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Letters To The Editor News

Letters to the Editor

Email: letters@nowtoronto.com

Jodie Foster’s queer coming out

I am outraged by Susan Cole’s response to Jodie Foster’s “coming out” (NOW, January 17-23).

I would expect that someone who identifies as queer would appreciate another queer individual’s need to keep her private life private. Neither Cole nor anyone else has a right to decide who should come out and when.

But the fact that Cole believes she has the right to make some of the statements she does is wholly [disrespectful] of Foster.

Cole seems to have forgotten that privacy is a right for everyone.

Mark A.


Toronto


“Even greedy corporate bastards need clean water”

Thanks to Ellie Kirzner for Idle No More’s Sweeping Tide (NOW, January 17-23). She says it beautifully.

Native bands and their supporters have the guts to go out on the streets in this winter weather to fight for, among other issues, the health and survival of the lakes, rivers, forests that all of us should cherish. Even greedy corporate bastards need clean air and water.

The ignorance and denial, the lies perpetuated about the damage being inflicted on the environment, are driven by corporate lobbyists who have immediate access to all levels of government.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver should have property right next to a tailings pond, since he says that water will be clean enough to drink.

Unfortunately, the media have ignored the greatest danger of all – the inclusion of the right to full protection and security from public opposition for Chinese investors looking to exploit energy resources here.

Rose Ferguson


Mississauga


Pizza by the rules

I actually went out and visited all of your best pizza picks from 2012. Yeah, they’re okay, but what you pass off as the top is questionable.

Pizza is about the sauce, not the goddamn presentation first and the crust second. Not about the toppings, and certainly not about the cheese. Everything follows from [the sauce].

The fact that some restaurants don’t slice their pizzas is not only pretentious but inconsequential.

The only reason they don’t cut pizza in Italy is because they’re smart enough to let the customer do the work.

And if you’re an adult, use cutlery, not your hands. It’s exceptionally juvenile [not to], as well as unsanitary.

John S.


From nowtoronto.com


Artist doesn’t want your tax bucks

My lefty friends will hate me for this, but I do not support public arts funding (NOW, January 17-23). I am a playwright (and something of a cognoscente), and I do not think it is appropriate for the government to force people to support my work. Let taxpayers spend their money on the art they choose, if we choose.

Chris Michael Burns


Toronto


Firefighters count, cyclists not so much

Mayor Rob Ford often says he’s all about giving the public what it wants. I suppose that’s why the Toronto firefighters with red T-shirts proclaiming “Seconds Count” who packed City Hall chambers for the budget debate last week were able to get their way (NOW, January 17-23).

Democracy in action. Strange thing, though. Having cyclists at City Hall, there to stop the shutdown of the Jarvis lanes, didn’t seem to affect that vote.

Wrong-colour T-shirts?

Nope, just the wrong citizens. Firefighters are noble and even statue-worthy.

Cyclists? No statues of them.

Geoff Rytell


Toronto


Animal rights and wrongs

Letter writer Paul York seems like a cool guy for defending animal rights (NOW, January 17-23). I believe in animal rights, too, but are there problems beyond animal “fashion” accessories?

I’m just curious here.

I’ve run over a pigeon downtown and I feel bad, absolutely disgusted at myself for doing it.

How could I accept this?

Amil Delic


Toronto


Speculation on PM’s wife “horseshit”

Love how you raced to the conclusion that Laureen Harper selling her stock portfolio means “either the first lady knows something the rest of schleps don’t about the fragile state of the economy, or are those rumours about marital unrest true?” (NOW, January 17-23).

If I want that kind of speculative, apocryphal horseshit, I’ll pick up a National Enquirer.

Grow the fuck up.

Randy Keller


Toronto


Good food policy = productive society

Many thanks for printing Jonah Schein’s A Kitchen In Every School (NOW, January 10-16).

Schein’s analysis was bang on. Research demonstrates that healthy foods and diet translate into healthy people and communities, the foundation for productive societies.

What we need, as Schein clearly stated in his article, is a new food policy that starts with a universal nutrition program in all Ontario schools.

Julie Notto


Mindful – A Better Future for Children’s Mental Health


In the event of teachers’ strike

The inconveniences that parents of school-age children recently experienced at the hands of teachers and their union is as nothing compared with the worries and expenses they could endure if the union regains the right to strike.

Should teachers become free to strike again, it would seem only fair that taxpayers should be free to withhold their educational tax money during the time schooling is unavailable.

Sidney Ledson


Toronto


Feist a misfit in Toronto’s top 50

While appreciating that no top-50 albums list can ever truly be considered final, I do find your criteria for what constitutes a Toronto album (NOW, January 3-9) questionable.

Honestly, Feist? Nova Scotian Feist? Calgary-bred Feist? You exclude true Toronto classics like FM’s Black Noise in favour of somebody who moved here relatively recently?!

And that’s to say nothing of wasting a spot on a one-hit-wonder like Meryn Cadell. Sigh.

K. Mahon


Toronto


Private LCBO past best-before date

I enjoyed reading Wayne Roberts’s Easy Alcohol: Drink! (NOW, January 3-9).

Roberts is right to point out that Ontario politicians should think twice about allowing booze to be sold in convenience stores or supermarkets.

The LCBO does a very good job of selling liquor in this province, and because of its immense buying power, the prices of many products are very reasonable. And no matter where you are in Ontario, you can always get a decent bottle of wine.

Unfortunately, convenience stores can’t guarantee quality. We have all had experience with bad milk or products well passed their best-before date.

I say keep the LCBO in public hands. The revenues are very important. Get rid of the beer stores instead, which are private and foreign-controlled. They are dumps and long past their best-buy date.

Andrew van Velzen


Toronto


NOW welcomes reader mail. Address letters to: NOW, Letters to the Editor, 189 Church, Toronto, ON M5B 1Y7. Send e-mail to letters@nowtoronto.com and faxes to 416-364-1166. All correspondence must include your name, address and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length.

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