North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 58, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2005 Page: 1 of 10
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january 21, 2005
- FRIDAY -
volume 89 Issue 58
North Texas Daily
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas Since 1915
Tsunami disaster strikes home
Improvising is an integral part
of Dr. James Kendra's career —
flying halfway around the world
to the center of the tsunami disas-
ter is a challenge he's ready to face
head on.
JAMES DRAPER
Staff Writer
Kendra, of the public admin-
istration faculty, specializes
in emergency management.
He spent weeks in New York
following the World Trade
Center attacks and today he's
at 30,000 feet en route to India
to observe the disaster relief
efforts there.
"Even before all the
reports were in, it looked like
it was shaping up to be a
terrible event," Kendra said
Wednesday. "I know there
could be challenges in inter-
national organization and
international response and
relief efforts."
A massive earthquake Dec.
26 shook the ocean floor 100
miles from Sumatra Island off
the coast of Indonesia. The
magnitude 9.0 earthquake sent
an immense wave hurtling
across the Indian Ocean and
eventually flooding 11 coun-
tries as far away as Somalia.
Four weeks later, govern-
ment officials have estimated
more than 220,000 dead with
the count rising each day.
According to Kendra, the
tsunami tragedy is not yet
the largest in terms of loss of
life. Similar catastrophes had
a higher death toll. The 1976
Tang-Shen earthquake killed
242,000 people in China and
the 1970 Bangladesh cyclone
left 244,000 dead in India.
But, Kendra said, the 2004
tsunami is a far more wide-
spread disaster, an international
calamity that may claim more
lives than previous tragedies.
"In terms of regional scale
and the complications of that, if s
certainly significant," he said
Before he came to NT,
Kendra worked for the
Disaster Research Center at
the University of Delaware.
After learning three of his for-
mer colleagues were spend-
ing two weeks in India and
Sri Lanka he expressed his
interest and was soon added
to the team.
The Earthquake Engineer
Research Institute is sponsoring
the study on a grant from the
National Science Foundation.
The group left Thursday and
will return Feb. 3.
The other team mem-
bers include Dr. Havidán
Rodriguez, director of the
Disaster Research Center;
Dr. Tricia Wachtendorf of
the University of Delaware;
and doctoral student Joseph
Trainor, project coordinator at
the Center.
The institute has already
sent teams to assist in relief
efforts, Kendra said. His
group's goal will be to observe
the overall response to the dev-
astation in Southeast Asia.
"The main purpose there
is to get a broad sense of the
emergency issues at stake and
to lay the groundwork for a
more detailed trip at a later
date," Kendra said. "Because
we're social scientists, we're
interested in coordinating
relief, in the vulnerabilities of
the people living there."
According to Kendra, the
group's work in this kind
of situation is very unobtru-
sive. The people they will
be observing are actively
involved in managing the relief
efforts, so the team's observa-
tions must be very low key.
Kendra expects the disaster
management to share some
aspects with the Sept. 11
attack response. New York's
Emergency Operation Center
was destroyed when the World
Trade Center collapsed, and
emergency management teams
had to quickly reestablish their
T
- j" *•
ra PA
BULLIT MARQUEZ/AP PHOTO
Survivors in Indonesia prepare to salvage parts of a damaged car in the wreckage of the tsunami.
College o music to aid victims o tragedy
NT has joined the fight to
help the homeless, hungry
and sick victims of the tsu-
nami disaster and for those
in the College of Music, the
disaster's fallout included the
loss of dear friends.
Sunday night, at 8 p.m.
in the Winspear Hall of the
Murchison Performing Arts
Center, the NT College of
Music will present a benefit
concert featuring the College
of Music jazz faculty ensemble,
the One O'Clock Lab Band, the
- see Tsunami
3-
PE i I- --C AS/ OTO
NT Faculty Brass Quintet and
the NT A Cappella Choir. A
world premier of Ed Smith's
"Panggul Interlace Dua" is
scheduled, with I-Jen Fang,
along with Smith on the
Indonesian instrument, the
"gender wayang."
"We don't always help
build things but we can
use our music to bring peo-
ple together," said Nathan
Fuhrman, choral studies
assistant and participant in
the A Cappella choir.
(embers of this uni-
versity ... are responding
with compassion."
- Dr. Howard Johnson -
NT Provost
Our hearts reach out
to families ... of those
who lost loved ones."
- Dr. Norval Pohl -
NT President
The event is free, but dona-
tions are accepted by cash,
check or credit card, or can be
accepted by mailed check to
"The American Red Cross,"
with "UNT College of Music
Tsunami Benefit Concert"
indicated on the memo line,
to: College of Music Tsunami
Benefit Concert, University of
North Texas, P.O. Box 311367,
Denton, TX 76203-1367.
All donations will be
made in memory of Poomi
Jensen, whose grandfather,
His Majesty King Bhumibol
Adulyadej of Thailand, was
given an honorary doctor-
ate by NT last March for his
versatile music composition
and performance skills. He
also sat in on a performance
with the One O'Clock Lab
Band that was able to make
the trip to Thailand because
of an instrumental $1 million
gift from native businessman
Charn Uswachoke.
Lindsay Wilps
JULIA DRAPKIN/AP PHOTO
I he closest relief drop-ol fs
* Donate to the American Red Cross online at
http:// w.redcross.org or by phone at 1-800-
HELPNOW. Checks and money orders can be
mailed to: American Red Cross Disaster Relief
Fund, P.O. Box 37243, Washington D.C., 20013.
Donate to UNICEF online at http://www,unicef.
org or mail donations to: unicefusa.org, 333 East
38^ St., New York, NY 10016. Make checks pay-
able to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
All links compiled by NT
Questioning life after death
Doctor conducts studies on near death experiences
GABRIEL MONTE
Staff Writer
It's the journey to a white
light through a tunnel, or the
experience of floating over the
operating table while under
the knife. There is more to
death than meets the eye
Consciousness may be more
than just a product of brain
activity, according to Dr. Jan
Holden, a professor in NT's
department of Counseling
Development and Higher
Education. Holden is involved
with a study on near death
experiences at the University
of Virginia, which started last
March. The research is actually
part of a bigger study funded
by Bial, a European pharma-
ceutical company.
Subjects of the research are
patients undergoing opera-
tions for pacemakers. The
procedure involves stopping
the patients' hearts to make
sure that the device will work.
And that's where Elolden's
study begins.
"About a half dozen peo-
ple a year who go through
that procedure report having
an out-of-body experience,"
she said.
According to Elolden, many
of the reports about near death
experiences involve people
floating out of their bodies
and observing what happens
below. In western cultures, peo-
ple who experience this recall
going through a tunnel toward
a bright light. Llolden has a
picture in her office depicting
the tunnel-experience.
With this in mind, Holden
designed a method of proving
this phenomenon.
A laptop computer that
opens flat hangs on the ceiling
with the screen facing away
from the floor. A series of ani-
mations runs once the comput-
er starts up. Holden's husband,
a computer software engineer,
developed the program.
With this study, Holden
hopes to provide support for
the theory that conscious-
ness is more than a product of
brain activity.
"If consciousness is a prod-
uct of the brain, then when
the brain dies, conscious-
ness dies. If the brain is like
a cell phone in the field of
consciousness, then when the
brain dies, consciousness con-
tinues," she said.
She also sait that the study
could also give people insight to
what man's purpose really is.
"Loving and learning
tend to be the purpose of our
being," she said. "... Positive
results in this research would
lend credibility to what near
death experiencers are say-
ing and potentially influence
some of our most basic beliefs
about what humans are and
why we are here."
Research in this part of
human life may also help indi-
viduals who deal with people
facing their own mortality.
"I think that we don't have
a lot of information about the
4
arS
i||i J|1
■
1
■
MELISSA FERRO/NT DAILY
Dr. Jan Holden poses by
an image depicting the light
at the end of the tunnel,
which many people experi-
ence near death.
death and dying process ...
any research that helps clarify
it is an advantage for council-
ors in terms of working with
people who are facing that part
of the journey of life," said
- see LIFE page 3 -
Women may lose
day-a ter pi option
JAMAAL O'NEAL
INTERN
Pharmacists may have the
option to deny women emergen-
cy contracep ti ves if a proposed bill
passes in the state Legislature.
Elouse Bill 16, introduced
by Republican Frank Corte of
San Antonio, would give Texas'
pharmacists, nurses and physi-
cians the right to refuse disper-
sion of the "morning after pill,"
if doing so conflicts with their
moral beliefs. The bill would
also give medical personnel the
right to refuse to perform abor-
tions if they have a moral objec-
tion to the procedure.
The idea for the bill may
have formed in Denton. A local
Eckerd's pharmacist refused
to fill a woman's "morning
after pill" prescription last
year because it went against
his moral views. The woman
was a rape survivor. Eckerd's
dismissed the employee after
learning of his refusal to fill
the woman's prescription.
HB16 has created a fire-
storm of debate across Texas,
with both conservatives and
liberals weighing in on the
true purpose of the bill.
"HB16 constructs yet
another barrier to access for
women in the United States,"
said Rochelle Muzquiz, presi-
dent of the Feminist Majority
Leadership Alliance of NT.
"If a pharmacist refuses to
fill a woman's prescription, he
or she is deciding a woman's
reproductive destiny by deny-
ing her a form of birth control."
Muzquiz said NT students,
particularly women, should
be concerned about the new
bill since it could effect far
more than women's health.
"If doctors become free
to deny access to safe abor-
tion, we'll begin to see more
unwanted children and more
women dying from self-
inflicted abortions out of des-
peration," she said.
- see DENIED page 3 -
nside:
SPORTS
Swim team continues record
breaking streak.
LIFE
Student pushes her limits
with three jobs, keeps 4.0.
BEAT
Thermals pass through Den-
ton for the first time.
SPORTS
Men's basketball handle lat-
est defeat.
WEATHER
High 75 / Low 50
Forecast: Partly Cloudy
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North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 58, Ed. 1 Friday, January 21, 2005, newspaper, January 21, 2005; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145176/m1/1/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.