Los Angeles Times

Curtains for Ringling

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Re “Ringling’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ to end,” Jan. 15

How appropriat­e that with the closing of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, we have a new circus just now starting up.

The new Trump administra­tion, even before taking office, has already provided some thrills and spills, and no doubt when the lights actually come up next week, the entertainm­ent will really go into full swing, like the death-defying acrobats under the big top.

Only the new circus, rather than being led by a talented, articulate ringmaster, will have as its leader a demagogic, misogynist­ic, incurious, thoughtles­s, delusional, talent-less, scary clown, which is so sad!

Maybe we can get our money back, and the new circus will go bankrupt and close early. Fred Barker Burbank Hallelujah, it’s a good day in America when a show that abuses animals announces the end of the show forever. I think Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus could have evolved and phased out the animals a long time ago, moving forward with human entertaine­rs like Cirque du Soleil. Patty Jackson Downey

As a boy growing up in Connecticu­t in the 1950s, the coming of the circus was one of the highlights of the year. The magic of the three-ring circus — with the lion tamer, the parade of elephants, the trapeze artists and the clown cars — is among the most wonderful memories of my childhood. Yes, I agree that the lives of the animals were abysmal, but we didn’t know that then. Today, I mourn the death of a large part of Americana. Bob Lentz Sylmar

Was your story on the circus closing entirely accurate? Surely, it is just moving to a different location at 1600 Pennsylvan­ia Ave. Christian Stevens Los Angeles

 ?? Mark A. Large Associated Press ?? ELEPHANTS, a huge attraction for the Ringling Bros. circus, had been removed not long ago.
Mark A. Large Associated Press ELEPHANTS, a huge attraction for the Ringling Bros. circus, had been removed not long ago.

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