My heart aches for these people, and my mind is angry at how people can be so cruel to one another [News, "Worked Over," Doron Taussig, April 27, 2006]. I don't understand why the government chooses to ignore the importance of all immigrants.

Gloria E. Davis
Sanford, N.C.

As the sister of Laddie Sykes, Chestnut Hill's "homeless guy," I want to speak as someone who knows what families go through when a relative needs a place to live [Cover, "Hill, No," Michael J. Mishak, April 20, 2006]. You have to find somewhere that is willing to take on your loved one and has an opening. Hopefully, that place is of high quality, well staffed with a high ratio of staff to residents and has real help to give. Medical attention, both mental and physical, are needed. Residents need to feel they are not simply being warehoused.

Laddie has recently been hospitalized and is now a resident of Fairview Care Center on Bethlehem Pike. I fear that my brother will burn out there; Lord love him, he wants to be around people he knows on the Hill ... [where] he has some great, loving people that let him know that he is cared for. I am afraid that too many people around Philadelphia are worried about how having a shelter in their area will affect businesses and the worth of their homes. [I hope] Mt. Airy and the Hill can come together and find a way to agree on a homeless shelter. Please, Philadelphia, remember that Laddie is only one of the many deserving souls who need your support.

Mary Sykes
Beaverton, Ore.

I completely understand your frustration about having a McDonald's inside CHOP [Editor's Letter, "Care," Duane Swierczynski, April 20, 2006]. I have worked at CHOP for about nine months and have seen several employee petitions circulated about replacing McDonald's with a healthier alternative. There are many children who are hospitalized at CHOP for months, even years. Their once normal lives have been replaced with nurses, doctors and complete strangers monitoring their every move throughout the day and night. They no longer attend school. They no longer have their toys, their room, their bed or even their friends. In many cases, parents, who still need to work to maintain their homes and health insurance, are gone the entire day. They are allowed one ounce of normalcy from their old life: McDonald's. As sad as that may seem, McDonald's may not be the best meal option for children, especially sick children. However, in many cases this may be a child's last meal.

I am sorry the ER staff was not helpful and friendly and that you had to wait an excessively long time to be seen, but that is the product of a capitalistic health care system, not McDonald's.

Name Withheld

Was the side-by-side positioning of [News, "He's IRAte," Jenna Portnoy, April 20, 2006] and [Underworld, "From Russia With Guns," Brendan McGarvey] intentional? You couldn't have provided a better argument against your use of anonymous sources.

Standing upright is Shane Coleman, whose story about attempts to recruit him as an undercover informant is presented warts and all. Just across the page is a blurb teeming with eye-catching references to "highly skilled killers" who just moved to Philadelphia from Eastern Europe, but there's not a named source to be found.

If CP and its "law enforcement insiders" think this story is so darned important, find someone who will say so. I expect this kind of dreck from the New York Times Sunday Styles section, not CP. There are legitimate reasons to use anonymous sources. I don't think you came close.

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock
Bryn Mawr

We are very proud of Girard College High School senior David Jackson for the piece he wrote for your paper as a student intern [News, "Racial Divide," April 27, 2006] and we thank City Paper for sponsoring him as part of Girard's Senior Project, a work-study program required for graduation.

We are concerned, however, that the piece might leave readers with a misleading impression about the supposed lack of diversity at our school, stemming from the sensationalized headline and a pull-out quote from another Girard student alleging that "white alumni don't even send their kids or grandkids to the school, nor do the teachers."

To assume that the racial composition of the school is the reason alumni and faculty don't send their children or grandchildren here indicates a misunderstanding of Girard's mission. We admit children from families that lack financial resources, each headed by a single parent or guardian. Most alumni and faculty members, while they might head single-parent families, generally do not qualify under income guidelines to send their children to Girard.

In fact, some alumni and staff have enrolled their children here—whether they're black or white makes no difference as long as their children pass our admissions tests and requirements, including the household income guidelines. Each of our 720 students in grades 1 through 12 receives a complete scholarship covering tuition, books, uniforms and room and board to attend this unique boarding school.

The article also talks about the racial makeup of our faculty, but does not include the fact that 79 percent of the residential faculty who care for and work with the children in the dormitories are black.

While it is true that there are no current faculty recruiting efforts, the reasons are twofold: We recruit faculty members as the openings arise, generally at the start of the school year, and teacher tenure averages 9 years and 11 months. Of the 11 teachers we have hired since the beginning of the current school year, one is black, one is Hispanic and one is Asian.

Our average starting salary is competitive with that offered by city public schools, but the teachers we attract—and more importantly, retain—are more concerned about the impact they will make on the lives of youngsters than the money they will make. Our teachers like the small class sizes, attentive students, support of the residential staff and working in a safe, enclosed campus.

Given our tradition and history as a school, and the significance of Girard's 1968 desegregation to Philadelphia's civil rights history, we at Girard College recognize the need to embrace diversity. This is reflected in our recently updated strategic plan, as Jackson noted in his article.

Girard junior Michael Daly's comments at the end of the article would have provided a more constructive pull-out quote: "In the end, people are people. Girard may not be the most diverse place that you'll encounter, but the eclectic group of students and staff make this one of the most unique places I have ever experienced."

Dominic M. Cermele
President, Girard College

Alumnus, Class of 1959

I caught this quote on the article about homelessness: "The praise, most homeless advocates agree, was deserved. The number of people living on the street in Center City dropped dramatically, from more than 800 in 1998 to less than 400 last fall." How much did the city spend over eight years to take 400 people off the streets?

Stephen L. Wakefield
Bedford, Texas

What are your credentials as an "art critic"? Yes, there are themes of death in [Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic], but it is not the major theme [Arts, "Grim Fairy Tales," Robin Rice, April 27, 2006]. It is basically a retrospective of his works over the past 70 years. Some of these works have never been exhibited publicly before.

Your comments are insulting to a great American artist. If you do not like his art, go back to reporting on any of the modern mass-produced art that can be created by anyone, even a kindergarten child.

Jeanne Janney
Chattanooga, TN

Thanks to Bruce Schimmel for his recent column covering the Urban Sustainability Forum's recent event on plan use planning [Loose Canon, "Dirty Development," Bruce Schimmel, April 27, 2006].

Of all the forums, this topic seemed to invoke the most controversy—for good reason. Like an addict, a city that can't admit it has a problem obviously can't take steps to fix it. Philadelphia must break its addiction to haphazard planning.

What does smart development look like? For starters, developers should create housing around transportation hubs. Accessible, convenient transit is a key to community vitality and Philadelphia should actively promote development that takes advantage of existing infrastructure. Philadelphia must also remove obstacles to creating more green buildings. The recent struggle to install waterless urinals at the Comcast Tower demonstrates that our city can be a hostile environment to developers who are trying to contribute to the sustainability of the city.

While Schimmel points out the city's failings, he does not recognize the many efforts to change the status quo in Philadelphia. The Urban Sustainability Forum, the Design Advocacy Group and Next Great City are all pushing for more sustainable practices in Philadelphia planning. Instead of focusing on gloom and doom, Philadelphians have lots of chances to push our city government to think smarter about development.

The Philadelphia of the 21st century is within reach. We just need to take the first step toward it.

Christine Knapp
Outreach Coordinator for Eastern PA, PennFuture

Schimmel's comments apply to historic preservation as well as to general planning and environmental issues. The eagerness to encourage development of new housing has led to zoning variances for new development projects in historic districts that create buildings out of scale and out of character with these districts. It is an example of that old phrase "throwing out the baby with the bath water." The historic character of Center City and Philadelphia neighborhoods is what makes Philadelphia great and it's obviously why developers want to build in these historic settings. But the incompatible scale and character of much of this new development is adversely affecting the very historic settings that give them value. We need a new attitude toward development in Philadelphia that balances preservation with growth, as well as encouraging environmentally sustainable design.

John Andrew Gallery
Executive Director, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia

I was so happy reading [Cover, "Battle of the Sexless," April 6, 2006], as it offers such a sympathetic picture, including all opinions and offering an impartial view.

But most of all it raises the medical ethical question, that surgeons do no harm to healthy tissue. And then brings this into question by suggesting that face lifts and surgery for aesthetic purposes also include the excision of healthy tissue.

To make castration unethical is also to make these procedures unethical. I hope people reading this come to the same conclusion I did: that the Hippocratic imperative to "do no harm" in this case does not necessarily refer directly to the tissue itself, but to the long-term mental health and well-being of the patient. This must surely be the goal of all surgeons.

The only quote that stoked my fire was from Dr. Sherman Leis: "There are a lot of sick, psychotic people out there. ... A legitimate doctor doesn't operate on somebody who is psychotic. That's incompetent medicine."

My suggestion to him would be that to call someone psychotic simply because you cannot empathize with their condition—their innermost feelings—is a mind-set of someone unfit to practice medicine. A doctor's primary concern should be for the patient, not a preoccupation with one's own personal views.

If this person also has difficulty relating to transsexuals, or someone who is gay, does that mean that they too (in this person's mind) are "psychotic"? Who will be next for this doctor's judgment, and who placed him in such a high place to judge?

A very grateful eunuch
Via E-mail

A very well-balanced article that covers all sides of the struggle to become a eunuch. This has been the best article in print on the subject. Your work will open the minds of many who before could not understand the drive many of us had to become our true selves.

John Thornton
Newark, Ohio

I know of Jonathan Riches from a chatline we all called for years [Naked City, "Trial of the Century," Brian Howard, April 13, 2006]. It's not enough to say that the man is a comic genius. He was the best ever!!! Gino Romano Controls You ALL!!!! LMAO.

Love ya and your baked beans!!!

Laura Belle
Via E-mail