Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
RO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemeralcl.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemenild.com
Monday, October 1,2001
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Michael J. Kleckner
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Eugene healing
needs to begin
tember, Eugenians reacted with dismay and an over
whelming sense of unabashed anger.
Local opinion pages have been filled to the brim
with whining columns and searing letters, blaming
either the city of Eugene for not doing enough to
keep the hospital in town or accusing PeaceHealth
of planning the move all along. Unfortunately, no
amount of bellyaching on either side of the argu
ment will make the hospital change its mind, and
the city of Eugene must now come out of denial and
accept the implications of the decision.
Many Eugene residents may believe Springfield is
not exactly a mecca for free-thinkers or upper-crust
professionals. When Eugenians think of their clos
est neighbor, Kip Kinkel, pick-up trucks with mon
ster wheels and a mall whose flagship store is Tar
get come to mind. Of course there is resistance to
the beloved Sacred Heart Medical Center moving to
such a place.
w=
■hen PeaceHealth announced its decision
to move its main urgent care facility
from the heart of Eugene to the blossom
ing outskirts of Springfield in early Sep
Now we will all have to come to terms with the
fact that future generations of newborns will bear
the shame of having “Springfield, Oregon,” printed
on their birth certificates. Students and residents
with medical emergencies will have to wait for a
longer response times from ambulances fighting
through 1-5 traffic. Eugene has lost its lifeline to
downtown health care, and the reasons why are
buried in inside politics.
After the hospital’s announcement to move, there
was a lot of speculation on whether the hospital
had deceived the city of Eugene by making large
monetary and zoning demands while scouting the
Springfield site. The city was unable to supply the
demands, which included six additional down
town blocks for construction and $35 million. The
county s largest private employer needed to expand
and had a site near Crescent Avenue and Coburg
Road in mind, but the city council kept setting up
roadblocks to keep PeaceHealth from moving out of
downtown.
Ultimately the council and the hospital could not
reach an agreement. The damage has been done, and
now it is time for the community to refocus and cre
ate some solutions to the impending implications of
the move. Depending on community support, per
haps Eugene can encourage another private hospital
to take root in the city. The most urgent problem is
that of the forthcoming lack of emergency care to a
city which claims more than 130,000 residents, in
cluding more than 18,000 University students. Per
haps the University Health Center can be funded to
handle more urgent care cases. Maybe Sacred Heart
could still offer some urgent care services, even if
scaled back. Whatever the case, we need to look for
solutions now.
Springfield may not be the utopian glen that is Eu
gene, but it is PeaceHealth’s choice. Eugene is experi
encing the seven stages of grief, and after all the dra
ma of the summer, we must now accept the decision
and try to find a way to cope.
Editorial Policy
These editorials represent the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. The editorial board members are editor in
chief Jessica Blanchard, managing editor Michael J,
Kleckner; editorial editor Julie tauderbaugh, assistant'
editorial editor Jacquelyn Lewis, community representative
fiabe Shaughnessy and community representative
Jessica Southwick. Responses can be sent to
editor@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited to 250
words and guest commentaries to 550 words. Please
include contact information. The Emerald reserves the right
to edit for space, grammar and style.
Peter Utsey Emerald
the
GREATER^1
As I was shuffling up the steps
of Allen Hall the other day, I
noticed the September 20th
edition of Eugene Weekly,
slathered in hues of green, instructing
me to “Give Peace a Chance.” I was in a
tolerant mood, so I picked up a copy to
see what the extreme left has to say
about the attacks.
The article mentioned a recent
demonstration in Portland where
more than 1,200 people gathered to
voice their desire for a peaceful solu
tion to our nation’s current crisis. I
first heard about this demonstration
the day after it happened while visit
ing my pre-college home in deep East
Texas. My mother is in the habit of
keeping a radio in the bathroom, tuned
to her favorite local country station. I
was in the habit of tuning out said sta
tion while getting ready in the morn
ing, but I heard the words “Portland,
Oregon,” and, because my new home
might as well be a different country to
most Texans, I turned off my electric
razor to get a better listen.
A middle-aged man with a thick ac
cent coating his words like old suede,
his voice ravaged by Marlboros and Jim
Beam, was giving an editorial of sorts. I
could almost see him, leaning back in
his chair, his boots propped up hap
hazardly on an expensive piece of ra
dio equipment, slouched down low to
keep his enormous belt buckle, embla
zoned with a lone star, from slicing
into his stomach. My memory is a bit
foggy in the a.m., but the following is
more or less what was said:
“We have something to say to all
those pansies up in Port-land, Orah
gone: The only ‘peace’ we want is a
piece of oT Oh-sama flapping from a
flag pole.” Right underneath Old Glory.
The play on words and the reference
to a flagpole are just as I heard them.
The rest is paraphrased.
Crude, ignorant and shortsighted?
Perhaps. Disturbing? Definitely. Still,
the statement contains a certain wis
dom in its offensiveness, even if the
speaker isn’t aware of it. This is the
opinion of the working class, the salt of
the earth. “You know, morons,” as
Gene Wilder so eloquently puts it in
“Blazing Saddles.”
Yes, this is the closed-minded opin
ion of a closed-minded man, but a
closed mind is a relative thing. Just
take a look at the Taliban. These are the
kind of religious zealots that make
Arthur Dimsdale look like a Unitarian.
The international community do
nated a soccer stadium to the Afghan
people, in hopes that entertainment
would mask the horror of their every
day lives. The Taliban used the stadi
um for public executions. Seriously, I
saw a tape of it on CNN the other day
— the crowd seemed to like it.
My point is this: Even the most ven
omous, hateful anti-Islamic American
is only a small fraction as closed
minded as an Islamic extremist. The
man on the radio wants to inflict pain
on the people who inflicted pain on
us. The people who inflicted pain on
us only wanted to inflict pain. They
are evil, plain and simple.
All Oregonians who claim to fight
for human rights, all Oregonians who
claim to advocate for an open mind,
should rejoice at the prospect of our in
volvement in Afghanistan. Put down
your protest signs for just a moment
and satisfy the hunger of your already
bloated social consciences with the
knowledge that, for once, we are not
the bad guys. They are. We did not start
this. They did. And now it’s time we
finish it. Peace has had its chance.
Aaron Rorick is a columnist for the Emerald.
His views do not necessarily reflect those
of the Emerald. He can be reached at
aaronrorick@dailyemerald.com.
Letter to the editor
Samson and Delilah redux
Since no explanation came forth for
our recent tragedy, we might assume
the perpetrators thought it self-evi
dent. There is a well known parallel
in the story of Samson and Delilah,
Judges 16. Samson became vulnerable
to the Philistines when Delilah cut
his hair. Iraq became vulnerable to by
invading Kuwait. The United States
defeated Iraq in the Gulf War, and the
Philistines captured Samson. We im
posed economic sanctions against
Iraq, and the Philistines put out Sam
son’s eyes.
We praised our technology, and the
Philistines praised their god Dagon for
the victory. Then the Philistines decid
ed to make sport of Samson, and Clin
ton thought it a good distraction from
his domestic problems to bomb Koso
vo. Ah, but Samson’s hair was begin
ning to grow back, and we were now
interfering with the internal problems
of another nation.
You know the rest. Samson pushed
apart the two main pillars of the house,
killing the Philistines in it, to the tune
of more than 3,000, himself perishing
in the act. The terrorists knocked down
the twin towers in New York, killing
more than 5000, including themselves.
Samson was avenged for his eyes, and
the terrorists were avenged for the eco
nomic sanctions.
Look, I’m as appalled as the next guy
by what happened, but for those of us
who count the Old Testament as wor
thy reading, we have a previous exam
ple and one that should cause us to ask
if we do hot slip into idolatry when we
trust in technology more than in God.
Earl Gosnell
Eugene