed by Stanford Housing and Dining. GCC does not have a uniform body to manage it in the interest of its student audience. The shared oversight also puts many external constraints on the vendor. According to Justin Brown, representative at-large, the rent is $3,000 per month, while the vendor is only making $1,000 per month after paying its employees — forcing any future vendors hoping to break-even to increase prices charged to the students. Peacock proposed negotiating with the administrators to eliminate the rent and sought collaboration with SSE to establish an inexpensive, vibrant student-bar run by students. “Other schools have successfully done this [student-run bar],” Peacock said, citing examples such as the Princeton Bar. At the meeting, ASSU President David Gobaud ‘10 also provided details about the forthcoming Vaden Advisory Committee, which seeks to look at the health needs of the students in great detail. According to Gobaud, the committee, led by Ira Friedman, director of Vaden, will consist of three Vaden staff, three undergraduates and three graduate students. The body also discussed the misplaced music equipment that representative Noa Lincoln has recently begun to recover. The council bought about $8,000 of music equipment for the general access of graduate students. Due to poor management, most of the instruments have been misplaced, and the GSC has only in possession $2,000 worth of the instruments, still without a proper place to store them. Contact Alan [email protected].

The Stanford Daily DAILY POLL

Do you think the ASSU Executives should focus on long-term issues? a) Yes, those are the most meaningful issues. b) Maybe, but I just want to see quantifiable progress. c) No, Jonny and Fagan demonstrated that it is difficult to achieve substantial change. d) No, dealing with short-term problems is much more important

vote today at stanforddaily.com!

NEWS BRIEFS Hospital receives $5 million donation By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF Bill Younger M.B.A. ‘71 has donated $5 million to the New Stanford Hospital and the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford. The majority of the donation will go toward the construction of a new building adjacent to the New Stanford Hospital. In addition, about a fifth of the total donation will go to the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford, where it will contribute to seed grants and postdoctoral funds. Younger is a managing director at the venture capital firm Sutter Hill Ventures and serves on the Stanford Hospital and Clinics Board of Directors. The new hospital will cost an estimated total of $2.5 billion.

SORORITIES Continued from front page ation throughout this process. “Everyone at Stanford has opinions about things,” she said. “And the people involved are doing a really good job of trying to balance them.” But sorority leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with the level of involvement they had in making some of these crucial decisions. “This year posed an unusual challenge in regard to sorority housing, requiring the three housed sororities (TriDelt, Theta and Pi Phi) to work closely with the OSA, Housing and ResEd,” wrote Intersorority Council President Ali Fox ‘09 in an email to The Daily. “While

version of Microsoft’s popular operating system that has been beset with problems. When asked about Microsoft’s unsuccessful bid to buy Yahoo! last year, Ballmer spoke of the opportunity of teaming up with the search engine in order to target more customers and create a “better search product.” Tech blog TechCrunch reported that Ballmer has been in the Bay Area since at least the weekend, sparking rumors that Microsoft and Yahoo are closing in on a deal involving cooperation in the search market. “Google’s a very big company in search,” Ballmer said. “We’re more like a startup than a big guy in search. We can’t invest in everything

the market leader can.” While he would not comment on possible discussions that the two companies may be engaged in, he said that he thought a merger would have been “valuable.” “I’m glad we went down the road,” Ballmer said. He added that while Microsoft can’t afford to outspend Google in the search business, Microsoft has less revenue to protect and so can afford to take more risks. “There are some things we have an opportunity to do precisely because we are not the market leader,” he said. “We can experiment with new business models. We have less to lose than the market leader does.” Ballmer did admit, however, that

will target the more consistent antigens of influenza. Such a vaccine would facilitate the treatment of a host of influenza viruses, including the strains responsible for pandemics. The vaccine is too early in development, however, to run clinical trials. According to growth charts displayed on the Web site of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), swine flu has infected individuals in 21 different countries and 41 US states as of 11 a.m. Wednesday. A total of 647 cases have been reported within the U.S., including two deaths. Relative to the 36,000 influenza-caused deaths in the U.S. each year, the swine flu numbers may appear less troublesome than originally expected. “Severity can be defined on a number of levels,” Khazeni said. “We [can] measure it in case-fatality proportion — a ratio of number of deaths per number of cases. Based on just this, it would be premature to call this a severe epidemic, but you could look at it in others ways such

as the fact that it is a novel virus with human-to-human transmission which is spreading globally.” Although she discouraged acute anxiety over the recent developments in the H1N1 strain, Khazeni stressed the importance of paying attention to any signs of the flu, taking immediate action and following preventive measures as advised by the CDC.

HOUSING Continued from page front page received this year, Boswell said that it was difficult to tell. “It’s difficult to answer this question because we’re essentially comparing apples and oranges as the priority policy was in place last year, and this year it is not,” he said. “In general, there were more pre-assignments this year, but there were also many more houses offering preassignment.” Boswell also noted that the statistics for pre-assignments tend to vary drastically from year to year, regardless of this year’s changes. While he was hesitant to speculate the exact admittance statistics as the exact numbers are still being finalized, Boswell shed light on the selection process. “The process was hectic as we were trying to implement the many changes associated with the recommendations of the Draw Task Force in a short period of time,” he said. “We intend to work with the various focus and theme houses to improve the process next year as we want to support all theme and focus programs.” Ram Sachs ‘12, applied to Kairos, a co-op house. Happy that he was accepted, Sachs still expressed his sentiments that the pre-assignment process was far from perfect. “It was sort of confusing; there was a bit of a disconnect between what the house staff was expecting

and what Housing wanted in terms of the application,” Sachs said. “It was a bit unclear with what the specific house requirements were.” In order to apply to live in a coop, students must complete a job and a house tour prior to the Draw deadline. If these aren’t completed and a student ends up being placed in a coop, they are taken out and placed into dorms with spots open, which is not always an ideal situation. For the time being, Boswell thought that most students were pleased with their assignments, although there were flaws in the application process. “The greatest complaint we heard was directed toward a lack of clarity around which houses would be associated with using which tier in the housing draw, which is understandable,” he said. “With so many

changes being made at once, there are bound to be some complications.” “Overall, I didn’t think it was publicized enough,” Sachs said. “I had to find out about it [pre-assignments] on my own. It was a hard process, and I had to ask around and figure things out by asking people I knew.” Sachs also said that the preassignment Web site seemed to be a work in progress. “I think just making it much more clear and obvious exactly what the requirements are for each house and how to get in touch with people would be best,” Sachs continued. “It was sometimes hard to get in touch with the staff. As a freshman, it was difficult to figure out.”

the Housing and ResEd offices have been most incompatible and resistant to the needs and desires of the housed sororities, I am pleased with the poise with which each sorority handled the situation and found solutions that each of their chapters could agree upon. I fully support the resolutions each sorority has adopted to accommodate their housing needs.” TriDelt President Cristina Cordova ‘09 said that while the unexpectedly large pledge class was a major factor behind the housing problems, they also resulted from the administration’s failure to adequately include sororities in the dialogue. “The size of the pledge classes is the main problem,” she said. “But the fact that we were taken away the right to deal with this problem as autonomous organizations amplified it.”

“Communicating with the OSA, Housing and ResEd was confusing and challenging throughout most of the decision-making process,” added TriDelt Resident Assistant Kelly Peterson ‘09. “However, I felt very well-supported by our Residence Dean, John Giammalva, who wasn’t directly involved with the housing changes being implemented, but was always willing to listen to our concerns.” Cordova also criticized the fact that the new housing rules only apply to sororities, but not fraternities. “The fact that sororities are forced to follow this new policy, but fraternities are not, adds to the problem,” she said. “Sororities are being unfairly targeted and forced to house in the preference [order] of seniors, juniors, then sophomores and fraternities are allowed to house however they choose. There is

gender inequity that results from the enforcement of this policy.” Now that each of the sororities has created a plan to address the new policy and submitted a list of members who will live in their houses next year, tension regarding the change has calmed. But sorority leaders say that the way the administration imposed the new policy has left them unsatisfied. “While I’m happy with the end result of this process, with all our new members being able to live in the house, I feel that we could have avoided a lot of grief and stress if the administration had made greater efforts to communicate with our chapter leadership earlier on in the quarter, and learn more about the issues at stake before enforcing any drastic changes,” Peterson said.

CRIS BAUTISTA/The Stanford Daily

Contact Christine McFadden at [email protected].

Contact Eric Messinger at messinger@ stanford.edu.

not all risks would be successful. “We’ll try some new products that are going to be a disaster,” he said, pointing to Microsoft Bob as an example. “It wasn’t terrible, it flopped miserably, but I am glad we did it.” Still, despite the economy, Ballmer was optimistic about the future. He saw a world in which there was less debt, more innovation and productivity and noted that it is a great time for start-ups. “Students are coming out of school at a better time than me and Bill,” he said. “It is a phenomenal time to be starting all kinds of companies.” Contact Kamil Dada at [email protected].

Contact Cassandra Feliciano at [email protected].

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