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In the News
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Week of 26 February 1999 |
Vol. II, No. 25 |
In the News
"Pretty soon there is going to be a church for exercise," quips Leonard Zaichkowsky, School of Education professor who specializes in sports psychology. Zaichkowsky was interviewed for a February 5 Boston Phoenix take on spinning, the workout program whose devotees spin the prayer wheels of their stationary bikes in classes at health clubs. "When you get to the extremes, it is dysfunctional. If they have to take three hours a day to exercise, are thinking about it all day -- 'I have to do this spinning stuff' -- they become fanatics," Zaichkowsky says.
"There is a disconnect between what leaders see as necessary to help their communities and what they see coming out of Washington," says David Rosenbloom, director of Join Together, the School of Public Health anti- substance abuse initiative, in a February 9 Boston Globe story. The story, on the latest anti-drug abuse initiative by the Clinton administration, contains a reference to an SPH survey of 1,500 community leaders that suggests that a focus on prevention and cure of drug abuse would be easier and more effective than escalating police efforts.
"It's a great ad if you're a pedophile,"says Christopher Cakebread, College of Communication professor who specializes in advertising. In an interview February 17 on WHDH-TV, Cakebread was commenting on a new Calvin Klein campaign for children's underwear that shows infants romping in designer undies. "How do you rationalize using little bodies like that, which from a titillating perspective has a real sense of offensiveness to a great deal of people?" he asks.
"Everyone knows already there are some health benefits from wine and alcohol,"says Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, professor at the BU School of Medicine and an authority on the effects of moderate drinking, in the February 6 Boston Globe. "But if you're going to put any labels on a bottle, you should tell the truth." Ellison was referring to labels asserting the health benefits of wine, which the U.S. government recently allowed wine makers to put on bottles. "This [label] doesn't say, as it should, that the health effects of light drinking are good," he says, "and the effects of heavy drinking are bad."
What is the last refuge of the downtrodden worker? Revolution? Or perhaps scribbling on the rest room wall? "It's largely a protest against invisibility," says Joseph Boskin in the February 7 Boston Herald. The CAS professor of history and specialist in American humor is referring to office jokes. "Workers who are now working longer and working harder resent this," he says. "The only thing they can do is tell jokes."
"In the News" is compiled by Alexander Crouch in the Office of Public Relations.