Planetarium redo shoots for the stars
I read your article Back To The Stars (NOW, November 15-21) with great interest. I was a member of the team that worked on the design of the McLaughlin Planetarium in the early 1960s.
People found the movement of the stars across the sky very exciting, especially that of the winter star Sirius that helped Egyptians calculate the number of days in a year some 6,000 years ago.
Attendance at the planetarium dropped over the years and government funding dried up.
But why not consider restoring and upgrading the existing building, a perfect dome, to meet the needs and challenges of U of T instead of building a new “world-class” whatever at a cost of 100 times the existing theatre?
Rudolf Manook, Toronto
Twenty-six too many Rocky sequels
Regarding Norm Wilner’s review of Creed II (NOW, November 22-28). Rocky was a great movie but I’m not impressed with some of the sequels. However, I am eagerly awaiting Rocky 27. That is where Rocky fights his addiction to chocolate.
Randall Jeffrey Pancer, Toronto
Shouldn’t critics be more critical?
Out of the 42 films you rated in your most recent issue (NOW, November 22-28) 22 were marked “Critics’ Pick.” That’s just over one out of every two. Shouldn’t critics be a bit more critical?
V. McCrady, Toronto
Ford Nation shedding tears in buck-a-beer
Re Are We Missing Wynne Yet? (NOW, November 22-28). I have absolutely no pity for those who regret voting in the Ford Nation Tories. They bared their agenda pretty much on what they would do if elected, so obviously voters weren’t paying much attention.
Now that the PCs have gutted local democracies, frozen the minimum wage increase, alienated Franco-Ontarians and enmeshed themselves in a number of scandals in their first six months, voters are shedding tears in their (buck-a-)beers on how good they had it before?
As the late, great comedian David Broadfoot once said: “No matter what, people are going to get what’s coming to them, especially when it’s coming on a shovel.”
Julian Bynoe, Toronto
A side of Wynne rarely seen by the media
I truly enjoyed your article and the accompanying photo on Kathleen Wynne. I believe that part of the reason for her defeat was the fact that every time her name was mentioned in media, the words “unpopular” or disliked” were mentioned with it. Rarely written about were the improvements she made repairing Harris’s damage to the education system and labour laws.
Shirley Bush, Toronto
Beware Doug Ford’s no-class act
With a vengeful right-winger like Doug Ford running amok on any progressive public policy that happens into his sight, it’s got to be of serious concern for all left-of-centre-minded people, whether NDP, Liberal or Green.
And just in time for the holiday season, what’s our grinch of a premier’s latest mean-spirited caper? Why, it’s none other than making off with Ontario Place, the people’s cherished recreational jewel on the lake.
The Grinch famously had a heart “two sizes too small,” whereas it seems Ford has one that runs at least two degrees too cold.
Our premier would probably never dream of selling off his own lakefront cottage property. But with visions of casinos and condos dancing in his head, the “for-the-people” fraudster would grab and flip Ontario Place, and do it in record time.
Beware when a no-class act gets his hands on your prime land and tells you not to worry, something world-class will get built.
Robert McBride, Thornhill
Sock it to homeless shelters
Homeless shelters need donations of warm socks for the winter in Toronto (NOW Online, November 20). And restaurants are offering a glass of bubbly in return for donations.
There are approximately three million residents in the GTA. Surely the corporate sector, schools and ordinary citizens in this wealthy city can help by buying new socks for people who are struggling on the street! I am donating new socks this week.
Diane Zeavin, Toronto
