Yale Bulletin and Calendar

December 6-13, 1999

Volume 28, Number 15

. . . In the News . . .

"Yale will win, 24-21. Because God is just."

-- Historian Donald Kagan, "Predictions," Yale-Harvard Issue of the Yale Daily News, Nov. 20, 1999. (Note: Actual final score of "The Game": Yale 24-Harvard 21)

"What [young children who ask parents if they used drugs] really want to hear is, 'We are going to take care of you, you don't have to worry about it.' [With adolescents], it's useful to say, 'Yeah, I did it.' Then you can say, 'Let's talk about why I was lucky and what happens when you're not.'"

-- Child psychiatrist Dr. Steven Berkowitz, "Just Don't Say No, Not Us," Newsweek, Sept. 6, 1999.

"The national project is designed to demonstrate that the approach the institute has taken for more than 20 years in New Haven can be tailored to establish similarly effective university-school partnerships under different circumstances in other cities."

-- Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute James R. Vivian, "Yale-City Teacher Ties Now a National Model," New Haven Register, Nov. 6, 1999.

"Our obsession with automobiles destroyed our cities. We tore our cities apart. A city by definition is a civilization. The suburbs fit in just fine, but they have to be done like towns. All Americans have loved the small town and the single-family house."

-- Architectural historian Vincent Scully, "It's Got His Name All Over It; Scully Prize to Honor Architecture Scholars," The Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1999.

"Even the most elderly benefit radically from stopping smoking. Lung rehabilitation even happens in 80-year-olds."

-- School of Nursing lecturer Janine K. Cataldo, "It's Never Too Late to Get Off Your Butts," New Haven Register, Nov. 11, 1999.

"Yale hired me to be a football coach. That's what I try to do. I just want to coach and win football games."

--Bulldogs coach Jack Siedlecki, "Coach Means Business," The Hartford Courant, Nov. 18, 1999.

"[I]t is not clear whether the net economic effects from climate change over the next century will be harmful or helpful. The new research further suggests that ... many countries will benefit from warming -- the very countries, ironically, that have contributed the most to historic emissions."

-- Forestry policy expert Robert Mendelsohn, "Ever the Global Gloomster," Washington Post, Nov. 18, 1999.

"The problem with dioxins [found in tampons] is they don't just go away. They accumulate and accumulate and accumulate."

-- Obstetrics/gynecology professor Dr. David Olive, "Marketing Dioxin to Women," The Hartford Courant, Nov. 16, 1999.

"Arms control is in deep crisis because treaties are biting the dust."

-- Political scientist Paul Bracken, "Arms Control at a Critical Crossroads," Copley News Service, Nov. 12, 1999.

"We lived through one AIDS crisis, and we can't afford another. This technology has the potential to prevent that from happening again."

-- Medical school professor Dr. Edward L. Snyder, "Scrubbing the Blood Supply: New Technology Will Make Transfusions Much Safer," Businessweek Online, Nov. 15, 1999.

"When the government measures the nation's economic growth, the clearing of a forest to provide timber shows up as a 'plus' because it is considered economic activity. What may have been lost with the forest -- the wildlife that inhabited it, or the trees that controlled soil erosion -- does not show up as a 'minus.' In fact, these losses do not show up at all."

-- Economist William D. Nordhaus, in his article "Accounting for Resources Clarifies Cost," New Haven Register, Nov. 16, 1999.

"[Environmental reviews of future trade agreements will] ensure that the inescapable connections between trade policymaking and environmental policymaking will be taken seriously."

--Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy director Daniel Esty, "White House Vows To Link Environment, Trade Pacts," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 17, 1999.

"If this election leads us to reassess politics, and we should hope that it will, the candidates will have to show us how to turn plausible speech into credible action and revive the almost forgotten conviction that government can make things better. Nothing else will save plain speech from being the last, best, savviest scam of all."

-- Law student Jedediah Purdy, "Bill Bradley's Progress in the Presidential Campaign Because He's Ordinary," National Public Radio, Nov. 15, 1999.

"They're going to make patients out of persons."

-- Medical school professor emeritus Dr. Howard Spiro, about the drug industry's aggressive marketing of new products, "Glaxo Wellcome Eyes Big Market in Stomach Pain," The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 16, 1999.

"[Asia] has a lot of festering territorial and border and arms race tensions. It still has, outside Africa, the world's biggest combination of population and environmental problems."

-- Historian Paul Kennedy, "Asia Rose During the 20th Century," AP Online, Nov. 13, 1999.

"A childish, drunken, self-pitying bully, [Gore Vidal's mother] seems to have caused her son to enter a defensive emotional crouch that eventually became permanent. Hence his persona of unassailable elegance, and cool irony, hence also his lifelong insistence on separating sexual from emotional intimacy."

-- Assistant professor of English William Deresiewicz, in his review of Fred Kaplan's book "Gore Vidal: A Biography," The New York Times, Nov. 14, 1999.

"It's the fear of the nuclear-bomb verdict that gives leverage to plaintiffs' lawyers to make threats and play off a company's stock price. Jury verdicts nowadays can put companies out of business."

-- Legal scholar and economist George Priest, "Tag-Team Lawyers Make Businesses Blink," The Washington Post and elsewhere, Nov. 12, 1999.

"In the last decade, children have soared to the top of the political agenda."

-- Child Study Center researcher Sharon Lynn Kagan, president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, "Child-Care Issues Faced as Educators Convene," The Times-Picayune [New Orleans], Nov. 11, 1999.

"It always struck me from the start that [movement] would be critical for pregnant women because it's difficult to move when you're pregnant."

-- Assistant clinical professor and instructor in physical education Ann Cowlin, founder of Dancing Thru Pregnancy, "Yale Prof Uses Rhythm, Movement To Teach Fitness," Connecticut Post, Nov. 12, 1999.

"This [Leonid meteor shower] is the best sight of our lifetimes. Sights of a lifetime are not to be slept through."

-- Astronomer and physicist Bradley E. Schaefer, "Area Might Catch Glimpse of Light Show," New Haven Register, Nov. 14, 1999.

"I don't think the flat tax will work for a lot of reasons. As it's been proposed, it involves a massive tax cut for the very best-off people in society. There will be questions as to why a tax cut ought to be concentrated in that group."

-- Law School professor Michael J. Graetz, "Flat Tax Goes from 'Snake Oil' to G.O.P. Tonic," The New York Times, Nov. 14, 1999.

"We will want those [high-priced miracle drugs]. They will increasingly treat disease. But they will also increase the disparity we now have between the haves and the have-nots."

-- Medical School Dean Dr. David A. Kessler, "The Gathering Storm Over Prescription Drugs," Nov. 14, 1999.

"These are the earliest alphabetic inscriptions, considerably earlier than anyone thought likely. ... They seem to provide us with evidence to tell us when the alphabet itself was invented, and just how."

-- Egyptologist John Coleman Darnell, "Egypt Carvings Set Earlier Date for Alphabet," The New York Times, Nov. 14, 1999.

"We've defined for ourselves what's necessary to solve the structure [of the ribosome]."

-- Molecular biophysicist/biochemist Thomas Steitz, "The Race to the Ribosome Structure," Science, Sept. 24, 1999.

"[Lizzie Borden] was apparently a wonderfully generous woman, and to those people who weren't afraid of her, she was very giving."

-- Divinity School research scholar Peter Dobkin Hall, "When the Slate Needs Cleaning, Generosity Does the Job," The New York Times, Nov. 17, 1999.

"It is quite unseemly how much some of these executives [in nonprofit organizations] are getting. Having said that, this is an area that the law cannot in most circumstances do much about."

-- Law School professor John Simon, "New Rules Lift the Lid on Nonprofit Pay," The New York Times, Nov. 17, 1999.

"It's great for temp agencies if there's a high demand for their market, but if they start having trouble finding workers, that takes away some of their advantage."

-- Economist Ann Stevens, "Hot Temps: Worker Shortage, Strong Demand Sends Staffing Firms Scrambling," The Hartford Courant, Nov. 15, 1999.

"If our suspicions are correct, and early damage accrues and snowballs, then we need to find [children with autism] very early on."

-- Child Study Center assistant professor Robert Schultz, "New Screening Test Helps Detect Autism in Young Children," The Hartford Courant, Nov. 23, 1999.

"As more of these [private] lawsuits are filed, you have to assume that Microsoft will look for some way to try to prevent the [government's antitrust] trial from going to conclusion. ... These private cases only add to the pressure."

-- Visiting lecturer in economics Richard Thomas Delamarter, "Wave of Private Lawsuits Broadens Legal Threat Against Microsoft," The Associated Press, Nov. 22, 1999.

"Before there were term limits and work requirements, on average, a person starting to get welfare would be off of welfare within two years. Now maybe that person never needed welfare, but the fact is that, for the vast majority of people who received welfare, welfare was not a way of life, as it's often perceived to be."

-- Political scientist Martin Gilens, "Unresolved Problem: Welfare," Fox News Network, Nov. 18, 1999.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Divinity School gets $6 million grant

CMI will boost faculty's use of new media

'Accelerated life' suits Yale's youngest star

From the University Provost

Endowed Professorships

Gifts support use of new technologies in teaching and learning

Yale SOM experts take to the airwaves

Actors must connect with their characters, says Pacino

Interior Secretary to discuss environmental ethics

Ralph Reed to give lecture at Law School

Scientists' characterization of yeast gene may yield clues about how human cells work

Keith Wilson earns high honors for his musical contributions

Drama takes audience on metaphysical train ride

Doctor helps design Disney exhibit on high-tech world of radiology

Yale-related renovation projects win design awards

Researcher wins competitive McKnight Investigator Award

Duke's Men to perform in the 'Do Downtown' lunchtime series

Holiday Toys for Kids drive

Modest measures advised in preparation for Y2K

Hawkshaw speaks at conference on Bruckner

. . In the News . . .