Rating: NNNNN
Forever Ned
Your pictures of Handsome Ned (NOW, January 10-16) called up a mixture of joy and sorrow. We sure miss him. Ned didn’t die from life. He died on a roll of the dice.
I first met him and his brother Jim in 78, when Robert Priest and I had a band. We played loft parties on Berkeley Street. It was always a joy to see Ned, and also to hear him through the floorboards in my room at the Black Bull Hotel, where he often played downstairs. His voice had a healing effect. If you were alone, Ned was there.
I never trusted my dreams. They always told me when a boyfriend was cheating or when a husband was leaving. But two days after Ned died, he came to me in a dream and said, “See my new body.” He was made of light, like from a projection on a screen. There he was on stage at the Cameron singing away with his guitar.
He’s not dead. He’s forever Ned.
Sahara Spracklinn
Toronto
Marriage made in Ned
What a tribute to Ned. Back in the day, we lived at 2271/2 Queen West. Ned was a true icon and a good neighbour.He played at my wedding, and it must have brought us good luck, because we’re still married.
I remember pushing the baby pram through Kensington Market in 1986 and his big smile as he looked at my newborn son, Dylan. Dylan would later come with us to Ned’s picnic on Centre Island. Those were golden times.
We arranged a babysitter so we could go to the Cameron that sad night. We sat and waited with the packed house for a performance that never happened. We were devastated to learn of Ned’s death. He will always hold a very dear place in my heart.
Susan Mitchell
Toronto
Rough trade
RE Walking A Fine Line (NOW, January 10-16). What purpose is served by retaining Criminal Code sections outlawing common bawdy houses and living off the avails of prostitution when cities license hundreds of sex trade businesses under the euphemistic labels of escort agencies and massage parlours?
Keith Baxter
Toronto
Hilarity knows no religion
LOL times a zillion to Sheila Gostick’s sorority-sister rant against Michael Coren (NOW, January 10-16). No doubt her brunch-and-cocktails crowd titter with approbation at her petulant nihilism and tortuous casuistry.
My eyes rolled full circle when I read her spurious attempt to compare being a “practising Catholic” with practising the violin, and her schoolgirl mockery of Ash Wednesday.
Gostick would do well to outgrow her pop-culture cynicism and engage in some serious scholarship and less personal vindictiveness.
John McKellar
Toronto
Clinton’s why chromosome
If Hillary Clinton loses the democratic nomination (NOW, January 10-16), it will be for every other reason than, as Susan G. Cole suggests, the fact that she’s a woman.
It’s no small thing that she hasn’t explicitly condemned her vote for the Iraq war. We’ve seen what happens when a president won’t admit to having made a mistake.
Your article also very conveniently fails to point out that women in Iowa voted for Obama. What if women across the country end up choosing Obama over Clinton?
Anyone truly left-leaning, green-focused and concerned about the world would be writing articles propping up Dennis Kucinich.
D. Mills
Toronto
Hate-on for Hillary
RE Nothing To Smile About. Why replace Bush II with Clinton II and continue on with a domestic and international divider? Clinton is the wrong person to restore America’s standing in the world. Need I mention America-haters in Gaza, Pakistan and Iran?
Daniel Yang
Toronto
Grits miss anti-sprawl call
RE Sprawl Plan Devouring Green (NOW, January 3-9). Developers will shift toward building in existing areas when faced with paying development charges to municipalities that reflect the full cost cities and towns shoulder when they have to extend infrastructure and services to new subdivisions.
In the first draft of their Growth Management Plan For The Greater Golden Horseshoe, the Liberals referred to making such changes. However, mention of implementing these reforms vanished in subsequent drafts of the plan – nor did the proposed changes make a comeback in the Liberals’ climate change plan last year.
Peter Tabuns
NDP Environment Critic
Progressives vote NDP
Alice Klein says Progressives should “pull together”(NOW, December 20-26) in a coalition against the Tories but doesn’t propose that Liberal Gerard Kennedy step aside to support incumbent New Democrat MP Peggy Nash in Parkdale-High Park. If she did, then Klein might have some credibility. Remember Liberal policies on free trade, the GST and Kyoto?Now the Liberals have voted with the Harper government to stay in southern Afghanistan until February 2009, over the objections of the NDP.
As finance minister, Paul Martin cut funding for much of Canada’s social safety net – indeed, all federal funding for social housing. Martin talked about assistance for cities and funding for housing. He also discovered the Aboriginal agenda. But his own funding cuts made the need for these initiatives critical.
Canadian progressives should vote for the party that has consistently fought for measures to counter global heating and protect the social safety net. That’s a progressive voting strategy.
Bud Wildman
Echo Bay
Editor’s note: Bud Wildman served as natural resources minister and minister of energy and the environment in the Rae government.
What readers are saying on nowtoronto.com
Dresden Dolls da bomb
Did your reviewer even stick around to see the Dresden Dolls? (NOW, January 10-16) The writer was clearly too busy gawking at their fans to a) give a shit and b) pay attention. And it’s a pity. It was a great show, even if it was only 65 minutes long due to the 9 pm curfew. They snuck in an encore of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Two-Headed Boy.
Corey L.
Toronto
Wavey Davey
RE Terroni Goes Upscale (NOW, January 10-16). I heard there’s a great Pizza Pizza-concept resto opening. It serves thick-crust pizza. Plays whiny emo music on real vinyl. You’d love it, Steven Davey! Meanwhile, stick to reviewing food, because the quality of music (which isn’t played on CDs) and life in this spot is second to none. I think you missed the point.
Adam Bronstorph
Toronto
Hypno-science
RE Where There’s A Will (NOW, January 10-16). Excellent comment by the hypnotherapist. Now, if only I can find the willpower to use what I know about hypnotherapy.
Dr. Bryan Knight
Toronto
Harkness blinks
I didn’t always agree with John Harkness’s movie reviews, like his recent opinion that The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (NOW, December 20-26) was just a lot of blinking. Had his heart attack not killed him but just left him with “locked-in” syndrome, he could be blinking his movie reviews to you now.
Maia Shani
Toronto
