4 4A - Wednesday, October 29, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu ANDREW GROSSMAN EDITOR IN CHIEF GARY GRACA EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR GABE NELSON MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. FCOMTHE I'L'Y A-necessary leader Barack Obama offers ideals, judgment America needs "There are thousands of voters ... who realize only too well the danger of electing a candidate who seeks to thrill with his oratory, to bring a message of hope and cheer, without making specific promises or pointing to the way out of the labyrinth." T hose were the words printed in an editorial on this page on Oct. 30, 1932. A week before perhaps the most signifi- cant election in our nation's history, the editors of this newspaper had yet to make up their minds about a decision that, in retrospect, seems laughably obvious: Franklin D. Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover? as'" . . TABLE 4 .TA LE Alaska deserves better than to have someone with seven convictions, seven felony convictions." - Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who is running against Sen. Ted Stevens, commenting on his opponent's defense of his continued re-election bid, as reported yesterday by The New York Timos. ROSE JAFFE E-MAIL ROSE AT ROSEJAFF@UMICH.EDJ-, 1 NofMa.ter Where 'fol : ..eyw , .r . ..fPf.. Resisting the temptation 4 Y Our hesitation was understandable. The nation was buried in an immense financial crisis. The world was an unsafe place: A man named Adolf Hitler was beginning to cast a dark cloud over Germany. The challenger to incumbent President Hoover spoke with eager, fearless posi- tivity about all this nation could be. But it sounded too good to believe. What did this one-term governor of New York really know about managing a country in crisis? Shouldn't we instead choose the man who has experience - the incumbent president who, even if he made mistakes, at least had the benefit of learning from them? Seventy-six years later, we return to a similar question. Today we're told that Barack Obama is too young, too inexperienced, too idealistic and too naive to be president. We're told he'll be in way over his head, that he won't be able to manage the crises that will inevitably erierge and that he will make the United States vul- nerable and weak. Some of this rings true - Obama is young and his record is hardly distinguished. Nevertheless, he is exactly what this nation needs today, the same thing it needed in 1932 - a leader. Obama catapulted himself into this race with a speech in 2004, a speech that resonated with a weary nation in a much greater way than Obama could ever have anticipated. That happened not only because it was a brilliant piece of oratory, but also because it, like Obama's cam- paign, rejected the ugliness of identity politics that has been a key part of Ameri- can life since the 1960s. In the process, he has stripped away the stupid, bizarre defi- nition of a "real America" that the Repub- lican Party has exploited since Sept. 11, 2001. This matters. Critics mistake this appeal. They argue that Obama is an empty vessel: He claims to be anything and everything to get elected, they say, but doesn't have the fortitude to stand firm or follow through on anything. That may have been a legitimate criti- cism early on, when Obama's campaign consisted of too much style and too little substance. But if Obama has shown any- thing in the course of his long campaign, it is that he is a quick learner. His campaign has come a long way in defining a platform that will work for this country. Electoral pressures have dampened how outspoken Obama can be on issues of poverty, taxes and health care; even promising a tax cut for the middle class has gotten him in trouble. Connecting the dots he dares lay down in this impossibly oppressive political climate, though, we can tell Obama understands what is wrong in our country and what needs to be done to fix it. He knows health care for every Ameri- can is long overdue; he knows the solution to our energy problems cannot just come from the ocean floor off Florida's coasts; he knows that the horrifying poverty Hur- ricane Katrina revealed in New Orleans exists in communities across this country; he knows that terrorism cannot just be combated with bombs, but must be fought with international cooperation; he knows the war in Iraq was misguided from the start and must be ended as soon as safely possible. t ewill shock no one to learn that this page endorses Barack Obama for president. We do so, however, almost without another option. Had his opponent, John McCain, spared even a single one of the qualities we once admired him for - independence, compassion, reason - this would have been a more difficult choice to make. It's unfortunate that a once-respect- able leader like McCain has fallen so far to become "electable." Needless to say, McCain's political ploy has failed. He may have been able to con- vince centrist Republicans to vote for him in the primary (a race in which we expec- tantly endorsed him), but it's clear now that the Republican candidate is not the independent, maverick or leader he claims to be. His are the policies of the past eight years, policies with which he himself once disagreed. As unfortunate as the political neutering of maverick McCain is, more despicable is the erosion of his ideals about running clean campaigns. He has tried to build his entire campaign on appeals to the worst in Americans. In a shameless attempt to exploit identity politics, McCain intro- duced into'thisrace'the dangerously igno- rant Sarah Palin as his running mate - a woman who calls her opponent a friend of terrorists and questions the "American- ness" of any town with more than three. stoplights, yet still manages to sleep at night. The nastiest things that have been said in this campaign have come since the intro- duction of Palin as McCain's running mate. But she is only his attack dog; he has the power to call her off, but chooses not to do it. John McCain says he laments the nasty, negative turn this campaign has taken in recent weeks, yet he chooses to do nothing. We've learned a lot about these candidates during the past 20 months, especially about how they handle pressure and crises. When his electoral prospects looked bleak in his pri- mary showdown with the Clinton political machine, Obama showed his true colors - he remained strong and never succumbed to desperation or hostility. McCain, on the other hand, despite all his talk of positive campaigns, has sanctioned attack ads that would make Lee Atwater blush, and con- tinues to blame Obama for somehow mak- ing him do it. Perhaps the most telling moment of this campaign came a few weeks ago, when McCain worked himself into a huff over the financial crisis he could no longer deny. He promised to halt his campaign, immediately fly to Washington and bro- ker a bailout agreement. He arrived hours too late, solved nothing and picked up his campaign almost as if nothing happened. Obama, on the other hand, showed poise and patience. Neither he nor McCain knew exactly what to do when the crisis hit, but Obama was the one who remained calm and rational. The last four years have shown us the profound problems that can arise with an impulsive, trigger-happy president. McCain isn't George W. Bush, but his impulsiveness suggests he would make a lot of the same mistakes. Obama has his faults, and it may be tempting for some to choose (misguided) experience over a new, upbeat idealist. But imagine where this world would be if Americans had made that mistake in 1932. We endorse BARACK OBAMA for president of the United States today not because we believe he is the next FDR, but because we recognize that the two men share the two greatest qualities an American president and the leader of the free world can have - the audacity to tell the truth about what ails America and the wisdom to find the right solutions. 4 t's not uncommon for the U.S. gov- ernment to legislate morality. In recent years, higher profile exam- ples have included attempts to ban gay marriage and stopj embryonic stem . cell research. While less visible, the fed- eral government's e 12-year assault on comprehensive sex education is no EMMARIE exception. Under the guise HUETTEMAN of promoting acom- mon-sense sexual health program, the federal govern- ment has peddled its abstinence-only education packageto the states, encour- agingthem to deny students a full edu- cation in exchange for federal funding. And for more than a decade, Michigan has taken the bait and held on tight - even as other states have dropped the program in droves, rightfully acknowl- edging that abstinence-only sex edu- cation is not only ineffective but also counterproductive. In 1996, the federal government instituted the State Abstinence Educa- tion Program, an initiative designed to incentivize abstinence-only education in the states. By marketing its pro- gram as a community-based initiative to combat risky sexual behaviors and teenage pregnancy through educa- tion, it aroused strong support. Nearly all of the states were quick to put up their end of the matching funds, and soon, 49 of the SO states traded in the nuances of contraception and personal choice for one dangerously overly-sim- plified message: Don't do it. Proponents of this program in Michigan are particularly fond of opening their fairy tale with these details. They mention the program's mission, its initial popularity and then start in on the numbers - 108 and 75, in particular. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, those were the teen pregnancy rates (per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19 in Michigan) in 1992 and 2000, respectively. It's hard to deny that that 30.6-percent drop in the state's teen pregnancy rate looks good for the federal State Abstinence Education Program and its Michigan partner, the Michigan Abstinence Partnership, which started in 1993. Those numbers are hard to argue with - that is, until one looks at the rest of the report. Perhaps most tell- ing is the comparison between Michi- gan and California, the one state that rejected federal abstinence education, funding from the beginning. Michigan may have seen its teen pregnancy rate drop from 108 to 75 per 1,000 females ages 15to19,but during that same peri- od, California's rate dropped from 157 to 96. Further, a comprehensive look at the Guttmacher Institute's report shows that, in fact, every state saw a drop in teen pregnancy from 1992 to 2000. Maybe Michigan has been a little too quick to congratulate itself after all. Another statistic the state has cho- sen to ignore is the plummeting num- ber ofstates that still participate inthis federal program. While Michigan was in good company when it first agreed to match the government's funding for a narrow abstinence-only curriculum, that doesn't negate the fact that partic- ipation is dropping quickly these days. In April, there were 33 participating. states. Just six months later, only 23 remain. But if abstinence-only education has been such a success over the past decade as states like Michigan claim, then why are all of these states sud- denly dropping the initiative? To put it simply, it doesn't work. In April 2007,a group commissioned by the U.S. Con- gress to study the State Abstinence Education Program released a report stating that middle school students in abstinence-only education programs were just as likely to have sex in their teenage years. When even the institu- tion responsible for a program criti- cizes it, it's time tocome to terms with the truth. With stated intentions to "(teach) that a mutually faithful monogamous- relationship in context of marriage is expected standard of human sexual activity," among other things, it should have been clear from the beginning that the government had more than preventing teen pregnancy in mind when it penned this section of the Social Security Act. Especially for those who have used textbooks with chapters ripped out (to protect stu- dents from the dangers of contracep- tion, apparently), this realization is tardy buthopefully not too late. Why abstinence- -only funds aren't worth it. While my hope is that Congress will someday acknowledge the findings of its own study and eliminate the State Abstinence Education Program, it's a more pressing issue that Michigan hasn't caught on yet. The state must reject federal funding for abstinence- only education and instead focus on developing a comprehensive sex edu- cation program to give Michigan's students a better understanding of sexuality and the choices available to them. And for the sake of being truly comprehensive, those choices should include abstinence - as long as its not presented as the only choice. Emmarie Huetteman is an associate editorial page editor. She can be reached at huetteme@umich.edu. I Math and science offer real-world skills that other areas simply can't SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU to today's issues. Pushing education in math, science and engineering are fundamental to our country's success. Peter Keros Engineering senior I I EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, Elise Baun, Harun Buljina, Ben Caleca, Satyajeet Deshmukh, Brian Flaherty, Matthew Green, Emmarie Huetteman, Emma Jeszke, Shannon Kellman, Edward McPhee, Emily Michels, Kate Peabody, Matthew Shutler, Robert Soave, Eileen Stahl, Jennifer Sussex, lmran Syed, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Margaret Young LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity and accuracy. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu. TO THE DAILY: In Bryan Kolk's column about education in our coun-Creativity mited othe ts try, he made a good point about education - that creativ- ity and leadership are necessary to solve today's problems (Getting creative with education, 10/27/2008). What he TO THE DAILY: didn't seem to understand is that engineering, based on BryanKolk's column Monday about creativityineduca- math and science, teaches both creativity and leadership tion was thoroughly mistaken in its criticism of the educa- and will produce the solutions to today's problems. Math tion system (Getting creative with education, 10/27/2008). and science are the building blocks to engineering, just as We can all agree with Kolk's basic premise that creativity reading is the building block to the humanities. in the classroom should be a priority, but the article went Let me say that I fully support arts and humanities. too far. No Child Left Behind has faults, but this doesn't I'm an avid musician (clarinet player), and I studied Latin mean that there is something fundamentally wrong with for five years. I enjoyed these studies immensely, but I the philosophy behind our education system. didn't gain from them the knowledge or skills I needed Education is often caricatured for inhumanly and for today's world. I gained these skills from being an engi- robotically producing soulless cogs in the vast machine of neering student. society. However, the "conservative and misguided" view Let me try an example. How are we going to solve the that education has a utilitarian purpose is not the prob- energy crisis? Studying Catullus's Roman poetry didn't lem. Education is still needed to build the basic skills nec- give me an answer, nor did studying Carl Maria von essary for being productive in society. The reality is that Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 2. The math, science and people educate themselves because they want to advance engineering I've taken here at the University gave me economically, and this isn't a misguided philosophy. the skills to solve this issue. Whether they were design Additionally, a focus on math and science doesn't stifle courses where I had to build a tool or product, or science imagination. On the contrary, math and science can be classes where I learned how engines operate and how applied in ways that are creative, imaginary and entre- to make them more efficient, these courses taught me to preneurial. If you don't believe me, ask any engineering think about the problem, analyze it and create solutions. major. Creativity isn't merely confined to the humanities. I'm involved in combustion research at the University, and For instance, public policy that emphasizes math and sci- this research could reduce our oil usage and noxious emis- ence doesn't necessarily shackle a student's mind to the 4 sions from cars. Sorry, but neither Catullus nor Weber prison of crippling unoriginality. helped me with my research. Education will always be an imperfect system. But for This is but one of the many examples of how engineers a column purporting to advance creativity, it was wholly will solve today's problems, and how math and science are uncreative in proposing a solution. necessary for these solutions. So before writing off math and science as "memorizing facts" and unimportant in our Ruotao Wang world, look at which subjects actually produce solutions LSA senior ',