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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2005)
TO THE EDITOR ILLOGICAL SITE FAMILIAR SCENE McKenzie-Willamette/Triad hospital has made a bad choice in the highly con- gested, floodplain/wetland Delta site. Initially, McKenzie-Willamette came to town and made a dirt cheap offer to buy the prime riverfront property of EWEB, which was not for sale. Besides its difficult isolated location, and being in a floodplain, it would have cost EWEB utility ratepayers millions of dollars. M-W later demanded the city produce a core downtown location within 30 days. M-W is tarnishing its own reputation by these hostile ap- proaches, and it feels like they owe the city of Eugene an apology. Early arguments for choosing the EWEB site were that they needed to be near where doctors are already located. What then, is the logic, in the Delta site? If you build it near a remote golf course, they will come? Memo to McKenzie-Willamette Hospital: Please listen to the common sense input and majority opinion of Eugene resi- dents and government: We need a hospital in a more centrally located area ( beyond the unavailable downtown core) that is not in a floodplain, on land that is currently avail- able, to the west of the Willamette River. Please include ample parking, which was a serious ongoing problem for Sacred Heart hospital. Of course M-W can ignore public input, but the public can ignore their ill-chosen site — and drive right on by to Sacred Heart’s new RiverBend location. McKenzie- Willamette, you can do better than the re- mote Delta flood plain site. Please! A green pastoral (flood-prone) scenic site is not as important as being able to actually get to the hospital in a timely way in an emergency. Go to the Delta/Beltline area during rush hour on any given day and tell us (without laughing) that this is in fact a good idea for a hospital location. Fran Gillespie Eugene Let’s see, do we call it strong-arm tactics, blackmail, or is it more like the Mafia trying to force the city councilors to back down on their courageous stand against the west Eugene freeway? I’ve lived in Mafia-controlled areas of our coun- try and it looks very similar. This $200 million freeway boondoggle that would ruin our $20 million investment in our na- tionally recognized West Eugene Wetlands has been pushed to gain dollars for a small number of devel- opers. It would not solve any traf- fic problem in west Eugene, but it would add up to a lot of cement and new housing on poor soil. After recent published accounts of the wetland otters, and we already know about the beavers and foxes, how could we want to do away with their habitat? This is in ad- dition to endangered species of plant life and butterflies found only in this wetland. Also, how can we talk of doing away with the flood protection for Eugene pro- vided by the absorption power of our wet- lands? Didn’t we see what happened to New Orleans? Don’t we understand that our wet- lands are unique and important for a multi- tude of reasons? Thank you, Kitty Piercy, Bonny Bettman, David Kelly, Betty Taylor and Andrea Ortiz. Ruth Duemler Eugene NO POLICE RESOURCES At what point do the Eugene police have the resources to pursue a crime? We had two bicycles stolen from our garage Nov. 8, one worth $800, the other worth $600. Although the police responded in person, I was told they don’t dust for prints in bicycle theft cases, and don’t have the resources to pur- sue the thieves. Last night, Nov. 16, our car was ran- sacked. Some items were stolen, everything else was tossed throughout the car. When I called to report the incident, I was told the police don’t have the resources to dust for prints in car vandalism cases. No one would be sent out, but someone would call back in 24 to 48 hours. This evening I received a phone call from a neighbor who also had her car ran- sacked. The thief not only ransacked her car, but bled all over its interior. I saw the blood spattered over the car door and pooled onto the contents of the car. When she called the police, she too was told they would not come out, would not take fingerprints, or test the blood left behind. But they would call back in 24 to 48 hours. Thanks to Eugene’s “lack of resources,” the drug addicts and thieves are having a wonder- ful time. Law enforcement looks the other way, and the law-abiding citizen is left to replace their stolen cars, electronics, bicycles, kayaks, fishing equipment, etc. Oh yes, and to wipe down the blood left behind in their vehicles. Colette Jonopulos Eugene METH DISASTER To reply to Chris Pender’s letter (11/12): We do not have an epidemic of metham- phetamine. What we have is incredibly wide-ranging, long-lasting devastation caused by people who sell meth and the people who use meth. I am a lawyer in the Juvenile Court and meth families are pretty much all we see these days. Meth and sex abuse, meth and domestic violence, meth and burglary, and so forth. For babies born addicted to meth, of whom there are hundreds and hundreds in this county alone, it is not uncommon to be unable to bear the touch of another person, noise, even parental love songs to the child. Their nervous systems are scrambled. Many of my older meth children do not seem to put together cause and effect, which often continues them in delinquent or criminal be- havior. On my caseload, most of the meth- using adults cannot ever completely escape BY J.K. LARKIN The Explosion Index Give us our daily BM. N owadays, newspapers are cluttered with too much information about things blowing up. To make room for topics I like, such as Lance Sparks’ wine column or Sally Sheklow on lesbian culture, I suggest the development of the explosion index, or simply BOOM Index (BM Index). I must admit however I prefer pinot noir and sushi to business. Business news junkies can’t handle the minute-to-minute developments of the hun- dreds of companies in the NASDAQ, nor even the 30 companies of the DJIA. How can the rest of us keep all the things exploding straight in our heads? We can’t, that’s why we need the daily BM Index. I spend too much time trying to figure out if the 45 people that got blown apart in Iraq yesterday are the same ones that are being talked about today. With the time differ- ence I could keep it straight initially, but daylight savings time threw me off. With a running BM Index, there could be a total number of explosions and the daily change. Of course, the overall BM Index would only increase in number. It could not go down, but the decrease in the increase of BM would be noted daily. Cars exploding in France with no deaths would rate a lower number (unless they are BMWs). Truly devastating and senseless killings at a wedding party in Jordan would be weighted higher than the number killed, as innocents were murdered. The suicide bombers themselves need to be counted, but in some fraction way to the right of the 4 DECEMBER 1, 2005 decimal point. Trains blowing up in Spain and the Tube exploding in London rate higher than a Hummer with a Guardsman, but the number of soldiers dead and muti- lated make the BM Index go through the roof. Let me give you an example. Start counting about Thanksgiving Day. There is no NASDAQ reported that day, so it would be a natural day to start. The BM Index today is 104.7-14/1.703-3. This means of 104 explosions there were seven deaths and 14 maimed. One terrorist in Iraq exploded, 703 Fiats burned in Paris and three mopeds died in Belgium. The next day more numbers are added, so by next year the number is like a zil- lion, give or take some punctuation. Still, it would save space and time to report the explosions using the BM Index. It could be removed from the news entirely and reported under the Powerball numbers on all those billboards along the interstate. More importantly, with time, fewer things would explode. People who blow up things probably read about other things blowing up, and with their active fantasy lives have nocturnal explosions. How many virgins exist in para- dise for these guys anyway? I bet if they were examined closely these thousands of ex- plosive freaks are sharing the same 70 women. They’d be better off, in my opinion, con- centrating on getting laid once on this planet before deciding to explode at a wedding party in Jordan. J.K. Larkin is a Eugene physician who specializes in geriatrics and Alzheimer’s disease.
