Show 18A Standard-Examin- Standard-Examin- Opinion Friday June 30 2000 - — er er SERVING THE TOP OF UTAH SINCE 1888 Scott Trundle Publisher I Don Porter Editorial Page Editor Ron Thornburg J Managing Editor j OUR VIEW 1 I John Daniels is one of our ‘12 Who Care’ This Ogden resident is one of the foremost volunteers working to create a kayaking and canoeing park on the Weber River Editor’s note: This monthly and canoeists from around the nation One of the projects feature “12 Who Care "is the Standard-Examineditorial Weber County Rivers via its board’s way of recognizing 12 in- president Jack Crosland is dividuals one each month durworking on is the creation of a 900-folaudwhose work is kayak and canoe ing 2000 the dozen able in one of topics park for boaters we have identified as our editoriAlthough some work has alal agenda for the upcoming year ready been accomplished This month’s honoreefor the top- Daniels characterizes the conic of “Water" is John Daniels In dition of the Weber River as similar to that of the Ogden July we will select someone of in the area of “Qual- River before the establishment special note ’’ Your nominations of the Ogden River Parkway ity Growth He says companies including are encouraged Daniels is a man who CE Butters Construction WR White and others have public service and construcbeen remarkably generous if er - ot John tion worker by trade he has with time and equipment making the removal of trash and obstacles possible Generally speaking he ’ says the com- munity support has been terrific - with one caveat: “Having people stand behind you and having them open their wallets are two different things” taken a two- year sabbatical of sorts to help create a recreation-worth- y stretch of water along the Weber River “Everybody should do something like this” he says as though it’s the most normal thing in the world “I think the Still he’s confident that community monetary sup needs this” To accomplish his port will materialize given task - and to survive for two time without that pay-cheyears steady Daniels has been kayaking - he’s relying on some income as a landlord but also for three seasons now so he’s has adopted a new method of relatively new to the sport home budgeting: “We’re mini- - But like a new convert to anything his love of kayaking is a mizing not buying anything zealous one He would like to new see Ogden and Weber County But while he may be miniutilize the rivers like Colorado mizing at home he’s working communities do making them with Weber County Rivers a attractions for tourists and subchapter of Weber County Wasatch Front residents alike Pathways to help expand the Thank heavens he found the public’s access to the river and officials about 1) educating sport and became associated with those working to rehabilthe pollutants that are entering the waterways and 2) how itate the Weber River Recrethat affects not only the river’s ationists and lovers of the rivhealth but its potential for reer and its accompanying creation and marketability as pathways will be forever grate a destination spot for kayakers ful ck 1 COLUMNS Can ‘Book of Life’ break future’s code? Discovery opens book into human possibilities if we read it WASHINGTON - They all talked is a about it as a book although better analogy If the human genome were actually printed out on paper it would rise as high as the Washington Monument On Monday to enormous fanfare ok competing scientists from Celera Genomics Corp and the federal Human Genome Project jointly announced the publication of the “Book of Life” For the first time we have a working draft of the instruction manual for making and growing a human being And though it isn’t exactly a beach book it is a blockbuster nonetheless Using only four chemical letters - G A T C this book of life promises to affect the way we think about ourselves as much as any scientific achievement in human history If Galileo pushed us out of the center of the universe if Newton gave regularity to a world ruled by whim and gods if Darwin gave us our origins the human genome alters our identity in conflicting new ways The mapping of a human genetic code tells that we share a single blueprint We are genetically a small band of descendents of the same people We are 999 percent the same as each other Yet as we build a catalog of human variation from these letters we also learn the ways in which each of us is genetically different wholly individual We share the book but have a page or maybe a sentence of our own The theme of this work is that humans are simultaneously alike and unique “It’s a paradox” says Francis - A visionary wait years of anticipation the Vatican’s revelation of the third secret of Fatima leaves one wondering: Why was it kept secret? After the impression that the prophnearly half a Vatican has ecy was wrong text the of public For decades fears the third vision of Sister Lucia tions and tortured expectaspeculation which had been enclosed in have centered on the mysterithe archives of the Holy See ous secret by four popes Millions of It doesn’t mention catapeople were probably clysms or wars which divide the world It doesn’t talk The celebrated “third seabout enormous schisms withcret” - a pope killed by “solin the church What was the diers who shoot him several need for all this secrecy? times with firearms and arPope John XXIII had the rows” - does not match the good sense to comment “I dramatic events of May 13 1981 It doesn’t help to call in leave judgment to others” and then had the tefrt put away symbolic language and meta- La Repubblica (Rome) phor Nothing can take away After 5 Eric Lander from the White-hea- d ber possibilities for a new kind of “We have now 3 million ways to subdivide people and one way to unite everyone” he says “We will need an appreciation of diversity that we’ve not ' Institute a Ellen Goodman Boston Globe crucial partner in this project uses a different literary analogy to explain the shared book of life “It’s like a family Bible that’s been passed down the generations There are little spelling differences small punctuation differences but it’s the same Bible The genome reminds us how close we are’ There is he says “so much to unite us Our ancestors left so many stories in the DNA” We’ll be able to tell if we share an ancestor 50000 years ago Indeed we’ll be able to tell how much we share with the rest of nature from yeast to a mouse But at the same time Lander too wonders to what extent the genetic codes we are beginning to catalog will divide us in new and unsettling ways With gene testing with diagnostic testing we may well be able to predict illness to tailor drugs even to alter genetic make-u- p Along with the stunning possibilities for truly individualized treatment for disease also come the so- - had” The human genome debunks any scientific concept of “race” We will find out that there is more variation within a racial or ethnic group than between groups But will it usher in a kind of molecular discrimination? We may also be- gin to redraw lines so that a person once ends grouped as say Italian-Americor high-ris-k up grouped as breast cancer an This is why a publication day filled with toasts to what President Clinton described as a “stunning humbling achievement” was also filled with warnings The two “team leaders” J Craig Venter of Celera and Collins of the Genome Project men who have disagreed on much seconded each other in warn- ing about genetic discrimination At the everyday level we clearly need to extend the prohibition against genetic "w discrimination So we enter a new age We can see literally in the DNA how we are con-- ' nected through human history and sepa- rated by our own individuality But there is no gene that can predict the human se- -' quel We have the book but how will we read w i it? columnist Ellen Pulitzer Goodman is associate editor of The Boston Globe Her address is Her column runs on Tuesdays and Fridays Prize-winni- m ellengood-manglobeco- tvfi li t Nader may win funds but not real power Greens fight the American bias against third parties DENVER - Ralph Nader has been making speeches for 40 years and it shows Although he’ll never have - nor does he seem to want - the soaring oratory of a John Kennedy or the emotional g of a Ronald Reagan he knows what he wants to say he had a text for his acceptance speech as the Green Party presidential nominee but it was clear that he knew it by heart And so Nader rarely broke eye contact with the audience as he speechified about everything from the populist revolt to his struggle against the auto industry in the 1960s to an account of his recent listening tour With Nader there are no honeyed words it’s all spinach and there is indeed a market for rhetorical vegetables Yet the fact remains: The US electoral system - as opposed to that of most democratic countries - will never give him or his party power The only relevant question is can he hit the magic number of five? If Nader wins 5 percent of the nationwide vote in November the Greens will be guaranteed federal funding for their next presidential campaign For people with a lot to say but not much money to help them say it cash from Uncle Sam is hard to refuse Pat Buchanan left the Republican Party because he wanted the $13 million that Ross Perot’s Reform Party will get this year Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans will each get five times as much government money - not that they need it Indeed Nader and Buchanan ignoring their vast ideological differences chain-pullin- ANOTHER VIEW Collins the head of the Human Genome Project sitting quietly after the hubbub of the White House announcement and the press conference “What genes teach us is that we are incredibly alike and yet also they give us a concrete way of knowing how different we are” 105-minu- te 19th-centu- 50-sta- te have formed an alliance on one issue critical to both of them: access to the huge national audience that will be watching the presidential debates in October The Commission on Presidential Debates has decreed that only candidates with 15 per- cent of the vote in public opinion surveys can take part the latest NBC-Wa-ll Street Journal poll shows Nader with seven percent and Buchanan with four percent Speaking of A1 Gore and George James W Bush Nader Pinkerton said “They should overcome their fear of facing new Newsday ideas and alternative voices” Of course if Nader gets in the debates so most likely will Buchanan This is the central irony of fringe politics in America: The structure of the US electoral system is so stacked against third parties that the ideology that motivates them in the first place must take a back seat to process questions As Dean Myerson coordinator of the Green Party convention put it “The big three for us are ballot access public financing of campaigns and proportional representation” Of those three proportional representation will be the toughest nut to crack In America all national elections are “first past the post” That is the candi- - date who gets the most votes gets all the victory By contrast in most other democratic countries some form of proportional representation system is in place That is if a party gets a certain minimum of the national vote typically 5 percent it is guaranteed that percentage of seats in the legislature Such a system obviously encourages small parties since they need not win a majority anywhere in order to win a share of power In countries with proportional representation multiparty coalitions are the rule so it is for example that Greens are part J of the government of five Western European countries v Closer to home election law in multi- party Mexico also enables the Greens to -- ' play serious power politics In the na- tional elections to be held Sunday the Partido Verde Ecologista has forsaken its seeming natural allies on the left to make a ance with the right-win- g ty led by Vicente Fox r 'Z rZ ' alii- - ’ opposition par--' One can argue about whether the American system with its overwhelming two-part- y bias is better or worse than the alternatives but this much is certain: It’s not going to change anytime soon And so the Greens are stymied In a country that counts more than elected officials just 79 are half-a-milli- Green The Greens contend that Nader will give them the visibility they need to be- - -- f come serious political players He may well succeed in getting them over that presidential hump but that mi- nor victory will guarantee them govern-memoney not government power James P Pinkerton is a Newsday colum-ni- st and a member of its editorial board His ’ column runs occasionally ’ nt |