Departments
In the News
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Week of 10 December 1999 |
Vol. III, No. 17 |
In the News
Richard Landes, CAS associate history professor and director of the Center for Millennial Studies, affirms on ABC's Nightline November 24 his opinion that Europeans were charged with millennial fervor at the end of the year 999. "This is the triumph of people who've been squelched their entire lives, and now is the moment of their vindication," he says. "Millennialism is a very powerful force. We have as many good reasons to believe the world is coming to an end, even if we don't believe in God, as people back in the year 1000 had."
Daniel Monti, CAS associate professor of sociology, was interviewed on WCVB-TV's evening newscast November 28 about the decision of an Amherst, Mass., high school to cancel a performance of West Side Story because of objections by Puerto Rican students and parents. "I don't know that there are any clear winners or losers, but the public dialogue and civic discourse on what it means to be a Puerto Rican person in the late 20th century certainly hasn't been done a whole lot of good. The message of West Side Story is getting over your differences and learning that you're going to have to share this planet together."
Speaking about popular poetry slams on CBS's 60 Minutes November 28, U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, CAS professor of English, says, "I think if you have a funny hat, or a funny voice or a very flamboyant personality, it helps you. . . . Not to be pompous about it, but for anybody who tries to be an artist, you're competing with Shakespeare, Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Yeats. You're trying to make a work of art that does not depend on your presence."
Responding in a November 30 Boston Globe story to statistics showing a sharp decline in arrests for drunk driving, Ralph Hingson, SPH professor, expresses his ambivalence. "Part of me says it's good that the arrests are going down, because it also reflects a decline in deaths," says Hingson, who specializes in transportation safety. "But we still have a huge problem, in Boston, in Massachusetts, and across the country." He advocates that Massachusetts adopt stiffer legal penalties such as other states have on the books.
As hospitals trim staff, they are becoming more receptive to the presence of a patient's family or friends in the hospital. "Ten to fifteen years ago it used to be hard [for family] to stay with a patient 24 hours a day. Not anymore," says George Annas, SPH professor, in the November 29 Los Angeles Times. Annas also notes the increasing readiness of doctors to talk to others about a patient. "In many cases it's a lot easier for them to discuss this stuff with a relative than the patient. They're not as emotionally involved," and are "more likely to keep problems from escalating."
"In the News" is compiled by Alexander Crouch in the Office of Public Relations.