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 Bella English (December 1993)
Ellen Goodman (April 3, 1992)
Ellen Goodman (July 19, 1991)
Ric Kahn (no date, 1994)
Alfie Kohn (March 22, 1994)
Ron Shaich (Janaury 1994)
Ed Siegel (no date, 1994)
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Bella English. December 1993
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In her annual "Christmas Wish List" column, Bella English had a special wish for Massachusetts's
governor and Boston's mayor:
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"To Gov. Weld:
a heart, to go along with his brain.
To Mayor Menino:
a brain, to go along with his heart."
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If you're not familiar with Bay State politicos, the sentiment reflects the reputation former
Massachusetts governor Bill Weld had for being intelligent, but not very compassionate, and Boston
mayor Thomas Menino's has for being compassionate, but not particularly intelligent.
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Ellen Goodman. April 3, 1992
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Writing about sex education in our schools, Ellen Goodman noted a deep
division between advocates of safe sex and abstinence (which she dubbed "the
chastity curriculum" and "the condom curriculum"). Both approaches, however,
reflect a pendulum swing away from the prevailing social atmosphere of a few
decades ago. Goodman wrote:
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"In the sixties and seventies,
we talked about pleasures and forgot about dangers …
in the 1990s,
we talk about danger and forget about pleasure."
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Goodman's observation demonstrates how useful chiasmus can be in making
comparisons. In my view, no figure of speech can hold a candle to chiasmus
when it comes to comparing one thing and another (for more thought-provoking
examples, see the chapter on "Chiastic Comparisons"
in Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You.)
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Ellen Goodman. July 19, 1991
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A 1991 Vanity Fair cover featured a very pregnant Demi Moore. Except for
what Ellen Goodman called "two strategically placed hands" the actress was
totally naked. In the photograph, Annie Leibovitz had juxtaposed sexuality
and motherhood, two things that don't normally go together. Noting that
Leibovitz had "captured and, uh, exposed a visual taboo," Goodman wrote:
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"After all, a mother isn't supposed to be a sex object
and a sex object isn't supposed to be a mother
and where is Freud when you need him?"
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Alfie Kohn. March 22, 1994
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In a 1994 article titled "The High Cost of Rewards," Alfie Kohn wrote:
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"The question we need to ask is not
'How motivated is this person?'
but 'How is this person motivated?'"
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Kohn added, "What matters is not the amount, but the type of motivation involved." His observation makes it clear
that "problem performers" don't lack motivation, they're simply motivated in ways that fail to meet the approval of parents,
teachers, and other frustrated authority figures.
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Ron Shaich. January 1994
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As a nationwide coffee craze was sweeping the country, Ron Shaich (pronounced shake), the co-chairman of Au Bon Pain,
offered this observation in a 1994 Globe article on a possible "coffee war" in the Boston area:
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"In the rest of the country, Dunkin' Donuts is perceived
as a bakery with a coffee shop attached,
but in Boston it's perceived
as a coffee shop with a bakery attached."
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Ric Kahn. No date, 1994
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In 1994, Ric Kahn wrote a fascinating article on the tortured life and self-inflicted death of a former Boston
undercover cop named Jeffrey Coy. Kahn offered this chiastic clue to Coy's ultimate despair:
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"In the primordial undercover world,
Coy found his psyche stretched in a tug of war between
unsuspecting cops who believed he was a criminal
and the suspecting criminals who believed he was a cop."
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Ed Siegel. No date, 1994
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During the 1994 Olympic games, television critic Ed Siegel lambasted Connie Chung for her unprofessional
interviews with Tonya Harding, the figure skater implicated in the attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.
Chung's first TV interview with Harding was considered so laughably "soft" it was criticized by most observers, and
even ridiculed by some. In a second Harding interview, Chung appeared deliberately provocative, causing
Harding to end the interview prematurely. Her dramatic about-face seemed a transparent attempt to salvage
her reputation as a tough interviewer. By contrast, Siegel couldn't help but recall how gallantly Jim McKay
had covered the 1972 Munich Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists massacred Israeli athletes. He wrote:
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"ABC's Jim McKay was a sportscaster
who distinguished himself covering a news story …
CBS' Connie Chung was a newswoman
who disgraced herself covering a sports story."
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