SPORTS/6 Today Tomorrow

FEATURES/2

TIGER HUNTING SEASON OPENER

Campus voices weigh in on Stanford softball starts 2011 Sunny Mostly Sunny
Amy Chua’s parenting article against Matadors 62 40 63 40

The Stanford Daily

CARDINAL TODAY

An Independent Publication
THURSDAY www.stanforddaily.com Volume 239
February 10, 2011 Issue 9

Patents complicate
stem cell research
Unclear policies cloud
future of field
By IVY NGUYEN and
TYLER BROWN
EDITORS
Stanford Daily File Photo
In an effort to manage the projected $30 million deficit for fiscal year 2011, Caltrain officials proposed to close up Though patents are meant to
to 16 of its least used train stations in Santa Clara and San Mateo. encourage innovation, broad stem
cell patent protection could slow
LOCAL research in the field, according to a
recent report by the Hinxton
ty not owned by their research in-
stitution. So far, few Stanford re-
searchers have had difficulty ac-
quiring permission to use such in-
formation, according to School of
Medicine professor and ISCBRM
Director Irving Weissman and bio-
engineering graduate student
Blake Byers.

Caltrain proposes to close stations

By JENNY THAI
STAFF WRITER
Caltrain officials proposed last
Thursday to shut down up to 16
train stations in the Santa Clara
and San Mateo counties, as one po-
tential option to address the pro-
jected $30 million deficit for fiscal
year 2011.
The budget deficit is due, in
part, to the fact that Caltrain is the
only Bay Area transit system lack-
Health care proposal
to benefit students
By THE DAILY NEWS STAFF
The U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services proposed on
Wednesday new rules for insurers
that would offer students more of
the consumer protections created
by the health-care overhaul.
By defining college health-care
ing a permanent dedicated source
of funding. This lack of financial
backing results in a continuing
structural deficit, said Caltrain
spokeswoman Christine Dunn.
“A lot of people think public
transportation either profits or
breaks even,” Dunn said. “But
what many people don’t know is
that it’s actually heavily subsi-
dized. For example, the fare only
provides for about 44 percent of
the cost of the ride. The additional
NEWS BRIEFS
plans as individual coverage, the
proposed rules would bar insurers
from setting lifetime dollar limits
on student health plans, dropping
coverage of ill students due to pa-
perwork mistakes and denying
coverage for students under age 19
with pre-existing conditions.
After the passage of the Af-
fordable Care Act, college health-
care plans were initially exempt
from some parts of the law, and in-
dustry groups lobbied to keep
those exemptions. But under the
56 percent has to come from other
sources.”
Caltrain receives funds from
three primary sources: the San
Mateo County Transit District, the
Santa Clara Valley Transportation
Authority and the San Francisco
County Transportation Authority.
Recently, state cuts in public trans-
portation funding have led to de-
creased funding for Caltrain.
Please see TRAIN, page 2
new proposed rules, students
would have more control of their
health care, said Health and
Human Services Secretary Kath-
leen Sebelius.
“This rule would ensure that
these plans remain a viable, afford-
able option for students while
guaranteeing that they are regulat-
ed consistently and offer transpar-
ent benefits to students,” Sebelius
said in a statement on Wednesday.
Please see HEALTH, page 5
Group, a body of scientists and
public policy experts who study
the ethical and legal challenges
surrounding stem cell research.
The report argues that policies
governing the sharing of intellec-
tual property and scientific mate-
rials, while beneficial in bringing
private investment into under-
funded areas of research, may act
as legal tripwires. These policies
therefore have the potential to
slow innovation.
While assigning patent rights
for most inventions is relatively
simple because of their discrete
parts and manufacturing process-
es, the task is less clear-cut in stem
cell research, where the debate
continues over what technologies
— entire lines, methods for deriv-
ing them or only clinical uses —
should be patentable.
With its recent establishment of
the Institute for Stem Cell Biology
and Regenerative Medicine (IS-
CBRM), whose new building fea-
tures prominently on the School of
Medicine campus, the University
has millions of research dollars at
stake in this field.
Sharing research rights
Researchers must first make an
agreement with patent holders
when they use intellectual proper-
“Patent protection doesn’t real-
ly matter for academic research,
since we’re in a nice bubble where
we can do research here irrespec-
tive of where patents are,” Byers
said.
Katharine Ku, director of the
Office of Technology Licensing
(OTL), confirmed that it’s typically
easy to share intellectual property
between institutions for research
purposes.
“But when the technology is
commercialized for clinical use,
there can be a problem,” Ku said.
Though Weissman’s lab has not
yet encountered any licensing trou-
ble to his recollection, the potential
for problems still exists, he said.
Because of the ambiguities in
stem cell patenting policy, “you
never know until you try to move
it into the sphere where you’re
going to make [the technology]
useful clinically and therefore
commercially viable,” Weissman
said.
That’s when patent holders
take interest and could sue if the
new technology oversteps patent
restrictions.
An ‘intellectual stranglehold’
Patent restrictions have been
Please see RESEARCH, page 2

LOCAL

Report burns
Palo Alto Fire
Department
By MARIANNE LeVINE
STAFF WRITER

A report from the Palo Alto Fire Fighters’ union

SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily released Feb. 6 revealed that the city’s Fire Depart-
ment responds to emergencies efficiently on a gener-
al basis but suffers from certain deficiencies.
RESEARCH The Fire Services Utilization and Resources Study
report said the Fire Department “has become a stag-

Researchers nant organization and management is struggling, due

in part to insufficient support staff.”
Although the overall assessment of the Palo Alto
Fire Department was positive, TriData Division, the

create new consultants with whom the union worked to publish

the report, listed 48 recommendations for improve-
ment. Areas of concern included the training and de-

heart cells
Med school scientists use stems
cells to treat heart disease
By CASSANDRA FELICIANO
DESK EDITOR
Stanford researchers at the School of
Medicine can now march to the sound of a
different beat. In a study published yester-
day, associate professor of neurobiology Ri-
cardo Dolmetsch and his team unveiled a
technique that,for the first time,allows scien-
tists to convert human skin cells to heart cells
and develop treatments for cardiac deficien-
cies.
This novel approach, inspired by a similar
experiment conducted by Japanese re-
Please see HEART, page 5
velopment of officers, the need to merge two fire sta-
tions and combining some fire administrative func-
tions, wrote assistant city manager Pamela Antil in an
e-mail to The Daily.
The 190-page study also said the lapse between
dispatch time and turnout time — how long it takes
for equipment to be ready for use at the emergency
site — was too long.
Palo Alto Professional Firefighters’ Union presi-
dent Tony Spitaleri is confident that recommenda-
tions on resource sharing could be put into effect im-
mediately, but he said improving reaction times
would require additional studies and observations of
their impact on Palo Alto neighborhoods.
“We have a minimum requirement of people on
duty . . . we want to look if that has an impact on how
resources are deployed,” Spitaleri said. “This is an
issue that needs a lot of discussion.When you start re-
ducing staffing level, the number of folks who re-
spond to emergencies [or] when you start reducing
physicians, you put firefighters and citizens in jeop-
ardy.”
JIN ZHU/The Stanford Daily
In addition, Spitaleri emphasized the importance
of improving dispatch, a problem area that will be A recent report said Palo Alto’s Fire Department suffers from several deficiencies,
including a lack of leadership and organization. According to union president, Tony
Please see FIRE, page 2 Spitaleri, the department has become “stagnant.” The Fire Department is located in City Hall.

Index Features/3 • Opinions/4 • Sports/6 • Classifieds/7 Recycle Me

2 ! Thursday, February 10, 2011
What makes
a curious reader?
You do.
Read to your child today and inspire
a lifelong love of reading.
w w w. r e a d . g o v
RESEARCH
Continued from front page
an issue in the field of stem cell re-
search since its very beginning,
when James Thompson, a Universi-
ty of Wisconsin professor, isolated
the first human embryonic stem
cell.Thompson was granted patents
for three stem cell lines. Those
patents included not only how to
derive embryonic stem cells but
also all embryonically derived
pluripotent cells irrespective of the
method, allowing the patent holder
to essentially own all cells derived
from that line.
“That means that anybody in
possession of a stem cell line needs
to take a license from the patent
holder,” explained Christopher
Scott, director of the Program on
Stem Cells and Society at the Cen-
ter for Biomedical Ethics, who is
also a member of the Hinxton
group.
Such a broad patent becomes a
problem when the patent holder
“vacuums up” all intellectual prop-
erty that might pose a competition
to their technology, a situation he
describes as an “intellectual stran-
glehold”.
“When technology [and] intel-
lectual property are held so tightly
and not licensed broadly, it can hin-
der a field,” Scott said. “If you hin-
der competition, you may hinder
progress to getting things to people
who need them.”
Weissman calls the University of
Wisconsin’s patents on embryonic
stem cells “far more restrictive”
than any other patent he knows,
and says that those restrictions af-
fect the field’s ability to move for-
ward.
More ‘socially responsible’ policies
Although Ku said that few of
Stanford’s stem cell patents are ac-
tually licensed, Scott noted that
Stanford’s “socially responsible”
licensing policies could be benefi-
cial to research and development.
In the case of early biotechnology
research, Stanford followed poli-
cies that encouraged the use of
technologies among a large group
of inventors or scientists — a
move that launched an entire in-
dustry, Scott said.
“Some argue that without that
broad licensing the biotech indus-
try wouldn’t exist,” he added.
With Thompson’s patents set to
expire in the near future, competi-
tion within the field of stem cell re-
search will begin to heat up. While
Scott holds that greater competi-
tion is a good thing, Byers predicts
a less sunny outcome, one that is
already evident as the field ex-
pands into studying new types of
TRAIN
Continued from front page
“[Our] partners have had to re-
duce their contributions,” Dunn
said. “They are all transit agencies
struggling to provide core trans-
portation services. We don’t have
the same resources we’ve had in
the past.”
According to Dunn, these shut-
downs, in total, could offset the
deficit and leave an “affordable”
deficit of $4.7 million.
But with 74 percent of Cal-
train’s nearly 40,000 daily riders
relying on the commute to get to
work, Caltrain officials explored
several proposals to minimize the
impact that cuts would have on
passengers.
Stops slated for closure were se-
lected because they were the least
used. These stops include South
San Francisco, San Bruno,
Burlingame, Belmont, San Anto-
nio in Mountain View, Lawrence in
Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Col-
lege Park in San Jose.
Last week’s proposal also
looked at eliminating weekend
and special event services, which
means the closure of three more
stations: the Stanford University
stop, which is only used during
football games; the weekend-only
station at Atherton and the week-
end-only station at Broadway in
Burlingame.
Because this is the first time a
FIRE
Continued from front page
crucial for serving the rising num-
ber of emergencies. The report
shows medical calls increased by
nearly 50 percent since 2000.
“There needs to be more flexibil-
ity in analyzing and disarming more
type of units in an emergency,” Spi-
taleri said. “We don’t have a system
in place that allows us to do this on a
consistent basis.We’re looking at in-
vesting money into this process.”
He added that the city is work-
ing to fill more positions in the
upper management level of the
Fire Department.
“Fire marshal positions were
The Stanford Daily
stem cells. He speculates that be-
cause the field is so crowded and
competition for patents is so high,
researchers might stall the process
of peer reviewing papers so they
can first claim their own patents.
“It’s been almost exponentially
more difficult to get a stem cell
paper out in the last year and espe-
cially around differentiation of em-
bryonic stem cells,” Byers said.
Clear and consistent policies for
stem cell patentability have yet to
be set. As the debate continues,
Scott said, the tension lies between
creating a competitive market with-
in an intellectual framework versus
having a monopoly on the technol-
ogy.
“It’s a hard line to walk,” he
added.
Bigger challenges take precedence
Despite the roadblocks patent-
related restrictions could cause,
researchers cited the historical
lack of federal support as the
greatest obstacle the stem cell
field faces.
“Intellectual property pales in
comparison to having the money
to do the research,” Scott said. “If
you don’t have the money, that,
basically, is a show stopper.”
Under the Aug. 23 injunction
issued by U.S. District Judge
Royce Lamberth, which suspends
federal funding for human embry-
onic stem cell research, the fu-
tures of many federally funded
projects in the field are uncertain.
While researchers in California
have the support of the California
Institute for Regenerative Medi-
cine to supplement missing fund-
ing from the National Institute of
Health, Scott stressed the need
for federal backing.
“Though California has been an
exception to the rule, the funds
aren’t going to last forever,”he said.
“Since stem cells are so in vogue
and everybody’s talking about
them, they think they’re going to do
everything, so there are a lot of re-
search dollars available,” Byers
said. “But Obama still hasn’t over-
turned a lot of the restrictions Bush
has placed on embryonic stem cell
research.” The Bush restric-
tions have further stymied funding.
In his 25 years of studying bio-
medical ethics, Scott said no other
field had such “a promising future
for potential therapies and treat-
ments” and “was so complicated
with ethical, legal, regulatory, and
funding issues.”
“Without federal policy that al-
lows and encourages research on
embryonic stem cells,” he conclud-
ed, “it’s going to be a really hard
field to move forward quickly.”
Contact Ivy Nguyen at iknguyen@
stanford.edu and Tyler Brown at tb-
brown@stanford.edu.
proposal for closure has emerged
for Caltrain, the commute provider
is unsure about how shutdowns
would impact “ghost” stations.
“[It] depends on the station,”
Dunn said. “There’s a large shop-
ping area at California [Ave.], so I’d
imagine they might feel an impact.
However, we don’t really know.”
Moreover, Caltrain does not
have control over highways and
streets, and therefore cannot
change any impacts on vehicular
traffic. Current services provided
by Caltrain offset road congestion
by accommodating 300 million
passenger miles.
However, shutdowns are only
the first stage of a larger process,
said Dunn. Caltrain has its hands
full with other proposals, including
a 25-cent increase in one-way
fares, and day and monthly passes
across all zones. These increases
would be tacked on top of price
hikes implemented last year.
A public hearing will be held on
March 3 to solicit feedback from
residents and commuters.
Dunn said Caltrain’s board of
directors is not expected to act
until April. Changes will be imple-
mented by July 2, the start of Cal-
train’s fiscal year, in order “to get
the most financial benefit from the
changes,” Dunn later wrote in an e-
mail to The Daily.
Cassandra Feliciano contributed to
this report.
Contact Jenny Thai at jthai1@stan-
ford.edu.
not filled, [which] has caused the
deterioration of our programs to
move forward,” Spitaleri said.“The
workload fell on the shoulders of a
handful of people.”
“We’re not as efficient as we
could be,” he said.
But Antil insists that feedback
from the city council, firefighters
and public were positive about re-
solving these issues. He noted that
many of the recommended
changes could be made without af-
fecting the city’s existing union
agreement.
“[These] will be a launching
point of continued dialogue be-
tween the firefighters and city ad-
ministration,” Antil said.
Contact Marianne Levine @ mlevine
2@stanford.edu.
The Stanford Daily
FEATURES
EYE OF THE TIGER MOM
Amy Chua’s article on Chinese parenting roars across campus,inciting debate
By JENNY THAI
STAFF WRITER
T
here’s been a lot of tiger hunting
over the Internet in the past sev-
eral weeks. Tiger mom hunt-
ing, that is.
In a pre-publication book ex-
cerpt published in “The Wall Street
Journal,” provocatively titled “Why
Chinese Mothers are Superior,”
Yale Law School professor Amy
Chua recounts her harrowing suc-
cesses with traditional Chinese par-
enting, which she calls a recipe for
“math whizzes and music prodigies.”
Chua’s bluntly earnest and highly
contentious “tiger mother” tenets have
stirred enormous Internet debate: her
WSJ.com article racked more than 7,700
comments and scored over a million views.It’s
a rather crafty marketing strategy on behalf of
Chua, who is receiving free publicity, though
much of it comes in the form of displeased out-
cries from those whom Chua calls “Western par-
ents” expressing deep disgust for what they con-
sider a militaristic and cruel parenting method
that is, in the long term, socially and emotionally
damaging.
So what exactly is it about Chua’s memoir (not
a “Parenting 101” manual) that provokes “West-
ern parents” to recoil so defensively?
According to some Stanford professors,
buried underneath the emotional outcry is a
deep American fear of the fragile future of the
United States’ role in the global economy.
“We’re in a period of great worry,” said Hazel
Markus, a psychology professor. “We’re concerned
about China’s potential global dominance.”
The results of multiple studies suggest that China’s students
are academically outperforming the rest, confirming a general
unease with the U.S.’s declining role in global commerce.
Paula Moya, an english professor who co-teaches Introduc-
tion to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE) with
Markus, remarked that the paranoia of “Chinese superiority” is
not entirely unfounded.
“There is a well-known [stereotype] of the academic excel-
lence of Asian-Americans, who are scoring higher,” Moya said.
“There was a recent study that showed that students in Shanghai
outscored the competition.”
The scores that Moya is referring to came from the 2009 Pro-
ERIC KOFMAN/
The Stanford Daily
gram for
International Stu-
dent Assessment
(PISA),the results of which were released in December of 2010.
Sixty-three nations participated in the assessment.While Amer-
ican students scored a respectable average — 17th, 23rd, and
31st in reading, science and math, respectively — students in
Shanghai outstripped the global competition by placing first in
all three categories.
Such results,Professor Markus believes,contribute greatly to
the American middle class’ growing fears of the
United States’ shrinking economic role.
“We have not only a fear of China, but also a
fear of child-rearing,” Markus noted.“This applies
especially for middle class parents.[Chua] has hit a
nerve. We are worried about not only our place in
the world,but also about the future of our children,
which now seems rather shaky.”
Chua’s narration of her zero tolerance for
failure policy strikes a more personal chord with
“[Chua] has hit a nerve.We
are worried about not only
our place in the world,but
also about the future of our
children,which now seems
rather shaky.”
— HAZEL MARKUS,
psychology professor
JAMES BUI/The Stanford Daily
Thursday, February 10, 2011 ! 3
those who acknowledge the potential risk of long-
term scarring, both physical and emotional, on the
child.
“There’s the huge obsession that Asian par-
ents seem to have with success,” Ze Xiao ‘11
said. “Yes, your kids will be academically and
financially successful on the outside. On the
inside, however, you could be screwing up
your kids’ chance at happiness.”
Xiao, however, also acknowledged
that Chua’s fierce regimen (which in-
cludes three hours of instrument practice
per day, no sleepovers and nothing less
than straight A’s), though seeming to
gravitate toward an extreme, is relatively
tame in comparison to some of the Asian
parents she has seen.
“I can see why some parents would
be so sensitive about it,”Xiao said.“But I’ve
seen worse parenting. I’ve definitely heard
of parents who beat their kids, so the article
didn’t anger me so much.”
On Stanford’s campus, students who have
grown up with Westernized Chinese parents did
not find Chua’s practices surprising in theory, but
were taken aback by how Chua put them into prac-
tice.
“I kind of knew about the fierce Chinese mother
thing,” Chloe Yeung ‘13 said. “I grew up with Western-
ized Chinese parents, but I have friends who went
through that kind of an experience,so what the article said
hit pretty close to home. I think what she’s done is a little
over the top.”
Many students, while disapproving of the cold strict-
ness of Chua’s parental method, may also find grains of
truth among her derogatory name-calling and stinginess
with privileges.
“A lot of children really are lazy,”Yeung said.“There’s
a book we read last year [“Outliers”by Malcolm Gladwell]
that mentioned when you want to get really good at some-
thing, you have to invest a lot of effort, which means a lot of
practice. It’s a great way to gain a skill, even if you don’t end up
wanting to continue with it.”
To some students, behind the veneer of the compassionless
drilling that Chua described lies a genuine belief that one’s child
will succeed.
“I found myself agreeing with some of the points she made,”
Xiao said. “Especially how Western parents tend to ‘allow’ fail-
ure — the way Western parents let their kids fail — while Asian
parents believe that their kids can do it, which is why they push
so hard.”
Others,however,see the incited controversy as merely the re-
sult of a clever marketing ploy that has taken advantage of the
tension between significantly polar Western and Asian cultural
practices.
“From what I can tell, it’s mostly a self-promoting piece with
little real substance and more of a provocation for sales,” said
David Palumbo-Liu, comparative literature professor and di-
rector of Asian American studies.
Regardless of Chua’s intentions in authoring her book, she
has undoubtedly sparked a much-needed discussion of cultural
stereotyping when it comes to parenting.
“We like to think that we’ve got it right,” Markus said.“[But]
what’s important for people to get out of this is that we need to
come to terms about accepting the cultural realities on parent-
ing — that there are multiple models for
parenting. Just because it looks
strict doesn’t mean that it is
not a loving relationship.”
Contact Jenny Thai at
jthai1@stanford.edu.
4 ! Thursday, February 10, 2011
OPINIONS
R EALITY C HECK
In Defense of
the Busy
A
s I bear witness to ever more
Op-Ed and The New York
Times prophets, it becomes
increasingly apparent to me that
there is a certain disconnect between
those who are excessively burdened
with academics, and those that rumi-
nate yearly on how to de-stress
them. While more tightly regulated
articles craft factoids, snippets and
reams of research into factors and
causes, The Daily’s past is riddled
with quasi-useful stories about how
columnists have dealt with stressful
and busy times. Perhaps the most in-
furiating prescription recommended
by peers through history — this “ig-
nore your deadlines and go have fun”
paradox — has never been explicitly
challenged. Not to my satisfaction,
anyway, and I’m not so introverted
as to think I’m alone in my malcon-
tent. I thought I’d take the time to
compile a few of the faults with this
silly tidbit of advice, in the hope that
we as a university might move be-
yond such superficial jargon to a
more productive solution.
“Ignore your deadlines and go
have fun” necessarily attributes a
frivolousness to the deadlines of
your average Stanford student.
Sure, you have a paper due, but your
favorite band is swinging through
Palo Alto.You might never see them
again! . . . In Palo Alto . . . But who
cares, it’s just a paper, you need to
enjoy your life. On the flipside, this
particular paper could be worth a
hefty percentage of your overall
grade. You might get home too en-
thralled by the memory of the awe-
someness and forget all about the
paper, or do such a piss-poor job on
it that you are forced to rewrite it.
Maybe the professor is so sickened
by the work that they refuse to let
you rewrite it. Heck, there are class-
es lurking out there with papers
worth 30-50 percent of your final
grade. Is this the type of deadline
that should be shirked? Even prob-
lem sets, arguably the most tedious
form of busy work I’ve encountered
here on the Farm, add up. Missing
one might only minimally impact
your grade, but it will severely im-
pact your understanding of the ma-
terial. Last week’s PS #5 could be
next week’s exam question #7, and
there is no way to predict for such a
thing.
In the same vein,most advice-giv-
ing Op-Ed writers take the stance
that their busy friends somehow are
oblivious to the fact that they are
busy and need a break. Now, I only
have a cursory knowledge of the
wide variety of majors, but as a pre-
Stanford Rants
A
t the start of last week, I sent
a few e-mail lists an invita-
tion for students to anony-
mously vent their biggest Stanford-
related frustrations by listing them
on a Google Doc. There were over
100 individual responses (over 120 if
you include the trolls). From what I
read, students’ complaints seem to
have fallen into a few big categories:
Lack of diversity
One student appeared to capture
many others’ thoughts with the con-
cise response,“Stanford is repressive
of discussions about class and so-
cioeconomic status.” Students are
frustrated with what passes for the
norm at Stanford,and many spoke of
hiding their beliefs and backgrounds
so as to avoid persecution. Those
who feel most antagonized seem to
be low-income students, Christians,
those with conservative viewpoints
and students who aren’t attracted to
alcohol and the college party culture.
Academic structure
Some students hate the quarter
system. Some think, “academic ad-
vising is a total joke.” Engineers wish
they had more time to take classes
outside of engineering. “Financial
aid really hurts a large portion of
middle class students.” IHUM has
both good and bad points.
Social scene
Many, many students wish alco-
hol wasn’t such a staple of undergrad
life. Palo Alto and Stanford are too
expensive, and San Francisco is
much less accessible than Stanford
would like ProFros to think. There
needs to be a central hang-out loca-
tion on campus; the “student center
sucks/almost does not exist.” Also,
“the dating sucks.”
Alex
Hicks-Nelson
No day goes by where I
am passively fulfilling
my prerequisites
veterinary biology major, I can safe-
ly say that no day goes by where I’m
just passively fulfilling my prerequi-
sites. Most of them threaten to jump-
start that apathetic part of me that
wants to major in underwater basket
weaving. Would I like to take a
break? Of course. It is always just a
matter of closing my textbook. Con-
sidering how little of what we do ap-
plies to our individual passions, I’d
say it is a testament to the resolve of
the Stanford student that we aren’t
all out chatting with friends, plaiting
each others’ hair and “bro-ing” it up
around the Oval.
Ultimately, I strongly believe
these misguided Op-Ed folks of yes-
teryear have mainly missed the mark
by addressing students about their
lack of free time. When it comes
down to it, you didn’t mandate 15
hours worth of studying for a three-
unit class. You didn’t teach a lecture
series such that office hours become
less of an option and more of a ne-
cessity. It boggles the mind to think
that my fellow student, someone
who is just as bogged down by
exams, reading assignments, practice
work and other minutiae as I am,
could ever put more pressure on me
as an individual by saying that I need
to work harder to fit in more time for
myself. Here would be a perfect
place to introduce a mechanic alter-
ing entity,something that could actu-
ally enforce the boundaries on
schoolwork to help promote stu-
dents leaving their rooms/the li-
braries/whatever other little place
they’ve found to hide and scribble in.
Stanford itself, and not its student
body,should take charge of the hum-
drum tomfoolery that is the unit to
effort ratio. Babbling at us does little
to change the nature of the machine,
over which we have paltry power.
Busy and want to commune from
your scribble location? Alex wants to
hear it! Email her with comments at
ahicksne@stanford.edu.
I’ M , L IKE , T OTALLY P ROFOUND
Work ethic
“I’m tired of kids who know how
to test well, but have forgotten how
to learn,” is a feeling echoed by
many. Pre-meds in particular have
gotten a bad rep: “Medicine is a hal-
lowed profession.Treat it like a priv-
ilege, not a game.” And one respon-
dent said Stanford students “only
care about the world when it will
help them get fellowships & scholar-
ships, just like all those clubs they
joined in high school.”
Attitudes toward life
This was the biggest section; it
seemed many students think Stanford
kids are too “success”-driven and not
relationship-driven enough, and then
those same Stanford kids complain
about feeling lonely. The “Stanford
Duck Syndrome” and “faking your
feelings” were also mentioned a great
deal, as were “ego” and “elitism.”
Also, according to a few respondents,
students aren’t activist enough:
“Whatever happened to protests?”
Health
At CAPS, there’s “a lack of avail-
ability of appointments [and] inef-
fectiveness of said appointments.”
At Vaden, “if you’re not an athlete,
you don’t matter.” And the Bridge
“has good ideas but fails at making
people feel better . . . “
Biking
“For smart people, we ride bikes
like idiots.” Also, “lighting around
campus sucks,” as does parking.
Food
Several students want 24-hour
food,several want cheaper food,sev-
eral want more options and the list
goes on.
The Stanford Daily
Established 1892 AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
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Theodore L. Glasser Caroline Caselli
Managing Editor of Features Alex Atallah
Michael Londgren
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WANDERLUST
How it all started
A
s I wing my way across the credibly intriguing to me, and I gradu-
continental U.S. on a morning ally made a realization: I too could fly
flight to New York, I’m think- to Europe for the weekend if I want-
ing back on how my travel interest ed to. Not every weekend, but this im-
came to be. Gone are the days of mid- possible idea to a kid who was accus-
dle school track practice when the tomed to just watching planes was
coach would quiz us on what type of now well within reach.
plane was passing overhead. Too bad, I guess maybe it’s not fair to say
because I was that kid who had memo- that all of my travel inspiration came
rized the list from the Northwest Air- from my classy customer at the bak-
lines in-flight magazine,impressing the ery. I already knew the ins and outs of
coach, yet probably leaving my team- booking cheap airline tickets, so I sup-
mates slightly annoyed. Gone also are pose it was only a matter of time be-
the days when I regularly sat down my fore I actually started buying them.
little brother so he could learn the di- And let me tell you, once college
rect international flights out of Min- rolled around things did not go well —
neapolis and truly comprehend what a it was utterly macabre. I’ll tell you
12-hour time difference was like. about my surprise trip to Italy in next
Yes, planes had always fascinated week’s column, but first I should prob-
me, but it wasn’t until high school that ably give you the rundown for book-
I became engaged in “flyer talk.” I ing airline tickets. Search for fares on
worked at a bakery and my favorite Tuesdays. Airlines release fares every
customer was a Northwest employee. Monday, and will often frantically
Everyday she would come in to get match each other’s prices. Check back
her whole grain raisin cinnamon roll often, because as I’ve said before, win-
and we’d briefly chat about planes — ter is a great time to pick up a great
the DC-9s were finally being phased fare, but it’s almost over! Currently
out, fuel efficiency of the A330s, 757s there are domestic and international
being sent on trans-Atlantic ops. fare sales on all major airlines, some of
There is a special sort of bond that which are only valid until the begin-
aviation enthusiasts share with one ning of next week. For weekend trips,
another that is perhaps not as com- try leaving on a Thursday, coming
municable among those not accus- back Monday or Tuesday, as these are
tomed to the jargon. Do you prefer generally light travel days, meaning
Boeing or Airbus? What do you think cheaper fares will be available.
about the new 787? Are you a fan of If you’re traveling far, try booking
the classic jumbo jet queen of the the long flight from a hub or focus city.
skies, the overpowered 757-200 that Then get yourself there on a discount
climbs like a fighter jet, or do you pre- airline. For example, fares from New
fer the retro MD-80s? York City to Europe are often a frac-
Anyway, my customer led a glam- tion of what they cost from any other
orous lifestyle — meeting with Air- city since there is so much competi-
bus execs in France, jetting off to Am- tion from international airlines. An-
sterdam just for dinner, spending a other possibility is to fly directly to a
long weekend in Monaco.This was in- hub in Europe and buy your onward
this article is a pretty small nutshell
to try to contain the emotion of a
hundred responses.
So why’d I set this thing up in the
Robin
first place?
Thomas Well, in fact, I think this place is
pretty great. I’d have left if there
weren’t something more than career
prospects keeping me here. Let’s let
one of the responses speak for me:“I
Resident life do have to say for all of the com-
There were complaints of poor
plaining I’ve done in an earlier post,
hygiene and students disrespecting I would not have changed a thing
custodial staff (“What, are you used
when deciding to come to Stanford if
to having a maid or something?”). I could go back in time.”
Several were disappointed with the
But could Stanford be better?
noisy party culture ingrained in their Absolutely, just like everything and
dorms and poor leadership by
everyone else. My big frustration is
ResEd staff. A few were angry they hearing so many students having
had never gotten a single.
the exact same conversations about
what’s not working, and then seeing
And so on. You can imagine that so few of them actually do anything
The Stanford Daily
Incorporated 1973
Tonight’s Desk Editors
Cassandra Feliciano
News Editor
Jacob Jaffe
Sports Editor
Stephanie Sara Chong
Features Editor
Jin Zhu
Photo Editor
Amanda Ach
Copy Editor
Johnny
Bartz
leg on a discount carrier. With three
nonstop flights a day from SFO to
Heathrow, London is quite consis-
tently the cheapest destination to fly
to in Europe. The airport is a night-
mare, so allow for lots of commuting
time. Just as a warning, be sure you are
leaving from the same airport that
you arrive to — the last thing you
want is to be traipsing around the UK
looking for podunk regional airport
to catch your Ryanair flight.
Yes, I miss the days where I could
lay out on my deck and identify
planes by the sound of their engines.
Lucky for me (and you too!), under
common wind conditions most in-
bound traffic to SFO passes right over
Stanford, sometimes performing
spectacular banking turns, as they
turn to the northwest to line up for
runway 28R/L. See if you can spot my
personal favorite, the KLM MD-11
that passes Stanford around 1:25 p.m.
It’s a spectacular sky blue aircraft
with a huge engine mounted at the
base of the vertical stabilizer and crisp
white winglets. KLM is actually the
last commercial airline to regularly
operate passenger MD-11s, so it’s a
real treat to be able to see this beauty
in our backyard. Time is limited as on
March 1st the flight is upgraded to a
777-200ER and April 1st it becomes a
777-300ER for the summer.
Have you ever been hit by a bike as
you crane your head to the sky look-
ing at planes? Tell Johnny about it at
jbartz@stanford.edu.
about it — they’re too preoccu-
pied, or shy, or risk-averse. So I
thought, “hey, everyone whining
separately isn’t accomplishing any-
thing. Maybe everyone whining to-
gether will.”
No, a Google Doc won’t revolu-
tionize this University.And I certain-
ly don’t have any big “Plan for En-
acting Change.”All I can really hope
from this thing is that a lot of people
will see it, it’ll show some people
what others are thinking and it’ll get
some people talking.And from what
the history books tell me,it’s “getting
people talking” that’s always made
the world turn.
You can see all the responses for
yourself at http://bit.ly/ventstanford.
What about Stanford drives you nuts?
Tell Robin at robthom@stanford.edu.
The Stanford Daily
Top Tweet
Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Square, spoke yesterday for Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Program. Dorsey imparted business advice and offered insight on the
narrative vision that drives his ideas. Twitter’s market value is now estimated at over $4 billion.
HEALTH
Continued from front page
The company Health Net ad-
ministers Stanford’s insurance
program, Cardinal Care. All stu-
dents have the option of enrolling
Teaching
in Cardinal Care and about 80 per-
cent of international students met
Stanford’s insurance requirement
through the plan last year. Nation-
wide, up to 2,000 colleges and uni-
versities offer health coverage for
an estimated 3 million students,
according to the department.
— Elizabeth Titus
Thursday, February 10, 2011 ! 5
HEART
Continued from front page
searchers four years ago,involves re-
programming adult skin cells to a
stem-cell-like state, known as in-
duced pluripotent stem cells (iPS),
so that they can “differentiate” into
other types of cells — in this case
cardiomyocytes.
The study focused on treating a
genetic disease commonly found
among autistic children and tested
20 different drugs on cells suffering
from irregular heartbeats, or ar-
rhythmia.
Those suffering from Timothy
syndrome have overly lengthy
heartbeats, a symptom known as
long QT. Long QT, which is caused
by a deficient calcium channel and
occurs in one out of 7,000 people,
slows down heart rate by 50 percent.
A typical human heart generates 60
beats per minute. Sufferers of Timo-
thy syndrome have an average lifes-
pan of less than three years.
“Timothy syndrome is a life
threatening disorder for reasons not
understood,” Dolmetsch said. “Part
of it was that the heartbeats were too
long and were fatal. We wanted to
understand all of the underlying rea-
sons.”
Using special dyes, Dolmetsch
can now examine the human heart
at a molecular level and determine
the exact source of Timothy syn-
drome.
JIN ZHU/The Stanford Daily
But he hasn’t been the only one
trying to find a cure.
“Lots of drugs treat this rare dis-
order [but] most don’t work very
well,” Dolmetsch said.
In fact, when researchers in Dol-
metsch’s lab tested some commer-
cial drugs available to long QT pa-
tients,they found that one such drug,
roscovitine, actually generated long
QT symptoms.
He noted that existing drugs
have been tested using cells from
mice. But the structural differences
between the human heart and that
of mice are too great to create accu-
rate parallels in medicine. The nor-
mal heart rate of a mouse is much
higher than a human, clocking in at
500 beats per minute.
“We’re excited that this might be
a potential way of identifying new
drugs,” said Dolmetsch of the latest
research.
“This is just the beginning of a set
of studies,” he added. “A whole
bunch of papers will follow.”
Dolmetsch and his research team
have already begun to recruit pa-
tients with other problems, such as
velo-cardio-facial syndrome, a dis-
order involving deficiencies on spe-
cific chromosomes, and overlap car-
diac arrhythmia, another long QT
disease.
“There are many things that you
can do with his technology,” Dol-
metsch added.“We can revolutionize
the way we study [disease] in people.”
Contact Cassandra Feliciano at ccfeli-
ci@stanford.edu.
6 ! Thursday, February 10, 2011 The Stanford Daily

SPORTS
CARD’S WORK CUT OUT know that she has done an out-
Jacob
Jaffe
Softball opens season standing job in rehab to get ready
for this season.”
Fields of Failure

Friday
With the pitching staff intact

By MILES BENNETT-SMITH
again, the Cardinal will still have to
find a replacement for one of the
top players in Stanford softball his-
tory, Alissa Haber. The graduated
Men’s hoops
needs more
DESK EDITOR
senior outfielder was a four-time
The Stanford softball team All-American and four-time All-
opens up the season with a double Pac-10 First Team selection, finish-
ing her collegiate career with the

consistency
header tomorrow at the Kajikawa
Classic in Tempe, Ariz. The Cardi- Stanford record for doubles.
nal returns 12 letter-winners and “Any time you lose three sen-
six starters from the 2010 squad iors, especially of the caliber of a
that finished with a 37-19 record four-time All-American, a two-
time Pac-10 Defensive Player of

and was eliminated by Texas Tech
in the second round of last year’s
NCAA Tournament.
Now carrying a preseason No.
18 ranking from USA Softball,
Stanford is poised to break
through on the national scene
with a handful of award-winning
players.
Junior infielder Ashley Hansen
has won her fair share of honors in
two seasons on the Farm, with two
First Team All-Pac-10 selections to
add to her National Fastpitch
Coaches Association Second Team
All-American honor as a fresh-
man. She was also named one of
the preseason finalists for USA
Softball Player of the Year.
“It is an honor to be chosen but
as of right now, it means nothing. It
makes me more fired up to go
prove myself this season,” Hansen
said. “I am much more focused on
winning a national championship
right now, and I am looking for-
ward to contributing a lot to my
team.”
Her head coach, John Rittman,
is entering his 15th season on the
Farm and boasts a career 599-277-3
record with 13 consecutive winning
seasons and 13 trips to the NCAA
Tournament. His .683 winning per-
centage is one of the top marks in
Div. I. Rittman has also coached 15
All-Americans at Stanford and is
enamored by the consistency
Hansen has already displayed in
just two years for the Cardinal.
“Ashley Hansen is such a com-
petitor and such a leader for our
program,” Rittman said. “It seems
like she’s been here for years al-
ready because of her consistency
Junior Maya Burns will take over for graduated senior Rosey Neill as the
catcher for the No. 18 Stanford softball team. Burns and the rest of the
Cardinal lineup will have a tough road ahead in the brutal Pac-10.
offensively, defensively, and her
work ethic and attitude. Those are
things you see everyday.”
Hansen looks likely to start at
shortstop this year after moving to
second base to make room for
then-freshman Jenna Rich. The
pair formed quite an impressive
duo up the middle for the Cardinal,
combining for 78 total runs, 86 RBI
and 15 home runs while hitting .331
together.
Rich also worked her way into
the pitching rotation after an injury
to ace Teagan Gerhart midway
through the year and is expected to
feature in the circle for the Cardi-
nal along with the senior Ashley
Chinn and the sophomore Ger-
hart.
BRYAN LIN/The Stanford Daily
The younger sister of former
football-baseball double athlete
Toby, Teagan Gerhart is also look-
ing to regain her form of early last
season when she threw three
straight no-hitters, including a per-
fect game against Santa Clara. Un-
fortunately, Gerhart was sidelined
by an arm injury and couldn’t pitch
in the last 15 games. She still fin-
ished with a 22-6 record and an
ERA of 1.65 — good enough for
Second Team All-West Region
honors and a spot on the All-Pac-
10 Freshman Team.
“Whenever you lose a pitcher of
Teagan Gerhart’s ability, there are
questions about where will she
come back,” Rittman said. “Will
she start up where she left off? I do
the Year, a leader like [Shannon]
Koplitz, there are going to be ques-
tions of who is [going to] fill in
those roles on our team,” Rittman
said.
For the moment, it appears that
the defense is set. Redshirt fresh-
man Tegan Schmidt is back from a
knee injury and taking Haber’s
spot in right field with freshman
Corey Hanewich expected to start
in left. Junior Jenna Becerra will
move over to third base to replace
Koplitz and senior Melisa Koutz
will play first base. Junior Maya
Burns has transitioned from the
outfield to fill graduated senior
Rosey Neill’s big shoes behind the
plate with Hansen, Rich and senior
Sarah Hassman up the middle at
short, second and center field.
“We have a great freshman,
Corey Hanewich, who can be a
dangerous weapon at the plate for
us. She’ll add another great arm
and speed to the outfield and help
fill the hole left by Haber,” Hansen
said.
The Cardinal is certainly going
to be a young team; in addition to
starting a true freshman, there will
be only two seniors starting, but
Rich said that this year is just like
any other.
“Each year is always going to be
different with the loss of veterans
and gain of newcomers. After los-
ing three seniors from last year, we
have a young team this year. The
team dynamic may be different,
but that’s expected year-to-year,”
she said. “And despite having a
Please see SOFTBALL, page 7
I
f you’ve been to a Stanford
men’s basketball game this
year and saw something you
really didn’t expect, you’re not
alone.
That’s because this year, even
more than the past few seasons,Stan-
ford has no consistency.
A prime example — mid-Janu-
ary, Stanford enters a series with the
Washington schools looking to ex-
tend its perfect home record. The
Cardinal is coming off a 10-point
loss to Arizona and now must take
on No. 17 Washington, which has
won six straight and nine of 10, scor-
ing 87 points per game over that
span. So naturally, Stanford held the
Huskies to 56 points and snuck out
of Maples Pavilion with its biggest
win of the season.The Cardinal sud-
denly had momentum and a buzz
about it, and the team carried that
over into its next game against
Washington State, holding a nine-
point halftime lead. And just when
you thought all was well, Stanford
tanked in the second half as the
Cougars outscored the Cardinal,
38-26, for the win.
This inconsistency has marred
every aspect of Stanford’s game this
season.The Cardinal started 9-4,then
went 1-5, then won two of its last
three. Both the offense and the de-
fense have had moments of brilliance
and moments to forget at different
points this season.
In general, Stanford’s saving
grace has been defense.The Cardinal
ranks in the top 40 nationally in scor-
ing defense and recently went 10
straight games without allowing
more than 70 points. This streak was
then broken by Arizona, which is un-
derstandable considering the Wild-

Defense key for

cats are 20th in scoring offense.
What was less expected was Ari-
zona State — the Pac-10’s bottom-
dweller and one of the worst offen-

Card’s roadtrip
sive teams in the nation — coming
into Maples Pavilion on Saturday
and scoring 11 points above its season
average and shooting over 50 per-
cent from the floor for the second
By LAUREN TAYLOR time all season.
STAFF WRITER This brings up an interesting ques-
tion as to how good Stanford’s de-
After collecting two wins and two loss- fense actually is.At times it has been
es during four consecutive games on the excellent, such as the win over Wash-
Farm, Stanford men’s basketball heads ington.On the other hand,the Cardi-
north to face the Washington teams as the nal only ranks 120th in opponents’
second half of the Pac-10 season contin- field-goal percentage — a mark that
LUIS AGUILAR/The Stanford Daily
ues. puts the team just above the median
Tonight the Cardinal (12-10, 5-6 Pac- for the NCAA. Stanford is below av-
Sophomore forward Joslyn Tinkle and the Stanford women’s bas- 10) will take another shot at Washington erage in blocked shots per game and
ketball team are looking to extend several streaks, including 48 State (16-7, 6-5), hoping to avenge last is one of the worst teams in the coun-
straight Pac-10 wins, when the Card takes on Washington State. month’s 61-58 loss to the Cougars. The try in steals,so the Cardinal is certain-
upset sent Stanford back to earth after a ly not your prototypical tough defen-

STREAKING
clutch win over Washington and marked sive team, but the players do play
the first loss of a four-game losing streak, solid team defense.
so the Cardinal intends to alter its ap- More than anything, though, the
proach this time around to enter the con- inconsistency comes from the per-

ALONG
cluding portion of the season on strong
footing.
“We’re seeing teams the second time
around now,” said head coach Johnny
Dawkins. “We have to make our adjust-
By NATE ADAMS ments and get back to the basics.”
MANAGING EDITOR Defense,for example,is a fundamental
that the Cardinal displayed strongly in the
If a still-perfect conference record wasn’t impressive enough, beginning of the season and hopes to re-
Stanford women’s basketball will have an opportunity to take vive in time for tonight’s game.Surprising-
some major steps forward in Pac-10 history when it hosts Wash- ly, Stanford dominated on the offensive
ington State tonight. end and faltered defensively in last week-
The No. 3 Cardinal (20-2, 11-0 Pac-10) tied its own conference end’s win over Arizona State. Dawkins
record for most consecutive wins with a 91-61 rout of Arizona last recognized the need for his squad to step
Saturday, putting the team just one victory shy of an unprecedent- it up and focus on the defensive energy his
ed 49 straight. In another sizeable streak, Stanford completely team previously demonstrated.
owns the all-time series against the Cougars (7-16,5-6),winning all “We have to keep guys in front of us
51 matchups.On top of that,the Cardinal is riding a 56-game home and try to contest all the shots,” he said.
winning streak. “We didn’t do a great job of that this
“It’s quite a record, and something that we can be part of histo- weekend, so we have to get back to play-
ry with,” said sophomore forward Joslyn Tinkle. “So we’re excit- ing sound defense and take pride in get-
ed.” ting stops.”
Both teams are coming off strong victories, scoring over 90 The second half of this matchup will be
points each. That’s especially notable for WSU, which swept its particularly important, according to
first conference series in over a decade last week in Oregon.Wash- Dawkins. He noticed that the team tends
ington State hadn’t taken a two-game set in the Pac-10 since Jan- to become stagnant toward the end of a
uary 2001, when it beat USC and UCLA at home. given game.
The Cougars have shown resilience this season, approaching a “You can’t just settle, and I think we
.500 Pac-10 record after winning only a pair of non-conference did a good job during the first half of
games.And even then, their apparently mediocre record beguiles mixing up what we were doing offen-
their talent: according to rpiratings.com, WSU has endured the sively,” Dawkins said of the last time
18th-toughest schedule in the country. Stanford faced Washington State. “In
Washington State has turned things around with a respectable the second half, the ball didn’t go inside
conference performance, and boasts the reigning Pac-10 Player of as much. We have to be disciplined
the Week in Sage Romberg.The freshman scored 17 points off the enough to know when to take the shot
bench in the Cougars’ come-from-behind, 67-64 win against the and when to drive it.”
Beavers last week, and put up 15 more in a 96-90 thriller over the This is especially necessary against the
Ducks that saw five Cougars reach double-digit point totals. Cougars, as 11 of the last 13 games be-
“I feel like they’ve improved tremendous amounts,” Tinkle tween the two teams have been decided
said about the Cougars. “Granted, they’ve struggled the past few by 10 points or less.In fact,the last time the
Card beat the Cougars in Pullman was a
Please see WBBALL, page 7 67-65 overtime thriller in 2008.
SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily
Freshman Anthony Brown and the
Stanford men’s basketball team will
look for more consistency, particularly
on defense, when they take the road to
take on Washington State tonight.
But Washington State has been on a
decline recently, especially in comparison
with its solid 10-1 start.The team claimed
early victories over Gonzaga and Baylor,
but is just 6-6 since then,coming off a road
split with the Oregon schools.
Offensive aggression should be Wash-
ington State’s biggest weapon against the
Cardinal, with players like Klay Thomp-
son (21.2 points per game), Faisal Aden
(13.6 ppg) and DeAngelo Casto (10.6
ppg) putting up big numbers this season.
Still, Dawkins expects junior guards
Jeremy Green and Jarrett Mann to match
the Cougars’ top talents.
“They’re our leaders in the back-
court,”Dawkins said of Green and Mann.
“We go as they go.”
Dawkins was especially impressed
with the duo’s showing against ASU last
weekend,and expects them to generate a
similar offensive output — Green and
Mann, along with forward Josh Owens,
combined for 53 of Stanford’s 83 points.
“When those guys are playing that
well, I think we are difficult to beat,”
Dawkins said.“We need to learn from the
Please see MBBALL, page 7
formances of the individual players,
and with Stanford’s roster, this
should come as no surprise.The Car-
dinal currently has zero seniors listed
on its roster, and nine of the 15 play-
ers are freshmen. This youth, com-
bined with the on-and-off success
from the team’s more experienced
players, has caused most of the
team’s inconsistency.
Last year’s team, despite having
less overall talent and a 14-18 record,
had the one thing this year’s team is
lacking: a reliable go-to player.
Landry Fields played every bit of that
role in 2009-2010,as he scored at least
14 points in all 32 games and shot at
least 50 percent from the field in half
of them.This kind of dependability is
crucial for the development of a
team, particularly a young team like
Stanford.
This year, though, the Cardinal
has no such go-to player. In fact, no
player has scored even five points in
every game. Stanford’s leading scor-
er, Jeremy Green, is shooting only 38
percent from the floor. Stanford’s
leading rebounder, Josh Owens, has
been held to five or fewer rebounds
nine times this season. The other
starting upperclassman, Jarrett
Mann, has reached double digits in
points only three times all season (in-
cluding twice in the last two games)
and has had more assists than
turnovers in only 10 of the team’s 22
games.
And these are the most experi-
Please see JAFFE, page 7
The Stanford Daily
JAFFE
Continued from page 6
enced members of the team. The
freshmen have each had moments of
brilliance as well as moments of,
well, looking like freshmen. Aaron
Bright has scored in double digits
four times and has been held score-
less four times. Dwight Powell has
shown huge amounts of talent, scor-
ing as many as 20 points and grab-
bing as many as 10 rebounds,but has
also faced foul trouble in nearly
every game, committing at least four
fouls in five of the past six matchups.
Anthony Brown made waves with
21 points in his first start, but fol-
lowed that up with just three total
points in his next two games. John
Gage has hit some big three-point-
ers but has struggled to match up on
the other end of the floor.
This isn’t all just to point out the
faults with Stanford’s team. In truth,
we should all be amazed that such a
young team has managed to stay
over .500 despite lacking a star play-
er.The progress of the Cardinal over
the course of the season,particularly
from its freshmen, bodes extremely
well for the future. In a few years, we
will very likely be singing the praises
of the experienced,veteran Stanford
men’s basketball team.
Jacob Jaffe is working on his skills
and hoping to make it as a walk-on
before the season’s over. Set up a
pity-game at jwjaffe@stanford.edu.
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WBBALL
Continued from page 6
years, but they’ve never really been
a horrible team. I feel like they’ve
brought in a lot of young, talented
players, and it’s helped them.
They’re big inside and they have
good shooters as well.”
On a much shorter timescale,
Stanford has battled back from
some adversity of its own. The Car-
dinal committed 20 fouls and 17
turnovers in a less-than-stellar win
at Arizona State a week ago, and
suffered through an eight-minute
stretch when no Stanford player
could find the basket. While the 72-
54 victory was a comfortable one by
most standards, it marked the Car-
dinal’s smallest margin of victory in
the Pac-10 season.
If anything, the stat sheet served
as a wake-up call.
“We always know what to expect
when we’re playing ASU, they’re a
very scrappy, aggressive, guard-ori-
ented team,” Tinkle said. “That’s a
big weakness of ours, we’re not
comfortable when teams are being
aggressive like that. So that’s some-
thing we’ve been trying to work on
and figure out this previous week,
it’s a big goal of ours.”
Stanford turned things around in
a big way for its match with Arizona.
After head coach Tara VanDerveer
took the players out for a team din-
ner and ice cream on Friday, the
Cardinal came back and dominated
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in a 91-61 pounding that,like WSU’s
win over the Ducks, saw five players
break into double-digit points.
For a team that rotated its talent-
ed through a somewhat fluid set of
lineups early on in the season, last
Saturday’s win marks the latest in a
trend toward a more consistent
group of players getting called to
the court, at least at the outset. Se-
nior point guard Jeanette Pohlen
has been locked in all year with 16.6
points per game and 44.7-percent
three-point shooting, as have junior
forward Nnemakadi Ogwumike
(16.2 points and 8.0 rebounds per
game) and senior forward Kayla
Pedersen (12.5 ppg, 8.2 rpg).
Nnemkadi’s sister, freshman for-
ward Chiney Ogwumike, has start-
ed in all 21 games she’s played in,
and is holding down that spot with
the conference’s second-best shoot-
ing percentage at 56.9. She’s behind
only her sister, who’s leading the
Pac-10 at 57.5 percent.
The fifth spot currently belongs
to junior shooting guard Lindy
LaRocque, who holds a team-best
2.8 assist-to-turnover ratio and
shoots at a 40.8-percent clip from
beyond the arc. For players like Tin-
kle, who has the sixth-most starts on
the team with seven, this means the
chance of earning a spot in the rock-
solid lineup may be getting a little
slimmer.
“That’s something that took a
while, to get our really set-in-stone
lineup in there,”Tinkle said.“But on
any given night, whoever’s playing
well will be out there [at some
point] . . . So for me personally . . .
I’ll focus on doing the best that I can
and take advantage of every second
that I’m out there.”
Returning home for the first
time since Jan. 22, Stanford will tip
off with Washington State tonight at
7 p.m. at Maples Pavilion.
Contact Nate Adams at nbadams@
stanford.edu.
MBBALL
Continued from page 6
last game and bottle that up, because
they can potentially play that well in a
number of games from here on out.”
Though road matchups have been
tough for the Cardinal this season,
the team hopes its recent momentum
will be enough to compensate for
Washington State’s home-court ad-
vantage.
“We have the ability to bounce
back, and we understand the impor-
tance of going to the next play with the
mindset that we have to get a win,”
Dawkins said about facing Washing-
ton State the second time around.
“The coaching staff is doing a great job
of preparation. We already have a
good idea of who they are and what
we need to do to compete against
them.”
Tipoff between Stanford and
Washington State is scheduled for 7
p.m.in Pullman,Wash.
Contact Lauren Taylor at ltaylor7@
stanford.edu.
Level: 1 2 3 4 antsy to return to competition.
SOLUTION TO )EDNESDAY’S PUZZLE
© 2011 The Mepham Group. Distributed by
Tribune Media Services. All rights reserved.
Thursday, February 10, 2011 ! 7
Card looks to stay
perfect against SMU
Stanford faces off
with Mustangs
By WILL SEATON
STAFF WRITER
After passing its first major chal-
lenge of the season with a 5-2 victo-
ry over No. 4 UCLA, the No. 1 Stan-
ford women’s tennis team now pre-
pares to host No. 28 Southern
Methodist University (4-1) Thurs-
day afternoon.
Stanford (4-0) has proved that
despite its relative youth, it’s well
prepared to take care of highly
ranked opponents. Freshman play-
ers usually need time to become ac-
climated to the pressures of playing
such a match, but this group appears
ready.
“They’re really experienced play-
ers already,” said head coach Lele
Forood.“They’ve played on interna-
tional stages and at Grand Slam
events. If they’re intimidated by
UCLA in February, we’re in trou-
ble.”
The experience Forood men-
tioned is indeed impressive. Fresh-
man Kristie Ahn has a career-high
singles ranking of 304, achieved in
June 2009 at the age of 17. She made
it to the finals of a $50,000 singles
event in Carson, Calif., before losing
to fellow American up-and-comer
CoCo Vandeweghe. She also faced
off against then-No. 7 Dinara Safina
in the first round of the 2008 U.S.
Open.
Fellow freshman Nicole Gibbs
has a career-high singles ranking of
356, achieved in September 2010,
and has played mixed doubles in the
U.S. Open with fellow American
Sam Querrey, ranked 17th in the
world on the men’s side. The two
have partnered up in several ITF
events, including winning a $50,000
Pro Circuit tournament in Raleigh,
N.C. over the No. 3 seed duo of
Alexandra Mueller and Ahsha
Rolle by scores of 6-3, 6-2.
With such promising futures on
the professional circuit, the girls
chose to attend Stanford for its team
dynamics and consistent level of
play.
“Having team practice is awe-
some because there is no other
venue I know of where I have 10 girls
who play at a really high competitive
level, and who I can practice with
and feed off of every day,” Gibbs
said.“That’s been really helpful.”
“The consistency of competition
in college tennis has been beneficial
to me also,” she continued.“We play
so many matches that I’m really al-
ways match ready.When I go to indi-
vidual tournaments or professional
tournaments now, I’m playing really
well.”
Still, the pair will lose occasional-
ly, as it did this past weekend. Ahn
and Gibbs lost, 8-6, at the No. 2 spot
in doubles to UCLA’s Hickey and
2/10/11
Complete the grid
so each row,
column and
3-by-3 box
(in bold borders)
contains every
digit, 1 to 9.
For strategies on
how to solve Su-
doku, visit www.su-
doku.org.uk
SIMON WARBY/The Stanford Daily
Freshman Kristie Ahn brings an in-
ordinate amount of experience for a
freshman, having already compet-
ed in the U.S. Open. She and the
No. 1 Card will take on SMU today.
Jones. The team was able to rally
past that, eventually winning the
doubles point with victories at the
No. 1 and No. 3 spots.
“Kristie and I struggled a little bit
in the doubles, but obviously it did-
n’t have an impact on the overall
score,” Gibbs said. “We were pretty
quickly able to shake off that loss. I
think we both turned around really
well and I think we were able to put
110 percent into our singles per-
formance.”
Faced with another tough oppo-
nent in SMU Thursday afternoon,
the Cardinal will go into the match
prepared to fight against a worthy
challenger.
“SMU is a good team,” Forood
said. “We saw them last year in the
NCAA Tourney in the earlier
rounds. They have some highly
ranked players in the top half of
their team so hopefully they’ll be a
good challenge for our players.”
As the top-ranked team in the
country and defending national
champion, the Cardinal knows that
teams like SMU approach each
matchup with Stanford with in-
creased energy.
“You have to embrace it,” Gibbs
said about the target on Stanford’s
back. “It’s something that just con-
firms the fact that we’re a really, re-
ally solid team. At the same time, it
makes us work that much harder
knowing everyone else is in practice
thinking about how they’re going to
beat Stanford in the next team com-
petition.”
Stanford women’s tennis will
continue its march through the sea-
son this afternoon against SMU at
1:30 p.m.
Contact Will Seaton at wseaton@stan-
ford.edu.
SOFTBALL
Continued from page 6
young team, we still have high ex-
pectations.”
According to Rittman, practices
with the new team have been going
extremely well and the team is
“We have really benefited from
this great weather and the team is
really just ready to play. Everyone
is tired of facing their teammates in
practice and are ready to face a
team in another uniform,” Rittman
said. “I’ve been very impressed
with their attitude and work ethic
— the team is really coming to-
gether.”
There will be little time to figure
things out for the young squad.
Stanford takes on Cal State North-
ridge and North Texas on Friday
and then faces two perennial
NCAA Tournament contenders in
Nebraska and Portland State.
“I’m looking forward to seeing
what this team can do together,”
Hansen said. “We have a very tal-
ented group of girls and this season
is where we can finally show off
what we can do. As a team, if we
each take care of ourselves and do
the little things, we will be playing
in Oklahoma City in June.”
The Cardinal is slated to play a
grueling preseason schedule with
eight opponents that qualified for
the 2010 NCAA Tournament.Then
comes the Pac-10, which many ana-
lysts see as the deepest and most
difficult conference in the country.
Stanford was sixth in the coach-
es’ preseason poll with defending
national champion UCLA and
runner-up Arizona splitting the top
spot.
Friday’s season opener against
Cal State Northridge is scheduled
for 11 a.m. PST in Tempe, Ariz.
Contact Miles Bennett-Smith at
milesbs@stanford.edu.
8 ! Thursday, February 10, 2011 The Stanford Daily

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