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(03/05/08 4:26pm)
Bloomington billionaire Bill Cook knows what it takes to be a leader. The founder of Cook Group, Inc. said Tuesday at the Whittenberger Auditorium that being a leader means being ethical and learning from your mistakes.\nHe said his business philosophy is “Ready, Fire, Aim” – prepare, execute and learn from history. His lecture was part of a speaker series sponsored by the Council for Advancing Student Leadership.\nCook explained it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be successful at business, but it does take a compartmentalized brain and help from others.\nSophomore Kristine King said she respects what Cook has done for Bloomington and cities across the country.\n“I really respect the fact that he gives to the community and gives back to the people in the community,” she said.\nCook said being a leader is a big responsibility.\n“Understand that Cook (Group) is not a democracy,” he said.\nCook explained how if a mistake is made in his company, it could kill people. He went on to explain how “greedy and stupid” companies were fined millions for breaking the law and how the costs of those fines will be passed on \nto consumers.\nHe recalled how his first business was selling shot glasses with pictures of nude women on the bottom. He said it was a “disaster.” Later, in 1963, he started Cook Medical in Bloomington. It grew to a worldwide corporation that includes 26 companies. \nHe said Cook Group was a pioneer in stents, which clear blood clots in arteries. He said it’s “surgery through a needle hole” because the process of inserting the stent involves making a needle hole and placing the stent through it. \n“We were making stents before anyone else was making them,” he said.\nCook now produces small intestinal submucosa or SIS technology. It can come in a patch form and it aids in tissue repair. It can rapidly heal burns, hernias and fill in disfigurements.\nHowever, he said, the Food and Drug Administration is slow to approve potentially life-saving medicines and technologies.\nCook said it took 15 years for the stents to get approved. He said many companies run out of money during the clinical testing of these types of products and that the SIS technology has been around since the ’80s, but has just recently been approved.\nHe faults this system and said the “nonsense” is passed on in terms of cost to the customers. He said stents that cost $500 to make sell for $2200 to cover all the clinical testing they went through.\nHe also said changes in health care will ultimately have to take place in Congress, but it can start in Bloomington.\nSophomore Emily Crohn said she thought the lecture was interesting. As a native of Bloomington, she said Cook has done good for the community. She said for a billionaire, he’s really down to Earth.\n“He seems like a really sincere guy,” Crohn said. \nDespite the challenges of starting a business, Cook said it shouldn’t bring people down.\n“Don’t let the world stop you,” he said.
(03/04/08 4:53am)
Revolutions and ideas are shaping the world, and questions are making them possible, journalist Charlie Rose said Sunday at the IU Auditorium.\n“What I do is ask questions. I don’t have a lot of answers,” Rose said.\nRose, who spoke at the auditorium as part of IU ArtsWeek 2008, said a good question reveals character, and listening is crucial. He argued for finding the hidden meaning in what people are saying.\nSenior Charlie Wettersten said Rose doesn’t ask “the toughest questions,” but “he’s intelligent, he’s critical.”\nFor 16 years, Rose has interviewed people as diverse as American presidents, foreign leaders, writers and pop music artists on his PBS show “Charlie Rose.”\nRose said his sense of curiosity concerning everything from politics to football drives his questions. He said it would be great if someone could go to the library and hear a conversation with Jesus or Shakespeare.\nRose also talked about arts and politics and how they are connected. \n“What we get from artists is an understanding of who we are,” he said.\nWhile some might question the United States’ confidence and reputation, Rose said it is a country that stands for free expression more than any other country.\n“The greatest export we have (is) our culture,” he said.\nRose said that because the world has problems that transcend borders, its solutions need to transcend borders. He cited the New York Philharmonic playing in North Korea as an example of transcending borders.\nWhile admitting it won’t solve the country’s problems with North Korea, Rose said it will help. \nRose said it was hard to interview political candidates because they tend to self-censor. He said he wants to get at politicians’ character and what they stand for.\nIt’s important, he said, to think about what’s changing in the world and what questions will bring access to a candidate’s character and leadership ability.\nRose said the great revolutions of modern times are in the environment, the digital realm, science and the global economy. He said the U.S. graduate schools and many Nobel Laureates have fueled technological advances that have made the country a leader, with countries like China trying to catch up. He said if no one asks questions, the U.S. will lose its lead.\nJunior Eric Cox said that while Rose has his own biases, “he tries not to let them get in the way.” He said Rose just tries to tell a story, and in the process, he interviews a wide variety of people and gets an understanding of the different moods of the country.
(03/03/08 5:17am)
A dangerous and ultimately tragic order may have led to the death of World War II reporter and IU alumnus Ernie Pyle, said one World War II veteran.\nAnthony Stanis, who was with the Army’s 305th regiment when it captured the island of Ie Shima, said that on April 18, 1945 he was ordered by Col. Joseph Coolidge, the 305th commander, to round up his men. Coolidge said he was going to take Pyle to see the 2nd Battalion fight in an attack he had ordered.\nThis differs from the popular account, in which Coolidge took Pyle to find a new command post.\nStanis said as a rule, he needed four hours to round up his men. The colonel gave him a “one-second order,” so he was only able to locate a few of his men.\nStanis said he didn’t like what he saw Pyle wearing that day. He said Pyle was dressed in clean khakis because he was headed home. All of the soldiers were filthy.\n“Japs love any targets that look different,” Stanis said. \nStanis also said he didn’t see Pyle with a helmet, although he said it’s possible he could have had helmet with him. \nHowever, Owen V. Johnson, an associate journalism professor at IU who wrote a book about Ernie Pyle, said Pyle was not yet going home. He said in the recently discovered death photo of Pyle he was clearly not wearing khaki pants. \n“To me, that’s clearly fatigues,” Johnson said. \nJohnson said Pyle often didn’t wear the standard uniform, but a lot of soldiers didn’t wear exactly the standard uniform. \nHe also said Pyle didn’t like to wear the helmet and usually wore a cloth cap. But even if he was wearing a helmet, as previous accounts indicate, it wouldn’t have made a difference.\n“Just like any type of body protection, it’s not going to be perfect,” he said. “In the death photo, Pyle is wearing a helmet but has the cloth hat in his hands.”\nStanis rounded up some of his men and started putting them into Jeeps. One Jeep held Coolidge, an intelligence officer and Pyle. Stanis said he had no idea where the 2nd Battalion was and that Coolidge didn’t seem to know exactly, either. \n“He put my life on the line,” Stanis said of Coolidge. \nTheir location on Ie Shima was completely open, so there was little opportunity for cover. The Japanese pinned the American soldiers down in the weeds. Stanis said going into the area was “foolish.”\nStanis said the Jeeps started down the path toward the front lines going about five miles per hour. He claimed his Jeep went about 10 yards before it was fired on by a machine gun. All the occupants of the Jeeps jumped into the ditch on the side of the road. \nStanis said the machine-gun fire was coming down on them, so it wasn’t as deadly as it could have been if it was level with the Jeeps. Stanis said he estimates he tried to move after about 15 minutes from his position and the gunner shot at him, but missed. After 30 minutes the intelligence officer managed to make his way over to tell him that Pyle had been killed. \nJohnson said while Pyle was always anxious to see what was happening in the war, he was somewhat cautious. He said Pyle had a reputation for being in foxholes, but not when firing was going on.\nJohnson said part of being a wartime journalist was being near the action, but not part of the action. \n“The challenge then and is still the case now is what is the best place to be to write a story,” he said. \nStanis’s nephew Tom Lutz said Stanis has been telling this story since Lutz was in high school, although he only recently heard the whole version.\n“He’s been telling this story since the 40s,” Lutz said. \nAfter a few hours of hiding in the ditch, Stanis said he thinks someone killed the machine-gunner. He crawled back to the foxhole. Stanis said he couldn’t worry about Pyle even though he was well liked by him and his men because people died in the war every day. \n“You’ve got to concentrate on trying to live,” he said.
(02/27/08 8:41am)
Faced with more than $30,000 in student loan debt, a former IU student decided to auction off her loans on eBay.\nLiza Huffman got the idea from Web sites such as www.sponsormyloans.com, where students ask for money to pay off their debt. She said she figured if people buy and sell things such as grilled cheese sandwiches and snow on eBay, they’d pay for her education.\n“They really sold snow from a blizzard they had,” she said.\nDespite her willingness to auction off her loans on eBay, Huffman is really looking for a way to get by after college.\nAfter graduating from IU in August with a degree in anthropology, Huffmans dream job is working in a zoo with primate sign language or designing better zoo habitats.\n“I applied everywhere and am now working as a nanny,” she said, adding she had decent grades and some experience working with animals. “You get to the point where you get really let down because no one wants to give you a job because you don’t have experience.” \nHowever, a degree, a high GPA, good references and experience may not be enough. Jan Nickless, senior associate director at the Career Development Center, said students need to take an active role in the job search and network with companies for which they want to work\n“From our perspective, we are seeing a lot more employers than we are prepared students,” she said. “I think there are amazing opportunities out there.”\nIn her current situation, Huffman expects it will take 30 years to pay off her loans. \n“Thirty years seems like the rest of my life,” she said. \nThe situation won’t get much better if she ever starts her \ncareer as a zoo keeper. The median income, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site, is $18,140 a year.\nHuffman said it’s unfair that it’s possible to get a loan for a car at zero percent interest, but interest on a loan for education is 6.8 percent. She said she might have to get a deferment or forbearance on her loans.\nThere are many things people can do if they have trouble paying off their loans, said Jacqueline Kennedy-Fletcher, a senior associate director of client contact services at the IU Office of Student Financial Assistance.\n“If a student finds themselves in that situation, they need to talk to their lender,” Kennedy-Fletcher said. She said the lender can go over the many available options.\nHuffman is considering delaying her aspirations of working at a zoo and taking advantage of a new law that forgives the student loans of public servants. The law, which takes effect in 2009, forgives loans after the participant pays the loans for 10 years. She said she is thinking about becoming a teacher, although, she said, a teacher’s program and license would cost her another $8,000.\nSo far, the only bid on eBay Huffman has received was $50 from a woman in California. So, she said, she’ll just have to work to pay off her loans.\n“I think $50 is all I’m going to get,” she said.
(02/26/08 4:31am)
IU’s Counseling and Psychological Services want you to like you for who you are.\nCounseling and Psychological Services is organizing “Celebrate Your Body Day,” an event during which the services’ psychologists and therapy staff members will conduct health screenings and students can take assessments to see if they have symptoms of an eating disorder. \n“Celebrate Your Body Day” will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Student Recreational Sports Center, and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m at Gresham Food Court at Foster Quad and the Wildermuth Fieldhouse basketball court.\nThe screenings are designed to increase awareness about the body, said Emily Calvert, one of the event’s coordinators.\nOther than the screenings, coordinators will provide information about healthy eating, eating disorders and exercising. \nThe event is for any graduate or undergraduate student and for those who know others who have body image problems or eating disorders, Calvert said. \nAlthough the rates of eating disorders and body image problems are higher among females, males are still susceptible, Calvert said. \n“We want people to be more self-accepting of their bodies,” Calvert said.\nParticipants are encouraged to come to one of the sites and write down what they like about their bodies on a postcard. These postcards will be hung up for a couple weeks.\nParticipants can sign a “peace treaty” at the event. In this treaty, participants promise their bodies that they will acknowledge their beauty, practice healthy eating habits, exercise but know when to take a break and generally accept their bodies.\nPrizes such as gift certificates to places that promote healthy living and buttons that say “I made peace with my body today!” will be given to participants.\nCounseling and Psychological Services is also sharing information about eating disorders and the event itself with greek houses, DeeDee Dayhoff, a coordinator of the event, said in an e-mail. She said some of the houses want to recreate “Celebrate Your Body Day” within their own houses.\n“It’s an issue that most college men and women struggle with,” Chris Meno, a psychologist at Counseling and Psychological Services, said, referring to body image. She said many women dislike one or more parts of their bodies. Women think parts of their bodies such as their stomachs are too big or flabby. Men often don’t think they’re big enough and want more muscle. \nCalvert said 7 million girls and women suffer from eating disorders, and 91 percent of women on college campuses report dieting.\n“I think we all need to be more comfortable in the skin that we’re in,” Calvert said.\nCounseling and Psychological Services also conducts screenings throughout the year that deal with other issues, including anxiety and depression.
(02/19/08 4:42am)
Consuming diet soda might raise the risk of developing serious health problems, according to a study done by researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina.\nThe study associated diet soda with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, which can include accumulated fat around the midsection, elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and an increase of fat in the bloodstream, according to the American Heart Association Web Site. The site states that 50 million Americans are thought to have metabolic syndrome.\n“I found that people who drink one can of diet soda a day have a 34 percent increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome compared to people who don’t drink any,” said Lyn Steffen, co-author of the study and researcher at the University of Minnesota. \nShe said people who eat fried food, including fast food, had a 25 percent increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome and those who drink regular soda had a 10 percent increased risk.\nThe data for the study were collected between 1988 and 1997. The artificial sweeteners used during those times were most likely aspartame and maybe saccharin, but not Splenda, Steffen said.\nAlthough Steffen didn’t know why the results of the study came out the way they did, she thought of two possible explanations.\nThe first possible reason is that some chemical in the drink promoted weight gain. She said there was a study done recently at Purdue University where rats ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin and other rats ate yogurt with real sugar. The rats that ate the artificial sugar ate more food and gained more weight than the rats that ate the real sugar.\nAnother reason, Steffen said, is subjects in the study could have consumed the diet soda and then overcompensated by eating more food.\nThough she didn’t read the study, Bobbie Saccone, a registered dietician at the IU Health Center, said, from her experience and from what she’s read, “a lot of people will drink diet pop while eating high-calorie, high-fat foods.”\nWhatever the cause, Saccone said, she wouldn’t recommend people use diet soda to lose weight unless they were drinking large amounts of soda in the first place. Even then, they should cut back on the soda and start drinking something with nutritional value, she said.\nSome IU students said they would continue to drink diet soda, even if it causes metabolic syndrome.\nFreshman Erin Duffy said she drinks diet soda a lot for the caffeine and because she likes the taste. She said if she knew that it contributed to obesity or diabetes, she would continue to drink it.\n“I’m not going to drink regular soda,” she said, “I prefer the diet stuff.”\nSophomore Kate Farrell used to drink a diet Coke every day, but cut back to about once a month because of the risks of comsuming aspartame. She said she drinks diet soda for the caffeine and said that she, too, would not stop drinking it if she knew it caused symptoms of metabolic syndrome.
(02/12/08 4:06am)
Former IU student Aobo Zou saw an opportunity and he took it.\nLast summer, the 23-year-old saw the empty space on 10th Street across from Ashton residence center, where a Vitabody health store used to be, and decided to open a restaurant there.\nFortune Cookies opened the Wednesday before winter break.\nWith more than 300 items on the menu, the “Americanized Chinese” restaurant caters to Chinese and American tastes. \nZou said he decided to open a restaurant where the atmosphere was more contemporary.\n“This is basically my ideal restaurant,” Zou said.\nJust about any restaurant would be successful in Fortune Cookies’ location, he said. \n“Being Chinese, I thought a Chinese restaurant would probably work out,” he said.\nZou decided to open a restaurant because he wanted to stay close to his parents in Bloomington, where they moved to from China 19 years ago. He also said he didn’t look very hard for a job his senior year. \n“I was kind of lazy in the job search department,” he said.\nHe said he liked college, and the traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job didn’t appeal to him. \nFortune Cookies’ building is owned by the IU Foundation. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Zou said he’s there most of the time.\nZou thought the name Fortune Cookies would go along with the atmosphere. He said he didn’t want a typical name, but wanted something fun. As a gimmick to tie into the name, he makes a point of highlighting fortune cookies by only serving chocolate fortune cookies with the meals.\nEverything about opening a restaurant was hard, Zou said. He said everything was new to him, from the construction and remodeling to the actual running of a business. Zou said his young age and inexperience makes it harder.\nOne mistake, Zou said, was expanding the business too fast by pushing the delivery service and not preparing enough before opening. His biggest worry is that orders will drop off when summer comes and many students leave Bloomington.\n“I don’t know what it will be like,” he said. “Sales could drop off completely.”\nHowever, “business is very good,” Zou said. He divided sales by average meal size and discovered he sold 250 to 300 meals a day.\nThe most important thing for a business such as Zou’s to survive is to have a good product, said Johannes Denekamp, a senior lecturer at the Kelley School of Business. He said there needs to be a steady flow of customers, not just at peak times. \n“Get some satisfied customers in the door and get some regulars,” Denekamp said. “You need to do what you do well.”\nFreshman Alex Eu, who eats at the restaurant once every other week, said that he likes it because it’s close, the food is good and it’s inexpensive.\nHe also said Fortune Cookies is the only place around that cooks duck well.\n“It’s a very hard dish to do,” he said.\nEu said other places are basically a kitchen and some tables, while the atmosphere at Fortune Cookies is good.\n“You can bring a date here,” he said.\nZou is currently working on a drink for the restaurant called bubble tea, a tea mixed with a flavor, such as mango, milk and marble sized tapioca balls that absorb the flavor, he said. \nFor the future, Zou said he hopes to take a class he needs to finish up his marketing and operations management degree. He said he hopes to expand and add a patio to the store and “just make everything better, I guess.”
(01/29/08 4:11am)
The Indiana State Police is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year with a throwback to the old days.\nTo commemorate the anniversary, the Indiana State Police has commissioned a car and a new badge and has taken the opportunity to look back on the changes that have taken place.\nAny officer who orders a badge can wear one. Sgt. Curt Durnil, public information officer at the Bloomington Post, said 10 to 15 of the 40 officers at the Bloomington Post have purchased one. The gold-plated badges feature part of an American flag, part of Indiana’s flag and the state seal.\nThe car is a black 2008 Ford Crown Victoria with a “hard yellow” stripe, a 75th-anniversary decal and a commemorative license plate, Durnil said. He said the cars are a throwback to the cars used in 1933. Some officers drive the cars, and they can be seen at major crimes, accidents and special enforcement projects.\nThe most significant change over the 75-year history is technology, Durnil said.\nFirst Sgt. David Bursten, a public information officer in Indianapolis, said when the Indiana State Police Department started in 1933 it “barely had cars,” and the troopers only enforced traffic violations. Over time, technology and the reliability of the cars improved, and the state police began taking on the same enforcement duties as city police. They help small towns that are less equipped to deal with crimes, such as murders.\n“In the early part of the 1930s, troopers started out with no radios,” Durnil said. To make a call, troopers would have to drive to local farmers or business owners who volunteered use of their phones. To signal that the trooper needed to make a call, the volunteer put a red flag on his mailbox. Eventually, one-way radios were used, then two-way radios, which evolved into the 800 MHz system used today.