I feel the need to respond to Alessandra DeClario?s letter to the editor regarding my Iditarod experience and the connection to dog cruelty [March 29, 2012].
Firstly and most importantly, I want to separate my own actions from the Malibu Special Education Foundation. In no way did the Malibu Special Education Foundation, nor myself, have any knowledge of any nefarious activities of any mushers at the Iditarod. The sole reason the foundation gave a tiny contribution to Jodi Bailey was because she had taken her team to schools with children with disabilities and she herself is the aunt of a child with Asperger?s Syndrome. I thought it would be really cool to have the Malibu Special Education Foundation banner travelling through the different villages across Alaska, and thus, bringing awareness about folks living disabilities to communities who often shun those who are different.
Our foundation?s website has been jammed with nasty letters, and due to all the negative attention that this unintentional move on my part has brought to the Malibu Special Education Foundation, I have asked our board to remove it from our website. And I am personally writing a check to our foundation to replace their contribution.
I have to make clear that I in no way support animal cruelty and only witnessed dedicated dog lovers from the mushers we met. However, I am not one to back down from something I have done in complete good faith and with all but the best intentions. I didn?t know there was any negative press about the Iditarod as, when we decided to go, I only researched mushers who worked with kids with disabilities.
So often these days, we are asked to be such educated global thinkers as to know better than to walk, unintentionally, into a politically incorrect quagmire. Do you think every kid who goes to Pepperdine knows about their connection to Yes on 8, or every diner who orders swordfish knows about their over-fished peril, or every young teen who got behind the internet sensation KONY2012 should have to now defend the guy who stripped off his clothes and ran naked on a street corner in San Diego? It?s exhausting to think of all the ramifications of something we do before we do it! Whew!
In this case, I stand by my innocence and very good intentions in this matter. Bringing awareness of children with disabilities to far flung villages in Alaska on the back of the sled of a musher at the Iditarod…I just thought it was kind of cool, in my opinion.
Now if I could only get people this fired up about the decrease in funding in education in California! Now that is worth jamming up our political leaders websites with nasty letters!
Laureen Sills