Editorial
White Bird needs financial help
White Bird Socio-Medical Clinic may
very well clo§e Tuesday unless something
is done quickly to bail the facility out of a
financial hole.
The clinic needs about $7,000 to help
pay off a $15,000 loan borrowed as down
payment on the clinic’s two buildings. If
the money isn’t raised by Tuesday, the
loan will be paid off by 15 local citizens who
each backed the clinic by signing notes for
$1,000.
Under those circumstances the clinic
would be forced to close down—perhaps
not all at once—but by bits and pieces until
a few months from now nothing would be
left.
Losing White Bird would have an
incredible impact on the community. It is
the only agency in the county providing
many necessary medical services to
people too poor to pay medical establish
ment rates.
Since county government abandoned
its inoculation clinic White Bird is the
only agency providing cheap flu and
disease shots for children.
In addition the clinic provides pre
natal care, a much needed venereal
disease clinic and a womens’ clinic to deal
with the specific needs of community
women.
But White Bird is best known for its
valuable work in fighting drug abuse. The
clinic is the only local agency providing a
24-hour bummer squad service, and its
drug education program is a model for
agencies throughout the Northwest.
Many of the clinic’s programs are
funded by federal grants. But the grants
cannot be used to buy property. So
facilities must be paid out of operating
fees, and because the clinic charges little
or nothing for its services money is scarce.
The clinic employs one full-time
doctor who is paid $600 a month. That’s
pretty - cheap. A number of other
professional staff members receive
monthly salaries of about $250. That is, the
salaries were that high before the current
financial crisis. All staff have taken
voluntary pay cuts until the loan is paid
off.
The people at White Bird have done
everything they can to raise the money. A
local “radiothon” raised about $1,500.
Clinic staff have brought in about $800
more. But the community must now
respond if White Bird is to survive.
Losing the clinic would not only
eliminate services currently provided, but
would effectively scuttle future plans for
White Bird. The heroin problem is growing
in Eugene. White Bird will soon establish a
heroin de-toxification program—that is if
the clinic can survive.
University students may not have an
immediate stake in White Bird. After all
the University health service, such that it
is, provides cheap medical help for the
University community. But community
health is everybody’s concern, and so is
the survival of White Bird.
Students can’t be expected to shell out
very ihuch. But even a little will help at
this point. White Bird is located at 323 E.
12th, within easy walking distance of
campus.
Letters
Not generous
*
(Regarding B. Mitzman’s comments on
Mailer’s ‘ ‘Catholicism ”). Barry Mitzman:
The aspect of Mailer that you condemn
is what’s best in him.
You apparently have evidence that
“good fucks” don’t “make good babies,”
since you saved your wildest insults for
that “pseudo-biological hypothesis” of
Mailer’s. Before you can convincingly
reject this and other sexual-political ideas
of Mailer’s, you should be able to dispose
of the following observations, which have
reported in recent years in medical,
biological, and psychological journals:
Circulatory patterns are not the same in
women who have a capacity for pleasure
and orgasms, and those who don’t.
Schizophrenia has autonomic and cir
culatory correlates.
Women who are schizophrenic at the
time of conception abort male embryos
much more often than female embryos,
and if their symptoms appear lata-, male
babies are more likely to have defects:
male embryos are known to be more
sensitive to a variety of unhealthy uterine
conditions.
Bad uterine conditions can cause
defective babies, including small brains
and mental retardation, depending on
when the trouble occurs, what it is, etc.
Improved uterine conditions—
presumably the circulation—can improve
the percentage of healthy and precocious
babies.
’The literature that may be relevant to
this question is surprisingly large and
aried—surprising, because our culture is
ruled by an anti-biological dogma that
denies any connection between physiology,
emotion, and politics.
Your commitment to an abstract, anti
biological form of existentialism is fino for
a bourgeois literary critic, but to imply
that such a philosophy is the best hope for
women is not very generous.
Ray Peat
200 N. Jefferson
Eugene 97402
He’d do it again
In a recent letter protesting the “hoax”,
said to be perpetrated by Mike Bonner, my
name appeared among the accused of the
“over-throw” conspiracy. While I don’t
deny I know some of Mike Bonner’s
friends, I am an independent person who
makes his own decisions. I must point to
the one-sidedness of the letter, which made
no mention of Mr. Zukin’s tactics, so base
as to have his cohorts crane to me and state
Mr. Bonner to be more or less a blithering
revolutionary; Mr. Bonner, whose mad
lust for power will destroy the school.
A bit distorted? Perhaps. But within my
first two months as a Senator, I have
discovered the Senate to be too much like
“big time” politics, with its mud-slinging,
and petty accusations. I believe in
freedom as stated in our Constitution. I
feel that the Senate was denying Mr.
Bonner of his Constitutional right to speak
for himself.
If I were faced with the same situation
again, I would not have changed my vote.
Dan “Buster” Heims
Sophomore
Speech-Broadcast Communications
345-0987
He’s wrong
Last week, I wrote to the Emerald
protesting its biased reporting of ASUO
Senate activities, and explaining my vote
against confirmation of Senate President
Cliff Zukin. I stated that, along with
numerous other Senators, I opposed the
rubber-stamp nature of the confirmation
process. As a newly-elected Senator (a
majority of the Senate was elected this fall
term), I wished to have an opportunity to
vote for the Senate President in an open
election.
Unfortunately, that letter was never
published. Today (1-16-73), however, a
letter from former Senator Roger Wyatt
was published. Wyatt claimed that the
Senators voting against confirmation of
Cliff Zukin, including myself, had
somehow been victims of “a tremendous
hoax.” Had Roger Wyatt been present at
the Senate meeting during which con
firmation was discussed, he would have
been able to formulate a more reasonable
conclusion.
Wyatt concluded by stating that “with
such close association between these
senators ... divergent views are not being
represented in the senate ...” He need
only visit a Senate meeting to discover how
wrong he is.
Larry Taylor
ASUO Senator
Freshman. Political Science
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