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(10/07/05 5:05am)
American reaction to Hurricane Katrina might have cost the country the dream of ever achieving a contained federal government, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita said Wednesday night.\n"It absolutely amazed me how quick we were to say that the government was responsible for that hurricane," Rokita told attendees of a program presented by the IU Republican Women. "If we continue to think that way, pretty soon we will be living in a country that looks not unlike the former USSR."\nRokita, a republican, who holds one of the highest elected offices in the state and is treasurer of the National Association of Secretaries of State, gave his speech Wednesday night in the Indiana Memorial Union as part of the IU Republican Women lecture series titled, "Something to Talk About." During the lecture, he spoke about election reform, economic development and Hurricane Katrina.\nThe responsibility of reconstruction after the hurricane, he said in a post-lecture interview, should have been placed upon the shoulders of citizens, churches and neighbors. Rokita criticized American reliance on the federal government after the disaster, saying this increased the scope and role of federal government, hindering America's chances of ever containing it.\n"I never thought about it like that," sophomore Molly Carpenter said. "I used to think that the federal government did do a bad job. I never thought before that the people should take responsibility."\nRokita's current position as treasurer of the National Association of Secretaries of State puts him in line to serve as president of the organization for the 2007-2008 term, pending re-election as Indiana Secretary of State in 2006.\nSince taking office in 2003, Rokita has focused on election reform. His experience with elections involved recounting votes in Florida for George W. Bush's team in the 2000 election. He has worked to help all Indiana counties upgrade from their old voting equipment and to create a statewide database of registered voters to keep people from voting in more than one county. He also worked to help pass a bill requiring all voters to provide photo identification before being allowed to vote, he said during the lecture.\n"Common sense people like the idea of coming up with a photo ID requirement," said Rokita, adding that, according to his polls, 70 to 80 percent of Indiana residents agree with the bill.\nWith the passage of this bill, all motor vehicle bureaus will now offer free photo identification to all citizens with the proper documents. Opponents of this bill argue it discriminates against minorities, who often do not have access to the required documents.\nThe next step, Rokita said, will be a push for the requirement of proof of U.S. citizenship before obtaining photo identification from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.\n"It was such a fight just to get a photo ID requirement that we didn't tackle the citizenship issue," Rokita said.\nTo increase voter turnout in the 2006 election, Rokita said he will implement a full array of education for voters through public service announcements and train poll workers to create a better voting experience. He will also encourage counties to use 16- and 17-year-old poll workers to spark political interest in young people, he said in the interview.\nAside from election reform, Rokita said his main goals for his office are educating Hoosiers about financial decisions and continuing economic development.\nAt age 34, Rokita is the second youngest secretary of state in the country. Some of the biggest challenges of his position, he said, come from his young age.\n"It's because I'm so young that it's hard to establish credibility with my older peers," Rokita said. "The key is to approach people with an attitude of truthfulness, competence and confidence."\nRokita's young age was exactly what qualified him to speak before this audience, said Lindsay Kerrigan, president of the IU Republican Women.\n"He was able to achieve so much at a young age," Kerrigan said. "And because he is in charge of elections, IU students should care, because Monroe County is one of the most highly contested districts in the U.S"
(10/04/05 4:48am)
IU researchers have determined that incorporating physical activities, such as walking a dog or cleaning the house, into a daily routine can effectively lower blood pressure.\nDoctoral students Jaume Padilla and Saejong Park worked for Janet P. Wallace, IU director of adult fitness and an associate professor of kinesiology, to discover the effects of normal lifestyle physical activity on patients with hypertension, or high blood pressure, and pre-hypertension. \nWallace said it had been generally presumed by medical organizations that physical activity could help decrease hypertension, but the dots had yet to be connected.\n"The American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association had recommended physical activity for the treatment of hypertension, but there was very little evidence," Wallace said. "We wanted to provide more information."\nUntil recently, only the effects of medication, change in diet and rigorous cardiovascular exercise on blood pressure had been studied. However, Padilla and Park found that an accumulation of four hours of routine physical activity can lower blood pressure in pre-hypertensive and hypertensive patients for of six to eight hours.\n"It was unknown to that point that an accumulation of physical activity could help lower blood pressure," Padilla said. "Encouraging physical activity to people with high blood pressure will help them to reduce the amount of medication needed and lower blood pressure for the ones not on medication."\nPre-hypertensive patients have a systolic blood pressure between 120 and 139 and a diastolic blood pressure between 80 and 89. Hypertensive patients have a systolic blood pressure higher than 140 and a diastolic blood pressure higher than 90. People taking blood pressure medication are also categorized as hypertensive.\nThe researchers asked the subjects to incorporate enough physical activity into their days to burn an accumulation of 150 calories. On average, the subjects spent a total of four hours burning calories and experienced lower blood pressure for six to eight hours. They chose everyday activities such as carrying heavy objects, cleaning the house, climbing stairs, gardening, bicycling, mowing the lawn and brisk walking.\n"I think physical activity is easier to adapt to daily life than exercise," Park said.\nThe subjects were divided according to their blood pressures and placed into three groups: normal tensive, pre-hypertensive and hypertensive. Only the pre-hypertensive and hypertensive subjects experienced a decrease in blood pressure because of the physical activity. \nThe researchers used ambulatory blood pressure monitors for the study. The subjects wore blood pressure cuffs on their arms and monitors on their hips. \nTheir blood pressures were checked every 50 minutes during the day and every 30 minutes during the night.\nThe next step, Padilla said, is to test shorter sessions of activity and their effects on blood pressure. \n"Four hours of physical activity is quite a lot," Padilla said. "We are trying to see if short bouts of physical activity can have the same effect."\nThe students have already conducted the data analysis of this study, but they are still working on the manuscript.\nTo test this, Park asked subjects to walk briskly with her on a treadmill for 40 minutes on the first day. On the second day, she asked the patients to walk four times, 10 minutes each time. The data analysis concluded that the shorter, more frequent periods of activity had greater effects on blood pressure. The second study tested only pre-hypertensive patients, as it was more focused on hypertension prevention.\n"The physical activity we tested first was done over four hours," Park said. "This one's only 40 minutes. It fits better into daily life"
(09/27/05 4:40am)
To combat an expected increase in cancer treatment demand and in an effort to become one of the top five cancer centers in the country, the IU School of Medicine and Clarian Health Center began construction last week on an expansion of the IU Cancer Center.\nThe $150 million expansion, expected to be completed in 2008, will add more than 400,000 square feet to the center.\n"We have a unique opportunity. Cancer is a disease of aging and a substantial number of people affected with cancer are aging patients," said Stephen Williams, director of the IU Cancer Center. "The demographics of Indiana are such that there will be a huge increase of cancer over the next 20 to 30 years."\nThe IU Cancer Center, a clinical and research facility for cancer treatment, is the only National Cancer Institute center designated for clinical care in the state.\n"Consequently, we have a lot of patients and we need to provide for them," said Mary Hardin, media manager at the IU School of Medicine. "The field is growing. We have a goal to become one of the top five centers in the country."\nThe IU School of Medicine began collaborating with Clarian Health eight years ago when Clarian first opened. The IU Cancer Center is one of several products of the \ncollaboration.\n"The collaboration is really a natural fit because of their research specialty and our clinical specialty," said James Wide of Clarian Health. "We're both leaders in medicine for the state -- it's just right for us to be together."\nThe collaboration allows the IU Cancer Center to conduct both research and treatment.\n"Clarian is critically important to the IU School of Medicine, and the IU School of Medicine is a critical component of the leadership of Clarian," Williams said.\nThe IU Cancer Center mainly treats adult patients. Pediatric cancer treatment is mainly done by Riley Hospital for Children, of which Clarian is also a partner.\nWilliams said the expansion will bring new and improved inpatient space, a new surgical intensive care unit, new medical surgical beds, new operating rooms and significant expansion of diagnostic radiology, as well as new outpatient facilities.\n"Cancer treatment has evolved, and more and more is based in the outpatient department," he said.\nThe IU Cancer Center enlisted the help of patient groups to develop the design of the building with the goal of ensuring patient satisfaction.\nThe new addition will be located on the IU Medical School campus, at the corner of Michigan Street and University Boulevard in Indianapolis. The center receives no state money, so the expansion will be funded by Clarian Health Center and philanthropy.\nLast week's groundbreaking was the end result of about three years of planning, and the beginning of an estimated two and a half years of construction.\n"The ultimate beneficiaries are the citizens of the state of Indiana," Williams said. "This will be a venue in which we will care for those affected by cancer and a place where we will educate the cancer experts of the future"
(09/26/05 4:33am)
Saturday was a busy day for greek philanthropists.\nIU students participated in outdoor festivities with Delta Tau Delta and Alpha Phi to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Later they experienced the sounds of a Jimmy Buffet cover band, Key West Express, in Dunn Meadow at a concert sponsored by the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.\nDelta Tau Delta and Alpha Phi teamed up to raise about $800 to aid people affected by Hurricane Katrina. The fraternity and sorority played host Saturday to an outdoor celebration featuring water activities and food. The houses scheduled the event to last from 3 to 8 p.m., but inclement weather cut the event a couple of hours short.\nThe most popular features were the giant slip 'n' slide and the "Dunk-a-Cop" booth, Delta Tau Delta member Andrew Gant said. Officer Sam Shahrani offered himself up for a dunking booth to benefit the cause.\n"It's an event we're going to start doing every year," Gant said. "It was such a great turnout, and we have a bunch of ideas for next year."\nThe event took about two weeks to organize, Delta Tau Delta philanthropic chair Mark Miller said.\n"It just seemed like an original idea for a good cause," Miller said.\nThe greek houses charged a $5 entry fee and attracted between 250 and 300 people to the event.\nFor the cover band portion of the greek community's philanthropy, IFC and PHA sponsored a concert Saturday in Dunn Meadow. For a $10 donation, students could listen to Key West Express, a Jimmy Buffett cover band, which played to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association as a tribute to the end of Greek Week.\n"It's good to see all the greeks come together for a good cause," IFC member Todd Waldman said. "The band was really excited to play for all the greeks here."\nThough the concert was organized to cap off Greek Week, the event attracted non-greeks who were interested in the band and the cause. \nKerry McChesney, a non-greek, attended the event because she and a friend were interested in seeing Key West Express.\n"I think it's going toward a good and necessary cause, but I wish there would have been more people here," McChesney said.\nThe two organizations chose Key West Express because it seemed appropriate for the theme of this year's Greek Week, which was titled "Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes." The concert brought in about $5,000 for the charity and sold about 300 tickets, largely due to pre-sales. \n"On our Greek Week committee, there are two members that have close ties to muscular dystrophy and we thought it'd be appropriate," Waldman said.\nOrganizers were pleased with the turnout and the amount of money raised.\n"The entire Greek Week as a whole has been a big success," Waldman said.
(09/22/05 4:04am)
The recent push in some states to incorporate the teaching of "intelligent design" into public school science curricula has brought the old debate of creationism versus evolution into a new light.\nIntelligent design is the belief that the development of life on earth is too complicated to be explained by nature and therefore can be better explained as the design of a higher, supernatural power. It has recently been proposed as an addition to some state science curricula, such as Kansas and Pennsylvania, according to The Associated Press. Supporters say this theory should be taught alongside evolution in public school classrooms.\nEugenie C. Scott addressed this issue Wednesday night at the IU Auditorium in a lecture titled "The Pillars of Creationism and the Teaching of Evolution."\nScott, director of the National Center for Science Education and author of "Creationism and Evolution: An Introduction," refuted the arguments against evolution and argued that science and religion do not necessarily have to be incompatible in her discussion of the theories of evolution, creationism and intelligent design.\n"The debate between evolution and creationism is not a dichotomy," Scott told a crowd of hundreds. "On the contrary, there is a creation and evolution continuum. There are intermediate positions ranging from one extreme to another, and actually most American Christians are somewhere in between."\nProponents of the incorporation of intelligent design into the science curricula of public schools argue that the introduction of both the theory of evolution and the theory of intelligent design is more fair than an evolution-based curriculum because it exposes students to more than one idea, said Scott. \nBut she disagreed. The incorporation of religion into the intelligent design theory makes it inappropriate for science classes, she said.\n"When it comes right down to it, science is not a democratic process," Scott said. "When it comes right down to it, it is a highly discriminative process. We cheerfully discriminate against those ideas that don't work."\nScott went on to say that religion deserves more educational attention, but not in public school science classrooms.\nThe lecture attracted students of different majors with different questions in mind. \nZain Zaidi, a freshman majoring in biology, was previously unsure of how evolution fit into his faith.\n"The speaker brought up reasons why evolution can be accepted by religious people and the scientific community," Zaidi said. "She cleared up several questions about the validity of evolution."\nScott will speak again at 4 p.m. today in Myers Hall 130. This lecture will be part of the Joan Wood Lecture series and is titled "Tracking Those Incredible Creationists: Adventures as a Public Scientist"
(09/21/05 4:48am)
The debate about the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools has gained more public attention with the recent push to incorporate the "intelligent design" theory into some public schools.\nOpponents say the teaching of intelligent design in public schools violates the separation of church and state in the Constitution. Supporters say it is necessary to expose students to both sides in order to allow them to make their own decisions.\nAt 7 p.m. today in the Auditorium, Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, will address the issue at a lecture titled, "The Pillars of Creationism and the Teaching of Evolution."\nShe will present her argument on the evolution and intelligent design debate, which has become more well-known as a result of the recent proposal and debate in Kansas to teach intelligent design as a theory alongside evolution. Intelligent design, according to The Associated Press, teaches that the development of life is too complicated to have happened naturally and therefore required the intelligence of a higher power to plan it out. \nIt differs from traditional creationist theories because it teaches that life has evolved over time. It differs from evolutionist theories because it teaches that evolution was governed by a supernatural power.\nThe debate has been given more public attention in the last few months because of the proposal by the Kansas State Board of Education to add the teaching of intelligent design to the state standards and encourage schools to teach it, according to The Associated Press. \n"The creationism and evolution controversy is a very broad one," Scott said. "I'll be talking a little bit about evolution and the different forms of creationism, as well as presenting the current status of the creationism and evolution controversy."\nThe Union Board, along with 16 other organizations, is sponsoring today's event. The Union Board itself spent about $1,300 to organize and sponsor this event.\n"I like to really bring debate to campus and bring real, pertinent issues and strong opinions," said Allen Andreas, Union Board Director of Debates and Issues. "Evolution and the debate about it is one of the most controversial and strongest topics I've ever seen."\nThe National Center for Science Education, which Scott has directed, does not consider intelligent design a theory and does not support its teaching in schools.\n"We believe that good science and not religion should be taught in science classrooms," Scott said. "The intelligent design theory is not science -- it is a new form of creationism. Since that can't be tested scientifically, it isn't science."\nScience education professor Valarie Akerson believes intelligent design should be allowed to be taught in schools, just not as a science.\n"I don't even think there should be a debate," Akerson said. "Religion is one way of knowing, and science is another. They're not necessarily incompatible."\nAndreas believes this lecture will be useful and interesting to all students, but particularly to those studying or interested in biology, political science, religious studies and sociology.\n"This is important, first of all, because it brings up debate about separation of church and state," Andreas said. "It also involves the defense of science and biology, because modern biology is based on evolution."\n"The Pillars of Creationism and the Teaching of Evolution" is open and free to the public.