Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 30-September 6, 1999

Volume 28, Number 2

. . . In the News . . .

"Free speech and a largely unrestricted gun trade can be a heady combination for supremacist groups traveling the Internet or elsewhere for recruits."

-- Law School professor Ruth Wedgwood, in her article "Search for Hate Before It Kills," The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 1999.

"I have already told the returning players that if they walk past this building late at night, they are going to see my office lights on. They are going to know that we're working at turning this thing around."

-- Yale's new men's basketball coach James Jones, "Lights Will Be on in Coach's Office," The New York Times, Aug. 22, 1999.

"It's really pretty simple. The way to live longer is to lower your risk of dying. Don't smoke; wear your seat belt; eat a balanced diet; exercise; accident-proof your house; and maintain a positive attitude."

-- School of Medicine lecturer Charles Inlander, "Living Longer, Staying Youthful Requires Work, Making Right Choices," The Hartford Courant, July 27, 1999.

"There is no question that over the next century we are going to see a lot of languages disappear for good."

-- Linguistics professor Douglas Whalen, "Aboriginal Languages Going the Way of Gaelic," The Gazette (Montreal), July 26, 1999.

"It's gotten much harder to justify the kinds of stupid things private trustees do, such as putting all the money in a savings account or on General Motors."

-- Law School professor John Langbein, "Many States Bringing Trusts Up To Date," The Houston Chronicle, July 26, 1999.

"The evidence is very strong that heavy viewing of TV by children, particularly commercial programming, is deleterious for development of cognitive skills and fosters aggressiveness."

-- Psychologist Jerome Singer, "It's Time for Blacks To Tune Out Television," The Boston Globe, July 28, 1999.

"I'm a lame duck. Not a dead duck."

-- Senior Yale Corporation fellow Kurt Schmoke, on his plans to remain active until stepping down as mayor of Baltimore in December, "End of the Line: Baltimore's Longtime Mayor Gets While the Getting's Good," The Washington Post, Aug. 3, 1999.

"Traumatic stress is bad for the brain."

-- School of Medicine researcher J. Douglas Bremner, "Long-term Litany of Tension Can Batter the Brain," USA Today, Aug. 3, 1999.

"In some warm climates, you can get food being more than 75 percent of people's budget, with half of that being spent on rice. If rice prices are 20 percent higher than they otherwise would be, that's not a small thing."

-- Economic Growth Center director Robert E. Evenson, "Money Hungry," The New Republic, Aug. 16, 1999.

"Unless the families of welfare mothers who go to work are to be poorer than they were before, states need to do more than praise women when they work and look away when they lose their jobs."

-- Law School students Emily Bazelon and Tamara Watts, in their article "Helping to Keep Families Afloat," The New York Times, Aug. 1, 1999.

"[Medicine] is no longer blood and guts. It's bits and bytes."

-- School of Medicine Professor Dr. Richard Satava, "Medicine Comes to the Tube," U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 9, 1999.

"The fact is that although millions of people in emerging markets have suffered horribly -- losing their jobs, going bankrupt, sinking into poverty -- the [Asian financial] crisis wasn't long enough or deep enough to result in the kinds of corrective measures that would result in a less risky global economy."

-- Yale School of Management Dean Jeffrey E. Garten, in his article "A Crisis Without a Reform," The New York Times, Aug. 18, 1999.

"Patients often aren't aware what's happening to them, but families can get very, very distressed. Patients either don't recognize their family, or they say things like, 'Why did you put me in here? They're experimenting on me!'"

-- School of Medicine geriatrician Dr. Sharon K. Inouye, "Delirium: A Serious Side-Effect of Hospitalization Finally Gets Attention," The Boston Globe, Aug. 16, 1999.

"My interest in hockey began to rise when I got to Yale. There was no ice in San Francisco, so I never got the chance to skate. Now, I'm a big hockey fan."

-- President Richard C. Levin, "Sports a Key Player in Levin's World," New Haven Register, Aug. 15, 1999.

"Babylon was done in in part by certain conquerors who sacked it. But what really did it in was the location of new capital cities in close proximity that undercut the economic base for its prosperity. This happened all over the ancient world."

-- Near Eastern languages and civilizations scholar William W. Hallo, "As Malls Die, the Next Generation Re-Creates the Past," The New York Times, Aug. 8, 1999.

"'Power' was one of Emerson's favorite terms -- his letter of congratulations to the young Walt Whitman speaks of 'Leaves of Grass' as making him happy 'as great power makes us happy' -- and everywhere these pieces display the characteristic Emersonian power of evoking power, rousing one's mind by disrupting its habits and assumptions."

-- English professor William Deresiewicz, in his review of Richard Poirer's "Trying It Out in America," The New York Times, Aug. 8, 1999.

"From a deer tick's perspective, it's been a bad year."

-- Epidemiologist Durland Fish, "Lyme Disease Not as Rampant as Fear," USA Today, Aug. 9, 1999.

"If you step off a curb when a car is coming, it's not how much weight you can move -- it's how fast you can move it out of the way."

-- Sports-conditioning expert Steven Plisk, "Advice for Sports Exercise: Go Ballistic," The New York Times and elsewhere,
Aug. 10, 1999.

"What the indictment of Mrs. Tripp reflects is our conflicted moral response to whistleblowers."

-- Law School professor Ian Avres, in his article "Why Prosecute Linda Tripp?" The New York Times, Aug. 10, 1999.

"China may be preparing the market for a devaluation of the yuan, in much the same way a concerned parent prepares a child for the death of a favourite pet. The bad news is leaked out in small units, a little at a time. By the time old Rover kicks the bucket, the kid has already done most of the crying. The real question is whether the market, like the child, can do its own adjusting before the big event occurs."

-- Financial expert David DeRosa, in his article "Hong Kong Will Feel the Pain from Devaluation," Hong Kong Standard,
Aug. 11, 1999.

"If [religious] belief is almost always tested more painfully than the detached observer can know, it is likewise certain that steady unbelief requires its own conviction."

-- English professor David Bromwich, in his review of A.N. Wilson's book "God's Funeral: The Decline of Faith in Western Civilization," The New Republic, Aug. 23, 1999.

"When children rhyme, it really draws attention to the fact that words have parts. ... When you rhyme the last part of a word, you are realizing a distinct part of the word and what the sound is. In order to read, you also have to appreciate that words are made up of different sounds. It's really the same ability. It's learning to break the code."

-- School of Medicine pediatrician and brain researcher Dr. Sally Shaywitz, "Rhyme and Reason," The Gazette (Montreal), Aug. 16, 1999.

"The question of all-women classes has been on the agenda for 20 years. So the fact they could bring it up now and make an issue of it, I think, reflects change both in the climate of the country and the approach to getting rid of affirmative action."

-- Divinity School professor Letty Russell on the imposed retirement of Boston College professor Mary Daly, "Facing Forced Retirement, Iconoclastic Professor Keeps on Fighting," The New York Times, Aug. 15.

"For a while, it's wide open for anyone to find a human gene."

-- School of Medicine genetics research associate Wesley Bonds, "For Biologists, the Postgenomic World Promises Vast and Thrilling New Knowledge," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 13, 1999.

"I always ask [patients] how well they sleep. Sometimes they say, 'Lousy! But why do you care? You're a gynecologist.' They don't know insomnia is related to menopause."

-- Ob/gyn clinical professor Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, "The Change and Attitudes," Connecticut Post, Aug. 13, 1999.

"[S]weet 16 is not a bad guideline for one-to-one dating."

-- School of Medicine psychiatrist Dr. James P. Comer, "How to Handle Your Child's Dating," Idaho Falls Post Register,
Aug. 15, 1999.

"Businesses have realized that it is not in their interests to create waste. It costs them money and it's not money they can always control."

-- School of Forestry and Environmental Studies lecturer Marian Chertow, "Breaking the Green Barrier: Companies Discover that Being Good to the Environment Can Be Good for Business, Too," Business New Haven, Aug. 9, 1999.

"Most people don't notice the parts of the Bible they disagree with."

-- Religious studies professor Dale Martin, "Passages Often Selected," The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), Aug. 13, 1999.

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

Yale greets 'superb' crop of freshmen

Outreach to students is key goal of new assistant deans

Discovery of skeleton from ancient ape provides insights into the origins of humans

Scientists get close-up look at interior of ribosomes

Endowed Professorships

Bosnians share traumatic war experiences with Yale chaplain

Development Office reorganizes Major Gifts division

FOCUS program gives students a close-up view of city

Exhibit features abstract photographs of the natural world world

School of Architecture exhibits explore 'cutting edge' arts

While You Were Away ...

In the News

Journalists will get in-depth look at law as Knight Fellows

Concert celebrates new year at the School of Music

Memorial service to be held for Julia Rusinek

Seven faculty members receive ASCAP awards