X
"You know, it's really strange, but Irish people won't talk about class at all. It's this weird unspoken thing
in Dublin, that there are two completely separate accents. And everybody knows it."
-- Barry McCrea, assistant professor of
comparative literature, "Out of Literary Sortes,"
Irish Times, Jan. 21, 2006.
§
''One thing that makes for great [presidential] legacies are great crises, and we have had that. But it then requires not only the right diagnosis of the problem, but a strategy that proves durable enough that it survives the end of the administration that invented it, and is picked up by subsequent administrations of either party.''
-- John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, "2006 Is So Yesterday," The New York Times, Jan. 1, 2006.
§
"We don't like fat. And the bias is powerful, pervasive and persistent. Some of the stories we hear will just break your heart, of teachers who say things to a class like, 'This girl must be staying home to eat,' when a kid is absent, or of people who say things like, 'Well, I can tell you like to eat.'"
-- Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, professor and chair of psychology, and professor of epidemiology and public health, "Our Fight With Fat / Shame On You; Overcoming the Guilt of Being Overweight Can Take a Lifetime," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 4, 2006.
§
"The Internet relationships [between college chaplains and students] tend to be very fragile. They flame and flare out, and there is a sense that they are disposable. What we've discovered is people need face to face experiences that the Web enhances."
-- Wesley Avram, the Clement-Muehl Assistant Professor of Communication at the Divinity School, "The Electronic Chaplain," The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Virginia), Jan. 8, 2006.
§
''From kindergarten on, parents are thinking about college admissions. Many parents are fearful that if you're not on the honor roll in junior high, it will seal your fate for life. ... [But] if you give your kids space, it's possible they'll find their own motivation [to do homework].''
-- Virginia Shiller, lecturer at the Child Study Center, "Homework Helpers," The New York Times, Jan. 8, 2006.
§
"People read 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' in high school and they never want to read anything by [18th-century preacher Jonathan] Edwards again. ... He was part and parcel of Puritan views. He put a great [emphasis] on self-righteousness. When you become lackadaisical and proud, that's how you lose God."
-- Kenneth P. Minkema, executive editor of the Works of Jonathan Edwards and adjunct assistant professor at the Divinity School, noting that a Yale website aims to refocus interest on the evangelist, "The Softer Side of Edwards; Yale Project Finds More to Theologian Than Fire and Brimstone," Hartford Courant, Jan. 10, 2006.
§
"I appreciate the fans' desire to see some of the finest players in the world, but it hardly stretches the truth to say that those who want Cuba to participate [in the inaugural World Baseball Classic this spring] are asking to be entertained by a team of slaves. ... During their regular season, the Cuban players are not allowed to choose a team; they must play for the squad in the district where they reside or not at all. They have no unions and no agents. And they must engage in the institutionalized hypocrisy (copied from the former Soviet Union) of being amateurs, temporarily away from their jobs. The result is that their pay is meager and that they are under total control of the state's Orwellian sports bureaucracy."
-- Roberto González Echevarría, Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature, in his article "Castro at the Bat," The New York Times, Jan. 11, 2006.
§
"In the years ahead, China's economic progress may slacken if Beijing takes growth-inhibiting measures to relieve its mounting income disparities, or if it meets demands for democratic reforms with the repression of economic as well as political freedom, or for other reasons that cannot now be foreseen. But, thanks to its farsighted approach to scientific investment and educational reform, it is increasingly unlikely that China will fail in its bid for world economic leadership because it can't innovate."
-- Richard C. Levin, University President, in his article "Why China Is Not a New Japan," Newsweek, Dec. 2005-Feb. 2006.
§
"One of the absolutely essential questions of American law at the moment is the ability of any human being to call the executive branch to account before the courts."
-- Judith Resnik, the Arthur Liman Professor of Law, "700 Questions Show a Tilt to Right; Alito's Philosophy Appears Aligned With Court Conservatives," International Herald Tribune, Jan. 14, 2006.
§
"It's hard to analyze the effect of any one ingredient [in cough syrup] because, you know, a lot of cough is in our head, and placebo effects are very strong here. ... [T]here is physical coughing, although sometimes it turns out that for a lot of the studies that have been done, if you give patients sugar syrup, it seems to work just about as well as the things that are labeled 'cough syrup' and sold as cough syrups. But it does work. You know, if you give them nothing, the cough gets worse or remains the same, although in some of the studies that have been done, just waiting a day or two also helps a lot."
-- Dr. Sydney Spiesel, associate clinical professor of pediatrics and clinical professor of nursing, "Analysis: Report Questions Efficacy of Cough Syrup," "Day to Day," National Public Radio, Jan. 16, 2006.
§
"What I'm very, very interested in [in my photography] is a moment that hovers between before and after, a moment that is unresolved, that remains a question, and necessarily I think the ultimate meaning needs to remain a mystery for myself or else it wouldn't be as interesting. ... Usually, the narrative is very, very small, a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a car in the middle of a main street of a town and the driver's side door is open. So what makes the picture powerful, hopefully, or mysterious is that that tiny moment is transformed by the sense of light and color."
-- Gregory Crewdson, adjunct professor of photography, "Interview: Gregory Crewdson Discusses Photo Alchemy," "Day to Day," National Public Radio, Jan. 16, 2006.
§
"The fundamental experience of the Great Depression has repeated itself, on a smaller scale, many times and in many countries in recent decades: a shock in financial markets, followed by a sharp decline in gross domestic product. But the behavior of consumer prices in the post-1980 crises is fundamentally different from that seen in the 1930s. In contrast to the Great Depression, collapsing national output was in recent decades accompanied by accelerating inflation, not deflation."
-- Robert J. Shiller, the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics, in his article "Is He Ready To Replace Greenspan?" The Korea Herald, Jan. 17, 2006.
§
"There's a really serious disconnect between the way we prepare kids for leadership positions in society, for life as an adult, and what you actually have to do to get there. ... In the course of your life, you encounter a lot of blows, some of them quite awful, and if you don't learn how to overcome those obstacles, you're at a disadvantage."
-- Robert J. Sternberg, the IBM Professor of Psychology and Education, "Got Grit?: A Penn Researcher Who Studies High Achievers Says It Isn't I.Q., Grades or Leadership Skills That Leads to Success. It's Good, Old-Fashioned Stick-To-Itiveness," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 23, 2006.
§
"In globalization's initial stages, new overseas markets and competitors had to compete in America's court. In the present stage of globalization, however, more countries are acquiring the resources to compete on their own terms. India is rightly described as one such success story. However, with 600 million village dwellers living in poverty, and most of the new IT wealth concentrated within a tiny segment of the population, it is far too soon to celebrate."
-- Orly Friedman, a junior in Yale College, in her article "The Global Village," Outlook (India), Jan. 24, 2006.
§
"Some people act as if informed consent is a piece of paper with somebody's name on it. But that's just the last step. Getting truly informed consent means you have explained what the procedure is, and the risks, benefits and alternatives. Then you ask the patient to replay it: 'Could you tell me in your own words so that I can make sure you've got it?' Only then should you be giving them a piece of paper to sign."
-- Dr. Constantine Manthous, associate clinical professor of internal medicine, "'Come Again?' Good Medicine Requires Clarity," The New York Times, Jan. 24, 2006.
§
"One hears these stories [about the massacre of Christian missionaries]. Those stories are connections with the story of the God one worships, stories that shape character. Each decision to forgive [those who committed the atrocities] is not the decision of a person with an entirely clean slate. The forgiveness has been written onto the soul of a person."
-- Miroslav Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Divinity, "In His Father's Footsteps: Raised in a Missionary Family, Steve Saint Embodies a Story of Tragedy and Redemption that He Tells in 'End of the Spear,'" The Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 20, 2006.
T H I S
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
University launching new program to train tomorrow's journalists
Alliance will boost Yale-BIPI research collaborations
INTERNATIONAL YALE
Yale delegates meet with world leaders at Davos
SOM students learn about India's markets during trips
Faculty member named Young Global LeaderYale honored for design of Farmington Canal site
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Derek Briggs named the Beinecke Professor of Geology, Geophysics
Joan Feigenbaum appointed the Henry Ford II Professor . . .
Mark Johnson designated the Kemp Professor of Chemistry
Abraham Silberschatz named the Sidney J. Weinberg Professor . . .Black History Month celebration features talks, performances
Team will study atmospheric 'tsunamis' from on high
Study: Even with recycling, there's not enough metal to meet global demand
Works reveal how humans can 'turn ugliness into music'
Comic Mozart opera proclaims 'Women Are Like That'
Art of adornment is focus of 'Baubles, Bangles and Beads'
Modern art collection takes to the road in gallery's traveling exhibit
Guidelines set standards for doctors' relationships with drug companies
Medications reduce brain changes in youths with bipolar disorder
Study illuminates how the body fights viruses without attacking itself
Use of cell phones by medical personnel cuts rate of error . . .
Six Yale scientists receive awards for their research on aging
Exhibit features magical objects from the Babylonian Collection
Chaplain Frederick J. Streets to be honored as a 'trail blazer'
In Memoriam: A. Dwight Culler, renowned scholar of Victorian literature
Yale BioHaven Entrepreneurship Seminar Series . . .
Yale Books in Brief
Campus Notes
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