TO THE EDITOR
SASS SUPORT
Recent articles concerning the sexual
abuse of a young teenage girl by a former
governor provides occasion for us to
remind this community of the following:
1. Even today, too often survivors
of sexual assault (including youth and
children) are blamed and vilifi ed by other
persons. This dynamic sets the survivor in
a place where community support seems
distant, if not unreachable. 2. Sexual
Assault Support Services of Lane County
(SASS) is here with support, education,
advocacy and counseling resources
for survivors of sexual assault and the
community at large. 3. If you are a survivor
of sexual assault, please contact the SASS
24-Hour Crisis and Support Hotline: 343-
SASS (7277) or (800) 788-4727.
We all deserve to be around people
who support our feelings and validate
our experiences. Survivors are entitled
to support, advocacy, and care. In SASS,
the community stands with survivors, and
survivors experience community.
Warren Light
SASS board member
a far step from the studies that Finnell
recounts to the very worst “evo-psych”
arguments that couplings are inherently
about fertility, reproduction, and who
seems most capable of clubbing an
animal and bringing it to our cave full of
children.
Hormones and primitive urges can be
used to justify force, abuse, and at the very
least, selfi shness and obliviousness in
bed. It is far more empowering to instead
remember that what arouses each of us and
defi nes intimacy depends greatly on who
we are. It enables us to treat each other
with respect and to realize unique and
personal pleasures by engaging our minds
and our bodies.
Moreover, the limited gestures to the
fact that sex isn’t just genital intercourse
between one man and one woman, the
choice of photography, and the disjointed
and overly colloquial writing of this piece
left it grasping for relevance through
normative sexuality and humor rather
than encouraging thoughtful refl ection on
“ways to love your body.”
Emily Jane Davis
Eugene
BODY VS. MIND
GRIDLOCK’S BLESSING
I think I understand why some
businesses don’t want EmX buses coming
to West Eugene. Better mass transit might
get people out of their cars. God forbid a
future without people in cars going through
the drive through at Hodgepodge! Can Les
Schwab switch to selling bicycle tires?
Denser traffi c is what these businesses
want! Traffi c jams are a blessing and a
boon to business. Let’s build that parkway
and some more gas stations to go with it!
Thanks for the informative supplement
on The Peace Corps (“Celebrating 50
Years of Peace Corps,” 2/17). It made me
feel timid, self-centered and boring.
Kevin O’Brien
Eugene
Kathryn Mason (Letters, 2/17) really
needs to calm down. Her claim that the Feb.
10 cover of EW (depicting a woman’s cleavage
as she holds a test tube of blue liquid for the
Valentine’s Day issue) is “obscene by any
standards” is hyperbole at best. As a matter of
fact, it isn’t obscene by my standards, or even
legally; any woman may bare her breasts in
Eugene, as our community has decided that
breasts, as they are owned by half of our
community members, are quite lovely and
not disgusting or dangerous in any way.
Her statement that businesses should be
insulted to carry a publication displaying what
any customer could display in those same
establishments is ridiculous. I applaud EW
for continuing to choose stories, and covers
to match — acknowledging our community
is full of alive, healthy and sexual people who
are not in the least threatened by boobs.
We are people who would like to continue
living our lives and reading our papers
without constant nagging and ranting from
sexually repressed busybodies who take it
upon themselves to censor our community
“for the children” or whatever. Welcome
to the 21st century, Ms. Mason, and if you
fi nd an innocuous pair of breasts so very
obscene, there are other communities that
share that belief. I understand that Saudi
Arabia is lovely this time of year.
Steve McAllister
Eugene
GROW UP
I would like to vehemently disagree
with Kathryn Mason’s letter regarding
your Feb. 10 cover. I am a Weekly
advertiser and have found it to be the best
use of our advertising dollars to date. I
have also made two trips to Europe in the
past six months and seen advertising in
store windows that pale in comparison to
the fairly tame cover the Weekly had.
When is the U.S. going to get over its
hang-ups regarding nudity? Grow up,
people. My kids saw more graphic detail in
their fi fth grade growth and development
class. No wonder we voted the Tea Party
into power!
Christopher Klein
Cottage Grove
BY CAMERON MACDONALD
ROBERT BEATTIE
Cameron Macdonald
on right
On Wisconsin
A letter from labor’s front lines
W
e thought it was bad when he gave away our
train, returning Wisconsin’s federal funding for
a proposed Midwest high-speed rail network.
Gov. Scott Walker, in offi ce only six weeks,
inadvertently set off the largest labor protest in recent
U.S. history when on Feb. 11 he proposed the so-called
“Budget Repair Bill” in the state of Wisconsin. The bill
calls for many things, including drastic cuts to Medicaid,
unilateral reductions in state employee benefi ts, and — by
the way — busting state and local public employee unions.
No wonder he put the National Guard on alert when he
announced the bill.
In another state these measures might have passed
quietly through the Legislature, but not in Wisconsin.
What began as an “I ♥ UW” delivery of 2,000 Valentine’s
cards to the governor’s offi ce on Monday the 14th quickly
4 FEBRUARY 24, 2011
OVERACHIEVERS
BEAUTIFUL BREASTS
Science, or “modern technology” as
Shannon Finnell calls it in “Chemical
Love” (cover story, 2/10) certainly has
increased our well-being (vaccines,
sanitation, refrigeration, etc.). What it
has also done is allow authority fi gures
— chemists, doctors, biologists — to
defi ne and control our knowledge and
care of our own bodies; and discursively
and practically separate our bodies from
our minds. This is particularly pernicious
in the realm of human sexuality. It’s not
viewpoint
During the decade of the 1940s, street
cars and electric train lines in cities across
the country were bought out and eliminated
by General Motors in conjunction with
several other companies just so people
would be dependent on g a s o l i n e -
driven vehicles. It worked because there
was spike in oil consumption and a
decline of effective mass transit across
the U.S. Think of how different cities like
Los Angeles and even Eugene/Springfi eld
might be today had this not happened.
The “Our Money Our Transit” folks do
not represent me. As far as I can tell, they
represent a slew of businesses frightened
of what will happen if people move beyond
cars.
Janice Sunseri
Eugene
EUGENE WEEKLY
swelled by Saturday the 19th to over 60,000 protestors
chanting, “This is what Democracy looks like!”
A few heartening tidbits in the midst of the
mobilization: During the full week of protests, fewer
arrests have been made than at an average UW Badger
football game. Ian’s Pizza Delivery near the Capitol has
delivered over 300 pizzas to occupying protesters —
pizzas from donors in Egypt, Belgium and almost every
state in the union. Protesters have cleaned up garbage
around the Capitol lawn leaving it cleaner than normal
for snowmelt season.
Wisconsinites are unfailingly nice. We won the
Superbowl and didn’t overturn a single car. The
atmosphere inside the Capitol, while smelling a bit like
a dairy barn by day seven, has been noisy and friendly.
When the fi refi ghters union (who were exempted from
the bill) paraded through the protest with bagpipes, they
were met with hugs and high-fi ves. The AFL-CIO delivered
bratwurst to cheers (yes, there is a food theme here). So
we are polite, we have a sense of humor and we eat a lot.
But don’t mess with our unions. The fi rst public
employee union in America, AFSCME, was founded
in Wisconsin in 1932. We also take seriously our state
motto, “Forward.” We don’t want to become a “right
to work state” with low wages, oversized classes,
and understaffed hospitals. We are proud of our
public schools, ranked number two in the nation in
standardized tests.
Union leaders and average citizens made clear that
the protest is not about the money; it is about protecting
bargaining rights. Citizen testimony in opposition to bill
has continued almost nonstop since Feb. 15. The Capitol
has been peacefully occupied 24 hours a day since
hearings began. When the Republicans in the Senate,
who hold a 19-14 majority, called an early vote on the
bill on Thursday, Feb. 17, with 35,000 protesters in and
around the Capitol building, the Democratic senators
faced a dilemma — turn their backs on the protesters
BILL CRONIN
letters
or, as one protester put it, “make the ultimate sacrifi ce”
and go to Illinois. They left Wisconsin and have not
returned — leaving the Republicans one vote short of
the quorum needed.
Ironically, none of this needed to happen. While
there are budget problems, Walker’s “repair bill” is
about power and paybacks, not fi nance. Facing his so-
called “budget emergency,” one of Walker’s fi rst acts
was to quickly pass over $110 million in tax breaks for
corporations and the rich. For those watching from afar,
remember, 1) Walker worsened the defi cit, and 2) the
state unions have already offered to help him fi x the
budget. The unions will take his cuts if he leaves their
bargaining rights alone. He refuses.
So while our high-speed rail runs in California and
Illinois, we Wisconsinites can proudly say that we have
given our fellow states another gift: The rebirth of the
labor movement.
Cameron Macdonald is an assistant professor of sociology at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison. She studies the service sector and care work more
broadly. Her most recent book, Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs and the
Micropolitics of Mothering, is available from University of California Press.
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