Weekend, February 12-14, 2010 - The Daily Cardinal by The Daily Cardinal

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TODAY: snowy hi 27º / lo 12º

dailycardinal.com/page-two

Weekend, February 12-14, 2010

An independent student newspaper, serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison community since 1892

Evolution schmevolution: Teach the Bible!

Volume 119, Issue 86

2142 Vilas Communication Hall 821 University Avenue Madison, Wis., 53706-1497 (608) 262-8000 l fax (608) 262-8100

News and Editorial edit@dailycardinal.com Editor in Chief Charles Brace Managing Editor Ryan Hebel Campus Editor Kelsey Gunderson Grace Urban City Editor State Editor Hannah Furfaro Enterprise Editor Hannah McClung Associate News Editor Ashley Davis Senior News Reporters Alison Dirr Ariel Shapiro Robert Taylor Anthony Cefali Opinion Editor Todd Stevens Editorial Board Chief Jamie Stark Arts Editors Katie Foran-McHale Jacqueline O’Reilly Sports Editors Scott Kellogg Nico Savidge Page Two Editor Kevin Slane Features Editor Madeline Anderson Ben Pierson Life and Style Editor Photo Editors Isabel Álvarez Danny Marchewka Graphics Editors Caitlin Kirihara Natasha Soglin Multimedia Editor Jenny Peek Copy Chiefs Anna Jeon Kyle Sparks Justin Stephani Jake VIctor Copy Editors Alison Dirr Taylor Harvey, Min Sun Lee, Emma Roller Patrick Shipe, Victoria Statz

Business and Advertising business@dailycardinal.com Business Manager Cole Wenzel Advertising Manager Katie Brown Accounts Receivable Manager Michael Cronin Billing Manager Mindy Cummings Senior Account Executive Ana Devcic Account Executives Mara Greenwald Kristen Lindsay, D.J. Nogalski, Sarah Schupanitz Graphic Designer Mara Greenwald Web Director Eric Harris Marketing Director Mia Beeson Archivist Erin Schmidtke The Daily Cardinal is published weekdays and distributed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its surrounding community with a circulation of 10,000. The Daily Cardinal is a nonproﬁt organization run by its staff members and elected editors. It receives no funds from the university. Operating revenue is generated from advertising and subscription sales. Capital Newspapers, Inc. is the Cardinal’s printer. The Daily Cardinal is printed on recycled paper. The Cardinal is a member of the Associated Collegiate Press and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. All copy, photographs and graphics appearing in The Daily Cardinal are the sole property of the Cardinal and may not be reproduced without written permission of the editor in chief. The Daily Cardinal accepts advertising representing a wide range of views. This acceptance does not imply agreement with the views expressed. The Cardinal reserves the right to reject advertisements judged offensive based on imagery, wording or both. Complaints: News and editorial complaints should be presented to the editor in chief. Business and advertising complaints should be presented to the business manager. Letters Policy: Letters must be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 200 words, including contact information. Letters may be sent to letters@dailycardinal.com.

Editorial Board Charles Brace Anthony Cefali Kathy Dittrich Ryan Hebel Nico Savidge Jamie Stark Todd Stevens Justin Stephani l

Board of Directors Vince Filak Cole Wenzel Joan Herzing Jason Stein Jeff Smoller Janet Larson Chris Long Charles Brace Katie Brown Benjamin Sayre Jenny Sereno Terry Shelton Melissa Anderson l

For the record Corrections or clariﬁcations? Call The Daily Cardinal ofﬁce at 608-262-8000 or send an e-mail to edit@dailycardinal.com.

SATURDAY: cloudy hi 25º / lo 10º

ANDREW LAHR spare me the lahrcasm

was on my way back to the dorms after a vigorous day of protesting those crazy liberal protestors down at the Capitol with my buddy Carl from the local gun club, when I stumbled across my floormate working on some big biology project. He was really having a hard time with it because he said it involved a lot of research and source-checking and stuff of that matter. He asked me to read it over and tell him what I thought about it, which surprised me because people usually don’t ask for my input on just about anything, but I obliged. I read it over, and I won’t lie, there was a lot of scienc-y stuff in there. About three-quarters the way through I realized he was writing about the stuff my ma and pa told me to steer clear of. I am speaking, of course, about evolution. When I realized the sin

I had just committed, I immediately dropped what I was reading (which actually wasn’t a fantastic idea because it was his brand new MacBook). He got real mad after I did that and got up lookin’ for a fight, I suppose. Usually I’m prepared for such confrontations, but I quickly realized I left my concealable spray can of bear mace in my bear-hunting jacket (what was I thinking?). Bummer. I’m really not all that big of a guy but I’m quick as a hot-to-trot buck during the rut, so I just kind of ran away at that point. Flustered by such blatant liberal propaganda, I threw in a large chew and cranked some Kenny Chesney to find my chi. Needless to say, I had some serious soulsearching to do. I couldn’t get those fancy words out of my head. Those blasphemous words floated around in there, popping up at the worst times. “Natural selection,” “analogous structures,” “Darwinism” and “The Beagle’s Voyage,” just to name a few. It felt like the devil himself was trapped in my skull. The very idea that these fools and

The Dirty Bird

their left-winged biases actually believed the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old, and that all living things descended from a pool of some sludge just sickens me! I’ll tell you one thing, I know for a fact that some monkey didn’t just crap out my great grandma. In fact, I’m pretty sure my greatgreat-grandma did. I don’t read all that much (it makes my brain hurt), but let me tell you one thing: I’ve read the Good Book front to back, and if the Good Book says the earth snapped into existence 6,000 years ago, well that’s just how it went. Those crazies down University Avenue at the genetics building will say stuff like “you can’t possibly start an entire population from two people” and all that other liberal nonsense, but one time back home, two of my cousins got married and had a kid, and he was just fine (except for that miniscule nub of a third arm). I’ll be damned if some fancy-schmancy professor is gonna tell me that that ain’t the truth. It’s time people started getting educated, I say. Just because

some old English phony sailed around the world and did a lot of thinking about our origins and took a lot of samples and fossils and stuff doesn’t mean I’m some descendant of some type of Homo habilis and a whole bunch of other homos. It’s time America woke up I say, and though I got kinda lazy and haven’t done all that much research or stuff, let me tell you, I’m correct about this evolution nonsense. How, you ask? Everyone back home says so, that’s how. I propose a full recall of all materials regarding such heresy; Anyone with a brain knows it’s all just a fad anyway. Hell, where I’m from we don’t even teach science, much less earth history unless you’re learnin’ about something you’re hunting so you can find a way to kill it faster. Which reminds me, I got a “deer-shinin” date with this babe I met at Fleet Farm. Keep fightin’ the good fight! Think the rest of this liberal rag you call a newspaper needs some Bible study lessons? E-mail Andrew at aplahr@wisc.edu to organize a protest outside Vilas.

sex and the student body

condoms won’t rubber the wrong way ERICA ANDRIST sex columnist Aww, come on, y’all. Apart from one person who e-mailed some lovely compliments (thanks, Emily!), the sex@dailycardinal.com inbox has been empty this week. I generally draw on my years with Sex Out Loud on question-less occasions like this—by the way, given that we generally receive very similar questions in our programs, I can pretty much guarantee that someone else has the same question you do. So not only will you do yourself a favor by sending it in, but you will do somebody else a favor, too. So email me. I promise your question isn’t too tame, or too weird, or too stupid, or too whatever-it-is-you’re-worried-about. Anyway, Sex Out Loud is celebrating National Condom Week next week, and as such, I’m going to spend the next several paragraphs putting the “fun” back in the fundamentals of rubbers. I know much of this information will be review for many of my brilliant readers, but after testifying in support of the Healthy Youth Act recently, I know there are a number of people (mostly elected representatives) who really, really need this information. Fundamental condom fact number one: they work! When used correctly, insertive latex condoms are 98 percent effective at preventing pregnancy and ﬂuid-borne STIs, according to scarleteen. com. The Center for Disease Control states, “Laboratory studies have demonstrated that latex condoms provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of STD pathogens.” Sweet! “Correct” use includes using a condom before its expiration date, wearing it during the entirety of genital contact, washing your hands and making sure not to mix oils with the latex, as well as ﬁt-

ting the condom correctly—rolling it all the way down to the base of the toy/penis and leaving some wiggle room for semen and/or for thrusting at the tip. All this stuff can be tricky sometimes. However even with “typical” use (when we don’t quite use the condom perfectly), effectiveness ranges from 85-92 percent. Sure, 85 percent is less than 98 percent, but clearly, the worry that we might not remember one of those steps shouldn’t deter us from bothering to wear one. Fundamental condom fact number two: They don’t “promote promiscuity!” This is wholly untrue nonsense thrown by the anti-education crowd. Now, to be upfront, I am unaware of any studies examining the direct effect of condoms on sexual activity. I am, however, aware of a pile of studies examining the effects of comprehensive sex education—which generally provides access to condoms and explicit instruction in their use—on sexual activity. Study after study after study has shown correlations between comprehensive sex education and a) delayed age at ﬁrst intercourse, b) lower number of sexual partners by a certain (usually arbitrarily chosen) age and/or c) reduced engagement in unprotected behaviors. See the National Survey of Family Growth, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and the Advocates for Youth for just three sources of hard numbers. There’s been a lot of hullabaloo lately over one singular study showing an abstinence-based approach helps delay intercourse in middle school students. The New York Times says it’s “already beginning to shake up the longstanding debate” over the best form of sex education for youth. It shouldn’t be. Longtime readers already know my ﬁrst issue with this. One singular study? Come on. The study followed 662 African-American middleschoolers for two years after they received abstinence-based health interventions, safer-sex education, comprehensive sex

education or a control “general health” course. About a third of the students who learned about abstinence began engaging in sexual activity within the two years, contrasted with 42 percent from the comprehensive groups and about half in the control group. On its face, that looks great, though it’s terribly interesting that an approximately 10 percent reduction in sexual activity (between the abstinence vs. comprehensive groups) makes the same people who decry condoms as “imperfect” or “ineffective” jizz in their pants. However, given that the average age at first intercourse for AfricanAmerican youth is 15.8 according to the Kinsey Institute, this study is extremely limited in its scope. Certainly, the authors have designed a study which allows them to say abstinencebased education delays first intercourse for middle-school students, but it does very little to tell them how long that delay actually is. Middle school students generally range in age from 11-14 years old, so even by the end of the follow-up period, most would not have reached the age by which they are statistically more likely to have had intercourse. These numbers are far less impressive when you account for the fact the focus group is less likely to be having sex in the first place. Anyway, I’ve digressed a bit, but ultimately, I think it’s important to get back to basics for National Condom Week. It’s easy to get lost in the relentless, interconnected controversies surrounding sex, birth control, reproductive justice, gender, sex work, etc. But one thing should never be controversial: You deserve to be able to make informed decisions that are right for you at any given time. If those decisions include condoms, stop by the Sex Out Loud office in the SAC, or check out any of this week’s events. Worried your best-laid Valentine’s Day romance plans will go awry? Have other general questions about sex? Don’t make Erica sad! Write to her at sex@dailycardinal.com.