Film Rang True
The Help rang so true with me when I saw it ("The Whole World in His Plans," March/April). I spent four high school years in Middle Tennessee and ran across many of the attitudes of the white people shown in the movie. I was struck that someone had the foresight to document what went on and the attitudes of many of the people. I had been brought up all over the country, but my roots and attitudes were most heavily influenced by the Swedes in Minnesota—attitudes very different from those I observed throughout the South. The movie brought back so many incidents, such as the time I was going into the post office and held the door for a woman who was obviously about to come out. No words were spoken,but she refused to come out until I had entered. She was black. Then there was the time a woman actually stepped off the curb as I was walking past. As a waiter in the dormitory dining hall, several times on hot days I asked the cooks to join us at the table rather than eat standing by the hot stoves in the kitchen. You would have thought I had issued an invitation to their own lynching, although I didn't know it at the time.
A few years ago in Kenya, my Chinese-born wife and I got up early to watch and photograph the sunrise over the Indian Ocean. Each of us set off trying to get shots we liked. Not knowing we were together, the black security guard asked her why white people thought they were superior to everyone else.
Until I read Mike Antonucci's article about Jeff Skoll I didn't realize that a fellow Stanford MBA was responsible for making The Help. He certainly caught the mood of the 1950s. I hope we have left those times behind us in this country, and I hope they will change throughout the world quickly.
Congratulations to Skoll for being instrumental in making the movie, and congratulations to the American public for recognizing the work.
Robert West, '61, MBA '70
Sacramento, California
Up With Vegetables
As a flexitarian—mostly a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat—I loved "The Good-Enough Vegetarian," by Helen Anderson, '14 (Farm Report, March/April). It brought to mind my top 10 reasons to be a vegetarian, few of which would resonate with the animal-rights folks: Vegetables are cheaper; vegetables cook faster; undercooking vegetables won't make you sick (they may even taste better); vegetables are more healthful for you in the long run; vegetables feel no pain (as far as we know); vegetables are easier on the teeth; vegetables keep longer in the refrigerator (and when they go bad, it's obvious); vegetables are easier on the environment; vegetables have no leftover bones to attract bugs; and, because they're boneless, you can eat vegetables with silverware and not get your fingers all greasy.
David Sobelsohn, Gr. '79
Washington, D.C.
There are mountains of scientific evidence clearly pointing to a plant diet created by a successful partnership between plants and human-like apes over hundreds of millions of years. This is not dogmatic, personal or philosophical ideology, but crushing scientific evidence. People who ultimately eat what they "feel good about" are, at best, misinformed and will pay for their disregard of scientific evidence and self-preservation with pain, suffering, disabilities, loss of mobility and cognitive impairment, early morbidity and mortality.
In the last 100 years, well done epidemiological research—objective, independent, with excellent methodology and without conflict of interest—has revealed that the more meat, dairy and oils we eat the higher the rate of death from all Western diseases, while the more plants we eat the lower the death rate from all causes.
You can see the clear progression of these published scientific revelations in the graphs—science's visual paraphrase of numerical data—of milestone studies by distinguished scientists such as H.P. Himsworth (1925), N. Jollife and M. Archer (1959), K.K. Carroll (1986), L.A. Frassetto (2000) and the monumental epidemiological work of T.C. Campbell's The China Project.
Two salient facts are worth mentioning: There is not a single nutrient in any meat or dairy food that plants don't have in abundance; plants have hundreds of thousands of nutrients and phytochemicals that meats, including fish, don't have.
This is not coincidence, but an evolutionary partnership between the plants and advanced mammals—apes and humans—in intelligently using the available resources in this planet that plants have used successfully for hundreds of millions of years to survive.
Consider these facts. Somewhere between 5 billion and 3 billion years ago bacteria and unicellular plants learned how to use the sun successfully to photosynthesize energy and produce chlorophyll, without which they could not survive and evolve into higher evolutionary levels.
We learn from our elders. By their communicating with us with their microRNA, we learned from plants to use the sun to create a hormone (vitamin D) that mimics plants while protecting our latent immune system from pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi, cancers, DNA damage, etc.) with receptors for it in every cell and parts of our genome. Indeed, sections of our latent immunity have been found in fossils at least 650 million years old in geologic eras before the advent of mammals or even dinosaurs, strongly suggesting an evolutionary progression in better utilization of planetary resources as well as cross-cultural education from plants to animals, you and me included.
But more telling is the startling discovery in the last decade of salvestrols, phytochemicals produced by plants in response to fungi attacks. The first one discovered was resveratrol. When ingested, salvestrols enter cells and, upon activation by the super-expressed enzyme CYP1B1 present only in all pre-cancer and cancer cells, create toxic metabolites that reprogram cancers cells to commit suicide, called apoptosis.
Here is where it gets fascinating. Salvestrols were first created by plants around 150 million years ago. Salvestrols are so important to protect our bodies from all kinds of cancer cells that our liver has learned to let them go through without detoxification to keep these compounds intact for as long as possible in the bloodstream. Healthy cells have no CYP1B1 enzyme so the salvestrols don't harm any of them, only cancer cells. Our bodies make around 1,000 cancer cells daily. Each has the over-expressed CYP1B1 enzyme waiting for the salvestrols it expects that we will eat in organic fruits and vegetables (not sprayed with fungicides) to destroy the cancers. You can say that salvestrols are nature's oncologists that do no harm. Can you think of a more dramatic life-death partnership?
In the coming decades, good science will surely uncover more links in this epigenetic evolutionary partnership between our planet resources, the sun, plants and us. Meanwhile, if you are a well-informed, self-protecting rational being, eat organic plants (mainly fruits and vegetables) only. Not simply because you casually 'feel good about it,' but because we are meant to do so.
As Gregory House, MD, would say—it fits!
Jaime Ruiz, Gr. '74
Miami, Florida
Big Apple Seed
Sometimes opportunity is disguised in disappointment. Stanford NYC did not work out, but it was an inspiring glimpse at what Stanford could do ("Stanford Withdraws Its N.Y. Bid," Farm Report, March/April). After reading your article, I found myself wondering, Is there not another 10-acre—or perhaps 1,000-acre—parcel on which Stanford could do this?
Leland and Jane Stanford's goal to "promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization" begs the question: Are there other locations that have both the need and the elements for success for a great university presence?
The ingredients are there. The need among those aspiring to get an excellent education is clear: An admission officer at an Ivy League university said they could fill another university of equal size and quality from the current applicant pool. Amusing comments about the Ivy League aside, I expect that is so at Stanford as well. The nation's and world's need for such educated people is manifest. And thanks to hard work and good fortune, Stanford has the reputation, know-how and resources to do this. (The recent Stanford Challenge alone raised more money than the total endowments of all but the top 15 universities in the United States).
Leland and Jane shared a vision and mandate. I suggest channeling the inspiration that was Stanford NYC into an even better opportunity. At the risk of thinking big, let's take the first steps to building a second campus with not 2,000 but 20,000 students, a great campus that rivals the one in Palo Alto.
Frank Selker, MS '85
Portland, Oregon
I was pleased to read that Stanford discontinued its effort to open a campus in New York City. I continue in the opinion that Stanford's location, situation and identity ought not to be diluted and that, as with others of the world's great institutions, movement should be towards rather than away from it.
Stoddard "Chip" Martin, '70
London, England
Water Pressure
Bruce Hamilton states in his letter ("Water in the West," March/April), "The Earth's human population has reached 7 billion and will continue to increase, so the pressures on its limited water supply will only continue to grow."
Why not put more energy into encouraging couples to have fewer children, through tax breaks and education? Many women could develop a greater sense of self worth. What are the financial, physical, mental and spiritual responsibilities in having and raising a child? There are plenty of children already here who could use a loving mom and dad.
As the world population becomes balanced, fear of not having enough, leading to greed, poverty and even violence, will diminish, resulting in a greater sense of good and harmony for all.
Jackie Leonard-Dimmick
Atherton, California
Fans Lose Out
Ever since I graduated from Stanford I have attended its home football games ("Change Afoot for the Cardinal Next Season," Farm Report, March/April). When my children were old enough, it even became a family affair. We would ride our bikes to the game, sit in the cheap seats on the sunny side, and keep the kids happy with snacks until they were old enough to root for the home team. We continued the tradition of season tickets (but better seats on the shady side) when there were just the two of us. Then a couple of years ago, football schedules changed at the last minute and instead of playing in the afternoon, the game was played at night. There were more TBDs on the schedule than actual times. We stopped getting season tickets but would take in an afternoon game when they were held.
Of course, Big Game was sacred and we always ordered tickets way in advance with a group of friends. Last November, our group met for a late lunch because Big Game was not being held at its regular time of 12:30 p.m. but at 5:30 p.m. It was a cold and rainy night. And most members of our group decided not to attend.
So, maybe it should not have come as a surprise when the Stanford-Cal schedule for 2012 revealed that Big Game was moved to October, smack in the middle of the season. The Stanford-Cal rivalry is a tradition equal to Army vs. Navy, Harvard vs. Yale. Stanford and Cal both objected but lost out to a majority of the newly constituted Pac-12. Why? Television. Dollars. College football has become a pawn of television and the so-called attention, prestige and dollars it brings. The new schedule means UCLA does not play Oregon in 2012 and Washington State and Oregon State do not face USC. Why did they ever expand the Pac-10 to the Pac-12 and bring in Utah and the University of Colorado-Boulder and split the conference into north and south? Again, the answer has to be money. Alas, the sport has become a big business and tradition and fans are the losers.
Sue Goodstein Lempert, '52
San Mateo, California
New Yorker Aspirations?
The Old Alumna thinks The Young Alumnus was going for Shouts & Murmurs but ended up an End Note ("Leisure, Pursuits," March/April).
Martha Freeman, '78
State College, Pennsylvania
Bad Change, Good Change
In your interesting January/February article "Water Course" about the 12 sophomores' two-week class rafting through the Grand Canyon, Kevin Cool describes an "ecological problem associated with the Glen Canyon Dam." Colder water and the introduction of trout "had made life miserable for the endangered humpback chub." He further states that removal of tens of thousands of trout have helped the chubs recover. Why is displacing relatively worthless chubs with coveted trout a problem?
In contrast to chubs, trout provide quality and healthful food for humans as well as healthy exercise and recreation. Why is a beneficial change a problem? Our current president's primary campaign pledge was for change (with the implication that change is desirable), and the American people expressed great support for change. Although one can legitimately agree that some of his changes are not beneficial, to me trout for chubs is beneficial. In the article "Trout Fishing in Academia" (Farm Report, January/February), how to fish for trout was a suggested topic for the admission essay at Stanford in 1900. Trout, not chub.
Liberals and tree huggers appear to think that any change in the natural environment is bad but changes in our constitutionally limited government and free enterprise capitalistic systems are good. I believe that changes in our limited government, free enterprise, capitalistic system are bad, but that beneficial changes that alter our natural environment are good, not bad.
The article quotes Professor Buzz Thompson, "If I could solve one thing, it would be to restore the Mexican delta of the Colorado River" to the network of estuaries and tidal marshes that are now a giant mud flat. One of the possible remedies proposed was to buy water rights sufficient to ensure a steady flow through the delta to the sea. This would entail either taking water away from Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities or from productive farmland and letting it flow wasted to the sea.
Since taking water from the millions of people that live in the cities is not politically possible, it would have to come from arguably the most productive farmland in the world, the Imperial Valley. This would convert productive farmland into a dust bowl and create massive unemployment in a county that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. This would result in higher food prices and lower income tax collection and more welfare expenses.
I can not understand how that change would solve anything or how such a disastrous effect on our economy and the lives of so many people could be considered by anybody as a remedy.
John L. Gregg, '55
Newport Beach, California
More on Zombies
I enjoyed your article about Steven Schlozman, '88 ("Zombies on the Brain," Planet Cardinal, November/December). However, you missed an opportunity to praise an alum. Rhett Reese, '91, wrote the screenplay for Zombieland and is the writer for the probable TV series on zombies. Hope you can give him a plug. He has lots of alumnae fans.
The magazine is terrific. My husband, John Gamble, '67, and I always enjoy it.
Laura Gamble, '67
Carmel, California
Those 'Aha' Moments
I had had little stage or acting experience when I was cast in some of the skits for the 1956 Gaieties ("The Show Goes On," November/December). The audience in MemAud was large, and in a comedy skit, my lines were met with tremendous laughter. It was an "aha" moment. I had the ability and power to make people laugh—or cry or feel other emotions. It would lead to 50 years of acting and directing in which there would be many "aha" moments. But that one would always be special. Stanford gave me many gifts, but Gaieties 1956 was one of the best.
Alexandra Carter, '58
Pinehurst, North Carolina
The following letter did not appear in the print edition of Stanford.
Old Men
Take an angry old man, coop him up in a secluded library, allow him the liberty of self-withdrawal from social intercourse (and perhaps other types), let him opine secretly for 20 years addressing disappointments and perceived failures of personally owned and others’ projects, and you might expect a “memoir-cum-jeremiad” such as Freedom Betrayed (“Don’t Believe Everything They Tell You,” Farm Report, March/April).
Horrible as the “brushed aside” aspects might be, the title admonition might equally apply to [Herbert] Hoover’s “tellings.”
Revisionist history is all too easily born from rants by long-dead authorities. In addition, who is surprised by the perfidies of the past, true or less than true, in light of current revelations on the political front revealed by our lightning-speed information systems?
Next thing you know we will be reading diatribes of all sorts from well documented research by Hirohito, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Timothy Leary.
Alonzo Olsen, '60
San Jose, California
Editor's note: This article has been altered from the print version.
