LET TERS
BETTER THERAPY AHEAD
I thank Catherine Burke-Maher for her
thoughtful reply [12/19] to my letter [12/12]
on the “Cuckoo’s Nest Option” for cleaning
up downtown Eugene. While I do not feel
wise, I am old enough to be the father of any
reader here up to 70 years of age.
I don’t suppose I will ever fully recover
from the shock of Ken Kesey’s great story.
The personal experience you recount is
parallel to that, but you do not say when that
was. Since the new Oregon State Hospital
(OSH) is still under construction, I do not
know what it will be like; we do not have the
facts. To say that it could be as bad as the
old OSH is an uncertainty that we as citizens
always face as part of the human condition.
But your comments raise an issue that
is sorely neglected. The citizens of Eugene
should be on top of major issues related to
the new OSH. The new OSH must be a lot
better than the old OSH in treating mental
illness. If not, the citizens should march up
to Junction City and burn it down. Starting
with Gov. Kitzhaber, I feel some hope that
Oregon can be a national leader in the
humane treatment of mental illness.
We incarcerate people all the time for
many reasons. But if mental health is too
circumscribed for incarceration, when it
is needed for the public good, this is not
an absolute judgment. It is a question of
alternatives. In Eugene the alternative may
be the worst choice, because there is no
alternative.
What we have are anecdotes. After
a nice lunch at Poppi’s Anatolia, I was
walking downtown on Willamette on a
cold December day when a corpulent
man with a big beard approached me.
Every inch of him was dirty. His clothes
were torn and fl apping in the wind. He
was barefoot and his feet were the dirtiest
part. He carried a cardboard sign that said
something like: “Look at me, I am dirty.” I
call him “DirtyE.”
Now DirtyE’s civil rights may entitle
him to be anywhere in the city. But the
citizens of Eugene are entitled to have a
clean and attractive downtown, which they
are paying for. I have great empathy for the
police offi cers that we ask to monitor the
homeless population so that we can have
an attractive city.
Another example: I quote from the
Civil Liberties [Defense Center] section
of the EW [Give Guide] Dec. 19. “a local
homeless man with severe bipolar disorder
and psychosis … was forced to endure
inhumane conditions and was critically
injured while incarcerated in Lane County
Adult Correctional Facility for 13 days.” I
awake at night, hearing his screams.
The other issue raised by Burke-Maher
is that Thomas Egan would not have
decided to freeze to death, as she said I said.
I will clarify, saying that Egan was doing
what he wanted to do, and did not care if
he froze to death. But who can know what
Thomas Egan was really thinking when he
lay down under a soft blanket of Christmas
snow with a bottle by his side? A couple of
days after his death, an obituary by a close
friend appeared in the R-G. I have taken
my views from that article.
J. C. Helmer
Eugene
NOTES FROM THE RIVERSIDE
MORE TREE HUGGERS
How about adding to the “Tree
Huggers” section of your valuable Give
Guide [12/19] our totally local WREN
organization? A small nonprofi t, the
Willamette Resources and Educational
Network last year helped over 1,350
elementary school children, plus over
a thousand more community members
and families, hug (metaphorically at
least) the ducks, snakes, dragonfl ies and
varied creatures of our rich West Eugene
Wetlands. WREN (wewetlands.org) offers
fi eld trips, classroom programs and free
Wetland Wanders and Family Exploration
Days for the public.
Sara van Dyck
Eugene
MISINFORMATION
In response to Gwen Heineman’s
multiple letters about Cover Oregon
(10/24, 12/12): She is simply incorrect
when she claims that the families of OHP
recipients will be billed by the state after
the person’s death. Members of the Oregon
Health Plan will not be subject to estate
recovery for coverage that starts Oct. 1,
2013, or later.
Ms. Heineman’s misunderstanding of
the benefi ts offered by Cover Oregon is not
uncommon. This is a complicated topic,
and misinformation abounds. Working
at White Bird Clinic as a Cover Oregon
Community Partner, I deal with clients
who have heard a wide variety of rumors
regarding their health insurance options.
EDUCATION AND TALENT ARE A THREAT
T
4
January 2, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
FILLING THE GAP
For six months now we have heard from
the city that they need to “fi ll the gap.”
Come Jan. 19 we will be given a choice
of how we will want it fi lled to close the
gap on next year’s budget. Six different
choices!
All of them involve “cuts,” meaning,
fi ring people. So who would you choose to
unemploy in this economy?
No, you can’t talk about fi lling the
gap with new revenue. It was decided last
September that that was forbidden. We
BY MARK HARRIS
30 Years an Oregonian
his year marks my 30th year in Oregon. To
celebrate, I took in a double feature which
exemplifi es the two poles of my Oregonian
experience. 12 Years a Slave and Gravity,
both fi lms helmed by directors of color. 12
Years served to ground me in reality, while
Gravity took me to my favorite fantasy: a world without
borders, fl oating free among the stars. The reality of
space, though, is that it has no breathable atmosphere,
extremes of hot and cold and is always trying to kill
you, nothing personal. Same with Oregon; sometimes
we don’t like your kind.
Perhaps it is fi tting that a British director and British
leading man tell an American story which resonates
today in contemporary Oregon and the rest of America.
Britain did end slavery before America. A monarch of
African descent sat on the British throne during our
Revolutionary War (Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitz),
and her granddaughter (Queen Victoria) decreed that
any American slave who made it into Canada had the
protection of the British military.
12 Years a Slave was directed by Steve McQueen,
and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northrup, an
African-American citizen living in Saratoga, New
York, who in 1841 was induced to go below the Mason-
Dixon line, to Washington, D.C. He was drugged and
kidnapped into slavery in Louisiana. This was not an
If you or anyone you know has questions
about Cover Oregon, I encourage you to
contact a certifi ed agent or community
partner. We can provide you with accurate,
up-to-date information and assist you with
your application.
In Lane County, these services are
available at White Bird Clinic as well as
at Community Health Centers of Lane
County (Charnelton and Riverbend
locations), Centro LatinoAmericano, and
The Child Center. Contact information for
community partner organizations can be
found at coveroregon.com. Just click the
link labeled “get free assistance.”
We are here to provide assistance and
information, not to force anyone into
choosing coverage that they feel is a poor
fi t.
Kate Wheeler
Program Coordinator
Sharing Healthcare Options Program
(SHOP)
White Bird Clinic
uncommon fate for free men of color, living under white
supremacy. They were particularly targeted because
their intellect often made them more threatening,
because they dared to think of themselves as equal
to whites. Northrup was a man of intellect, gracious
manners and means, musically inclined, well traveled
and of course literate. In slavery, other than his musical
talent, his pride and his literacy marked him for death.
Northrup is portrayed as a tender husband, a
loving gentle father and a man well respected in his
community. McQueen is not heavy handed with his
subject matter, slavery. He doesn’t shy away from
the casual hair-trigger brutality nor the attempts of
enslaved people to maintain their humanity, whether
in tentative lovemaking or simply staying alive, while
being whipped for the crime of acquiring soap after
being raped.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays a “Good Massa” to
Michael Fassbender’s “Bad Massa.” Like the difference
between a drug dealer and a pimp: The former can
stand by and allow brutality to occur, while the
latter is sadistic and inventive in his drunken
cruelty. Alfre Woodard does a turn as a former
slave turned mistress of the plantation. While
it was never shown, the Confederate fl ag
waves in support of all those activities.
Oregon is essentially a Southern state in
the Northwest.
As an American citizen of African descent, it would
have been illegal for Solomon Northrup to come to live
in Oregon. It was the fact of his intellect and cross-
cultural competency that made him and people like him
threatening to fi gures like Samuel Thurston, Joseph
Lane or their modern equivalents. As it remained illegal
for him to live within the Eugene city limits before
1965 or be on the street after dark in Springfi eld, could
he fi nd employment as a college professor? Could he
remain 30 years an Oregonian?
Mark Harris is an instructor and substance abuse prevention coordinator
at LCC.