Animal activist with no medical insurance needs financial assistance

The Thursday June 16 Seattle Post-Intelligencer includes a beautiful article about 53-year-old activist Ben White, who is battling stomach cancer. It is headed, "Crusader begins fiercest fight yet -- against cancer."

It opens:
"He scaled tall buildings to hang anti-fur banners in New York, cut open Japanese dolphin-holding nets under cover of night, broke into a rundown zoo in Grenada to free monkeys and -- in his least risky and most publicized act -- led an invasion of cardboard turtles at the WTO protest in Seattle. Ben White, intrepid animal activist, has fought too many battles to keep count. This new one -- the fight for his own life -- caught him by surprise."

We learn that White's activism started at age 16 when he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in north Virginia and that soon after he began organizing a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, an anti-war group. His animal activism started later in life after an encounter with a spinner dolphin; it led him to devote himself to being a "voice for the voiceless."

You can read the whole article and learn more about him at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/228730_benwhite16.html

The article tells us that the treatment for White's stomach cancer, likely to give him a few more years to keep contributing to the world, is expensive and that he has no medical insurance. He needs assistance. I do not have contact information for him but the reporter who wrote the story, M.L. Lyke, must know how to get in touch with him. She deserves some thank-yous for the beautiful piece, and can probably forward any offers of assistance to Ben. Her email is m.l.lyke [at] seattlepi.com and her phone (published at the end of the article) is 206-448-8344.

And the article opens the door for letters to the editor in which we follow Ben White's example and act as a "voice for the voiceless." The Seattle Post Intelligencer takes letters at editpage [at] seattle-pi.com and advises, "To have your letter considered for publication, it must include your name, address, daytime telephone number and signature. All letters should be no longer than 200 words and are subject to editing."


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