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Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
Thursday, October 23, 2003
EDITORIAL
Lillis Complex
brings prestige,
myriad benefits
During his freshman year, one of the members of the Ed
itorial Board had a class in the bridge that connected the
two halves of Gilbert Mall (a bridge that present freshmen
and sophomores won't remember). The cramped wooden
desks left backs sore, and harsh light torched the length of
the tunnel-like classroom. All in all a poor learning envi
ronment by modem standards.
But in recent years, contractors have tom down most of
the aging building and replaced it with the new, state-of
the-art Lillis Business Complex which is set for a Friday
christening. Boasting sleek but functional architecture, sev
eral hundred more seats than the replaced structure and an
array of energy-saving and other Earth-friendly features, the
business school has catapulted into the 21st century. And in
a few years that have seen slashed higher education budg
ets, the new business complex is in many ways one of the
best things to happen at the University in recent memory.
The $41 million glass-and-brick structure's architecture
is impressive, but its clean, green features are certainly its
most important accomplishment. They continue the Uni
versity's fine tradition of pursuing environmental protec
tion in its day-to-day operations.
"The sustainable and environmental concern on this
project has been incredible," Lillis project manager Matt
Pearson told the Emerald in 2Q02.
Indeed, the design can make use of many hours of natu
ral daylight each day to minimize the need for artificial
lighting. To better regulate temperature, windows are well
shaded, and the building's top will be covered with a so
called green roof, which prevents some heat from entering
the building on warm days. The roof filters and reduces
run-off water as well. Even the building's frame includes re
cycled materials.
But the benefits of the well-planned Lillis go beyond so
lidifying the University's reputation for environmentally
conscious policy and making learning spaces much more
livable: The net gain of some 600 seats will grant much
needed relief from the overcrowding burdening a univer
sity that has swelled to over 20,000 students without
adding any major facilities in the past few years.
The building's aesthetics, too, particularly in conjunc
tion with East 13th Avenue's so-called "pedestrian refrige,"
will make walking to off-campus businesses and classes at
campus's west end just a little nicer.
Finally, having a new, technologically advanced build
ing should draw more applicants, and even professors, to
the school, increasing the quality of the accepted students
and culling all the more prestige for the University.
In light of these multifarious benefits, the University
owes a debt of gratitude to the many private donors who
funded about nine-tenths of the project (including the
building's namesakes Chuck and Gwen Lillis). The rest of
the money came from bonds.
If the University continues to expand while building ac
ademic facilities as modern and eco-friendly as Lillis, it
should arrive at a bright and prestigious future.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited
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Authors are limited to one submission per calendar
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to edit for space, grammar and style.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Aimee Rudin
Freelance Editor
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
Eric Layton Illustrator
DEADLY
LIES
A friend from Kenya once told me that
she was writing a book about Africa specif
ically for American readers entitled: "Send
Money and Shut the Fuck Up."
That always sounded like sage foreign
policy advice to me.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration
is following the exact opposite doctrine, a
fart that was made painfully clear last
summer during the president's "historic"
five-day, five-nation African tour.
Bush was the stereotypical tourist: Accord
ing to the New York Times, he spent three of
his four nights at a luxury hotel in South
Africa, visiting Botswanaand Senegal for six
hours each and Uganda for only three.
On the first day of his trip, Bush took 15
minutes to visit Goree Island, once the
center of the West African slave trade. Es
chewing my friend's "Shut the Fuck Up"
doctrine, he delivered a speech carefully
crafted to denounce slavery without actu
ally apologizing for America's rather sig
nificant role in the enterprise.
Bush also managed to find the bright side
of the slave trade when he insinuated that
God allowed it to happen so that America's
racial conscience could be awakened. God
sure has a funny way of teaching white peo
ple life lessons! Mysterious indeed.
At almost every stop during his whirl
wind tour, Bush repeated a pledge to pro
vide $ 15 billion over the next five years to
assist Africans in their ongoing fight
against AIDS. He urged Congress to "fully
fund this initiative for the good of the peo
ple on this continent."
It didn't take Bush long to betray the ex
pectations of a continent. His administra
tion requested only $2 billion for fiscal
year 2004 and then pressured congres
sional Republicans to defeat a bill that
would have added the extra $1 billion
needed to fully fund the initiative. A sec
ond tyll to add $300 million was also
killed in committee by Republicans.
Bush decided to clarify his position, say
ing his plan was to provide gradually in
creasing assistance over the next five years.
Sounds good to me. I mean, what's the
hurry? There are only 8,500 AIDS-related
deaths per day.
The administration's justification for us
ing a gradual approach is that "money is
not the issue" due to a lack of infrastruc
ture to absorb it.
That is simply untrue, says Asia Russell of
Health Global Access Project. Drawing on
research from UNAIDS and the Commis
sion on Macroeconomics and Health, Rus
sell said in a press release; "Annual spending
on AIDS in poor countries needs to reach
$10.5 billion by 2005 just to utilize poor
countries' existing infrastructure alone"
While Bush is quietly underfunding
his own program, he is actively sabotag
ing international efforts to deal with the
AIDS pandemic.
On Aug. 26, he stopped financing to a
respected health program after accusing
one of the member groups, Marie Stopes,
of involvment in forced abortions in Chi
na; the administration admits it has no ac
tual evidence to support the accusation.
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
And currently the White House is trying
to kill an effort to commit $1 billion next
year to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tu
berculosis and Malaria, despite the fact
that Bush promised this money in May.
The multilateral Global Fund has been
chronically underfunded since its 2001 in
ception. As a result, it has been forced to
downsize and finance fewer proposals.
None of this surprised me. Bush has al
ways used the AIDS crisis as a means of
scoring cheap political points with his
right-wing constituency. Early on, Bush
nominated Jerry Thacker for his President's
Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, a man
who called homosexuality a "deathstyle,"
referred to AIDS as a "gay plague" and ad
vocated curing homosexuals through reli
gion. Bush eventually withdrew Thacker's
nomination after public outrage.
Bush's pick to head his U.S. Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief raises different, but
equally troubling questions. Randall Tobias
was the CEO of Eli Lilly, a member of a
phannaceutical coalition lobbying Wash
ington for increased intellectual property
rights, which would hinder developing na
tions' access to generic anti-retroviral drugs.
Pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly are
also huge Republican campaign contribu
tors, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
Although he has no actual public health
experience, Tobias parrots the administra
tion's rhetoric about the effectiveness of
abstinence-only education. One-third of
the president's AIDS package is earmarked
specifically for these programs, which the
American Medical Association, World
Health Organization, National Institutes
of Health and many other expert groups
claim to be less effective at preventing the
spread of HIV/AIDS than the alternative:
comprehensive sex ed.
Bush touts Uganda as the poster nation for
the success of abstinence-only policies, when
they actually used the ABC educational mod
el — Abstinence; Be faithful, Condoms. The
most significant factor in Uganda's success
was the enormous jump in condom use, ac
cording to the Allan Guttmacher Institute, a
family planning research group.
What is sometimes overlooked in this
discussion is that $15 billion over five
years is not nearly enough to get the job
done. One relatively easy solution that
should be discussed more is debt relief.
Sub-Saharan Africa, where 70 percent of
the 43 million people living with HIV
worldwide reside, squanders about $15
billion each year in debt payments to the
World Bank and the International Mone
tary Fund, according to figures compiled
by Health GAP.
Bush has refused to pressure interna
tional financial institutions into canceling
these crippling debts. For Nigeria, debt era
sure would mean relief to the tune of $30
billion. When Uganda saw limited debt re
lief, it increased its health spending by 270
percent. So far, the only country whose
debt the Bush administration seems will
ing to forgive is Iraq's.
Progressives use the word "evil" to de
scribe virtually every action by the presi
dent, from tax cuts to environmental roll
backs. While these are bad policies that
often involve misleading the public, they
are far from acts of evil.
Bush's litany of unkept promises, de
ceitful rhetoric and cynical opportunism
in the face of a growing AIDS pandemic,
however, is evil.
Pure evil.
I fear that the future will look back on our
generation as monsters for our relative si
lence about this holocaust. It is time for all
good-hearted Americans from all sides of the
political divide to make our feelings known.
Send the money, Bush, and then shut
the fuck up!
Contact the columnist
at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.