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Letters To The Editor News

Letters to the Editor

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Poems for baffled workers

kudos to rockin’ robert priest for sneaking some discussion of poetry into the poetry-free pages of NOW (NOW, January 29-February 4). I agree that the Poetry On The Way program has splattered some pretty lame verse onto TTC vehicles, but my own experience showed the selectors to be rather daring. The committee approached my publisher to reprint one of my most deliberately dumb and bizarre poems, Three Scoops, Waffle Cone, a piece sure to baffle tired office workers in the afternoon rush hour. Subsequently, I found the poem appearing on several Internet blogs with comments like “What the fuck is this supposed to be?” It was perhaps my greatest success as a poet. May Poetry On The Way keep infiltrating!

Stuart Ross

Toronto

Cash before citizenship

re no canadian content required (NOW, January 29-February 4). I live in a small town that contracts out many of its projects. The people here insist that the tenders be offered to the town tradespeople first before being offered out of town or even out of province. Your contracts should be offered to Toronto companies first and then to other companies in this province before even thinking of doing business in another province, let alone another country.

I hope you and your councillors will revisit this issue and support Canadians loyal to the Canadian way of life and who greatly need the work, before reaching out across the border for the sake of a few dollars difference. Is this another instance where money comes before people?

Marie Leonard

Cochrane, ON

Reefer badness

i am very disappointed in canada’s decision to deport Steve Kubby back to California (NOW, January 29-February 4). Marijuana is the only medicine that is keeping Mr. Kubby alive and alleviating some symptoms of the rare cancer he suffers. I always thought Canada was a much more enlightened and compassionate country than the U.S. and didn’t suffer from the reefer madness mentality prevalent here. Mr. Kubby is a law-abiding individual. Stand up to the U.S. and reform your drug policies and show compassion by allowing Mr. Kubby to live in your great country.

Denny Lane

Waitsfield, VT

White slight

why glenn sumi chose to point out that the Sketchersons are “all white” (NOW, January 29-February 4) is beyond me. If someone would think twice about going to see Sunday Night Live because the cast is all white, they would probably be much too tender to enjoy the humour of a skit about a stripper taking a man hostage with a vagina that shoots ping-pong balls.

Ben Harris

Toronto

Link missing in York fiasco

your article two-headed mon ster (NOW, January 22-28) missed a little background that would contextualize the campus elections fiasco at York. The elections were officially cancelled because of a silly technicality brought to the attention of the administration by Paul Cooper’s Young Zionist Partnership (YZP).

Cooper’s YZP couldn’t handle the fact that the anti-(Iraq)-war activist community had organized to have people running in opposition.

The elections were actually cancelled so that the YZP could organize its own pro-war slate. The slate called itself Progress Not Politics and had an unprecedentedly slick advertising campaign, with full-colour photographs of their candidates on every hallway wall.

Vicky Manuel-Paul

MFA student at York University

Lay off the square

so how about laying off dumping on Dundas Square (NOW, January 15-21)? Make a skating rink in winter, some bocce and volley ball courts, throw in some live music, picnic tables and skate board opportunities, et voila, a typical town square. How about making it cop-free until they learn to behave, the dumb-asses? And by the way, there is not an architect to blame here! Get it right! Kim Storey and James Brown of Brown and Storey Architects are two people! So, lame off and do not confuse this thoughtful design with “corporate greed and social psychosis.”

Alan Carlisle

Toronto

Di reference’s racist whiff

i read with interest now’s review A Royal Surprise – Diana The Celebration (NOW, January 15-21). Thomas Hirschmann’s article was well done for the most part. However, I was most taken aback by his comments comparing Diana’s favourite stuffed animals to the men she dated in later years. The comment had a racist tone and ruined an otherwise well-written article!

Paul Chin

Toronto

Pissy Pants deserves soaker

re christina cherneskey’s letter (NOW, January 29-February 4). I’d like to know why a gaggle of “professionals” would show up at one of the busier venue/bars in town, pay a $10 cover and not think that they were at a concert hall! I mean, if the door person didn’t tip them off, wouldn’t the CDs for sale and evident guest list on the table do the job? (Who wants) the help of doctors/lawyers/law enforcement personnel (mall security or something) who aren’t able to read or even notice basic clues to their general surroundings? Other than teachers, who deserve only about half of the bashing they receive yearly, the (list of) “professionals” Little Miss Pissy-Pants offered up reads like my wish list of those most deserving of a very severe soaker or a wedgie.

Even if reviewer Elizabeth Bromstein’s comment about the bulging tits was a bit off-side, could anyone have stopped reading after that line? Fuck, no! Ask Pissy-Pants.

Rick Kerton

Toronto

Idol chatter

i would like to congratulate ms. Bromstein for her inarticulate and made-for-the-toilet remarks (about) the performers and patrons at C’est What/Nia (NOW, January 22-28). Way to go, Elizabeth. You’re one step closer to reaching your career potential of being a Canadian Idol judge!

Lina Tsakiris

Toronto

Mind-boggling censorship

it’s comforting to know that i’m not the only person in this city perplexed by the mystery of censorship on the airwaves (NOW, January 22-28). Who would have guessed that the CRTC has deemed any word acceptable for radio play? It’s mind-boggling to realize that record labels and radio stations have actually massacred these songs themselves. Now that a song can be downloaded before a listener has even finished hearing the radio version, these song edits seem outdated. The many hiphop faithful in our city find this bleeping-out fetish frustrating. At least allow unedited songs air time after that precious, impressionable demographic has gone to sleep!

Charles Cadogan

Toronto

Hijab not about oppression

as a feminist and a young woman from a Muslim background, I can assure letter writer Lisa Volkov (NOW, January 29-February 4) that wearing a hijab is not necessarily oppressive for the Muslim women who live in North America and Europe. I was always taught by my family that wearing a hijab was in fact liberating. It allowed other people to see me for me and what I had to say rather than for my looks or lack thereof.

Speak to many North American and European Muslim women who wear a hijab and you will hear that they are proud to wear it and that they have loving relationships with the men in their lives, by whom they are seen as equals. Many of them are bright, educated and have great careers.

Granted, many Muslim women are oppressed. But so are many Jewish, Hindu and Christian women. The idea that wearing the hijab oppresses women is a gross misconception.

Rita Sarker

Toronto

Nerd was no frontman

re nerdy escape by nick flanagan (NOW, January 29-February 4). Actually, Dillinger Escape Plan were never fronted by Mike Patton. Their latest release, Irony Is A Dead Scene, was merely a collaborative effort with Patton. Just keeping you on your toes.

Liam Crowley

Toronto

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