Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 20-27, 1999

Volume 28, Number 5

. . . In the News . . .

"I wouldn't say that the authority of Shakespeare has replaced the Bible as secular scripture among the great masses of Americans. But certainly for intellectuals, Shakespeare has become the secular scripture ..."

-- Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, "Bloom on Shakespeare," The Boston Herald, Sept. 9, 1999.

"We're trying to use the medications that we have now to control the symptoms [of schizophrenia] to see if they can also, if given early enough, prevent the disorder altogether or to delay the onset of the disorder to later in life."

-- School of Medicine researcher Dr. Thomas McGlashan, "A Closer Look: Dealing With Schizophrenia," "World News Tonight With Peter Jennings," Sept. 2, 1999.

"We don't know how dangerous [creatine] is, but it's a question of whether we want to find out. We can't say it is proven dangerous, but it certainly has some potential for that to happen. It is being absorbed by muscle cells, and some of those cells are in the cardiac muscle."

--Director of sports medicine Dr. Barry Goldberg on a strength-building supplement for athletes, "Creatine: Big Risk, Low Payoff," The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), Sept. 8, 1999.

"Now that's quite typical. And that's the problem. That's exactly the problem with this kind of outreach monitoring. This is not supervision. This is nothing. This is not even a fig leaf. But it is quite typical, though, throughout the country."

-- Law School professor Robert Burt, on the Washington Criminal Justice Department's supervision of Buford Furrow, who later went on a killing spree in Los Angeles, "Monitoring Criminals with Mental Illness," National Public Radio, Sept. 4, 1999.

"You need to be able to show your environmental bona fides in ways you didn't before."

-- Forestry School professor John C. Gordon, "Westvaco Gives Nature Group a Say in Logging of Its Timberland," The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 1999.

"We need to develop a militant attitude about food, just like we have with tobacco. ... I can't imagine anybody could claim that America is better off for having more McDonald's hamburgers in its collective body. It just is not. Something has to be done about that."

-- Psychology professor Kelly Brownell, "Get Off Our Backs!" ABC's "20/20," Sept. 3, 1999.

"In a work of fiction, the backward glance that illuminates childhood often reflects the concerns of the time when that glance is taken. 'Oliver Twist,' although inspired by Charles Dickens's own harsh experiences of child labor, was also a useful tool for the social reformers of his day. In this century, reflecting the light that Freudian theory has cast on personality and motivation, numerous fictional characters -- from J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield to Philip Roth's Alexander Portnoy -- have recounted the circumstances that lead to adolescent nervous breakdowns. And in more recent times, echoing newspaper headlines and television talk shows, novels like Dorothy Allison's 'Bastard Out of Carolina' have focused on child abuse and incest."

--English department lecturer Katharine Weber, in her review of Elizabeth Graver's "The Honey Thief," The New York Times Book Review, Sept. 5, 1999.

"It turns out landfills are far from benign."

-- Forestry School lecturer Marian R. Chertow, "Time Bomb is Brewing in Landfills," New Haven Register, Sept. 5, 1999.

"The fear is that this stuff [alternative therapies] may not work, may even be dangerous, and we're going to end up in a lot of trouble."

--Medical School professor David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Preventive Research Center in Derby, "Getting in Touch: Hospitals Open Doors, and Minds, to Alternative Therapies," The Hartford Courant, Sept. 7, 1999.

"Let us say you go back in time and bring up Big Bill Tilden with his wooden [tennis] racket and bring him into a tournament today. He wouldn't have a chance. As soon as you hit the ball a little harder and get away with it, pretty soon you always hit the ball harder. And pretty soon then everybody's hitting the ball harder, and you get a change in the game."

--Physics professor Robert Adair, "Improved Sports Equipment," CBS News, Sept. 8, 1999.

"If we understood what [the cells that cause Type I diabetes] see, we'd have a better chance to turn off the attack."

--Medical school researcher Dr. Susan Wong, "Immune Cells 'See,' Then Strike At, Insulin," USA Today, Sept. 7, 1999.

"[T]he kind of picayune flubs in a crime scene investigation that a defense lawyer in the U.S. may make great hay out of don't count as much; they don't have as much smoke and mirrors in the French legal system as you do in the American."

-- Law School professor Ruth Wedgwood, "Diana Crash Investigation: Is Mohammed al-Fayed Chasing the Truth or Mere Conspiracy Theories?" CNN, Aug. 30, 1999.

"It is increasingly challenging to effectively manage any conglomerate these days ... [I]magine the problems of coordinating disparate businesses, implementing new strategies, monitoring quality control, and melding different professional cultures and compensation systems."

-- Yale School of Management Dean Jeffrey E. Garten in his article, "Ethics Be Damned, Let's Merge," Business Week, Aug. 30, 1999.

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

Ex-Secretary of State will present talk at YCIAS

Yale modifies Divinity School renovation plan

New office to help meet needs of University's international scholars

Taste-test to top tribute to insects

Soderstrom to carry on work of his predecessors in OCR

Artist's depictions of Victorian-era Britain featured in show

Cutting dollars for mental health care increased medical costs, study shows

'Seminars help medical students learn how to become 'culturally competent'

Conference to explore diverse topics in women's health

Study shows affect of long-term abuse of cocaine lingers in brain even after years of abstinence

Blacks undermined by lack of wealth, sociologist argues

Kenneth Starr says post of independent counsel is ineffectual

Biblical figure of Eve is theme of works in Slifka Center exhibit

Staged reading of Shaw's 'Philanderer' to include little-known fourth act

Gerstein's work for Human Genome Project gets $1 million boost from Keck Foundation

New laboratories will seek a cure for spinal cord injuries

Research offers insights into enzyme that makes cancer cells grow

Dr. Harvey Kaetz dies; was internist and oncologist

Memorial service to be held Oct. 1 for Dr. Robert Byck

Benefit will kick off Dr. Mel Goldstein Fund for research on bone marrow cancer

1999-2000 University Directory arriving soon

Peabody Museum hosting open house for would-be volunteers

. . . In the News . . .

New program will bring postdoctoral scholars to Whitney Humanities Center

Talk and dedication open fall Humanities in Medicine series

Allan R. Wagner receives award for scientific work

Yale affiliates featured in 'Books Sandwiched In'

Campus Notes