Yale Bulletin and Calendar

May 3, 2002

Volume 30, Number 28

"Look in any old New England graveyard, and you find children who died of whooping cough or other infectious diseases. That doesn't happen anymore. As you become better at treating acute diseases, you are left with chronic diseases."

-- Assistant professor of psychiatry and epidemiology and public health Benjamin Druss, "The Face of Death Is Ever Changing," The Hartford Courant, April 21, 2002.

"[Shakespeare] is a sublime plagiarist. He is the genius of plagiarism. He got away with everything he could get away with. . . . So really, whether it be one of my own students or whether it be a distinguished or popular historian or whoever, I cannot get excited about accusations of plagiarism. It is the most normal activity of literary production."

-- Sterling Professor of the Humanities Harold Bloom, "For Yale Critic, Plagiarism Is Literature," Boston Sunday Globe, April 21, 2002.

"[International Criminal Court] enthusiasts fail to admit that the law of armed conflict is more indeterminate than they would like. There are indeed some clear-cut taboos acknowledged by all honorable members of the profession of arms. . . . But there are other questions in warfighting that are more contentious, especially against unconventional adversaries and with changing technology."

-- Professor of law Ruth Wedgwood in her article "An International Criminal Court is Still a Bad Idea," The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2002.

"You can die healthy."

-- Professor of orthopedics Dr. Peter Jokl about the fitness movement among senior citizens, "Keep on Running; Forget the Image of Old Folks Nodding Off in Their Armchairs, Photographer Alistair Berg Meets the Super-Fit Seventysomething Athletes Who Put the Rest of Us to Shame," The Independent (London), April 13, 2002.

"Subtle change over time may mean something, so you need the archival record."

-- Chair of diagnostic radiology Dr. Bruce L. McClennan on the importance of keeping old X-rays and other tests, "Say, Can I Get Glossies of My Colonoscopy? New Services Keep Digital Archives of Your Medical Tests," Newsweek, April 22, 2002.

"I find it a little frustrating that there is this fictional story out there. There is enough excitement in the real story to make a heck of a movie. . . . [On the plus side], maybe some wrestlers will want to try Egyptology. We could use some to move columns and boulders."

-- Assistant professor of Egyptology John Darnell about the new movie "The Scorpion King" starring wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, "First Writing May Have Started Under Real-Life 'Scorpion King,'" USA Today, April 18, 2002.

"Invading Iraq will lead to a degree of turmoil in the Arab-Islamic world hitherto unimagined. Other Arab leaders don't like Saddam Hussein one bit, but their populations won't stand for what they will inevitably feel is an unprovoked attack on an Arab state, leaving leaders with little choice but to be swept along in the turmoil or drown. And an attack on Iraq might ultimately spark the use of nuclear weapons. Iraq may not have such weapons yet, but we can't be sure."

-- Senior research scientist in sociology Immanuel Wallerstein in his article "Iraq Is Going to Be Bush's Armageddon," newsday.com, April 17, 2002.

"Most of these [obese] children are at high risk for Type 2 diabetes. And, if they develop diabetes before the age of 20, they face a lifetime of being at very high risk for complications from diabetes."

-- Associate professor of endocrinology Sonia Caprio, "Obesity: Yale Study Shows 25% of Obese Children Are At High Risk for Developing Diabetes," Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week, April 13, 2002.

"While seizing Iranian state assets might seem the most direct way to collect damages from a government that the state department calls 'the most active state sponsor of terrorism,' it does little to punish the real perpetrators of these crimes or to change the behavior of the terror-sponsoring governments."

-- Gaines graduate fellow in Iranian history Amir A. Afkhami about a lawsuit against Iran by victims of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in his article "The Enemy Within," National Review, April 4, 2002.

"A deal done by very smart people that, absent tax considerations, would be very stupid."

-- Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law Michael J. Graetz on what the Internal Revenue Service is trying to uncover through its new rules for corporations, "Back on the Beat," U.S. News & World Report, April 15, 2002.

"Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the nature of the Armenian genocide [of 1915] and related crimes challenges the notion that civilians are not targets in wartime under any circumstances. Surely after Sept. 11 the notion that it is barbaric and inconsistent with any notion of civil society to target civilians must be appreciated with a particular depth of feeling."

-- Professor of history Jay Winter, "Why Is Armenian Genocide Unrecognized?" The Boston Globe, April 23, 2002.

"If you push too hard for [your children] to be thin, [it can] led to an eating disorder. If you're too lax about weight gain, it likely will continue."

-- Director of the Center for Eating & Weight Disorders Dr. Kelly Brownell, "With Youth Weight Gain, Food Isn't Only Issue," The Boston Globe, April 11, 2002.

"In an experimental approach to social change, presume that we cannot know the consequences of our interventions in advance. Given this postulate of ignorance, prefer wherever possible to take a small step, stand back, observe, and then plan the next small move."

-- Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology James C. Scott on how nations can make development planning less prone to disaster, "Bettering Your Odds," Across the Board, March/April 2002.

"New York is an expensive [housing] market, especially in Manhattan. People are enticed to stay there because they think [prices] are going to go up. As long as that psychology keeps up, I can see it maintaining. But that can change."

-- Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics Robert J. Shiller, "Low Rates Fuel Housing Boom: With Increasing Demand, Prices Are Pushed Higher," Daily News (New York), April 15, 2002.

"Some landlords insisted on getting stock options when the dot-com craze was really going wild. Well, of course, that's rent expense, you know. The cost of those options that you give to somebody in exchange for the rental services that they supply is rent expense. And if you give stock options to an executive in exchange for their labor services, well, that's wage expense."

-- Professor at the Yale School of Management Rick Antle, "Looking At Both Sides of the Stock Options Debate," "Business Center," CNBC, April 19, 2002.

"You can't find a surer bet in the field of education [than early childhood education for children from low-income families]. Not only did they do better in school, but because they did better in school, they did better in life."

-- Associate research scientist at the Child Study Center Walter S. Gilliam, "Study Finds Pre-School Program Is Effective," The Hartford Courant, April 24, 2002.

"When software becomes a design field as much as a computer field, computers will start achieving what we think they're capable of doing."

-- Professor of computer science David Gelernter, "Software Takes a Hard Drubbing," The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT), April 19, 2002.

"A literature that can boast old masters like Naipaul and Rushdie and new talents like Arundhati Roy deserves a large share of attention, but it also deserves not to be condescended to. Needless to say, a novel in which people wear kurtas and eat chapatis has no inherently greater merit than one in which they wear jeans and eat pizza, and it doesn't do any good to pretend otherwise."

-- Assistant professor of English William Deresiewicz in his review of "Real Time" by Amit Chaudhuri, "Seeing India, Business Class," The New York Times, April 21, 2002.

"I would propose a great room of reflection where people could come together, every world leader would somehow have to come. The cultures could be brought together through acts of remembrance, like a church without a religion. Human beings need to share a common experience."

-- Dean of the School of Architecture Robert A. M. Stern, "Various Ideas on How a Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City Should be Designed," "The Osgood File," CBS News, April 15, 2002.

"In some cities, there used to be spectacles of people marching down to the polls with color-coded ballots in hand, indicating whom they were going to vote for and who was going to pay them. The secret ballot changed all that, and it became much harder for candidates to buy votes. By the same token, secret donations would make it much harder for candidates to sell access and influence."

-- William K. Townsend Professor of Law Ian Ayres, "Verbatim," The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 12, 2002.

"Talent doesn't come with colors, you understand. Talent has one single color. It's transparent."

-- Samuel S. Sanford Adjunct Professor of Music Aldo Parisot about the need for more minority classical musicians, "Future-Focused; At 19, Yale School of Music Student Patrice Jackson Knows What She Wants: To Be The First Famous African-American Cello Soloist. She May Be On Her Way," New Haven Register, April 14, 2002.

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

Yale creates Center for Genomics and Proteomics

NIH grant to support research on treatment of epilepsy

African American Studies Department examines its history and its future

Alumnus Bryan Rigg reveals untold story of 'Hitler's Jewish Soldiers'

Managing editor decries 'outrageous lies' in the media

See possibilities when job searching, editor advises

IN FOCUS: Resource Office on Disabilities

New website offers information on wheelchair access to campus facilities

Yale Engineering forum offers perspectives . . .

Abnormal neurons may play role in SIDS, study suggests

Stories, adventures, journeys -- festival offers them all

Restorative home care help elderly regain independence

In there a nurse in the house?

New Yale chapter offers support for Hispanic students

Study shows promising cocaine treatment is ineffective on humans

Update on YB&C survey

Local third-graders graduate from America Reads program

Yale affiliates awarded YUWO scholarships to continue studies

Yale Books in Brief

Campus Notes