“You know, the ultimate question is whether staying single is better than
a kind of terrible marriage. I don’t know the answer to that, but, in terms
of blood pressure, yes, [a recent study shows] it seems to be a little bit better.
But there may be other benefits to marriage, even unhappy marriages, which are
not measured in this and which might contribute to better health. ... For example,
marriage, good or bad, might result in better caring for each other in old age.
Well, that could have great health benefits. There might be less loneliness which,
even though it wouldn’t be reflected, apparently, in stress and blood pressure,
might change the quality of a person’s life in other ways.” §
“It is important not to conflate China with the Chinese government. The
Olympics have stirred an enormous outpouring of nationalism within China and
among Chinese abroad. We should not dismiss Chinese nationalism as part and parcel
of the Communist machine. Nationalism has forged civic engagement, cutting across
groups normally divided by age, class and geography. This engagement leads to
greater awareness of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Far from
legitimizing an authoritarian regime, the Olympics foster the kind of nationalism
that will help the Chinese carve out a civil society, which may be the best antidote.” §
“The rhetoric [touting ‘green’ homebuilding] is way out in
front of the reality. The products, availability and alternatives are increasing
very, very quickly, and there’s a gap between that and the knowledge to
take advantage of that.” §
“Picture an explosive parent who responds to a child’s misbehavior
by ranting, screaming and perhaps hitting. Now picture a calm, patient, gentle
parent who responds to the same misbehavior — no matter how provokingly
awful — by reasoning and explaining. ... [W]hen it comes to changing behavior,
the rage-ball and the patient explainer are startlingly close neighbors on the
ineffective end of the spectrum. They embody our natural tendency to fixate on
unwanted behavior and unwittingly reinforce it by giving it a lot of attention — and
then persist in trying either to punish or to talk it into oblivion, both of
which almost never work.” §
“The mathematics of [creating a finance plan for early retirement] are
beyond what most people could really be sophisticated at. It’s not that
they’re stupid. It’s just that it’s complicated.” §
“People are more worried about Big Insecurity than Big Government. We are
at a moment that has parallels to the moment that led to the New Deal. We have
an economic order that is not well placed to deal with the challenges of the
21st century, just as back then there was a realization that the world had changed
but the government hadn’t.” §
“We likely should not count on nuclear power to solve our climate change
problem, but it could be a component in a family of solutions we might decide
to employ.” §
“Most of these bacteria [that can be killed by the new ultra-violet home
devices] are harmless to us, and providing a sterile environment is fruitless.” §
“[Banks] need more capital now, and they’re likely to need even more
in the next year or two. We’re in kind of a Catch-22 situation: a recession
that is not too severe depends on the resumption of bank lending. Without that
resumption, the recession is going to become deeper and longer.” §
“The cereal the parent is eating him or herself is probably better than
what they’re feeding their child. … My advice to parents of young
children is you’ve got to just make a decision [not to buy cereals marketed
to children] and stick with it because if you give in once, you’re going
to regret it. It’s just going to make your kid nag you even more.” §
“Calmly assess if your portfolio is diversified. If it is, that’s
the best you can do [during this tumultuous time in the stock market]. You may
get lucky switching to cash or you may not, but history suggests a diversified
portfolio with a significant share in equities will do well in the long term.” §
“Robotic calls had almost no effect [on generating support for a political
candidate]. People hang up almost immediately.” §
“The men who have done the best [at being a single dad] are the ones who
can keep a social network functioning around them and also keep their full range
of emotions at hand.” §
“The strongest rationale for [the news media] granting a source anonymity
is simply to protect the source from illegitimate retaliation or harassment for
providing information. ... But newspapers routinely grant anonymity to employees
who misappropriate employer information. Often times these grants are given to
sources who could be legitimately fired or disciplined for violating their fiduciary
duty to their employer. The sources who steal — I mean misappropriate — employer
information aren’t willing to directly disclose because they know they
could be fired for the disclosure. ... I, for one, would prefer not to read articles
with misappropriated information. We’re all trading in a type of stolen
goods. One way to improve the situation would be for newspapers to only grant
employees anonymity if the employee’s disclosure would be protected by
the law’s definition of whistle blowing.” §
“[D]octors aren’t good at dealing with medically unexplained symptoms.
When you say, ‘This isn’t Lyme disease,’ the patient may think
you are saying, ‘You aren’t suffering.’” §
“The funds used to purchase Manhattan Island for $28 in 1626, when invested
at a 4-per-cent real interest rate, give you the value of all the land in Manhattan
today.” §
“Each year, more than 42,000 people die in crashes on America’s roads.
That’s some 117 of us every day. ... And yet, while these numbers remain
the same year to year, we and our politicians all remain remarkably silent about
road safety. This is because crashes seem to be a force of nature, a fact of
life — they happen and we call them accidents. ... Yet such thinking evinces
a general failure to look at the bigger picture. Blame may be assigned to users
or it may not. But a transportation system should be built with the recognition
that its users will be fallible and with the premise that mistakes should not
be fatal.” §
“The important thing [about graduate school] is you will get much franker,
tougher criticism here than you will get in the wider world. [But] if there’s
a third party that has a checkbook in the middle of that, then it distorts it.” §
“It seems that novels in China are coming into their own, that new freedoms
of expression are being claimed by their authors. Mao has become a handy villain.
One wonders how much longer his successors will be immune from similar treatment.” §
“As a novelist, I am jealous of the present national moment. I’d
love to have invented it — what author of thrillers wouldn’t? ...
We have war, we have religion, we have race, we have gender, we have class, and
we have confusing subplots galore. What reader could resist? But what readers
really want to know — the sooner the better — is who the hero is.
Every novel, especially every thriller, needs a hero. ... Nevertheless, any candidate
can be a hero. The question is whether his or her supporters will allow this
to happen. ... One way supporters keep their candidates from becoming heroic
is by trying to shield them from adversity — even when adversity only means
tough questions from the media. If reporters challenge McCain, it’s evidence
of their left-wing bias. If they challenge Obama or Clinton, they are playing
the Republicans’ game. Forgotten is a crucial lesson from literature: Only
by confronting adversity can the potential hero be tested.” §
“Chinese nationals [here in the U.S.] have been staging counterprotests
[to efforts to boycott the Olympic games in Beijing], which would have never
been possible if they had been living in China. Yet those demonstrators are taking
advantage of the freedom here to vigorously promote a government that would deny
such freedom to its citizens.” §
“In an age of sound bites and the awful daily vision of human beings chattering
into their cell phones as they hustle down the street, it is deeply satisfying
that a small number of people still take the time to ponder and make connections
between events over centuries.”
T H I S
— Dr. Sydney Spiesel, associate clinical professor of pediatrics and clinical
professor of nursing, “Marriage & Blood Pressure,” “Day
to Day,” National Public Radio, April 14, 2008.
— Sue Meng, student at the Law School, in her article, “An Olympic
Force for Change,” Washington Post, April 20, 2008.
— Stephen R. Kellert, the Tweedy/Ordway Professor of Social Ecology, “The
House that Green Built,” The New York Times, April 20, 2008.
— Alan E. Kazdin, the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology and director
of the Child Conduct Clinic and Child Study Center, in his article, “Perfect
Angels,” National Post (Canada), April 21, 2008.
— Roger Ibbotson, professor in the practice of finance, “Making Your
Money Last as Long as You Live,” The New York Times, April 21, 2008.
— Jacob Hacker, professor of political science, “The Return of Big
Government,” U.S. News & World Report, April 21, 2008.
— Thomas Graedel, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Industrial Ecology,
on a study suggesting that the environmental damage caused by uranium mining
offsets the benefits of nuclear power as an energy source that does not emit
greenhouse gases, “Uranium Supply Decline Clouds Nuclear Power’s
Future,” Live Science (NY), April 22, 2008.
— Robert Baltimore, professor of pediatrics and epidemiology (infectious
diseases) and clinical professor of nursing, noting that most transmission of
disease occurs from person to person, not from the environment, “Scientists
Question Need for Germ Killers,” The Wall Street Journal (Europe), April
22, 2008.
— Jeffrey E. Garten, the Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International
Trade, Finance and Business, on the fact that banks have lost over $300 billion
in investments because of the mortgage market crisis, “Banks Hunting for
More Cash,” The New York Times, April 22, 2008.
— Marlene B. Schwartz, senior research scientist in psychology, “Heavily
Marketed Kids’ Cereals Are Least Healthy,” Reuters India, April 23,
2008.
— William Goetzmann, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management
Studies and director of the International Center for Finance, “What to
Do Now,” Money Magazine, May 2008.
— Donald Green, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Political Science
and director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, “Congressional
Democrats Target Political ‘Robocalls,’” Inside Bay Area (CA),
April 22, 2008.
— Dr. Kyle Pruett, director of the Child Study Center and the Irving B.
Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology, “Life
and the Single Dad,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 25, 2008.
— Ian Ayres, the William K. Townsend Professor of Law, in his article, “Anonymity
Because,” The New York Times, April 29, 2008.
— Dr. Eugene Shapiro, professor of pediatrics and of epidemiology and public
health, on the controversy over whether chronic Lyme disease is a medically proven
condition, “‘Under Our Skin’ Examines Lyme Disease Rift,” Hartford
Courant, April 30, 2008.
— William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics, explaining how
a small financial investment — such as his proposed modest universal tax
on all fossil fuels — can grow exponentially in the future, “Climate
Policy Frenzy Leads Nowhere,” Globe and Mail (Canada), April 30, 2008.
— Erica Mintzer, student at the School of Medicine, Hunter Smith, student
at the Law School, and Thomas Harned, in their article, “Why Tolerate 42,000
Traffic Deaths a Year?” Hartford Courant, April 30, 2008.
— Robert Storr, dean of the School of Art and professor of painting, contending
that having art dealers at student shows is detrimental, “Columbia’s
MFA Thesis Show Sets a High Bar,” New York Sun, May 2, 2008.
— Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, in his review of Mo Yan’s
novel “Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,” “History And Its
Reincarnations on a Chinese Animal Farm,” International Herald Tribune
(France), May 3, 2008.
— Stephen L. Carter, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, in his
article, “Plenty of Juicy Plot Twists in a Thriller of a Race,” The
Washington Post, May 4, 2008.
— Zhengguo Kang, senior lector in East Asian languages and literatures, “Without
Rights, Pride is Empty; For Chinese-Americans, a Sinking Feeling,” Chicago
Tribune, May 5, 2008.
— Paul Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, about
a new crop of books on large historical themes, in his article, “The Distant
Horizon; What Can ‘Big History’ Tell Us About America’s Future?” Foreign
Affairs, May 2008.
W E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Added sun does not lower breast cancer risk, warn expertsYale affiliates are honored with election to prestigious societies
Ten appointed members of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Mathematician Peter Jones named to National Academy of Sciences
Ian Shapiro chosen to join American Philosophical Society
Strobel’s students rediscover sense of scientific ‘wonder’ . .
Yale to celebrate 307th graduation
Summertime at Yale
Scientist Joan Steitz wins nation’s largest prize in medicine
University names 18 future leaders as 2008 World FellowsENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Mary E. Miller named Sterling Professor of the History of Art
Joseph Roach appointed Sterling Professor of Theater
Dr. Madhav Dhodapkar is the new Bunker Professor of Hematology
Dr. Richard Edelson is the first Lerner Professor of Dermatology
Architecture students helping to design Mideast Peace Park
China’s President Hu Jintao meets with participants in . . .
In Yale-led study, astronomers discover nine young galaxies . . .
Research on male mating behavior suggests brains may be unisex . . .
Paul Anastas honored as the founder of ‘green chemistry’
Town-gown partners honored with Elm-Ivy AwardsSCHOOL OF MEDICINE NEWS
Drug addicts can learn to save lives, says researcher
Study: No ‘Hollywood heart attack’ symptoms for most women
Findings suggest eating chocolate may be boon to pregnant women
Early-stage bone cells may offer possible estrogen replacement
Expert assesses lessons from 12 years of anti-smoking efforts
Computer program helps keep drug abusers abstinent, study shows
Noted gastroenterologist named chief medical officer at YMG
Yale Ob/Gyn researchers discuss their work at New Orleans meeting
Symposium on pain management aimed at medical school students
Exhibits explore artist’s Liverpool years, British watercolors
Two student-curated shows focus on the medium of photography
Library creates digital archive of ‘oldest college daily’
Two seniors will study at the University of Cambridge as Gates Scholars
Campus leaders discuss strategies for increasing staff diversity
Former Bucknell chaplain is named new pastor of University Church
Professor Miroslav Volf will co-teach class with . . .
Tony Blair
Council of Masters honors 10 juniors for their scholarship . . .
Conference focuses on ‘Women and Men in the Globalizing University’
The future of ‘Computers, Freedom and Privacy’ to be addressed . . .
Karyn Frick honored for contributions to women’s health
Campus Notes
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