Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

To the Editor:

Your treatment of the local controversy surrounding the engagement of drag performers at this year’s SE State Fair is commendable. There was opportunity to portray a town under siege, but you chose to explore the redemptive and tolerant aspects of our community. Thank you.

It is sometimes helpful to know what others think. The theory Six degrees of separation, a concept originally described by the author Frigves Karinthy in a short story written in 1929 (Wikipedia), is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. Philosopher Malcolm Gladwell ruminates “Six degrees of separation doesn’t mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps, and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few.” It is always helpful to appreciate relationships and recognize that tolerance is essential to holding the community together. A respectful member,

Debra Schnabel