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Letters To The Editor News

Letters to the Editor

Humans not wising up to climate change

Re Naomi Klein’s Homo Sapiens Like You (NOW, June 19-25).

As one species with little regard for the other 10 million-plus that inhabit the earth, let alone our own, we are racing to “get it all” before it’s all gone.

Hominoids stopped being wise thousands of years ago when we started deforesting woodlands, damming and redirecting rivers, mining natural resources and overexploiting other species.

We are the only species capable of the stupidity of defecating in our water, poisoning our food, polluting our air, waging war on our own and changing our climate.

The human species is unlikely to meet its demise with climate change, but since mammalian species live an average of 2.5 million years before extinction, our time will come.

As geologist Nick Eyles puts it, humans are the earth’s “half-time entertainment.” In the time we have here, will we wise up?

Melanie Milanich


Toronto


TV on the Radio puts me on the fence

I was really excited to see TV on the Radio as part of Luminato. They’re a great band and haven’t been playing much lately. They were awesome live, but, man, it was so quiet.

Plus they only played for around an hour. It was 10:15 pm when the show wrapped up. Why so early? Why so quiet? It wasn’t worth the (almost) $40 for a ticket.

I could have just hung back by the fences and had the same experience.

Won’t be paying for any more Luminato events. That should have been a free show.

Graham Barrett


Toronto


Another Steven Davey flashback

Oh, no! I suspected Steven Davey in your tribute (NOW, June 19-25) was the same Steve Davey I used to know as a courier years ago.

But I wasn’t sure since his NOW headshots looked different from when I remembered him as a blond. But, yes, it’s the same guy.

I remember his telling me that he used to direct commercials and did the “Hey, kids, get out of the Jell-O tree” commercial in the 1970s. Don’t know if he was pulling my leg, but I always thought of him as the Jell-O tree guy.

He was also openly gay at a time when that could get you flak in some quarters of the courier community, but he didn’t care. He hung out with his courier boyfriend at Breadspreads, the hardcore courier bar with the unlikely name, and helped dispel homophobic attitudes among a very testosteroney community.

Andy Lehrer


Toronto


Careerists the trouble with the NDP

Clearly, letter-writer Kris Konrad is not familiar with the politics within the ONDP (NOW, June 19-25).

Labour is not at odds with the urban factions within the party. In fact, the ruling right-wing element within the party has distanced itself from organized labour in recent years, including its fight for the NDP to support the $14 minimum wage campaign.

Organized labour can strengthen our party by playing a larger role in developing socialist policy and supporting grassroots campaigns outside of election time. Unions fight for the interests of both the urban and rural working class, as opposed to the careerists at the helm of the NDP today.

Julius Arscott


NDP Socialist Caucus


Toronto


Too many idealists in Horwath’s party

There will always be cranks in the NDP criticizing the leadership of Andrea Horwath (NOW, June 19-25). There are too many idealists unwilling to get their hands dirty to improve the real state of affairs, content to armchair-quarterback while neo-cons slowly destroy civilization.

The truth is Ontarians were terrified of returning to Harris-Eaves- style politics. So Wynne shouldn’t get over-confident. Her majority was the result of terror tactics by the media and their opinion pollster attack dogs.

Roy Santin


Toronto


Get the money out of politics

Re How To Get Politicians To Behave Like Adults (NOW, June 12-18)

While I agree with letter-writer Steve Soloman that proportional representation is a better system, as I see it we desperately need to get money out of politics, because money buys influence (whether it’s openly acknowledged or not). It’s no secret that everything (from party policies to political agendas) is moving right-of-centre because that’s where the power base resides.

Hey, wouldn’t it be smarter for the conservative right to understand that facilitating societal agendas would directly benefit itself? That would require vision.

Jason Smith


Toronto


Ford is on Tim Hudak’s track to nowhere

Under stress, Tim Hudak reverted to a campaign platform that won Ontario PCs a majority government during the Mike Harris years. It didn’t work out for him. I see the same happening to Rob Ford’s mayoral campaign (NOW, June 12-19).

He is running on his record without realizing that his record includes world-class buffoonery, Hudakian arithmetic, bigotry and other behaviour guaranteed to offend almost everyone. I’m on a roll, so I’m going to shoot for the big one. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was very successful against three Liberal party leaders by repeatedly attacking their character. He finds it impossible to change gears with Justin Trudeau even though his attacks have increased Trudeau’s appeal to Canadians.

Perhaps Harper, Hudak and Ford would do better to heed Bob Dylan’s advice in Love Minus Zero: “… There’s no success like failure / And that failure’s no success at all.”

Moses Shuldiner


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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