Trump bashers can kiss my white ass
Thank god Donald Trump is the new president-elect of the United States (NOW, November 10-16). All your left-wing, thumb-sucking crybaby readers can kiss my white, male privileged ass. I’m sure U of T and many other universities will be holding Play-Doh sessions for all the social justice warriors. But your college professors can’t save you now. Keep crying racism. I’m sure someone will come change your diapers eventually.
Mitchell Chaitov, Toronto
Open racism won over issues in U.S. election
Gary Freeman writes a great article about the U.S. election results (NOW, November 10-16) and race relations in the United States. Many white Americans never accepted the presidency of an African American, exemplified by Donald Trump’s attack on Barack Obama’s citizenship. The facts were all but forgotten on issues from trade to immigration to the economic well-being of Americans.
This U.S. election has confirmed what I’ve always believed: people need to pass a test to get a ballot. The people are not always right.
Andrew van Velzen, Toronto
Social media the new opiate of the masses
In 1843, German economist and socialist icon Karl Marx opined, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” And 173 years later, social media is its high-tech inheritor. Like religion, its potential for incalculable damage threatens to outweigh its utility.
Like religion, it is a powerful force for demonization of “the other,” and like religion it has the ability to deceive and subvert as much as it does to inform and comfort. Those parallels were chillingly demonstrated in the U.S. election. Social media is eminently vulnerable to the incubation of shared delusions fashioned from smoke and mirrors, shadow conspiracies, things whispered and hastily disseminated yet unexamined.
Terry Gorman, Toronto
Will Clinton loss light a fire under U.S. left?
The bright side of the U.S. election is that warmongering friend of Wall Street Hillary Clinton is gone. Good riddance. Perhaps this will light a fire under the Democratic Party (though I’m not holding my breath) and next time they will nominate someone like Bernie Sanders, but ideally a woman. Or if Trump is bad enough, the American left may actually manage to create a new movement. One can always hope.
Brian Mossop, Toronto
Interracial love better served up front
Congratulations, NOW. You take one step forward by raising an important story on interracial relationships (NOW, November 10-16), but then take 10 paces back by placing your cover story toward the back of your magazine, after the entertainment section and just before the classifieds.
If you’re going to promote greater awareness and understanding, wouldn’t it be better served nearer the front?
Mark Rasmussen, Toronto
All for Toronto’s condo crusade
Arresting Development (NOW, November 3-9) features an amusing parody of the city’s development signage. However, the writer’s analysis of the downtown condo boom is totally off base. It has been city policy since the mid-1970s to encourage new high-rise residential development in the downtown core while stabilizing the adjacent low-rise neighbourhoods considered one of Toronto’s great assets.
Removal of density limits, when David Miller was mayor, further accelerated the implementation of that policy.
As the article points out, residential development is occurring at record rates, so there is no need to even think about redeveloping neighbourhoods like the Annex and Cabbagetown.
What we have going is a vital, booming city core with a mix of office, residential, cultural, shopping and recreational uses that is the envy of most other North American cities.
Howard Cohen, Toronto
High Park getting too high
I recently moved into High Park Village to be near my daughter and her family. The area looked perfect the buildings, though from an earlier era, were well spaced. Many families enjoyed the balance between nature and urban living. Then I found out that a huge project, Grenadier Square, had been approved for High Park and Quebec. This was okayed by the OMB in spite of total opposition by city councillors. Now we are faced with yet another project, this time by Minto, which proposes to put two huge high-rises between Pacific and Oakmount. Will we all go through the false exercise of “community consultation,” pay thousands in lawyers’ fees and use hours of city planners’ time only to be vetoed by a few who are unaccountable to the public? What kind of dictatorship is this?
Cathy Brown, Toronto
