Letters

School Gays
Gaily forward: Congratulations to the Pitch and Bruce Rodgers for the article on gay and lesbian students in our public schools ("Gay Studies," October 12). The piece was excellent reporting, and both informative and touching. You may be interested in knowing that the Lawrence School Board is in the process of implementing a new policy manual that for the first time will explicitly ban discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation. I am a member of a Lawrence organization, the Freedom Coalition (www.freedomcoalition.org), which, along with Lawrence-Topeka PFLAG, has been working with the school board to include "sexual orientation" in the district's new policy.

All students and staff in our public schools deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. There should be no room for ignorance or discrimination based on sexual orientation in our educational system. I hope that the Pitch's article, along with the work of concerned citizens in our region, will help make the schools safe for everybody.
Mike Silverman
Lawrence

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The rights stuff: Thanks so much for Bruce Rodgers' article on GLSEN-KC. I greatly appreciate the Pitchallowing a story about gay issues. We all need to be educated about diversity and tolerance. There will be no real change anywhere until education is provided about different cultures, religions, and ethnic origins.

The gay community is in a civil rights battle parallel to the Civil Rights Movements of our African-American sisters and brothers. Rights are rights for humankind and should not be based on skin color, gender, or sexual preference.

So thank you again for helping to enlighten everyone.
Shelly Stone
Edgerton, Kansas

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Car Wars
Spin city: I am writing to add my support to the Critical Mass campaign to wake up the citizenry of this city to the thought of alternative transportation ("Bike Pains," September 28). For five of the six years I lived in Minneapolis, I had no car. I depended on my bike to get to work, go to the grocery store, shop, etc. I worked and resided close to downtown, so it made my transportation choices easy. But for anyone who has been to "Minne-Apple," they know that the city is much more open to alternative transportation, with over 40 miles of paths for biking, skating, and walking that wind around the four lakes located within Minneapolis proper, not 40 miles away, out in some suburb.

The skyways (walkway connections between downtown buildings) encourage walking, especially to escape the city's brutal winters.

In Kansas City, everything is built to accommodate the motor vehicle. Conserving energy doesn't even occur to our city planners. I don't expect this letter to make much of an impact. I live north of the river, where sidewalks are as scarce as hen's teeth. And bicycle riding is done only if one has a death wish.
Michael Cindrich
Gladstone

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The Pack Mentality
It's a dog's life: Thank you for drawing attention to the feral dogs near Linwood Boulevard ("Dog Gone," September 28). While walking my dog last winter, I observed a dog pack in that area. The largest was a magnificent male yellow chow with long, shaggy fur that appeared to be the leader. The dogs were beautiful but at the same time miserable-looking, and one of them was definitely sick. Struggling to keep up with the pack was a yellow chow puppy with an injured leg that appeared broken.

I was losing sleep over this and shared my concern with some sympathetic family and friends. After several telephone calls and an Internet search for information, I felt compelled to attempt to rescue the puppy myself and developed a plan to cut it off from the pack. My trusty fiancé agreed to help on an early Saturday morning. Dressed for combat, we entered the dog pack territory loaded down with a fishnet, a blanket, rope, 5-pound bag of dog food, and two packages of hot dogs.

Alas, our efforts were thwarted when the pack ran across Linwood. Weighted down with so much gear, we were unable to engage in a foot chase. We got everything loaded back in the truck and circled around the block just in time to see them headed toward home. After the pack crossed the street, the yellow male also crossed safely, taking up the rear.

I went home feeling I had given it my best shot and never went back there again. Thanks again for Patrick Dobson's article about homeless domestic animals.
Dee Ann McCreary
Kansas City, Missouri

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A bone to pick: In response to Patrick Dobson's article about the wild dog pack in midtown, I see them almost every day. I call Animal Control several times a week and appreciate Dobson's effort to get the city to take responsibility. Once again today they were roaming Liberty Memorial, and it saddens me to know how hard their lives are.

I would ask you to keep up the pressure on Animal Control to get the dogs off the streets before winter comes. And I would ask that your readers who work in the midtown area call Animal Control every time they see the dog pack. Maybe together we can rescue them.
Ellen Eisen
Kansas City, Missouri

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Two Rivers Runs Through It
The power of suggestion: I am appalled by the behavior of the therapeutic staff at Two Rivers (Deb Hipp's "Could It Be ... Satan?" October 12). As the article stated, research into repressed memories has proven many times that they are unreliable and often influenced by other members in group therapy or by misguided therapists themselves. The patients profiled in this article actually suffered greater harm being patients in the Masters and Johnson program than if they had not sought treatment at all.