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In the News
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Week of 2 October 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 8 |
In the News
The October issue of Life magazine profiles CAS Professor Robert Pinsky, U.S. poet laureate, and his progress in creating a turn-of-the-millenium audio and video archive of Americans from all walks of life reading their favorite poem -- and explaining why they chose it. "I want all American voices to be heard," he says, calling for further participation in his Favorite Poem Project. "I want English, Chinese, Spanish, Navajo, and Yiddish. I want cowboy poems. I hope truck drivers and doctors and welders will consider nominating themselves for this project."
Presidential historian Robert Dallek, CAS professor of history and author of a recent biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, observes in a September 17 article in the New York Times that our leaders are more likely to seek moral than psychological healing in confronting personal crises. "The public finds it much easier to accept the proposition that the flesh is weak, we're all sinners who can be repaired by religious healing, rather than this problem is a blight of the mind," he says. Noting that we often set unrealistic standards for our leaders, he adds: "If presidents are human and the flesh is weak and they cross the line to commit adultery, why can't we see them as human beings?"
To prepare for questions from youngsters about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, parents should "be as open with the child as the child's level of development warrants," according to Leslie Brody, CAS associate professor of psychology. "Young children -- say five, six, seven years old -- are only going to be able to hear something like 'the president had a relationship with someone who was not his wife,' " Brody explains in the Boston Herald on September 21. "It's not going to mean anything to them. Parents need to be comfortable themselves."
In a September 18 editorial entitled "150 Years of Good Medicine," the Boston Globe celebrates the long history of achievement of the Boston University School of Medicine, calling it "a continuing force for innovation and one of the great medical institutions in the city."
Blood, a new book by COM Associate Professor Douglas Starr, who is codirector of the Graduate Program in Science Journalism, was reviewed at length in the September 23 issue of the New York Times. The book traces the history of blood throughout the ages and the evolution of the global blood business. "In every epoch, people had seen blood as more than it really was -- more than a liquid or component of their body, but as a reflection of their image and understanding of themselves," Starr says. He points out that now, however, it has become an important international product.
"In the News" is compiled by the Office of Public Relations.