Yale Bulletin and Calendar

June 27, 2003|Volume 31, Number 32|Four-Week Issue

In the News
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"Religion is a form of hate speech and violence when it is used to support tyranny or denigrate other religions."

-- The Reverend Frederick J. Streets, University Chaplain, in his article "Religion, War and Peace: A Day at the United Nations," New Haven Register, June 1, 2003.

"There are always going to be emerging new diseases in humans. You can't stop evolution. These pathogens have to make a living and they have been very successful at it."

-- Durland Fish, professor of epidemiology, "Monkey Pox Outbreak Grows; Experts: Global Travel To Bring New Viruses," Hartford Courant, June 10, 2003.

"Doctors are trained to think 'The patient is hanging on every word I'm saying,' but that doesn't always happen."

-- Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology, "Healthy Handbook; Facts Every Woman Should Know," Connecticut Post, May 16, 2003.

"No doubt there would be strident opposition, especially among Republicans, to a tax system that would produce automatic tax increases for the wealthy. But the issue is not just what is best for the wealthy; it is how to create a just society with better opportunities for all. Not even the most antitax Republicans want a gratuitously unequal society that could create resentment and even violence."

-- Robert J. Shiller, the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics, in his article "Mind the Gap," The New York Times, May 15, 2003.

"Like soft drinks or movies, cars in America evoke the mythology of a world without limits, a world in which consumers can have the newest, the biggest and the best of everything. That mythology remains: at the New York Auto Show in April, cars the size of trucks boasted GPS-navigational systems and seats that can turn hot and cool. Smaller, low gasoline-usage cars were the sideshow. The U.S. has been unable -- indeed, unwilling -- to shake off its love affair with the 'big car': the Hummer is just the latest and the grossest."

-- Jeffrey E. Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management, in his book review "Cruise Control," Financial Times, May 31, 2003.

"The pie isn't growing exponentially any more. Every slice someone crams in their mouth affects everybody else at the table."

-- Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean of the Yale School of Management, on investors' anger over massive executive stock option grants, "Shareholders Unite To Expense Options; Investors Are Mounting Spirited Campaigns To Make Tech Companies Cost Out Their Options. Congress and Regulators Should Pay Attention," BusinessWeek, May 27, 2003.

"Where we are now is that you have this sullen anger out in the world at America. Because people realize they are not going to get a vote over American power, they cannot do anything about it, but they will be affected by it."

-- Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Center for the Study of Globalization, "A Theory of Everything," The New York Times, June 1, 2003.

"Generally, fiction writers start in their late 20s or 30s. Writing a novel was something I had wanted to do all my life, but after a certain age, I figured it was not going to happen. Now, I would say to all would-be novelists that you're never too old. You should start writing when the muse comes upon you."

-- Stephen L. Carter, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, "Stephen L. Carter; 'Public Intellectual' Turns to Fiction," St. Louis-Dispatch (Missouri), May 28, 2003.

"[The] French think most Americans are dopey because they smile all the time. But in France, people don't smile at strangers; it's reserved for people with whom one has some relationship."

-- Marianne LaFrance, professor of psychology and women's & gender studies, "Behind the Pearly Gapes," Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), May 29, 2003.

"[PCP] is clearly an urban drug. I never see a suburban kid who is on PCP."

-- Dr. Phillip Brewer, assistant professor of surgery, on the smokable embalming fluid PCP, or "leak," "The Drug is 'Leak,' Its Use is Alarming," NJ.com, May 30, 2003.

"Lacking crystal balls, businesses have begun dealing with the problem of unpredictable customer behavior by following the practices of sophisticated investors in stocks, whose prices, as everyone knows, also fluctuate in unforeseeable ways."

-- Ravi Dhar, professor at the Yale School of Management, and Rashi Glazer in their article "Hedging Customers," Harvard Business Review, May 2003.

"Hedge funds are all about active management and it is almost impossible without a huge amount of resources to identify the right managers."

-- David Swensen, chief investment officer, "Yale, Harvard, Unfazed by Risks, Rely on Hedge Funds," Bloomberg News Feature, June 10, 2003.

"Informed investors subsidize uninformed investors."

-- Shyam Sunder, the James L. Frank Professor of Private Enterprise & Management at the Yale School of Management, arguing that research by the former eventually makes its way to the latter, "Investor Inequalities Widened," Financial Times (London), June 14, 2003.

"By constitutional design, Congress is periodically reauthorized through elections. It ought to take a supermajority of the Senate to confer power on judges who will exercise it for the rest of their lives."

-- Judith Resnik, the Arthur Liman Professor of Law, proposing that the number of votes needed to approve life-tenured judges be raised in her article "Supermajority Rule," The New York Times, June 11, 2003.

"The development of the blog lowers the cost of publishing almost to the vanishing point. It really does help realize the promise of the Internet as a place for wide-ranging discussion."

-- Jack M. Balkin, the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, about the popularity of Weblogs (or blogs), "Scholars Who Blog; The Soapbox of the Digital Age Draws a Crowd of Academics," The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003.

"Science in the United States has long been an international affair: More than a third of the Americans who have won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, medicine and physics were born outside the United States, and we continue to rely on immigrants and visitors from abroad to staff our universities and laboratories."

-- Lincoln Caplan, Knight Senior Journalist at the Law School, in his article "New Security Measures Hindering Scientific Progress," Hartford Courant, June 15, 2003.

"If a Muslim judge, who in private gulps down pints of whisky during one evening, condemns a fellow Muslim for 70 lashes for a tipple in public, the primacy of conscience is being violated. ... Conscience is the horn through which God blows into our soul; it is the moral faculty, through which God speaks to us."

-- Lamin Sanneh, the D. Willis James Professor of World Christianity, "Analysis: Muslims -- Fellow Believers," United Press International, June 3, 2003.

"We found that the quality of state-funded preschool programs varies so much that turning Head Start over to the states would be like playing Russian roulette with the futures of America's children."

-- Walter S. Gilliam, associate research scientist at the Child Study Center, about a Yale study of how state-funded early childhood intervention programs function, "Bill May Give States More Control Over Head Start Program," Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, June 11, 2003.

"But flooding world markets with the products of U.S. agriculture creates dangerous patterns of dependence, puts farmers in developing countries out of business, undermines rural communities and rarely helps the hungry."

-- Kathleen McAfee, assistant professor of geography, about the debate over exports of genetically modified U.S. crops in her article "Genetically Modified Morals," International Herald Tribune, June 13, 2003.

"Less than 1 percent of Connecticut's current energy mix is defined as clean and renewable. This leaves us dependent on foreign oil for our cars, and primarily on nuclear, oil and gas for electricity. Surely it make sense to diversify this portfolio, at least a little, given the tensions and insecurities of our world."

-- Marian Chertow, assistant professor at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, in her article "Stop State's Raid on Clean-Energy Technology Money," New Haven Register, June 4, 2003.

"After all, successful politicians have, by definition, mastered the art of compromising principles for tactical reasons and then covering their tracks with idealistic rhetoric. And those who manage to climb the greasy pole to the White House tend to be the most shamelessly masterful of all."

-- Peter H. Schuck, the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law, in his article "Judges are Different; Even Affirmative Action Foes Find a Way To Justify Racial and Ethnic Criteria in Filling the Supreme Court Bench," Legal Times, June 9, 2003.

"Science begins with human sensations."

-- Benoit B. Mandelbrot, the Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences, "Shaping the Future; Mathematicians Explore the Wonders of Fractals," New Haven Register, June 1, 2003.

"What we're saying is that simply watching a loved one suffering has its own, discrete negative psychological consequences that can affect the caregiver's well-being. What we need to do is take a step back and think about how we can help them deal with the mental health aspect of their experience."

-- Holly Prigerson, associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology and public health, about a Yale study showing one-third of caregivers suffer from depression, "Caregiving: Major Depression Common Among People Caring for Dying Loved Ones," Mental Health Weekly Digest, June 2, 2003.

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

Faculty win Blue Planet Prize; second Yale win in two years

Renowned neurosurgeon named acting dean of Medical School

High school students sample university life

City youths learn the fine art of playwriting

Changes in cloud elevation may affect Northeastern forests . . .

Students' winning house design parts with tradition

Summer music flourished under pianist's direction

MEDICAL SCHOOL NEWS

Yale artist's painting wins award from National Academy of Art

Two faculty members elected into renowned society

Yale Glee Club has named its newest director
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES

Yale astrophysicists determine likely fate of . . .

Researcher touts 'Grand Unification' theory of galaxies

Astronomy fellow discovers new gravitational lens

Law professor Burke Marshall dies . . .

Thomas Greene, renowned literary scholar, dies at age 77

Leonard Kaplow dies; renowned pathologist

Symposium honors Shulman's work with NMR

Yale Books in Brief

Campus Notes

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