O pinion
Dry Bones THANKSGIVING
•
AND WHITE, RIGHT
WING CONSERVATIVE
EUROPEAN SETTLERS
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Editorial
Choosing Life
"I have set before you life and
death, blessings and curses. Now
choose life, so that you and your
children may live" (Deuteronomy
30:19).
T
oday, choosing life means
supporting human
embryonic stem-cell
research. While researchers cau-
tion that potential cures are likely
at least 20-30 years away, it holds
tremendous promise.
The use of embryonic stem cells
is so important because they are
"pluripotent," meaning they have
the potential to produce any cell in
the body. Stem cells harvested after
the embryonic stage have already
determined which type of cells
they will become. Stem cells at the
earliest stage of development are
the most useful because they have
the most general applicability.
Cancer, birth defects and other
of the most common and deadly
diseases result from abnormal cell
specialization and cell division.
Pluripotent stem cells allow for
research on how cells become spe-
cialized. The better we understand
cell development, the better chance
we have of halting or reversing
problems. Such research could
dramatically change and quicken
the way we develop and test drugs
and holds the potential of being
able to create specific kinds of cells
to create healthy organs for those
in need. There is tremendous hope
that the research will develop effec-
tive treatments for many debilitat-
ing diseases such as Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's and diabetes.
Embryonic stem-cell research
is controversial in some faiths
because of beliefs of when life
begins. But Judaism does not
recognize an embryo becoming
a human being, i.e., possessing a
soul, until 40 days after gestation.
So, not only does Judaism allow
using a 5- to 7-day-old human
embryo for research, the potential
it contains for saving healing and
saving lives actually encourages it.
State Rep, Andy Meisner, D-
Ferndale, has been the legislative
leader working to allow Michigan,
for example, to become a center
of stem-cell research. It is a dis-
grace that Michiga.n's infertility
clinics regularly discard excess
embryos as medical waste because
Michigan law not only prohibits
mining them for stem cells, but
also the Somatic Cell Nuclear
Transfer (SCNT), a necessary
research procedure. Such legisla-
tive changes, and a few others, are
necessary to aid Michigan's and
national research efforts. We're
proud that Meisner is leading the
fight.
The Jewish Community Council
of Metropolitan Detroit has adopt-
ed a resolution calling for action
on both the state and federal levels,
and, with the elections out of the
way, is looking for effective ways
to weigh in on the community's
behalf.
We should also take pride in the
tremendous advances being made
in Israel.
A review of published, peer-
reviewed scientific research on
stem cells show Israeli scientists
appear in a much higher percent-
age than scientists from just about
any other country. The Haifa-
based Technion-Israeli Institute
of Technology was among the
first research centers in the world
to explore the healing potential
of stem cells. It has more faculty
members working in that area
than any other Israeli institution.
The Metro Detroit chapters of
B'nai B'rith International and the
American Society for Technion
have teamed up to raise at least $1
million to fund stem-cell research.
While that may not sound like a
lot of money, the four top papers
in the field were produced with
less than $1 million. Notably,
research dollars go farther in
Israel than here and the Jewish
state has the freedom to conduct
research in a way the U.S. does not.
The Jerusalem-based Hadassah
Hospital also is making admirable
stem-cell research inroads.
Choosing life means choosing to
support both embryonic and adult
stem-cell research. Such a policy
both maintains the fundamental
respect and sanctity of human life
and works to save it.
But that would seem to
negate ambition; and in
our culture people who
lack ambition, the desire
to do more and better
things, are not respected.
Still, ambition is a power-
ful antidote to happiness.
In earlier times, when
people believed that
blind chance determined human
destiny, there was a reason that
happiness and happen shared the
same root word. It was all in the
luck of the draw or winning the
genetic lottery and being born a
prince. There wasn't much any
individual could do to influence
events. Things happened to you.
The ancients also believed that
every life is inevitably a trag-
edy, given its destination. "Never
account a man happy until he is
dead',' was the Roman maxim.
But look at Thomas Jefferson's
famous wording
of the Declaration
of Independence,
which postulates a
"pursuit of happi-
ness:" Everything has
changed. Happiness
is now seen as within
our powers to achieve.
It is not something
that lands on us through fate,
but is part of an active, ongoing
search.
There probably has been no
happier generation in the history
of the planet than the baby boom-
ers. It is interesting to watch what
is going on with them now They
are slowly realizing, to their appar-
ent shock, that they are going to
grow old and die, just as all the
generations before them. No spe-
cial pass gets them out of this.
I have to give credit to Mitch
Albom. He seemed to recognize
this instinctively. All his recent
best-sellers have dealt with
death and dying. Acceptance in
Tuesdays With Morrie; what
happens after in The Five People
You Meet in Heaven, and finally
rewriting the slate at the end in
Just One Day More. There is an
audience for that and it so badly
wants to believe in happy endings.
I look back fondly now on the
years when we were committing
sensational journalism and hav-
ing a happy old time doing it. We
told old stories at our reunion
and laughed so hard the staff at
Ginopolis must have thought they
had a pack of aging loons on their
hands.
Well, as the Irish say, the merry-
hearted boys make the best of old
men.
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Reality Check
The Happiness Boys
A
bunch of us former
Detroit Free Press
staffers met for an
informal reunion recently. We
talked for hours about the way it
was in the late 1960s and early
1970s, when we were engaged in
putting out what on some days
was the best-written newspaper in
America.
The paper had assembled a col-
lection of eccentric and frequently
brilliant writers and editors who
were encouraged and goaded to
reach the top of their game.
Most of us went on to other jobs
at other publications, including the
exalted New York Times. But we
recalled those days at the Freep as
some of the most rewarding and
exhilarating, and definitely the
most fun, of our careers.
As I look back on it, though,
we did an awful lot of grousing
— about our editors and our
30
November 23 2006
assignments and why the paper
wasn't better than it was.
It wasn't until years later that
we realized we had gone through
something of a golden age, when
newspapers were supposed to
report and write the news, and not
cast themselves as instruments of
social change; blunt instruments,
for the most part.
We were happy and didn't know
it.
The older I get, the more I
believe that is simply the human
condition. It is a rare person who
can grasp happiness as it happens
(note the similar root of those
two words) ... to sit around the
Thanksgiving table and relish this
time of your life. More often than
not, we focus on the discontents,
the things that are denied, uncer-
tainties that lay ahead.
Who is happy, ask the sages. He
who is content with what he has.
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .