Letters

Let Sleeping Cats Lie . . .

Comment

I am disappointed to learn that the canyon is now host to a colony of feral house cats. I am disappointed that some of us, instead of seeking evidence, have swallowed the myth that the approach of “trap, neuter, and release” (TNR) is the only humane way to reduce and eventually eliminate feral cat colonies. We should keep in mind Norman Levitt’s rule: “Lewis Carroll’s Bellman said, ‘What I say three times is true.’  But you should be wary of what I say 43 times, especially if it is always asserted without evidence.” [Ed. Note: Alice includes a brief review of the scientific literature on TNR.]

The June 2013 issue of Reed said that coyotes have come to the canyon.  I hope they are practicing natural cat control.

—Alice Anderson ’61

Las Cruces, NM

Remembering Professor Arch

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—Leila Rieder ’06

Providence, Rhode Island

Remembering Jacqueline Kohler Koch ’70

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Jackie Kohler and I were in a theatre class together in 1966 when she was a freshman and I was a senior. Seth Ullman [theatre & literature 1959–73] had us do improvisational exercises. Once we had to go to the Portland Zoo, observe an animal, and then interpret and portray it to the other students. Jackie not only channeled a gazelle, she became one. She was a beautiful young woman. Jackie was elegant, witty, and compassionate, and a brave and daring soul.

—John Cushing ’67

Portland, Oregon

Remembering John Goldsmith ’88

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—Benn Lewis ’84

Pound Ridge, New York

They Said I Was a Communist

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—Roger Lippman ’69

Seattle, Washington

Editor's Note: Yikes! Thanks for sorting the leftists from the rightists.

The Lincoln Brigade

Comment

I was pleased with the space you gave Lincoln vet Harry Randall ’37 in the last Reed, but I’m afraid you mixed up his Lincoln vet comrades. Bill Miller (William Newton Miller) was the only Oregon volunteer killed in Spain, but he was Randall’s roommate off campus, and never a Reedie. Randall recalls that Miller grew up on an Oregon farm and sounds nostalgic about their friendship, shared activities (and housing) in the ’30s, “when we sometimes lived on potatoes and black coffee, and chased odd jobs to pay the $5 we paid monthly for room rent, and often went cold and hungry for lack of a quarter for the gas meter.” Randall had to quit Reed after a year because his parents’ tuition money dried up, but Miller never attended.

—Mike Munk ’56

Portland, Oregon

Editor's Note: Sorry, we goofed!

Smackdown: Bridge vs. Scribe

Comment

I am writing to correct an error in Miles Bryan’s otherwise very interesting article on Tamim Ansary ’70 in Games without Rules (Reed, June 2013). As a staff member and one of many Reedies who worked on, contributed to, and/or sold the Willamette Bridge, I can testify that the Bridge preceded the Scribe as “Portland’s first alternative weekly.” Less genteelly, the Bridge was Portland’s “underground paper.”

—Jon Moscow ’69

Teaneck, New Jersey

Editor's Note: Sorry, we goofed!