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TO: XXXXXXXX

May 10, 1999

Thank you for your phone call. You were one of only a few respondents who civilly chose to identify themselves, and are therefore deserving of an acknowledgment to that response.

It interests me that you feel my position on the destruction of basketball in Indiana is ridiculous, when I have offered the most basic, sensible, true, and universally-acceptable arguments for that position.

Far from being ridiculous, I feel that the responsibility of providing young people with the greatest possible chance in life is one of the most fundamentally critical to the future of our society; further, I see all too clearly how that responsibility has been wantonly disregarded by those who should rightfully be its staunchest defenders.

It saddens me to note that your desire to protect your principal from the accountability of his actions without the ability to substantiate that desire is a direct analogy to the issue at hand: Our schools likewise wish to "protect" children from the fact that in life, there are winners and losers, and no matter what our background, we must all play on the same field.

You and your principal have become so immersed in a school system that stubbornly fails to recognize this truth, that you are forced to resort to name-calling and out-of-hand dismissal of that which your dogma disallows in an attempt to gain empathy and unearned support for your position.

If your definition of "ridiculous" includes that which is stated with arrogance and pride earned by truthfulness, without regard to the false sensibilities of a corrupt establishment intent on self-perpetuation at any cost, then I am obliged to respectfully refer you to any dictionary resident in your schools' libraries.

I will summarize my understanding of your position:

To an institution which considers a system which produces more than one state champion "fair", it must surely seem laughable and worthy of ridicule that someone would dare call for sanctions on a respected member of that institution for actions which, though wrong by every accepted societal standard, conform perfectly to the craftily contrived scripture of that institution.

My contention is that true ridiculousness grows only where truth is shadowed by falsehood.