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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, August 7, 2015
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
Advertising Director
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Tip of the hat;
kick in the pants
A kick in the pants to Umatilla County Commissioners for continuing
their ban on medical and recreational marijuana in the county.
It was clear from the beginning that their marijuana committee was
created in bad faith, originally comprised of members who had all been
outspoken in their opposition to the drug. (It was only after public pressure
that a pro-marijuana committee member was named, though no one
representing a marijuana business or
even a medical marijuana patient was
party to the discussion and the board
remained far from balanced.)
So the stacked committee told
commissioners what they wanted to
hear. And commissioners were glad to
institute their recommendation.
The only thing that recommendation
will do, however, is force Umatilla
County to miss out on tax revenue —
possibly north of 100,000 this ¿scal
year, according to estimates from the state.
TopShelf, a nationwide marijuana delivery service, is already operating
openly in Pendleton, giving away pot for a $25 “donation.” And you can
bet they aren’t checking IDs like a state-sanctioned store would. And they
sure as heck aren’t paying any taxes. The black market is alive and well in
Umatilla County thanks to head-in-the-sand county leadership.
Commissioner George Murdock even wrote out an argument for
continuing the ban, derisively labeling marijuana as “weird” and not in line
with Eastern Oregon values.
It’s disappointing that none of the people who use medical marijuana to
lighten their heavy medical ailments stood before commissioners and told
their story. Although with the attitude of the three men, it’s understandable
why those people were unwilling to come forward.
The lack of compassion the commissioners have for those who bene¿t
from marijuana is something we just can’t comprehend. What is gained from
banning medical dispensaries?
Still, we don’t think the ban will last long. Everything else the
prohibitionists have said about marijuana has failed to come to fruition so
far, and we imagine this one will soon be overturned too. Until then, it will
cost the county dearly, as we fall behind on a growing industry while others
forge ahead. But then again, that’s nothing new around here.
A tip of the hat to Peggy Anderson, who is overseeing her last
Umatilla County Fair. Anderson has done good work to make the fair a
better product, and she has the additional dollars and visitors to show for
it — and this year is shaping up to be another
great party.
The fair, though, is at a precipice. It is
the last year it will take place at its current
location, where it has lived for 80 years, and
it will now move over to EOTEC in 2016
without its longtime director. Or any full-time
director, for that matter.
The board will stay in place, though its job
may need to shift to ¿ll in some of the gaps
left by Anderson.
We hope all those changes don’t change the culture and charm of our
beloved county celebration. We also wish Anderson the best of luck down in
Southern Oregon, remaking another county fair.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher
Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
UO fundraising campaign a tall order
for school used to raising money
The (Eugene) Register-Guard
The $2 billion goal for the University
of Oregon’s fundraising campaign is as
ambitious today as it was when it was
announced last October. Donations from
alumni and other supporters will have to
increase from their current near-record
amounts if the target is to be reached
before the end of the decade. But there
are encouraging signs of momentum
that, if it can be sustained, would bring
the target within reach.
During the ¿scal year that ended
July 30, the UO raised $214 million in
donations. That record is eclipsed only
by the $277 million raised in 2008, when
Phil Knight established the $100 million
UO Athletic Legacy Fund that helped
¿nance construction of the Matt Knight
Arena.
Last year’s total was an 86 percent
increase over the amount raised the year
before, and while it included several
donations of substantial size — $50
million from UO Trustee Connie
Ballmer and her husband, former
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and $10
million from Don and Willie Tykeson
of Eugene — the money came from
relatively diverse sources. The UO is
showing that it can depend on more than
one big donor.
The UO is also showing that
its academic programs can match
and exceed its athletic program in
fundraising ¿repower. More than $163
million of last year’s donations are for
academics, a 127 percent increase from
the year before.
Donations to athletics rose as well,
to nearly $51 million, an 18 percent
increase. About half of the money,
$96 million, will go into the UO
Foundation’s endowment, where it
will generate earnings for scholarships
and professorships in perpetuity. Other
funds, such as the Tykesons’ donation,
will draw state matching funds to ¿nance
construction.
The best indication of future success
may lie in a 10 percent increase in the
number of donors — including a 19
percent increase in ¿rst-time donors.
One of the best predictors of a positive
response to a fundraising plea is whether
the person being asked for a donation
has given before. As the UO list of past
donors grows longer, its pool of future
donors becomes deeper.
All this happened during a time of
turmoil at the UO — the university was
being led by an interim president, a new
board of trustees had recently been given
control, and ¿nancial support from the
state ranked near the bottom nationally.
But President Michael Schill moved
into the president’s of¿ce on July 1,
the trustees are ¿nding their footing
after completing their ¿rst big hire, and
the Oregon Legislature gave higher
education one of its biggest general-fund
budget increases in decades, including
an 18 percent boost in operating funds
for the UO. Donors who might have
been hanging back to see whether the
UO could enter a period of stability in its
leadership, and whether the state would
make a ¿nancial commitment parallel to
their own, should be hearing an all-clear
signal.
The $2 billion goal was announced
last October, but quietly began in 2010.
A little more than 40 percent of the target
amount has been raised. Though the
UO has set itself no deadline, it hopes to
¿nish the campaign by 2018 — which
would mean the pace of donations would
have to double again.
That’s a tall order, but for now
the numbers are moving in the right
direction.
OTHER VIEWS
Making life harder for pimps
I
Yiota Souras of the National Center for
n the long struggle against sex
traf¿cking, we ¿nally have a
Missing and Exploited Children.
breakthrough!
So bravo to American Express,
It didn’t come from Congress, or
MasterCard and Visa — and to Dart
the White House, from the courts or
— for getting results where Congress
the police. Rather, it came from credit
failed.
card companies: Pimps can no longer
There will still be human
easily use American Express, Visa or
traf¿cking, of course, and pimps will
MasterCard to pay for prostitution ads Nicholas ¿nd other ways to peddle kids. But it
in which they sell 15-year-old girls as
Kristof may not be quite so easy for traf¿ckers
if they were pizzas.
as it was.
Comment
That upended the business model
“When on Backpage, I was
of sex traf¿cking. Pimps all over the
advertised in the same way as a car
country are reduced to ¿guring out how to pay or a phone, but with even less value than a
to promote their ads with, yes, bitcoin!
bike,” one girl told me late last year. She said
Human traf¿cking is one of the most
she was advertised at the age of 15 and 16 and
insidious human rights abuses in the United
raped 1,000 times as a result.
States — some 100,000 minors are traf¿cked
My guess is that a majority of sex ads on
into the sex trade each year in the U.S. So let
Backpage are for consenting adults. But a
me explain how we came to enjoy a triumph
signi¿cant minority are for sex with children
over traf¿ckers.
or with women who are
A website called
coerced — representing
Backpage.com has for
some of the largest and
years dominated the sex
most mistreated classes of
trade advertising business.
human rights victims in
In April alone it published
America. We don’t have the
more than 1.4 million ads
moral authority to tell other
in its adult services section
countries to end modern
in the United States. Almost
forms of slavery when we
every time a girl is rescued
don’t clean up our own act.
from traf¿ckers, it turns out
There has also been
that she was peddled on
progress in other areas. The
Backpage.
police in the United States
Last year I wrote about a missing
are going after pimps more, and sometimes
15-year-old Boston girl whose parents
johns, as well (that still needs to happen
were beside themselves with worry. In their
more).
living room, I pulled out my laptop, opened
The Nordic model to combat traf¿cking
up Backpage and quickly found seminude
and exploitation, pioneered in Sweden, has
advertisements for the girl, who turned out to
been gaining ground, too. It provides for the
be in a hotel room with an armed pimp.
arrest of johns while offering help rebuilding
Backpage is allowed to operate because of
the lives of women who were selling sex.
a loophole in the Communications Decency
Nothing works all that well in curbing sex
Act. Attorneys general from 48 states
traf¿cking, but this model has succeeded
have pleaded with Backpage to stop this
better than other approaches.
exploitation, to no effect. Girls who have been
Yet in some quarters, there’s still a myopia
sold on Backpage when they were as young
about the degree to which this is a human
as 13 have sued the company, but haven’t
rights issue. Amnesty International will
succeeded because of the loophole.
consider a proposal in the coming days that
Then suddenly this summer, the miracle of
would call for full decriminalization of the
the market intervened.
sex trade, including for johns, on the theory
Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Illinois,
that this would bene¿t sex workers. Nice
wrote tough letters to Visa and MasterCard,
theory, but a failed one. It has been tried
calling on them to stop allowing their cards to
repeatedly and it invariably bene¿ted johns
pay for sex ads on Backpage. Both companies while exacerbating abuse of women and girls:
effectively agreed. To its great credit,
A parallel underground market emerges for
American Express in April stopped working
underage girls.
with Backpage for adult ads, so as of the
Let’s hope Amnesty comes to its senses
beginning of July pimps had no easy way to
and, as Swanee Hunt of Harvard put it, avoids
pay for advertisements.
“endorsing one of the most exploitative
Flummoxed, Backpage responded by
human rights abuses of our time.” Then we
making its basic sex ads free, but, even with a
can go back to celebrating the struggles of
fee to promote a free ad, that’s not a business
America’s sex traf¿ckers as their business
model that can sustain it. Backpage is suing
model is upended.
Dart, but my sense is that pimps won’t be
Ŷ
using their credit cards again on the site any
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
time soon.
cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist
“If it’s down for six months, that’s six
for The New York Times since 2001, won the
months of children who aren’t raped,” says
Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006.
Then suddenly
this summer,
the miracle
of the market
intervened.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.