4A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY OCTOBER 23, 2008
AIDS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
"There's another side to Africa," Parsons said. "Sure, there is famine, war and AIDS, but there are other aspects to Africa, too."
O'Malley will speak about her experience in South Africa this evening at the event.
O'Malley said that her trip was something she would never forget. She was inspired to join AIESEC from reading about Africa in a political science course.
"When I found the AIESEC Web site, it was like a dream come true," O'Malley said. "The internship was such a good opportunity and the organization just led me straight to it."
O'Malley, who lived in an AIDS orphanage for two months in South Africa last summer, said 35 percent of people in South Africa had HIV.
She said 20 to 30 children.
who ranged from one week to 10 years old, stayed at the orphanage. AIDS had affected all of the children in some way. Some had parents who died from AIDS, while others had contracted the virus themselves.
While in the South Africa, O'Malley said she visited classroom of students ranging from first through 12th grade and spoke with them about AIDS.
"It's a difficult message to convey," O'Malley said. "Not only with applying the message to the age group you're speaking to, but also because there's a certain stigma about it there and most people don't like to talk about it."
Beverly Mack, professor of African studies said it should be a requirement for all students to go to a foreign country.
"We are so insulated," Mack said. "Students don't know anything about Africa, Israel, the Middle East because we are totally absorbed in our own life culture, which is a dangerous life."
Mack said the University should expose students to disciplines and cultures that were different from their own. She said the point of education was to open our minds.
"And you can't do that if you focus every conscious thought on our own culture," Mack said.
Mack said the personal, social and governmental rewards would be tremendous if students would just go outside of their own country.
Edited by Jennifer Torline
in the U.S.
ANIME (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Some devoted fans attend anime festivals, known as conventions, which take place in several major cities across the country and feature costume and video game contests and karaoke. Tim Howe, Mission junior, went to a convention in Tulsa, Okla., last summer. He said he and his friends drove to Tulsa to see a guest speaker at the convention, who was one of his favorite voice actors. At the convention, Howe dressed up in a traditional Japanese warrior outfit that his friend made. He said many attendants dressed up as anime characters, and that he had a fun time socializing with them.
Some other fans publish fan fictions, in which anime fans
rewrite stories using their favorite characters.
Tsutsui said some people were worried that the anime trend would negatively influence American youth because some anime programs contained violence. He said the anime boom should bring more benefits than harm, such as increasing young people's interest in Japan. Tsutsui said 25 years ago, when he was studying Japanese at Harvard, more students were studying Japanese because they were interested in martial arts and Zen Buddhism. He said over time, American students' interest in Japan shifted to business and now to popular culture.
For example, Tsutsui said some KU students, like Tim Howe.
enrolled in Japanese classes because they were motivated by their interests in anime. Howe studied in Japan for three months in 2006. He said his interest in Japan branched out from anime to Japanese history.
Students on campus can also learn about anime in the classroom. Michiko Ito taught a Japanese course last year which combined language and anime for advanced level students. She said students watched anime and read comics in Japanese and discussed the background of those materials. The materials included "Cyborg 009," which was created in the late 1960s and renounced war.
- Edited by Arthur Hur
INTERNATIONAL
India sends first spacecraft to moon,joins elite group
Nation's economy, technological advances help launch country into space race with China, Japan
BY GAVIN RABINOWITZ AND SETH BORENSTEIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Indian Space Research Organization chairman G. Madhavan Nair, second left, and his colleagues hold a model of India's maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, or Moon Craft in ancient Sankrit, after its successful launch at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, north of Chennai, India, on Wednesday. India launched its first mission to the moon Wednesday, rocketing a satellite up into the pale dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.
NEW DELHI — India launched its first mission to the moon Wednesday, rocketing a satellite up into the pale dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clapping and cheering scientists tracked the ascent on computer screens after they lost sight of Chandrayaan-1 from the Sriharikota space center in southern India. Chandrayaan means "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit
Indian Space Research Organization chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the mission is to "unravel the mystery of the moon."
"We have started our journey to the moon and the first leg has gone perfectly well," he said.
Chief among the mission's goals
is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but what lies beneath. If successful, India will join what's shaping up as a 21st century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon.
As India's economy has boomed in recent years, it has sought to convert its newfound wealth — built on the nation's high-tech sector — into political and military clout. It is hoping that the moon mission — coming just months after finalizing a deal with the United States that recognizes India as a nuclear power — will further enhance its status.
sights," Pace said.
Until now, India's space launches have mainly carried weather warning satellites and communication systems, said former NASA associate administrator Scott Pace, director of space policy at the George Washington University.
While much of the technology involved in reaching the moon has not changed since the Soviet Union and the U.S. did it more than four decades ago, analysts say new mapping equipment allows the exploration of new areas, including below the surface.
"You're seeing India lifting its
India plans to use the 3,080-pound lunar probe to create a high-resolution map of the lunar surface and the minerals below. Two of the mapping instruments are a joint project with NASA.
In the last year, Asian nations have taken the lead in moon exploration. In October 2007, Japan sent up the Kaguya spacecraft. A month later, China's Change-1 entered lunar orbit.
Those missions took highresolution pictures of the moon, but are not as comprehensive as Chandrayaan-1 will be or NASA's
have of the moon."
NASA has put probes on Mars' frigid polar region, but not on the rugged poles of the moon. Yet the moon's south pole is where NASA is considering setting up an eventual human-staffed lunar outpost, Pace said.
The moon's south pole is "certainly more rugged than where Neil Armstrong landed. It's more interesting. It's more dangerous," Pace said. "We need better maps."
Beijing in 2003 became the first Asian country to put its own astronauts into space. It followed that last month with its first spacewalk.
More ominously, last year China also blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile, the first such test ever conducted by any nation, including the United States and Russia.
"We don't really have really good modern maps of the moon with modern instrument," Pace said. "The quality of the Martian maps, I would make a general argument, is superior to what we
half-a-billion-dollar Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter scheduled to be launched next year, Pace said. The most comprehensive maps of the moon were made about 40 years ago during the Apollo era, he said.
The $80 million mission will test systems for a future moon landing, with plans to land a rover on the moon in 2011 and eventually a manned space program, though this has not been authorized yet.
The Indian mission is not all about rivalry and prestige. Analysts say India stands to reap valuable rewards from the technology it develops and, according to Pace, it already shows increased confidence in difficult engineering and quality control.
And the Indian space agency was already dreaming of more.
"Space is the frontier for mankind in the future. If we want to go beyond the moon, we have to go there first," said Indian space agency spokesman S. Satish.
Choose a Career Teaching Languages
KU School of Education offers a program that leads to teacher licensure,PK-12,in Chinese French,German,Japanese,Latin Russian and Spanish
For information on how to become a licensed Foreign Language Teacher, contact the School of Education at http://soe.ku.edu/prospective-students/teacher_education.php