I've been thinking about nutrition a lot lately. Academic-wise, there is Michael Pollan's visit to Stanford today ("In Defense of Food: The Omnivore's Solution" 7:30 PM in Kresge), dining room discussions of recent articles in the New York Times about stigmas associated with subsidized public school lunches and (separately) "drunkorexia". On campus, we have Stanford's "Be Well" initiative, my post about the deceptively high caloric meals at the Axe & Palm, Manzanita's Week of Wellness, and Mirror's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week events last week.

Stanford seems to present a health goal for its students and staff. Be Well. Get $150. But this message comes at students in a very confusing way:

Stanford Dining Halls serve healthy food! Stanford Dining halls serve pizza! Pizza has fewer calories than the pasta dish! You are required to eat at Stanford Dining if you live in a dorm, even if you have many specific dietary needs! Be well! Eat vegetables! Stanford Dining vegetables are covered in sticky sweet "sauce"! Salad bar vegetables are unripe! Eat from the salad bar if you are vegan! Eat fruit - we have the same bananas, apples, and oranges year-round, but if you rush to Branner Dining when it opens you might even get some grapes from the garnish on the brownie plate! Check out the nutritional content online! Eat the high calorie protein entrées because you have no other dining option! Be fit! Exercise! Our facilities are conveniently open all day long, so you can exercise anytime of the day . . . or multiple times a day . . . or go at times when your RA and roommates aren't awake to notice . . .

Oh yeah, and don't have an eating disorder. Love your body?

Perhaps I'm being cynical, but these messages are thrown around everywhere, and it scares me. I spoke on the closing panel for the Manzanita Week of Wellness mentioned above. The attendance was primarily staff interested in the primarily staff-targeted Be Well campaign. While mingling before the event, Stanford Dining catering services brought out a standard arrangement of fruits, cheese, crackers, crudités, and cookies. The staff and student presenters snacked while talking, but it seemed that half of the staff discussion was on the food. Comments like "Oh you're having a cookie - that's not necessarily wellness, is it?" and "That cheese looks amazing, but I can't allow myself to have any!" dominated about half of the conversation.

As the staff socially supported one another in avoiding, or eating half of, the cheese, crackers, cookies, and fruit, I felt horrified. These are the sorts of comments and behaviors I recognize in people with eating disorders. These are the comments I was supposed to interrupt and educate about when I worked at a youth center. These comments are being passed down through the Stanford Be Well Initiative, to staff, to the student presenters on this panel. RFs were either making these comments, or implicitly supporting them with silence.

When Stanford freshmen arrive with their not-quite-developed prefrontal cortexes they don't necessarily get the right tools to make good lifestyle patterns. Set loose into this mixed-messages world with little or no experience in meal planning, they get sucked into either the trap of desperately avoiding the Freshman 15, or into the trap of assuming cafeteria food is healthy and gaining weight - both resulting in skewed ideas of how to lose weight.

Perhaps the recent obsession with food discussion here and elsewhere is the result of factors like the end of Lent approaching, diet resolutions from the new year failing, people concerned about looking good in a bathing suit, etc. But I think it isn't the result of a sudden change in personal attitude and behavior. People are becoming more and more comfortable talking about their personal dieting patterns. Is this increased discussion and social focus on how to eat better helping or hurting the prevalence of disordered eating?

Update:

aw:
I noticed this the other day, too.
To add a new spin to this, has anyone drawn the connection between the sidewalk writings and the graffiti on the back of the stall door on the first floor men's bathroom?
The writings are pretty much exactly the same. This was probably a project to replicate what was on the door.

Now the piece makes sense. I’m a girl, I don’t use the men’s bathroom. The project seems to be about replicating the hidden and making it public. It seems to be about asking what the impact of the statements on the bathroom walls would be if it was made public.

Note to authors/artists: it would have been nice to know that. My understanding, from an informal poll, is that the men’s and women’s bathroom are vastly different here at Stanford. For example, not a lot of writing on the bathroom walls going on, so the reference to writing on the bathroom walls slipped past me. Also apparently, women's bathrooms have more private stalls. Without the context I though the content expressed your views. Maybe next time say what your referencing more explicitly? The comments were offensive and without the context of what you were doing it seemed like a bunch of random comments with some offensive speech thrown in.

Also, to those who say I’m calling for censorship. I was pointing out that, as I perceived it, the art project wasn't art but merely banality due to its reliance on offensive speech . Never in my writing did I call for censorship. Calling something banal and offensive or sexist, racist, or homophobic is not censorship. Calling a piece of art offensive can lead to a discussion, particularly about art (since this seemed to be an art project) about whether the community feels the art should stay in place or be removed. Also, questioning whether or not something is art (and I originally felt it wasn't art) is good.

The writing on the men's bathroom wall - not art, and also offensive. The words and expressions written down are homophobic, racist, and sexist. The replication of the bathroom wall, to, I'm supposing, reveal and expose, this hidden sentiment of vitriol seems to be art (again I would say to the artists, give a context so people know what your intention is). And is actually kinda scary.

These comments are written in anonymity (kinda like internet comments). People writing on the bathroom walls can express their sentiments without fear of being exposed as the author. In the men's restroom, you can even suppose the authors can write without fear of a fellow female student seeing the comments and jokes.

The writings have been exposed, but the authors are still anonymous.

I apologize to the artists for thinking that the content expressed their views.

Original Post
I’m used to walking through campus and seeing random bits of shout outs written in chalk on the pavement. For instance, today, ROHO is out in force (with a website to boot).

However, what I saw yesterday morning has me wondering about the line between provocation, art, sexism, racism, and banality. When does an attempt at art become vitriol? Are random sexist and racist statements really art?

As I was walking to Meyer from Escondido I encountered the following:

Hungry (with arrow pointing to)
Talk to me
Brandi hearts Justin
My husband flicks his tongue like a dyke

Right there, out in the middle of the walkway, a word often used to silence women and dismiss them. A way of disenfranchising lesbians. An ugly word without context. Was this part of a poem, then which poem? Part of a larger statement somewhere? I had no context in which to judge the statement. "My husband flicks his tongue like a dyke." Dyke, a lesbian who is noticeably masculine. A woman who has transgressed social gender norms. A way of othering both lesbians and women. A word often used to silence them

As I continued towards Meyer a mangled references to the sound of silence by Paul Simon “the words of the prophet are written on the bathroom stalls." It sounded like someone was trying to be deep, but the prior chalk outlines (with the arrows pointing me to Meyer) made it just banal. Pompous. Mental masturbation. Someone thinking they were deep because they used offensive language.

As I looked at the writing to I saw references to Andrew Jackson Pollock as a blind guardian of culture and words “ see my face on a $20 Bill Smallpox, genocidal American quilts, etc.” There was an arrow with salad written inside. It looked as if several individuals had been writing quotes and then writing to each other and quotes and responses cover the walkway.

I know this shit isn’t great but what exactly do you get when griffens and Cardinals mate
Babies
UGLY OVEREDUCATED ONES
Well, the bitches at this place are that’s for sure (arrow pointing to overeducated)

Walking down the streets of Santiago (or anywhere else in Chile or Argentina) female Stanford students can expect to receive acknowledgement that they are attractice. The person acknowledging their beauty can be a taxi driver, a man walking down the street, construction workers, or anyone else.

The acknowledgement can range from slightly funny but still tasteful (my favorites are the man in Mendoza, Argentina that told a friend and I “you two, you are very pretty,” and the clerk in the Santiago shoe store that told me I had very beautiful eyes); to the still amusing but slightly annoying- whistles, claps, loud kissy noises; and then the worst- the men who just stare at you on the subway and do not look away, or the college aged boys who lean into your personal bubble space when you walk by to say “linda” or beautiful.

We’ve discussed this in our Spanish classes here at the Stanford in Santiago center, and my Spanish teacher strongly defends it as a cultural practice, insisting that it is a compliment to our looks. Yet in our discussions most of the (US) girls in the room indicated that it made them uncomfortable, that it made them feel like they were only a sexual object. I know from my personal experience I’ve avoided walking past certain groups of guys because I don’t want to feel uncomfortable. And yet even listening to all of us describe our feelings of uncomfortableness, and thinking that we’re just sexual objects, my Spanish teacher still maintains that it’s a compliment, and we should take it as such.

John L. Hennessy is the 10th President of Stanford University and a pioneer of computer architecture.


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John Hennessy started at Stanford as an associate professor in Electrical Engineering in 1977 and assumed Presidency in 2000. A technologist at the core, President Hennessy pioneered a computer assembly language called MIPS in 1981 and started a company, MIPS Computer Systems, in 1984. As Stanford’s 10th president, he oversees the University from various perspectives and sits at the intersection of academics, technology, and the corporate world.

In this interview, he talks about his role as the President, the early years of running a startup, current issues Stanford University faces, and the future of information technology. He also gives advice to prospective students and budding entrepreneurs.

He is currently on the board at Google, Cisco Systems, and Atheros Communications, and has written two foundational books on computer architecture and assembly language.

- Min Liu of iinnovate

Last week, on March 6, Apple released the developer’s kit for the iPhone. With this kit, Apple has handed the keys of the iPhone to developers, opening up the device to third party applications.

This is a huge step in the evolution of the iPhone. Already hugely successful, the iPhone boasts sales numbers of 4 million units, second only to RIM, the maker of the Blackberry. With the release of the developer kit, the iPhone will be able to have expandability previously unseen. Up until now, all iPhone applications were web-based, or they were small fringe applications hacked together by a small community. Apple’s newly released developer’s kit allows programmers to tap into the iPhone and use its resources to their full potential.

With the addition of third party applications, the iPhone looks much more attractive. Many people held off on the iPhone because of its previous lack of third party applications, and understandably so. Often times, it is the third party applications that make a device useful or desirable, and without it, we would be stuck with what Apple wanted to give us. New possibilities are available now. AOL plans its instant messaging client for the iPhone. A PDA medical software company promises to create a application that allows doctors to identify pills with the iPhone. Also, several games have been ported, in just two weeks. SEGA’s “SuperMonkeyBall” and EA’s “Spore” have been ported in just two weeks. Both of these games use the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer for the controls.

Many iPhone owners, myself included, have been waiting the the release of the iPhone for the support of third party applications. The software update that supports third party applications will be released in late June and will also be available for the iPod Touch for a fee. The following months should be very exciting for iPhone owners...

I saw this in front of Meyer yesterday. It is a response to the exposure of bathroom graffiti that occurred last week.

Here are some images:

A few weeks ago, a friend and I hosted a program at the Women’s Center about queer representation in the mainstream media, and specifically how queer women are depicted on the Showtime hit drama, The L Word . It’s hard to watch this show and not have an opinion, and apparently lots of people do. Ultimately, the shows’ aim is entertainment, and while we are not expecting confrontational questions of paradigm challenging proportions, is it that unreasonable to ask for a little diversity? All of the characters fit the classic mold of a Hollywood drama, white, tall, thin, beautiful, rich, trendy, and in this case, gay. While their are characters of color that intermittently make appearances on the show, and socioeconomic diversity is hinted at times, the show glosses over all of the nuance, and fails to address the hard-hitting questions that are asked about female homosexuality. I guess you just can’t expect that much from Hollywood.

On the other hand, an informal survey conducted at our event indicates that queer women at Stanford, though they acknowledge the shows’ limitations, feel that some representation is better than no representation. The show is the first and only of it’s kind on air today, but its merits are dubious at best.

What do you guys think?

All Spring Break, I've had this song stuck in my head. This is a cover of "Feel Good Inc" by Gorillaz. Done by Jack Conte, '06 and posted on YouTube:

Direct link to video
Jack's YouTube Channel
Jack's mySpace