What the fuck, Euclid?
I've happily lived here for over a decade, but I'm watching it slowly change. And you know what? It's not about race ["New Black City," November 8]. It's about degenerate parents -- people who are too lazy to raise their children to be responsible for their actions and respectful to others.
These parents have no idea if their children have homework, let alone if it gets done. These parents don't cook dinner -- they pour cereal. They have no idea where their kids go after school and usually don't care.
Euclid is not a ghetto. It's a good city filled with tirelessly dedicated people trying to make it better; people who look out for not just their family, but their neighbors as well. We don't have drug dealers on every corner, and you don't hear police sirens all night.
But sooner or later, these hoodlums that run around our city will grow into adults. That's when an adolescent vandal turns into a 20-year-old high school drop-out who trades employment for gang life.
But you can't blame children for their attitude, because it's their parents' responsibility to bring them up right. Which brings us to where we are now: When families who let the street raise their kids move in, families who don't move out.
Paul David
Euclid
Distorted, sensational, and true: As a member of the Church of the Epiphany in Euclid, I read with interest and anger "New Black City." I find the reporting to be distorted, one-sided, and extremely sensational. However, there is a kernel of truth in your material.
I agree that the article is fair in that it describes problems that do exist in Euclid -- issues that plague every inner-ring suburb. In selecting people to interview for this article, Scene ignored the many determined Euclid residents who combat the influence of poverty, crime, unemployment, substandard housing, and racial division. By cooperating to fight these problems, citizens of Euclid/ northeast Cleveland are keeping the area a great place to live.
One benefit of your reporting in this article is that it draws attention to the problems directly without sugar-coating them. We will not shrink from dealing with the problems that were sensationalized in your article.
Dan Beears
Euclid
Where neighbors don't hate you: Your article on the supposed terrible state of Euclid actually bothered me enough to write you.
I am normally able to shrug off your irritating articles (I usually only read "Savage Love" anymore, since Dan seems to be your only author to write the whole truth and actually maintain a sense of entertainment), but this one went too far. As a new white resident who has lived in and around Akron the past eight years, and a previous resident of Southern California, there is nothing so awfully different in Euclid that I haven't seen elsewhere.
Sure, Euclid has its bad areas, but it also has great areas and everywhere in between. Everyone I told that I was moving to Euclid gasped, as if I had just told them I was moving to Siberia without a winter coat. But I have actually never felt so welcome. I have a hard time just walking down the hallway in my highrise without being engaged in conversation by neighbors, whether I know them or not. You may be right about the ethnicity of most residents, but I have found it to be a much warmer and friendlier environment than the much more well-mixed population of Highland Square in Akron, my most recent residence.
It makes you look a lot better if you print the whole story. Just a thought.
Jacob Greder
Euclid
Bracing for the Scream
Mercury poisoning is an outrage in waiting: Wonderful report ["Raising Joshua," November 15]. My son Lenny, mentioned in your report and who was diagnosed with autism at age two, is still doing very well and recently earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do.
Oral chelation gave us our boy back. Fortunately, your story of recovery from autism is not unique. We routinely hear from parents who have seen their children improve -- and some who have totally recovered -- with chelation therapy.
When America wakes up to the damage caused to a whole generation of children by the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosol, there will be a scream heard from coast to coast.
Charles Hoover
Royal Palm Beach, Florida
What the doctors don't know: I have read many, many articles on this, and yours is very well done and covers both sides extremely well.
I am a parent of a child who regressed into autism because of vaccines. It is most certainly a whole-body syndrome and not just a mental disorder. Along with autism came food intolerances, major chemical allergies, severe gut pain, no sleep, etc. Doctors who think it is only a genetic brain issue do not come home with you and live the life we live every day. Great job and great reporting of all sides. All we want is our accurate side to be established.
Allison Chapman
Andover, Massachusetts
