Circuses

The main difference between American society and that of ancient Rome is that in America there is an overabundance of circuses but not enough bread to go around. JOSEPH MANDELBERG Granada Hills

CALI, Colombia - Ask Ana Julia Torres how many children she has, and she'll say 652: two human offspring plus the hundreds of tigers, lions, mules, snakes, monkeys and other species residing at her refuge north of here. The creatures have typically been seized from or cast off by narcos, circuses, animal traffickers and bored collectors. Her reference to the "children" inhabiting her 8-acre private facility, named Villa Lorena after her daughter, reflects her deep love for the animals.

The Times' editorial Monday on the L.A. City Council's proposed ban on elephants performing in traveling shows such as circuses paints a romantic picture of elephants as gentle giants. The editorial board seems to buy into the animal extremists' idealistic scenario of happy, fat pachyderms lazily wandering the open plains of Africa or the jungles of Asia, free of disease and conflict with humans. The reality is far grimmer. The "wild" left for these magnificent animals is rapidly disappearing.

It's not accurate, exactly, to say that I've been waiting for James Vance and Dan E. Burr's graphic novel “On the Ropes” (W.W. Norton: 248 pp., $24.95) -- until I saw a copy, I had no idea that it was coming out. But it is the case that Vance and Burr's first book, “Kings in Disguise,” first published in 1988, is one of my favorite graphic novels - a stark bit of social realism tracing the travails of a 12-year-old named Freddie Bloch as he wanders through the Depression - and with this new work, which picks up the story in 1937, the creators have outdone themselves.

Re "Elephant Walk," July 26: Taking any wild animal from its habitat, alive or dead, is a crime, just as "ethnic cleansing's" removal of people from their homes and herding them into camps is a crime. Elephants are the most powerful, dangerous creatures in the wild, feared by humans and other animals alike. In order to "tame" such an animal to make him either work in fields or perform tricks in circuses, a young elephant's spirit is systematically and brutally broken, with fear, pain, hunger and thirst, isolation from his kind (elephants are extremely social animals)

CALI, Colombia - Ask Ana Julia Torres how many children she has, and she'll say 652: two human offspring plus the hundreds of tigers, lions, mules, snakes, monkeys and other species residing at her refuge north of here. The creatures have typically been seized from or cast off by narcos, circuses, animal traffickers and bored collectors. Her reference to the "children" inhabiting her 8-acre private facility, named Villa Lorena after her daughter, reflects her deep love for the animals.

Would you choose your fun or their misery? Before you go to the circus, please consider the animals, which have been taken from their natural environment, kept in confinement and forced to do tricks they don't understand, just for your frivolous entertainment. Elephants and tigers love to run, play and interact with their own species, scratch themselves on trees, sniff around, forage for food, wallow in mud, swim and play in streams and ponds. They cannot do any of these natural, fun things when subjected to life in a circus.

The playground at Woodland Hills Elementary was changed into a circus for tots Thursday, with about 75 kindergartners playing the roles of ringmasters, animal trainers and acrobats. The circus comes at the end of the school year and the participants are all enrolled in the school's Tiggertown program, an optional enrichment program that also serves as day care. "I like the program because it's not so structured," Merideth Hasson said as she sat in the audience.

Come and see a man juggle a 140-pound table--with his feet--a woman dangle in the air from a trapeze and clowns mime a Ping-Pong match. Those are just some of the highlights when the L.A. Circus visits Pershing Square this weekend, officials said. It's not Barnum and Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth," but event organizers say their 80-foot by 80-foot makeshift circus ring will offer a more "intimate" experience for the audience.

Flying through the air with the greatest of ease is a daring young comrade on a flying trapeze. This is not Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey or Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. There are no red-and-gold wagons, no steam calliopes, no cotton candy, no bearded ladies or snake charmers or fire eaters, no elephants or sawdust. And when there's trouble, the traditional call for help may be "Hey, Vladimir" instead of "Hey, Rube." It's still the greatest show on earth, however. Soviet earth, anyway.

Melanie Kramer insists she's no thrill-seeker. She's a practical single mom who gets squeamish even at the thought of, say, riding a roller coaster. Still, a girl's got to do a few dicey, death-defying things to get work in this town in her chosen profession of circus arts. Kramer has had knives thrown at her, pyrotechnic explosions set off in her face, swords thrust into a box when she's curled up inside - not to mention having cigarettes knocked from her lips by a man with an evil-looking bullwhip.

PARK CITY, Utah - Come to the Sundance Film Festival and there's a good chance you may never make it into a theater, because there's plenty of drama to keep one entertained elsewhere, most of it along this mountain town's Main Street. A camel strutted up the thoroughfare Friday, joining the usual caravan of black Cadillac Escalades that ferry celebrities to and fro. The dromedary was part of a publicity stunt for a movie that wasn't even playing in the festival, and police promptly showed up to move the ship of the desert off the main drag.

Re "Dogs will have their day in parade," Dec. 29 Have the dogs in combat, the elephants in circuses, the dolphins in aquariums or any other animal used for human purposes given their consent to participate in same? Ronna Siegel Van Nuys ALSO: Letters: Bulldozing a sanctuary Letters: Shoot-'em-up at schools? Letters: Afghanistan's female fliers

The Times' editorial Monday on the L.A. City Council's proposed ban on elephants performing in traveling shows such as circuses paints a romantic picture of elephants as gentle giants. The editorial board seems to buy into the animal extremists' idealistic scenario of happy, fat pachyderms lazily wandering the open plains of Africa or the jungles of Asia, free of disease and conflict with humans. The reality is far grimmer. The "wild" left for these magnificent animals is rapidly disappearing.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Voting may once have been serious, private and limited only to wealthy landowners, but, these days, it's a multiday circus complete with food trucks, traffic jams and a parking lot where Abraham Lincoln is frenemies with an anti-abortion activist. That, at least, is the scene in Columbus, where early voting has been open since Oct. 2, and the booths were so mobbed Friday that people had to park in the grocery store lot next door. Voters streamed in and out of the building, getting in their cars in the frigid October afternoon, then finding themselves unable to move because of the traffic.

On the wall in the Pasadena headquarters of the Goldstar ticket service is a concert poster from a decade ago, framed with the will call list showing the names of every Goldstar customer who bought tickets to the show. Both of them. There were just two customers for the first event the fledgling ticket company offered, a dramatic contrast with the 3 million who are now Goldstar members. Many of them are drawn by the 50% discount that Goldstar Events Inc. routinely offers on tickets to rock and pop concerts, plays, traveling circuses, Dodgers and Angels baseball games and other sporting and live entertainment events.

Most of the children in the special education program at Markham Middle School in Watts have never seen a tiger or an elephant. Most of them have never been to the circus. Many of them have never even left Watts. But on Thursday, 75 of those students will get a chance to see some of those animals at the Shrine Auditorium courtesy of the Shriners, who will provide the tickets, and TRW, which will provide transportation.

President Augusto Pinochet's military government has barred a visit by the internationally acclaimed Moscow Circus, which planned to perform in Chile next month for the first time in 20 years. Describing the circus as an "instrument of progaganda," the Foreign Ministry said Thursday the troupe has been refused entry visas because of continuing political attacks on Pinochet by Radio Moscow.

The favelas of Brazil are a familiar screen subject, and one not readily associated with showbiz whimsy. But a Rio neighborhood's unlikely big top is front and center in the effectively straightforward "Without a Net. " Kelly Richardson's debut film benefits from her considerable access to four young acrobats, each finding new purpose in the circus and envisioning a life beyond poverty. Social activist Junior claimed an abandoned lot in the city's Praça Onze section to illegally set up a circus school, aiming to break the drugs-and-crime pattern for local kids.

It's impressive enough when Travis Pastrana hydroplanes his dirt bike across a swimming pool. But it's really something when, just like a motocross Jesus, the 28-year-old extreme sports superstar pushes the limits of his two-wheeled trajectory, crossing the pool, then jumping down a concrete wall, then a kiddie pool, before landing on an idyllic Panamanian beach. Pastrana is one member of Nitro Circus, a collective of athletes from the motorcycle, bicycle and skateboard worlds who attempt seemingly impossible stunts and often succeed.