Yale Bulletin and Calendar

January 18, 2002

Volume 30, Number 15

Two-Week Issue

"Amateur poetry is one of the world's diseases. It's like the common cold. There's no cure."

-- Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, "Nothing's Worse/Than Bad Verse," Daily News (New York), Dec. 19, 2001.

"When looking at a quote by someone whom I don't think much of, . . . I instinctively tend to assume that their sayings would not be worthwhile, but I force myself to judge those sayings as objectively as I can."

-- Associate librarian for public services Fred Shapiro about his work on "The Yale Dictionary of Quotations," "He Said, She Said," Northeast Magazine, Dec. 2, 2001.

"When you say no to a child's exploratory drive, it's usually to spare yourself something else to clean up."

-- Senior research scientist in the Department of Psychology and at the Child Study Center Dorothy Singer, "Nurturing Creativity; Encourage Inventiveness, Imagination and Originality -- For Babies On Up," Parenting, Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002.

"There's an awful lot of competitive pressure about getting in college these days. If that could be postponed, that might be better for high school communities and for students' high school careers."

-- President Richard C. Levin, "Yale President Favors Ending Early-Decision Admissions," The Associated Press, Dec. 13, 2001.

"We are beginning an era in which specific real examples of the crazy things described in science fiction and by theoreticians such as Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne can actually be observed."

-- Chair of the astronomy department Charles Bailyn, "Astronomers Calculate Mass of Black Hole," United Press International, Nov. 28, 2001.

"Perhaps the most important cause for some countries' continuing to fall behind is the monopolies that many of them tolerate or even create. The bin Laden family, for example, is rich because it was given a monopoly over much construction activity in Saudi Arabia."

-- Sterling Professor of Law Alan Schwartz in his article "Getting at the Roots of Arab Poverty," The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2001.

"Acting without Congress, without the courts and without a statute or precedent nearby is more likely to get a President in hot water than to get him in Mount Rushmore."

-- Southmayd Professor of Law Akhil Reed Amar in his article "War Powers: Is Bush Making History?" Time, Dec. 3, 2001.

"There's a tendency even in psychiatry to write [hearing voices] off as 'These people are just crazy.' But it should be taken seriously, because the suffering and impairment and level of stress that stems from hallucinations is great."

-- Associate professor of psychiatry Dr. Ralph Hoffman, "Help for the Hallucinatory; Magnetic Pulses May Silence the Voices," The Record (Bergen County, NJ), Dec. 3, 2001.

"Osama bin Laden and his airborne henchmen disregarded two fundamental principles of morality and law in war -- never deliberately attack civilians, and never seek disproportionate damage to civilians in pursuit of another objective."

-- Professor of law Ruth Wedgwood in her article "The Case for Military Tribunals," The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 2001.

"I am cautioning not to use 9/11 as an occasion to condone our own self-serving commercialism with the mantle of generosity."

-- Henry B. Wright Professor at the Divinity School Miroslav Volf, "This Christmas, Some See Virtue in Buying Sprees," The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 5, 2001.

"Most of the neurons in my brain are older than me. That means they were generated before I was born."

-- Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience Pasko Rakic, "Controversy About Whether Mammals Can Grow New Nerve Cells," "Morning Edition," National Public Radio, Dec. 7, 2001.

"[W]e have here on Chapel Street, right across from each other, the largest complex of free art facilities north of Washington, D.C."

-- Vice President & Secretary Linda K. Lorimer, "Greenwich and Yale: A Longstanding Affair," Greenwich magazine, Dec. 2001.

"Half of the people in America have never held a stock either because it was too much trouble to figure out how to do it or because they don't have the savings. If done in moderation, privatization [of Social Security] would allow these people to get the kind of rewards that the stock market can bring."

-- James Tobin Professor of Economics John Geanakoplos, "Social Security Debate: Risk vs. Reward," New Haven Register, Dec. 9, 2001.

"If you have a tremendous threat to national safety and your own safety, you will fall back on what you think is healthy behavior."

-- Professor of child psychiatry and professor of the history of medicine and psychiatry Dr. David F. Musto predicting an increase in risk-avoidance and temperance, "Time, Events Will Tell if Attacks on U.S. Will Usher in New Era," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 12, 2001.

"People think the market always goes up. If you had to predict the 21st century, you would say it's going to be like the 20th century, but who knows?"

-- Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics Robert J. Shiller, "Small Players, Exotic Strategies," washingtonpost.com, Dec. 10, 2001.

"We all know that the war against terrorism must be waged not only by our military troops but also by an economic development effort that gives poorer nations the chance to become something other than breeding grounds for frustration and violence. That can't happen with foreign aid alone. If U.S. corporate investment doesn't play a major role, it may never happen."

-- Dean of the Yale School of Management Jeffrey E. Garten in his article "The Wrong Time for Companies to Beat a Global Retreat," Business Week, Dec. 17, 2001.

"It's useful, when you don't know what the threat is and you don't know what works, to throw money at the problem. It's a $10 trillion economy. We can afford to waste some money on security."

-- Professor at the Yale School of Management Paul Bracken, "Attack on America," The San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 10, 2001.

"Heavy price cutting will attract customers, but these will not be loyal customers. They'll defect as soon as they find cheaper alternatives."

-- Lecturer at the Yale School of Management Christopher Lovelock, "Price Cuts Not a Solution, Says Marketing Guru," The Business Times Singapore, Dec. 11, 2001.

"Terror drives us apart, but humor can help bring us together. And anything that helps keep us connected to each other is important."

-- Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology Peter Salovey, "A Few Good Yucks," U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 17, 2001.

"Your daily routine offers plenty of ways to encourage [a baby's] social, emotional and intellectual development."

-- Clinical professor at the Child Study Center Dr. Kyle Pruett, "Making Routines Fun," Parenting, Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002.

"I believe we are all patriots here. . . . We should be displaying our courts as proudly as we have displayed our flag."

-- Professor of law Judith Resnik, "Yale Law Profs Fighting Tribunals," New Haven Register, Dec. 17, 2001.

"Anytime a person is serving a life sentence, they don't seem to have as much support as someone facing a death sentence. Once the death sentence is removed, some people tend to peel off and go on to other passions."

-- Professor of law Steven Duke, "Sentencing Decision for Cop Killer Gets Mixed Reactions," New Haven Register, Dec. 20 2001.

"Our legal system assigns different monetary values to human lives even as we strive in other ways to treat every human life as equally precious."

-- Professor of law Peter H. Schuck in his op-ed article "Equity for All Victims," The New York Times, Dec. 19, 2001.

"The more clever we get at putting together special-purposes entities, the harder it is to draw particular lines about what's going to be included and excluded [on balance sheets]."

-- Professor at the Yale School of Management Rick Antle about Enron's accounting procedures for its subsidiaries, "Enron in Perfect Hindsight; Plenty of Red Flags Were Waving at the Energy Giant, But From Execs to Auditors to the Media, No One Wanted to Argue With Success," Business Week Online, Dec. 19, 2001.

"For all the problems China has faced, there do seem to be forces that balance the country. But the country's own vastness makes it very difficult to understand what is actually happening now and impossible to predict the future."

-- Sterling Professor of History Jonathan Spence, "As China Rises, Some Ask: Will It Stumble?; The Social Strains of Growth," The International Herald Tribune, Dec. 18, 2001.

"Assertions of Hitler's homosexuality, active or latent, are hardly new. They dogged him during his rise to power and after he gained it."

-- Lecturer in psychiatry Walter Reich in his book review of Lothar Machtan's "The Hidden Hitler," "All the Führer's Men; Did Hitler's Sexuality Explain His Crimes Against Humanity?" The New York Times, Dec. 16, 2001.

"Software patents are the one weapon that penniless inventors and small companies wield against the Tyrannosaurus rexes that dominate the industry. A software patent creates an asset out of thin air."

-- Professor of computer science David Gelernter in his book review "The Computer World, Inside and Out," The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2001.

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

Yale and Unions agree to seek more effective negotiations process

Campus events honor legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Center receives over $12 million in grants for research on AIDS

IN FOCUS: Electrical Engineering

'Painted Ladies' of king's court featured in exhibition

MEDICAL SCHOOL NEWS

'Art for All Seasons' showcases works by Asian artists

Works depict the human form, both draped and undraped

'A Streetcar Named Desire' comes to the Yale stage

Petrarch's poetry will be highlighted in a campus talk . . .

Symposium to examine roots of modern visual culture

Woodcut offers panoramic view of 16th-century Muslim life

OBITUARIES

English Professor Louis Martz: 'One of Yale's great teachers'

George Goold: Chief editor of Loeb Classical Library series

Dr. Ruth Whittemore: Noted pediatric cardiologist

Faith Hubley: Academy Award-winning animator and filmmaker

Memorial service for Naomi Schor

Funny things will happen during a Roman-style comedy week

Standing, Special and Appointments Committees

Yale seeks nominees for 2001 Seton Elm-Ivy Awards

Fellowships for foreign study and travel offered by YCIAS

Yale Books in Brief

Campus Notes

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