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Letters

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Parent Issue
Day
25
Month
April
Year
1975
OCR Text

Letters

"Can free clinics pull themselves together, organize and maintain in the face of AMA-corporate economics?"

Dear Free Clinic,

I heard about yer dire straights in the Ann Arbor SUN and decided to lay a few bucks out for y'all. I ain't rich, but I do know my deals. And free health is one. I hope y'all pull through. I know the clinic is a community created thing, and people power isn't so inert.

But I hope you don't mind a little advice as well. The economic plight of the free clinic arose suddenly, and because of the time factor we might not be able to come through. But what is the cause of this situation? Is it the clinic itself? The community? Or could it be a debilitating capitalist social environment including, of course, debilitating health care?

It is important to remember that free clinics rose spontaneously from the streets, in a wave of utopian popular impulse. In the sense, the community has fulfilled its aspiration and, given time and awareness, is willing to continue doing so. Which leaves only the clinic and the system it is inside of as the active agents in the current crisis. While, of course, our capitalist environment deserves most of the responsibility for the situation, the People's Free Clinic must also share some blame.

Why is this so? Because, now that the community has provided the initial act of creation, it is up to northamerican free clinic movement, the clinics themselves, to develop a new style of economic establishment. If our clinics are to stay on the streets, the free clinic movement as as a whole must attain to a real unity if its individual com components are to survive.

What is needed is a broad northamerican free clinic coalition or cooperative with a steering committee capable of central economic and perhaps ethical planning. Such free clinic centrality would be more than able to assure relations of mutual resource, would insure continued community identity through continued relevance and would still, of course, insure individual clinic identity and experimentation. In that manner, when the debilitating social environment comes down with oppressive insurance rates, or even outright political competition, the movement itself, from all over through its steering committee, can provide immediate emergency resources, organizers, and time to organize.

Remember, the popular community impulse for free clinics is right out there walking up and down the street. The question is, can free clinics pull themselves together, organize and maintain, in the face of AMA-corporate economics.

Fitz, Ann Arbor

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"I was very pleased when I discovered astrological birth control two years ago."

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Dear SUN,

This letter is addressed to Ann Hoover (SUN letters, Feb. 28. 1975) and any other persons who use or are contemplating using astrological birth control as presented by Art Rosenblum in Natural Birth Control.

I was very pleased when I discovered this method 2 years ago because I was thoroughly disgusted with every other form of birth control. I meticulously calculated my cosmic fertility periods for a year and marked them on the calendar. Greg and I used this method (with abstinence during a 13-day rhythm period each month) successfully for a year. Then I found I was pregnant so I reviewed my calculations and saw they were correct. The only cause for failure was a very emotionally upsetting period for both of us which occurred during the period of conception. This psychic and physical turmoil either caused us to misinterpret the calendar or (more probably) threw my body out of chemical/hormonal balance and rendered any birth control ineffective.

After an abortion we returned to this system feeling it was our mistake and not the system's. However, 6 months later I am pregnant again. This year's figures were checked and found to be accurate. The only reason we could come up with this time (and I’m sure it's not a rationalization) is that since my first taste of pregnancy I've wanted to be pregnant again and no birth control can stop the will of a woman who wants to become pregnant.

However, 2 failures in a year and a half doesn't speak well for the method either. So I wanted to present my story to sober Ann Hoover and others. although I certainly hope you have better luck than we did.

Also, I'd like to tell my friends in Ann Arbor we're going to keep this little miracle and see what happens. Greg and I will be returning to the States this Summer and look forward to meeting up with you.

Love, or as we say in St. Thomas, Stay Up!

Robin Mallor, St. Thomas

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Dear Friends,

We are attempting to gather information to provide foundation for claim that inadequate medical care constitutes a violation of the civil rights of inmates incarcerated in the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson. If anyone has relevant information which might help us support such claim, we would appreciate hearing from you. Write The Justice Corporation, P.O. Box 386, East Lansing, Michigan 48823.

Bill Rastetter, East Lansing

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"FREE CONCERTS ARE NOT FREE! If everybody put in 25 cents we could completely cover the costs of the program."

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To the readers of the SUN:

This summer, the Ann Arbor Community Park Program will attempt to present the ninth straight season of summer Sunday concerts. The Park Program is a completely independent non-profit organization, not connected with the city government. Last year we received NO money from outside sources and instead were totally self-supporting from bucket drives, concession fees an and donations.

In past years we have always billed the concerts as "free" but we have asked and begged and demanded donations. This year we plan to be more honest with ourselves and you. Let's not fool ourselves. FREE CONCERTS ARE NOT FREE! Because of the destruction of our old concert site, we must find and develop a new site for the concerts this year. This could cost as much as $10,000 above the cost of last year's program. With rising costs and lowering availability of funds we do not forsee receiving this money from the city or anyone else.

Here's where all of you concert-goers can help. Obviously we cannot charge admission to a program of this sort. What we are asking is that every time you attend a concert this summer, you bring a quarter to toss in the bucket. That's right! If everybody put in 25 cents we could completely cover the costs of the program. Last year our collections only averaged about 12 cents per person. Of course, those of you who have the extra cents or dollars should plan on donating those because lot of people are not going to be able to work up even that 25 cents.

The other thing we need is people energy, as soon as possible. We're trying to get together the necessary organization to make the program go smoothly. We need Rangers, communication people, stage hands, security and child care workers, a construction crew, bucket drivers and all sorts of people with organizational skills.

If you've got some time and energy to give, come to our weekly meetings at 8pm Tuesdays, 1520 Hill St. or call me at 761-4357 and leave a message

Gail Grigsby, Treasurer, A2 Parks Program

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"Once again, members of the so called 'progressive' Human Rights Party have proven that they are more interested in their own ideological interests than the welfare of the people of this city."

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Dear SUN,

Well, it seems from the results of the recent city elections that we have ended two years of rabid Republican rule in our community. But the real results of this election are still in doubt due to the slow, bureaucratic courts. And once again members of the so-called "progressive" Human Rights Party have proven that they are more interested in their own narrow ideological interests than the welfare of the people of this city.

I originally supported and participated in the HRP in 1972 when it seemed like they could be a strong, positive force for change in Ann Arbor. And over the past 3 years I have constantly held out hope that they would stand up from their theoretical armchairs with the rest of Ann Arbor's progressive community. But their recent actions have proven to me once and for all that there is no hope for the present Human Rights Party to change its ways. For example:

*Frank Shoichet's (HRP perennial 2nd Ward candidate) childish and irresponsible antics and attacks against the Democrats over his defeat in the HRP primary. One can hardly get too angry or accusatory when only 47 total votes are involved.

*The HRP refused to support and utilize their own preferential voting system, instead urging their supporters to not make a second choice or to write in.

*68 HRP voters chose Stephenson as their 2nd choice. It really baffles my imagination as to how anyone who dares to call themself progressive and radical could consider Stephenson a better choice than Al Wheeler. Some other HRP voters made no second choice or wrote in candidates. It appears that these people did not feel preferential was even worth the time HRP members and others spent to get it passed, and that their only motive in originally sponsoring preferential was to escape the blame for vote-splitting.

*And finally, at a recent illegal Council meeting (Stephenson still sits as Mayor while the wheels of injustice move ever so slowly), Kathy Kozachenko, HRP's 2nd Ward Councilwoman, stood up to rant and rave that there is no coalition or majority on Council. Which side are you on Kathy?

This year's election had the lowest turnout in four years, two important ballot proposals lost, Wheeler won by a slim 120 votes and a Republican was elected in the largely progressive 4th Ward because of the votes taken from the Democrats by the HRP candidate. The HRP would like us to believe that the reason for the low turnout is just plain apathy, but a large part of the blame must rest with them for successfully turning people off to electoral politics.

I believe it is now time for the people of Ann Arbor to put the HRP out of its, and our, misery. Next election let's vote all the Creeps out, Republican and HRP alike. Maybe then we can begin to build a third party that will work for concrete change and not make us suffer through their own selfish and egotistical "intellectual games."