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Letters to the Editor

Taking the Pulse

Just wanted to say that I enjoyed Jordan Bimm’s Pulse column (NOW, August 21-27). The diversity of events that he attended really shows, especially his take on the MC Buck Starball show. Keep up the interesting reporting!

Jeremy McCormick

Toronto

Grudge match

Nathan Hammill, you’re holding a grudge about being tossed out of the Molson Amphitheatre (NOW, August 21-27)? Let’s see now, the first incident was because you bought alcohol for someone who didn’t have ID. Ohh, and also for lighting up a joint.

Have a look at the decision summary at agco.on.ca to see how many bars in Ontario have been shut down because of those two acts. You’re bitching about the laws that bars have to follow? Damn right, I’d toss your ass out in a heartbeat!

Dave Gowin

Toronto

Tapped on bottled water

Week after week I’ve read letter after letter from uninformed office drones (NOW, August 21-27) about banning bottled water. Fine if you’re 30 feet from a water tap.

I work setting up concerts and festivals, all of them promoted by this magazine.

How do you expect 50 guys to set up a concert at, say, Downsview or Yonge-Dundas Square? What about high-rise ironworkers? Landscapers?

Phil Thain

Toronto

Lahore needs greening up

While NOW and I love the great Pakistani food at Lahore Tikka House in Little India (NOW, August 21-27), it continues to exclusively use styrofoam plates and cups and plastic cutlery for dining in. Please consider adding a note to its regular 3-N Recently Reviewed write-up to shame the owners into greening up.

Mark Overton

Toronto

Creepy diatribe

Regarding Olympic hero worship (NOW, August 14-20). So you’re a talented athlete putting in long hours every day, pushing yourself to your limits, with a dream of being in the Olympics. Beware. Letter-writer Andrew van Velzen is watching you from his couch, and he knows you’re “primarily interested in fame and money.”

We all know that the Olympics is a huge money-making machine and an opportunity for national governments to bask in the reflected glory of their athletic stars. It’s also an inspiring and entertaining spectacle for millions of viewers.

For that matter, so are rock concerts. Does van Velzen think a “creepy cult” surrounds Coldplay?

I agree that people who volunteer their time for good causes are everyday heroes and should be recognized. I’ll bet they’re also too busy helping others to be writing jealous diatribes disguised as social commentary.

John Kneeland

Burlington

Get-rich Olympics

In A burning need to talk (NOW, August 14-20), Michael Hollett celebrates the new Olympic architecture, infrastructure, highways and municipal buildings constructed recently by the Chinese government.

Communist China is, in reality, a fascist, totalitarian state that has nationalized all the major industries and farmed out the rest to government appointees who make all the profits.

The motivating force of all this building is not to improve the lives of the Chinese people, most of whom remain impoverished rural peasants, but to get rich.

Louis Solnicki

Toronto

China’s false promise

When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded China the Games, one of the assurances China made to the world was to provide overseas journalists their legitimate rights to cover stories.

Despite China’s assurances, the human rights situation in Tibet is deteriorating, and websites of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Tibet Campaign, Amnesty International and others critical of the Chinese government are constantly being blocked. Duping the world with false promises, eh?

Tsering Dhondup

Toronto

Question of courage

While I applaud the courage of young people leaving the U.S. military and coming to Canada seeking refuge (NOW, August 14-20), it is wholly inappropriate to welcome them under the facile nationalism of “Canada: A Friend to American War Resisters for Almost 300 Years.” Who writes this stuff, the Committee of Canadian Mythmaking?

Under the reign of the inexplicably described “peacenik prime minister” Pierre Trudeau, U.S. “draft dodgers” and deserters were regularly targeted by the RCMP and sometimes physically returned to the U.S.

Most recently, Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women’s peace group Code Pink, were told they could not come to Canada, largely because of their non-violent acts of war resistance.

Let’s not forget the reality of the country that American war resisters are coming to: Canadian-made Stryker armoured vehicles are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Matthew Behrens

Food Not Bombs

Toronto

Comrade’s hopping

Your beer issue (NOW, August 7-13) left out the Comrade (758 Queen East, 416-778-9449). The only place in Toronto I have found outside of Deutschland that carries Belgian beauties like Piraat. Plus they have a cheese platter to match your beer! Finally, a reason to go east.

Andra Hayward

Toronto

Damn A/C

Thankfully, people are starting to point out the incredible waste and irritation that is air conditioning (NOW, August 14-20). Indoor environments now have to be avoided because they’re so damn cold.

Erin McMurtry

Toronto

Fast and Loose Moose

Is NOW magazine too cool to say no to sexist advertising? Thanks for letting the Loose Moose market its chicken dinner with an ass-down naked image of a woman with the words “Have a craving for supple breasts? tender thighs? luscious legs?” (NOW, July 25-31).

If this is not sexist, I’d like to know why. If this is, I’d like to know why you want this kind of marketing in your progressive political weekly.

Would you accept the same type of commodification/objectification using bodies of children, people of colour, people with physical or intellectual disabilities, religious minorities, poor people?

You get the picture, I’m sure. NOW does have a political analysis when it comes to culture and identity. Does advertising not matter enough, or too much, for some consistency?

Paul Baines

Toronto

NOW | August 27-September 3, 2008 | VOL 27 NO 52