Stanford Report, February 11, 2004

HISTORIAN NORMAN NAIMARK, writing in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Jan. 21, offered his perspective of the complicated issues and emotions raised by the establishment of a foundation that seeks to create a research center and museum in Berlin dedicated to studying forced population transfers in 20th-century Europe, including the expulsion of 15 million ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Sentiment against a memorial to German victims is particularly high in Poland and the Czech Republic, where, Naimark noted, the treatment of Germans at the fall of the Third Reich showed all the signs of being an ethnic cleansing that was in part a reaction to Nazi atrocities. Naimark, the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, suggested that the topic of the expulsion of the Germans deserves further study, and that more public discussion is needed before deciding whether to build the center and museum.

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE reported Feb. 5 that ELIZABETH RADER, a fellow at the Law School, is representing a nonprofit organization that has filed a federal countersuit against Bikram Choudhury, the master who copyrighted, trademarked and franchised 26 yoga postures. The nonprofit Open Source Yoga Unity argues that yoga is a 5,000-year-old tradition that cannot be owned. "We're not disputing that Mr. Choudhury did something creative and useful in putting the postures together in a certain order," said Rader, a copyright attorney. Choudhury took the 26 postures from 84 classical ones that have been taught in India for centuries, she argued. "Our belief is that you can't treat the poses as private property," she said.

A SIDE EFFECT OF MARGARET NEALE's role as a widely known researcher of negotiation behavior and strategies is that she occasionally gets what she calls "the Sunday night phone call" from friends of friends who are frantically seeking advice on how to negotiate buying a house. "What I often hear is, 'I've fallen in love with the house,'" and the buyer can't bring himself to think of losing it in a deal. But the buyer also is terrified of overpaying, Neale told the Chicago Tribune Feb. 8. In those cases, her advice usually is: You might as well pay the price and get it over with. "You shouldn't fall in love with anything that you're going to negotiate over," said Neale, the John G. McCoy-Banc One Corporation Professor of Organizations and Dispute Resolution in the Graduate School of Business. "If I'm the seller and I find out you're in love, it's all over. What you need is an option. If you're going to fall in love, then I say you'd better fall in love with two or three houses."