Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    It’s that time of year when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus rolls into Austin. With dwindling ticket sales nationwide, Ringling updated its 2016 shows with an ice floor and aerial acrobatics. You might notice another change: no elephants.
    In 2015, Austin City Council voted to ban the use of painful devices such as bullhooks on circus animals within city limits. In response to Austin’s ban and bans in other U.S. cities, Ringling announced in May the “retirement” of elephants from its shows.
    This was a bittersweet victory. Elephants will no longer perform but will, instead, be outsourced for cancer research. Over 80 circus animals remain and will be forced to endure long periods of confinement, punishment-based training, and exhausting travel. Animals are sometimes drugged or have their teeth/claws surgically removed. It is these harms that cause animals to fight or escape, resulting in injuries and public-safety concerns.
    The good news is that Austin offers many family activities that place animal welfare above demeaning and dangerous tricks. Visit the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary, where rescued and rehabilitated animals live in natural surroundings. Attend Circus Chickendog, featuring humanely trained and treated rescue dogs. Austin also has two circus groups, Sky Candy Austin and Blue Lapis Light, who perform aerial dance and can teach your family how to swing on the trapeze.
    An even more interactive experience for children is to plan a trip to one of Texas’ reputable sanctuaries such as the Society for Animal Rescue and Adoption (SARA) in Seguin, Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Angleton, or Dreamtime Animal Sanctuary in Elgin. The livelihood of these sanctuaries depends on community involvement. Your visit will mean more than filling a stadium seat.
    In a world of options, choose “cruelty free” because the show can go on … without animal suffering.

Dear Editor,
    I remember The Austin Chronicle when it was a true source of accurate information on world affairs in addition to entertainment news.
    Louis Black: Wow! Where do I begin? You claim to be a progressive paper, yet your column “Page Two: Darkness on the Edge of Town” [July 29] is a travesty of spin and outright propaganda. Shame on you for trying to soft-pedal the blatant and illegal actions of the DNC against Bernie.
    Your words here: "Claiming election fraud – the elections, candidate, and party were disparaged," as if those enraged about the corruption were the bad guys!
    This is the ongoing mind control BS of the DNC: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." "Isn't it awful that all those Bernie supporters don't just fall into line, lock-step and support Hillary, (the figurehead of corruption) in today's political world?"
    You expect us all to be so easily fooled that we buy into your screwed-up viewpoint and then go on listening to your blatant bias against Trump? "Hey everybody, keep hating Trump, cause he is all about hate! So pay no attention to the abject corruption of the Democratic party – just hate Trump." Pathetic.
    Not even a real article of news coverage about the horrific betrayal of all those enthusiastic Bernie supporters. You gloss over the real criminality of the cheating as if it never happened, and then accuse his supporters of being "too focused on the man instead of the message,” as if Hillary will ever do anything she promises to actually implement any of Bernie's agenda. Whatever happened to real reporting of the truth, the facts? We are sick of your heavily biased and spun bullshit. Grow some balls and stop pandering to those who you have sold out to. Austin deserves better. No more propaganda. No more mind-control spin.

Dear Editor,
    Louis Black's column "Page Two: Darkness on the Edge of Town" [July 29] asserts that if voters scrutinized the Green and Libertarian candidates for president, they would be disillusioned and find that they were mistaken in the "feeling that they somehow represent a fully fresh wind." And then Black buries the lede by not giving examples of how these two candidates are allegedly not all that different than the two majority party candidates.
    To correct that curious omission, here's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comparison of the four candidates:
    Trump: does not appear to have read the Constitution, or if so, comprehended it. Panders to the views of whatever audience is before him at the moment, with no concern if those purported beliefs violently contradict what he has said earlier in the day, or even earlier in the same sentence. A right-wing statist authoritarian whose political philosophy boils down to "I deserve to be president."
    Clinton: appears to have read the Constitution, and thinks it needs a great deal of editing to be relevant today, or perhaps just get fed into a wood chipper. Carefully panders to the views of whatever her consultants say focus groups composed of wavering voters in swing states say they would like to hear. A left-wing statist authoritarian whose political philosophy boils down to "I deserve to be president."
    Stein (Green Party): A more environmentally radical version of Bernie Sanders anti-capitalism who says on her website that reform is "being blocked by political parties that serve the corporate elite, not the people." Appears, like Bernie Sanders, to actually believe the words coming out of her mouth.
    Johnson (Libertarian Party): A gay, barely in the closet, pot-smoking small-l libertarian who was the former governor of New Mexico. Appears to be a genuinely nice person who refuses to go negative on the campaign trail. Appears to actually believe the words coming out of his mouth. Favors free markets, free minds, tolerance of diverse lifestyles.
    You can argue whether the latter two choices are a "fully fresh wind" – hell, part of the appeal of Trump to his supporters is that he is a fully fresh windbag – but they both seem to actually believe what they say.

Dear Editor,
    As Texas’ first golf course to allow blacks, Muny has won placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Why has similar attention not been given to the 75 acres being developed as “The Grove at Shoal Creek,” once the site of Texas’ first school for black children who were deaf, blind, or orphaned?
    Founded in 1887 by the son of a former slave, funding was rounded up by three former Confederate generals. For 76 years it stood as a beacon of love and hope for many black Texas children who had no other options. Besides school lessons, vocational skills were taught that would allow the students to function independently in the world.
    Here are the words of one student who attended the school from 1954-1961:
    “I was proud and blessed to be able to be a student there. I learned to be courteous and how to treat other human beings, to be prepared and to do the best we can, but to believe that we can deal with whatever life gave us. You learned to be responsible for yourself, and to help others. Being at a school with other people with disabilities, you learned things that no one else did.”
    When the Grove paves over this land, all traces of the school will disappear. Do the Tophers – who own the land – and our city leaders not care about the vital role this great institution played in our community? Why are the stories of the African-Americans who attended this school being forgotten? Our district representative Sheri Gallo has supported the Muny designation. Why is she strongly favoring this massive Grove PUD with no thought or consideration of the importance of this site to the African-American community?