Oregon Daily Emerald
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
NEWS STAFF
(541)346-5511
|EN SUDICK
EDITOR IN CHIEF
STEVEN R. NEUMAN
MANAGING EDITOR
JARED PABEN
AYISHA YAHYA
NEWS EDITORS
MEGHANN CUNIFF
PARKER HOWELL
SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS
MORIAH BAUNGIT
ADAM CHERRY
BRITTNI McCLENAHAN
EMILY SMITH
EVA SYLWESTER
SHELDON TRAVER
NEWS REPORTERS
ClAYTON JONES
SPORTS EDITOR
JON ROETMAN
SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER
STEPHEN MILLER
BRIAN SMITH
SPORTS REPORTERS
RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
AMY LICHTY
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
JOSHUA LINTEREUR
PULSE REPORTER
CAT RAl.DWIN
JOHN PALMER
PULSE CARTOONISTS
AJLEE SLATER
COMMENTARY EDITOR
GABEBRADLEY
ANNEMARIE KNF.PPER
CHUCK SLOTHOWER
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
COLUMNISTS
ASHLEY GRIFFIN
SUPPLEMENT
FREELANCE EDITOR
DANIELLE HICKEY
PHOTO EDITOR
LAUREN WIMER
SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
NICOLE BARKER
DM BOBOSKY
PHOTOGRAPHERS
KATE HORTON
ZANE RTFI
PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS
BRET FUK1WANGLER
GRAPHIC ARTIST
DUSDN REESE
SENIOR DESIGNER
ELIJOTTASBURY
WENDY KIEFFER
AMANDA LEE
JONAH SCHROGIN
DESIGNERS
SHADRABEESLEY
IEANN1E EVERS
COPY CHIEFS
KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD
IOSH NORRIS
SPORTS COPY EDITORS
GREG BILSLAND
AMBER LINDROS
NEWS COPY EDITORS
JENNY GERW1CK
PULSE COPY EDITOR
ADRIENNE NELSON
ONLINE EDITOR
WEBMASTER
(541)346-5511
IUDY RIEDL
GENERAL MANAGER
KATHY CARBONE
BUSINESS MANAGER
LAUNADEGIUSTI
RECEPTIONIST
JERED NAGEL
PATRICK SCHMERBER
HOLLY STEIN
JANA SWANSON
ROB WEGNER
CAROLYN ZIMMERMAN
DISTRIBUTION
ADVERTISING
(541)346-3712
MELISSA GUST
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TYLER MACK
SALES MANAGER
MATT BETZ
HERON CA1JSCHDOLEN
MEGAN HAMLIN
KATE HIRONAKA
MAEGAN KASER-LEE
KELLEE KAUFTHEIL
MIA LEIDELMEYER
SHANNON ROGERS
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
CLASSIFIED
(541)3464343
TRINA SH ANAMAN
CLASSIFIED MANAGER
KORALYNN BASHAM
ANDO
KATY GAGNON
KER1 SPANGLER
KATIE STRINGER
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
ASSOCIATES
PRODUCTION
(541) 3464381
MICHELE ROSS
PRODUCTION MANAGER
TARA CIHAN
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
JENCRAMLET
KRISTEN^piCHARRY
CAMERON GAUT
SABRINA GOWETTE
IONAH SCHROGIN
DESIGNERS
The Oregon Dally Emerald Is pub
lished daily Monday through Fri
day during the school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
300 of the Erb Memorial Union.
The Emerald is pnvate property
Unlawful removal or use of
papers is prosecutable by law.
■ In my opinion
Lessons/or dictators
Kim Jong II, disgusted by being re
ferred to as a “tyrant,” recently re
sponded to President Bush’s “slander”
with his own tirade (routed through his
foreign ministry of course, which was
no doubt rolling head-over-heels in its
efforts to form the most devastating
rhetoric). “Bush is a hooligan bereft of
any personality as a human being, to
say nothing of stature as president of a
country,” North Korea tells us. “He is a
half-baked man in terms of morality
and a Philistine whom we can never
deal with.”
Pot, meet Kettle.
I’ve always known you had to be a
little crazy to be a dictator. Can you
imagine it? Living in constant fear, a
dictator’s paranoia becomes as com
mon as snack food. Every confidante is
a traitor, every cook an assassin; you
have to be on the lookout for those ex
ploding cigars. Sure, the benefits are
nice: You get your own pool and a slave
to clean it (preferably the hot kind), but
you’re constantly facing threats from
within your country, threats from with
out your country, insurgencies, rebel
lious sycophants. Really, you can’t trust
anyone, not even your faithful body
double. No wonder Kim Jong II is two
doughnuts short of a policeman.
However, I must admit that I find the
idea of wielding absolute power some
what enticing. Wave your hand and
BAM! His head is gone. So in the spirit
of fear and repression of people every
where, I present the following advice
for would-be dictators:
1) Start in Africa. Your economy
might be poorer, but as most of the
world powers have given up on the
“darkest continent” anyway, you might
as well reap the benefits of their dis
dain. For example, does anybody know
that approximately as many people die
every four months in Congo’s civil war
as were killed in the recent Asian tsuna
mi? One only has to look at Sudan to
acknowledge that Africa isn’t on top of
anyone’s priority list. As an enterpris
ing tyrant, not only will you face less
JENNIFER MCBRIDE
QUASHING DISSENT
resistance, but you can also play on
racial fears to justify any action. For ex
ample, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is
famous for declaring: “Our party must
continue to strike fear in the heart of
the white man, our real enemy.” While
most of your citizens and most of the
world will look down on you with con
tempt for your hypocrisy, at least your
misguided sense of justice will silence
the tiny sting of that monster known as
conscience. Caveat: Make sure your
country doesn’t have oil, as that just
tends to complicate events.
2) Never deny entry to non-govern
mental organizations, such as advo
cates for human rights. Many dictators
make the mistake of refusing interna
tional aid or entry in order to hide their
human rights abuses from the world.
This is a mistake, as brutality against
your own people is rarely the reason
your skies are full of bombs. The list of
dictators who have perpetuated atroci
ties on the U.S. dollar is staggering.
Some of the lesser-known crazies in
clude Idi Amin, former dictator of
Uganda, who profited from foreign aid
while pumping up the body count. Fer
dinand Marcos was the beneficiary of
an $88 million loan from the World
Bank despite throwing 60,000 of his
own citizens into jail for political rea
sons and torching various subversives’
genitals. Roberto Suazo Cordova, Rea
gan administration puppet, received
$231 million of U.S. aid money. Though
the United States denied knowing
about his death squads or his drug
trade, the evidence points to officials
who had a serious case of suspended
disbelief. The bottom line is that being
a dictator can be profitable, as long as
one avoids the coup factor.
3) If you have the bad luck of being
invaded, negotiate. The international
community is often willing to cough up
princely sums in order to avoid media
embarrassment resulting from the
death of its soldiers (and its previous
economic support; see No. 2). Take
General Raoul Cedras for example,
once usurper of Haiti (nicknamed by
the CIA the “best hope for democra
cy”) . After his soldiers killed estimates
of up to 5,000 people in the aftermath
of his bloody coup over the democrati
cally elected President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, he took wing to Panama to
live in peaceful, luxurious exile. He also
received a $5,000 stipend every month
from the Clinton administration.
4) Before starting your dictator
ship, make sure you have the proper
tools at the proper prices. You may
not have known it, but Costco is in
troducing a new line of product:
coffins. Richard Hastings, a financial
analyst for Bernard Sands, said Cost
co is trying to bring undertaking out
of the oh-so-depressing funeral
homes. “These things don’t have to
be a lugubrious experience any
more,” he said. “They’ve made it
into a stylish process where people
can make rational choices. That’s
called shopping.” The 18-gauge steel
caskets are available for the low, low
price of $799.99 and come in six col
ors, including lilac and Neapolitan
blue. I recommend buying in bulk.
With these quick tips you are sure to
be successful in your reign of terror. Un
til you have a country of your own, the
friendliness-challenged can purchase
their own Saddam Hussein action fig
ure from Herobuilder.com. The demo
cratically minded can also get a Con
doleezza Rice figurine to kick his
pudgy, white ass (while looking totally
fabulous in her powder-blue blouse
and lovely faux pearls).
jmnifermcbride@dailyemerald. com
■ Editorial
Government
needs lesson
in frugality,
prioritizing
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States
has spent more than $4.5 billion on techno
logical devices to defend our nation against
terrorist attacks. This money was mostly
dedicated to screening devices used at a
variety of locales, such as tools to detect
guns and biological weapons at airports and
state borders.
Unfortunately, The New York Times report
ed last week that much of this technology
has been deemed faulty; after spending
billions of dollars in a panic wave over terror
ism, the federal government has determined
that many of these homeland security tools
are “ineffective, unreliable, or too expensive
to operate.”
Whoops!
It turns out that equipment meant to detect
radioactive material cannot tell the difference
between bananas, cat litter and a nuclear
bomb; new airport screening devices are no
more effective than previous products; and
machines used to protect the U.S. Postal
Service actually monitor for only one kind of
biological weapon threat.
To deal with these issues, the federal govern
ment is now poised to shell out billions more
replacing unusable equipment. Officials esti
mate that around $7 billion is needed to fix the
problems with current technology, as well as to
introduce brand new anti-terrorism devices.
Frugal shopping is the key. The U.S. gov
ernment has obscene amounts of money on
its hands, with the explicit duty to provide for
the citizens of this country as best it can. Crit
ics note that post-Sept. 11 technology was
purchased without appraising competitive
bids and that no one made sure the items in
need were functional and reliable.
This oversight of the government is
inexcusable.
Any U.S. citizen would agree that testing
goods and finding the lowest prices are no
brainers when it comes to shopping; appar
ently the federal government needs to take
notes on what it means to conserve resources.
When making decisions for this country in
the future, U.S. leaders must remember to
vote on logic rather than passion. Equipping
our nation with protective technology is im
portant but not as important as making sure
all U.S. monetary needs are addressed in a re
sponsible manner. Both anachronistic and ob
vious in a time of nationalistic fervor is that
the United States faces a myriad number of
problems besides terrorism. Already this year,
President Bush has cut spending for educa
tion, health and housing programs; imagine
what a wasted $4.5 billion could have done
for those programs.
Until every school, police station and com
munity center receive all the funding they can
ask for, the federal government must spend
wisely and offer a severe apology to the na
tion when it fails to do so. U.S. citizens pay
taxes with the express understanding that
their money is going toward the betterment of
the nation, not toward providing airports with
the ability to detect kitty litter.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick Steven R. Neuman
Editor in Chief Managing Editor
Ailee Slater
Commentary Editor
Shadra Beesley
Copy Chief
Adrienne Nelson
Online Editor