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Show Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 Page 8 v ei 0 info =Free Speech Zone Opinions on this page (columns, letters unless otherwise identified are not from Utah Statesman staff, but from a wide variety of members of the campus community who have strong opinions, just like you do! This is an open forum. Want to write something? Contact: statesman@aggiemaiLusu.edu Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahstatesnnan.com Aggies deserve salute for speed record Recently, scientists and engineers at USU broke a land speed record in a missile-shaped vehicle running on biofuel made from bread and cheese. Since news headlines often omit the words "a" and "the", unwary readers might believe the student-built streamliner approached the absolute land speed record of 764 miles per hour. The USU streamliner, alas, An Editorial Opinion I went a bit slower than your typical rocket-propelled dragster. The "Aggie A-Salt" streamliner was clocked at 64.4 miles per hour at the World of Speed 2012 event. It went 64 miles per hour? That can't be right. We have cars that can drive 64 miles per hour, and we're only poor college students. The USU vehicle broke the record for the small-engine class petroleum-fuel diesel streamliner division. That makes more sense. The streamliner had an 870-cubic-centimeter engine, much smaller than most consumer autos. A few miles less than the speed limit on most freeways may not sound thrilling, but relatively few people can say they've gone that fast in a vehicle they built themselves. The fuel is perhaps even more impressive. The streamliner, running on leftovers from human meals, can beat Usain Bolt's top speed by more than 30 miles per hour. That's a lot faster than any of us can run on bread and cheese. USU's team is on the right track. Too many alternative-fuel innovations don't perform well enough to compete with gasoline. Other methods produce fuel from food crops — and when current agricultural practices come under fire for being unsustainable, does it make sense to convert any portion of our food supply into vehicle fuel? The Aggie A-Salt developers are staking out their territory in the middle ground where performance and sustainability overlap. Future versions of the team's biofuel may be formulated from algae. Algae is similar to food waste in that we have too much of it. Rain washes fertilizer out of the soil in our yards and farmland and into our rivers. Algae consumes the nutrients in the fertilizer, but it also consumes the oxygen necessary for fish and other aquatic wildlife. For years, USU researchers have been working on a way to turn the algae in our wastewater into fuel for our vehicles — not a bad proposition for Logan City, which is home to some of the nation's largest wastewater treatment lagoons. What our school did on the salt flats with a tiny engine and a tiny budget is something to be proud of. We applaud the accomplishments of our fellow students, and we look forward to an Aggie A-Salt streamliner with a top speed that wouldn't draw the ire of freeway motorists. Our View LOOKING BACK ON YOUR FIRST TERM/ UNEMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN CRIPPLING. A bou tU S LOOKING BACK ON YOUR FIRST TERM/ AMERICA'SCREDIT C RATING WAS DOWNGRADED. Editor in Chief Steve Kent Copy Editor Eric Jungblut News Editor Allee Wilkinson T LOOKING BACK ON TIMES- PI CAYUNE E ciao 0 DEBT OUR YOUNATIONAL RM/ HAS SKYROCKETED. HOW DO YOU RESPOND? Features Editor Natasha Bodily Features Senior Writer Drew Van Dyke Sports Editor Tavin Stucki Sports Senior Writer What is real leadership? The realm of leadership is kind of a weird part of our world. I do not feel comfortable saying, "I'm a leader." Am I a leader? Is that something I decide? Are there milestones, merit badges, or some indicator of leadership? Who hands out the card saying, "Congratulations! You made it. You are a leader."? What is leadership? Most people would define leadership as influence. Influence is hallmark of leaders. However, it is not enough to be just be influential, you must also be authentic. Authentic leadership is the premiumgrade fuel of leadership. Any high-performance machine needs the higher octane, or it will choke. What does it take to be an authentic leader? When you look up the definition of authenticity there are two meanings in use: of the same origin as claimed; genuine, and conforming to reality and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief. These ingredients are vital for our leaders. A third definition shows up when you search it, but it's obsolete — having authority. Leadership isn't the position you hold. Under traditional leadership ideas, there are a few bosses who tell others, followers, what to do. This limits the number of leadership opportunities. Leadership is a service. Servant leadership requires character. It is through genuine action that builds trust that we are able to become better leaders. There aren't "congratulations" cards for leaders because leaders are never sedentary. Leadership is integral to a successful community. Our organizations have leadership roles to fill. Every day as our organizations, families and communities grow, leaders seize opportunities to learn. College is perhaps one of the best opportunities for us to lay a foundation for authentic leadership and a lifetime of service. Aside from the ASUSU positions, you can serve on college councils, the Val R. Christensen Service Center, the HURD Council or in more than a hundred clubs. Outside of ASUSU, you can be involved in undergraduate research, A-Team, the Statesman, Greek life or intramural sports. Leadership isn't a closed system on the third floor of the TSC. It's individual efforts campus-wide. Congratulations: You made it. You're a leader. - Jordan Carl Hunt is a senior majoring in Liberal Arts and the ASUSU Academic Senate President. IF SAID YOU HAD A BEAUTIFUL Bay WOULD YOU LET ME MAKE SWEEPING DECISIONS ABOUT ITS REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH? Ignore anti-religion Internet propaganda Dear Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Jews, You're living in the age of the Internet. Your religion will be mocked, and the mockery will William Saletan find its way to you. Get over it. Nat'l If you View don't, what happened last week will happen again and again. A couple of idiots with a video camera and an Internet connection will trigger riots across the globe. They'll bait you into killing one another. Stop it. Stop following their script. Today, fury, violence and bloodshed are consuming the Muslim world. Why? Because a bank fraud artist in California offered people $75 a day to come to his house and act out scenes that ostensibly had nothing to do with Islam. Then he replaced the audio, putting words in the News Senior Writer Tmera Bradley actors' mouths, and stitched together the scenes to make an absurdly bad movie ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad. He put out fliers to promote the movie. Nobody came to watch it. He posted a 14-minute video excerpt of the movie on YouTube, but hardly anyone noticed. Then, a week ago, an anti-Muslim activist in Virginia reposted the video with an Arabic translation and sent the link to activists and journalists in Egypt. An Egyptian TV show aired part of the video. An Egyptian politician denounced it. Clerics sounded the alarm. Through Facebook and Twitter, protesters were mobilized to descend on the U.S. embassy in Cairo. The uprising spread. The U.S. ambassador to Libya has been killed, and violence has erupted in other countries. When the protests broke out, the guy who made the movie claimed to be an Israeli Jew funded by other Jews. That turned out be a lie. Now he says he's a Coptic Christian, even though Coptic Christian leaders in Egypt and the United States despise the movie and want nothing to do with him. Another guy who helped make the movie claims to be a Buddhist. The movie was made in the United States, yet Sudanese mobs have attacked British and German embassies. Some Egyptians targeted the Dutch embassy, mistakenly thinking the Netherlands was behind the movie. Everyone's looking for a group to blame and attack. The men behind the movie said it would expose Islam as a violent religion. Now they're pointing to the riots as proof. Muslims are "pre-programmed" to rage and kill, says the movie's promoter. "Islam is a cancer," says the director. According to the distributor, "The violence that it caused in Egypt is further evidence of how violent the religion and people are and it is evidence that everything in the film is factual." Congratulations, rioters. You followed the script perfectly. You did the propagandists' work for them. And the provocations won't end here. Laws and censors won't protect you from them. Liberal democracies allow freedom of expression. Our leaders and people condemn garbage like this video, but we ► See PROTEST, Page 9 Curtis Lundstrom Photo Editor Delayne Locke Senior Photographer Curtis Ripplinger Web Editor Karli Brand Editorial Staff: Steve Kent Allee Evensen Delayne Locke Tavin Stucki Eric Jungblut Natasha Bodily Karli Brand About letters • Letters should be limited to 400 words. • All letters may be shortened, edited or rejected for reasons of good taste, redundancy or volume of similar letters. • Letters must be topic oriented. They may not be directed toward individuals. Any letter directed to a specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and include a phone number or e-mail address as well as a student identification number (none of which is published). 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