Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 4-11, 1999

Volume 28, Number 7

. . . In the News . . .

"Like that other tribe of offshore islanders, the Japanese, [the British] have repeated difficulty in relating to the folk on the continent nearby; we are attracted to, and just as often repulsed by, deeper European connections."

-- Historian Paul Kennedy, in his article "Why Britain Went to War," Sunday Times (London), Sept. 19, 1999.

"[L]ife is the most complex manifestation of chemistry that exists in nature."

-- Molecular biologist/biochemist Peter Moore, "Researchers Produce a Complete Image of the Molecular Structure of a Ribosome," National Public Radio, Sept. 24, 1999.

"About a third of cancers are thought to be related to diet but the association between diet and cancer is often weak and controversial."

-- Yale Cancer Center director Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr., "A Doctor at Yale Spends a Lifetime Fighting Cancer," The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1999.

"The great thing about college hockey is that every year you get a new look."

-- Yale men's hockey coach Tim Taylor, on the lineup of this year's team, "Yale Picked No. 7," New Haven Register, Sept. 21, 1999.

"If you give money to the public schools, you're going to make the private schools unhappy. If you give money to particular groups within the public schools, other groups will feel left out. Philanthropy is, intrinsically, not even-handed."

-- Divinity School senior research scholar Peter Dobkin Hall, "Nation's Wealthy, Seeing a Void, Take Steps to Aid Public Schools," The New York Times, Sept. 23, 1999.

"People tend to reflect their own cultures and political systems when they write about international politics. Presumably we're all aware of that, and presumably we all try to avoid that in limited and varying degrees."

-- International relations expert and political scientist Bruce M. Russett, "Does International-Relations Scholarship Reflect a Bias Toward the U.S.?" The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 24, 1999.

"There's a lingering Vietnam effect. Most of the people doing the hiring came into academia, as I did, around the Vietnam era, and they took from that time a distrust of power."

-- Historian John Lewis Gaddis, "Why Diplomatic Historians May Be the Victims of American Triumphalism," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 24, 1999.

"There is a human tendency to feel the pain of regret at having made errors, even small errors, not putting such errors into a larger perspective. If one wishes to avoid the pain of regret, one may alter one's behavior in ways that would in some cases be irrational."

-- Economist Robert Shiller, "Buy Now Or Wait For Something Better? Don't Tempt Yourself Into Putting It Off," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 20, 1999.

"Obviously, the whole concept of free energy runs contrary to the laws of physics...[I]t's theoretically impossible to have any machine that generates more energy than it takes in, or that generates free energy."

-- Neurologist Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, "Skeptics Try to Unplug 'Free' Electricity Pitch," The Hartford Courant, Sept. 22, 1999.

"Clinton doesn't have any license to feel more hassled than Truman."

-- Political scientist David Mayhew, on the Congressional investigations the two presidents endured, "Why Scandal Consumes Capital," The Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 22, 1999.

"I would not want to make light of changing one's job, but that may be the ultimate resolution of one's anger. I do think individuals have a responsibility to look at, 'Why am I feeling this way and what can I do to resolve it.'"

-- Yale School of Management assistant professor Donald E. Gibson, "How Anger Can Serve a Useful Purpose," The San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 19, 1999.

'This was the first time anything had been shown to work in spinal cord injury."

-- Neurologist Dr. Michael Bracken, on his team's discovery of the drug methyl-prednisolone, "A Glimmer of Hope," The Boston Globe, Sept. 20, 1999.

"If the fear of retaliation causes us not to stand up for our principles, then what kind of principles are they?"

-- School of Law professor Stephen L. Carter, "To Blow the Whistle, Drop the Mask," The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1999.

"Almost no one is throughgoingly an ironist. Everyone has some reservoirs of experience, belief, personal connection, in which it's very clear to them that seriousness and not cynicism, that hope and not despair, are the only appropriate attitudes and that they're actually tenable attitudes, that holding them won't mean getting knocked down, mocked, or undercut."

-- Law School student Jedediah Purdy, author of "For Common Things," "Jedediah Purdy, Author, Talks About Americans Being Too Cynical," National Public Radio, Sept. 21, 1999.

"You only have fungiform papillae on the front and sides of the tongue...[T]he middle doesn't do much tasting at all."

-- School of Medicine professor Linda Bartoshuk, in response to the question "Why are there bumps on your tongue?" in the "How and Why" section of The Boston Globe, Sept. 20, 1999.

"What guy who wants to shoot somebody is really going to be deterred because his pet weapon has been confiscated?"

-- Law School professor Steven Duke, "Law Targets Dangerous Gun Owners," AP Online, Sept. 26, 1999.

"[Arthritic marathoner Ken McCann is] not necessarily absolutely typical. Many patients are not doing as well as Kenny, and their disease would tell them they have to slow down."

-- School of Medicine professor Dr. Robert Schoen, "Arthritis Patients Can Exercise -- Even Run a Marathon," The Associated Press, Sept. 18, 1999.

"The best thing the industry can do is adopt a system that allows parents, who choose to, to decide to filter things for their children."

-- Law School professor Jack M. Balkin, on regulating access to the Internet, "Plan Calls for Self-Policing of the Internet," The New York Times and elsewhere, Sept. 20, 1999.

"'The Building' -- as the Pentagon is affectionately known in Washington -- can outlast most secretaries of defense and certainly most undersecretaries for policy. Although military planners are very effective, the president also needs to analyze and untangle the procurement puzzle."

-- Law School professor Ruth Wedgwood, in her Letter to the Editor, Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 1999.

"[Some sermons say hell is] where the line is exactly that -- a chosen and intensive alienation from God, a state rather than a place."

-- Divinity School Dean Richard Wood, "Hell Is Getting a Makeover From Catholics," The New York Times, Sept. 18, 1999.

"As in Chekhov, the characters in [playwright Maria Irene] Fornes's theater seem to exist in chronic disequilibrium, indulging and discarding a range of personality traits within a single scene. In such a world, an unemphatic pause or a delayed gesture reveals a progress of emotions that a less confident playwright might have described in an elaborate speech."

-- School of Drama professor Marc Robinson, in his article "A Playwright Working on the Edge of Darkness," The New York Times," Sept. 19, 1999.

"New Haven is the cultural center of the region. To the extent that [Yale] needs to expand its cultural activities, we want to do it in a way that will expand the cultural opportunities of the city."

-- Vice President and Director of the Office of New Haven and State Affairs Bruce Alexander, "Metropolis Observed: New Haven's Busting Out of Its Ivy-Covered League, Yale Acquires A Marble-And-Metal Louis Kahn Building," Metropolis, Oct. 1999.

"[Dr. Philip] Jajosky uncovered an observation worthy of pursuit, and I applaud him for that. But frankly, his judgment about what to do after that was flawed. There was no more to be done."

-- School of Medicine professor Dr. Mark R. Cullen, member of a scientific board that investigated a doctor who went over his supervisors' heads to push for further study into the possibility that the Navy may have misdiagnosed hundreds of cases of an occupation-related illness, "Doctor's Quest Stirs Medical Debate," The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1999.

"We think that this protein is part of the molecular switch that causes the behavioral switch from casual cocaine use to compulsive addiction. We can now look for ways to block that switch so that we can develop more effective treatment for cocaine addiction."

-- School of Medicine professor Dr. Eric Nestler, "Cocaine's Grip on the Blood and the Brain," The New York Times, Sept. 21, 1999.

"Hopefully what we could do is use insulin or smaller bits of insulin to try to turn off aggressive cells. We need further studies to determine how we can turn off the aggressive cells to prevent the damage."

-- School of Medicine researcher Dr. Susan Wong, "Research May Lead to Drugs That Prevent Diabetes," Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC), Sept. 8, 1999.

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

Women with breast cancer genes risk relapse with conservative therapies

Ex-Secretary of State describes greatest foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.

Researchers discover animals will shun others with infectious diseases

Exhibit will offer Yale community a peek at libraries' treasures

HHS Secretary to talk about Medicare, privacy issues

NY governor, UPenn president are year's first Chubb Fellows

Solicitor General Waxman to speak at Law Reunion

Conference to explore 'dilemma' over use of cost-benefit analysis to make policy decisions

Headstone dedication will highlight Divinity Convocation

Goethe's contributions to science, modern culture celebrated

Grant supports STAR program to promote success in sciences

Scientists studying how animals move in perfect tandem

Two-part sculpture coming together for first time at Yale center

Human figure and landscape explored in Asian art exhibit

Exhibit features works of Chinese artist who mixes Western and Eastern styles and symbols

Yale hosts day-long conference on Asian studies

Stalin's secret plans to invade Alaska among topics discussed at international conference . . .

Yale launching annual United Way fundraising drive

Series focuses on slavery in early U.S. and the Middle Ages

Drug for glaucoma will be tested in clinical trial at the medical school

Medical program will focus on topic of breast cancer

German scholar to speak to local Humboldt chapter members

. . . In the News . . .

Campus Notes