Richard Turner
Wheat Ridge
Both as human beings and as the board president and executive director of Adoption Alliance in Aurora, we are at a loss to adequately express the fullness of the horror and heartache we experienced while reading Karen Bowers's story. Her recounting of the tragic death of David Polreis in Greeley this past February nevertheless demands more of us in the adoption community than just anguished and awkward silence. Instead of answering all pertinent questions about how this little boy's life came to such a cruel end, her story poses yet unasked questions that must be addressed legally and professionally.
Legally, the degree to which a diagnosis of attachment disorder can be used to justify and dismiss the brutal taking of this two-year-old child's life will be played out in Weld County District Court. We are not lawyers. However, we believe we must speak out professionally regarding certain quotes attributed by Westword to Ms. Julie Haralson of the Colorado Adoption Center in Fort Collins, identified as "an old friend of Renee's." If quoted accurately and in context by Westword, Ms. Haralson's repeated characterization of David Polreis as "that unattached, crazy kid" during a conversation with police and her assertion that the victim could somehow be at fault since "sometimes these crazy kids just up and die" are utterly unworthy of our profession. Further, we believe her apparent lack of concern, as recounted from the official police report by Westword, about the possibility of further adoptive placement with Ms. Polreis is cause for the appropriate state licensing agency to conduct a formal inquiry.
Undoubtedly, issues surrounding attachment disorder are complex and just now coming to light with the general public. We have seen nothing yet that would relieve us or anyone in our profession of our professional and moral responsibility for the welfare of the children placed in our care.
David LaHoda and Virginia Appel
Adoption Alliance, Aurora
Nothing in Common
Regarding Stuart Steers's "Money and Other Greenery," in the October 10 issue:
As a longtime resident of, and worker in, downtown Denver, I was delighted to hear the news about the proposed new park in the Platte Valley. It will doubtless be a wonderful amenity for the entire area, particularly for us downtowners and the Trillium Corporation, which proposes to build a major high-rise residential development nearby called "The Commons."
I submit, however, a modest proposal concerning the name of the new park, which, according to the article, is to be "Commons Park." The article points out that "the famous Boston Commons is an example of what Trillium's development could be." Not exactly. All of us former Bostonians know, doubtless due to the superior educations received in that center of culture and learning, that the actual downtown grassy and tree-lined area is, and always has been, the Boston Common. There is not now, and never has been, a park there called the Boston Commons.
That's because a "commons" (plural in form, but a singular word) is a communal dining place, often located in a monastery or school. A "common," on the other hand, is a piece of property, typically unenclosed, owned by a government and set aside for a public purpose, such as a park. That, of course, is why it has for the past 300 years or so been the Boston Common, rather than the Boston Commons.
Let's not commit civic bad grammar, thereby revealing Denver to be a cowtown of slack-jawed, jean-clad, unlettered Western yokels with limited knowledge of proper English nomenclature. My proposal: Let it be christened and forever known as the Denver Common. After a few hundred years of lawn-mowing and tree growth, it may well rank with the Boston Common as a magnificent urban amenity. If Trillium indeed builds an adjacent public dining place, it could stick with "The Commons" or, perhaps, "The Denver Common Commons."
Peter J. Adolph
Denver
Bound and Determined
I find Bill Gallo's even considering reviewing the movie Bound ("Moll World," October 10) to be offensive. As if there is not enough propaganda about homosexuality in our world already. Tacky.
Jodi Griggs
via the Internet
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