4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 OPINION Gtbe 3lirbi. rnfli& JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON GO Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE It is like asking John Gotti to do what he can to clean up organized crime." - Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on Republicans modifying lobbying rules to address recent abuses in the U.S. House of Representa- tives, as reported today by The New York Times. JEFF CRAVENS THE CRAVE \~ 4, ' 0 , \ sT reea a . a t: , }., l l ~t I 't t F i i 01 Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author. \ . Real men don't need washable seat covers EMILY BEAM LDOKING- FOR ANMRICA 0 6 utomakers want to see me at the 2006 North American Inter- national Auto Show. You see, I am a mem- ber of that increasingly coveted demographic - the female car buyer. I will soon graduate from college and head out into the world with my shiny new degree to make lots of money. I'll want to make sure that I'm getting the most of my hard-earned 77 cents to the man's dollar. I'll want a sporty yet femi- nine car to celebrate the few remaining years before I start popping out children, when I'll want a sporty yet feminine minivan that makes me nostalgic for the days when I was in college, free from screaming infants and pretending to be free from gender roles. I shouldn't complain yet - I am still living in my glory days, after all. If I set aside my bicycle for a car sometime soon, I've still got a few years to cherish my ability to buy cars that don't make concessions for the kids I must inevitably bear and raise. If I hold out long enough, the 2004 Volvo YCC concept car, designed by women to be "your concept car," will become a reality. I can enjoy all its features built with the female driver in mind. It has no hood - so only mechanics have to deal with that goopy, icky engine. Even better, it comes with computerized parallel parking assistance, a gas-cap-free "fuel point" and a ponytail notch in the headrest. Ouch. Oh yes, the automakers are right with us, rubbing it in. The 1989 Mazda Miata Roadster was advertised to remind women that they're free to enjoy life - for a few years. "Before the spouse, the house, the kids, you get one chance ... You should know how it feels to have the sun on your head and a growl at your back as you flick through five gears with no more baggage than a friend." That was nearly 20 years ago, however, when automakers were just beginning to take women seriously as buyers. Surely things have changed. These days, General Motors boasts that it is reaching out to women with new ads featuring "five GM women executives who spend their days engineering, building and marketing GM cars and trucks, and their nights taking care of their children and grandchildren." Never mind. It's not entirely the marketers' fault. They could show one of those executives splitting chores and kid time with her husband, but who would to relate to that? As the Detroit Free Press sagely pointed out, women have all sorts of needs when it comes to cars. We want safe cars, comfortable cars - ones with washable seat covers so that they don't, as the Freep wrote, "stink after little Johnnie spills his milk." Odd - that doesn't sound much different than arguing that the dishwasher liberates women because it leaves more time to give the kids a bath at night. Women, not men, are still the ones trying to get "little Johnnie" to stop crying and drooling all over the seats so they can start cramming the groceries in the back. We have the right to work 40 hours a week right alongside men (for only slightly less) - just so long as we're home by six to make dinner every night. Certainly not all two-income families share the gross imbalance of housework which the women's liberation movement never quite resolved. In terms of time spent making din- ner and changing diapers, the gap between men and women has narrowed. And we've all read about the growth of valiant stay-at-home dads daring to challenge the status quo - all 98,000 of them, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Stay-at-home moms outnumber these valiant fathers by more than 55 to one. I suppose the "man's minivan" is a long way off. Besides taking the much-appreciated steps to make cars that can adjust for smaller bodies, auto- makers have realized the importance of reaching out to women, to make their lives easier by adding extra storage space and washable car seats. Indeed, they may have more success if they highlight these "female-friendly" features. But there's a difference between designing foot pedals that extend to meet the feet of women who don't quite top five feet and designing cars without hoods. Women's ascension from a niche market to hav- ing their own significant market share should be a victory, right? But each celebrated female-friendly feature, whether directed toward the twenty-some- thing or the middle-aged soccer mom, seems to me little more than a constant reminder that I am expected to have lots of children and assume much more than my fair share of their rearing. I won't be going to the auto show this year. I'll stay in Ann Arbor - but not just because I don't have the time or the car necessary to spend a day in Detroit. It's just too depressing to wander through the exhibits wondering if somewhere, hid- den behind the concept cars and hybrid imports, there's a minivan with my name on it. 0 Beam can be reached at ebeam@umich.edu. VIEWPOINT A high-performance, 'green' Mott Hospital BY LAUREN BEYER-O'CONNELL, APARNA BOLE, JOHN GEAREN AND JOSH NOTHWANG "First, do no harm." This is a central tenet of the Hippocratic Oath, which is sworn by physi- cians and which provides the ethical foundation of our health care system. That's one reason why students, faculty and staff at the Medical School and across the University are urging the planners of the new C.S. Mott Children's and Women's Hospital facility to design this new building to the highest standards of environmental steward- ship. So-called "green building" is not radical, - nor is it in any way opposed to the fundamental mission of a children's hospital. On the contrary, green building means building in a technologi- cally superior way. It means an efficient, cost-sav- ing, safe and aesthetically pleasing building - in other words, a high-performance hospital and a truly healing environment. Environmental stewardship is especially com- pelling for a children's hospital. Human health is intimately linked with the environment, and kids are particularly vulnerable to environmen- tal health risks. Air and water pollution directly affect children's health, and often the most vulner- able communities - the socioeconomically dis- advantaged, the medically underserved and ethnic minorities - are disproportionately affected by environmental pollutants. In addition, we rob our children of their inheritance when we cause cli- mate change, expend our natural resources and pollute. Construction materials and waste contrib- ute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, raw material consumption and landfill volume. Final- ly, toxic building and cleaning products contribute to poor indoor air quality, which is detrimental to patient and employee health. What can the Mott Hospital planners do to build the highest-performance facility pos- sible? Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, administered by the Unit- ed States Green Building Council, is a nation- ally recognized standard for green building (see www.usgbc.org). Much as a Fortune 500 com- pany hires an accounting firm to validate the accuracy of its books, LEED certification pro- vides a useful guideline for building planners to follow and makes a public statement about our hospital's true commitment to operating respon- sibly. In addition, LEED certification is further broken down into "tiers" - basic LEED, Sil- ver, Gold and Platinum - that offer guidance for achieving higher levels of technologically advanced, environmentally responsible build- ing. A comprehensive, high-performance design strategy must also include features such as using minimally toxic materials for construction and cleaning products and allocating space in the building for waste segregation and recycling. Other hospitals around the country have real- ized substantial benefits from building green. One of Mott's regional peer institutions, the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, plans to build a new LEED-certified hospital building and a new LEED-Platinum-certified research facility. On our own campus, the Stephen M. Ross School of Business is planning a new LEED Silver-certified building. In April of last year, Gov. Jennifer Gra- nholm issued an executive order declaring that all state-supported building projects must be LEED certified. LEED is a tried and true standard that represents a vital component of constructing a high-performance new children's hospital. Now is the time to put a comprehensive strategy, in place for a green Mott Hospital. When a high- performance vision is implemented early, opportu- nities for improvement can be found at every stage of the design process. Best of all, starting early and implementing a systematic process for envi- ronmental oversight allows cost-effective design changes. In other words, a high-performance building actually saves money - we get more for bang for our buck up front, and cost savings con- tinue over the life of the building in reduced ener- gy use, increased employee productivity, reduced duration of patient stays and more effective waste management. Demonstrating stewardship of the environment and the public health can also make the hospital project more attractive to potential donors and to potential employees, making green building both an effective fundraising and recruit- ing strategy. The new Mott Hospital is planned to be a $498 million, 1-million square-foot facility, to open in 2011 with projected operation for 50 years. What a remarkable and unprecedented opportunity for our health system, and our great University, to demonstrate our position as a "leader and the best:" The Mott design team needs to establish a vision right now for a high- performance, environmentally responsible new facility and communicate this vision to the architects and engineers working on the build- ing plans. We can achieve a cutting-edge, beau- tiful and cost-saving new facility for our region's children and families. It may be easier for our new children's hospital to be built according to established, outdated standards, but if that hap- pens, we'll be making a 50-year mistake. Please send a message to the hospital and Uni- versity leadership: University President Mary Sue Coleman, marysuec@umich.edu; Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Robert Kelch, rkelch@umich.edu; and the University Board of Regents, whose e-mail addresses are available at www.umich.edu/-regents. Beyer-O'Connell and Bole are medical.students, Gearen and Nothwang are Rackham students. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Andrew Bielak, Reggie Brown, Gabrielle D'Angelo, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Milly Dick, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Ashwin Jagannathan, Theresa Kennelly, Mark Kuehn, Will Kerridge, Frank Man- ley, Kirsty McNamara, Rajiv Prabhakar, Matt Rose, David Russell, Katherine Seid, Brian Slade, John Stiglich, Imran Syed, Ben Taylor, Jessica Teng. Coke coalition easily carries the day in face of attacks TO THE DAILY: Frank Manley's viewpoint (I'd like to buy the world a Coke, 01/17/2006) starts out portray- readers to the viewpoint directly above Man- ley's (An open letter from the Coke coalition, 01/17/2006). In this viewpoint, members of the Coke coalition easily handle Manley's assault, as a ninja would quickly dispatch a drunken antagonist. They demonstrate a clear understanding of the issue, as well as the per- watched too many (or perhaps too few) Sprite commercials. After cutting the contract, the University is no longer directing public dollars in support of a company that will not comply with information requests for fear of revealing horrible labor and environmental practices. If these political outcomes aren't enough of a silver I