O pinion Dry Bones THANKSGIVING • AND WHITE, RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE EUROPEAN SETTLERS Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us . 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. COMBINED TO PRODUCE THE ONLY TRUELY AMERICAN HOLIDAY DRYBONESBLOG.COM Send letters of no more than 150 words: letters@thejewishnews.com. 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 .