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The FIFA mess
From being "the president of everybody" on Friday to the president of nobody on Tuesday is quite the upset – even by FIFA's standards (FIFA President Sepp Blatter Resigns – online, June 2).
Any bets on who the next red card goes to?
Helen Michaels, Calgary
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The FIFA mess merely adds to the cynicism with which we, the lumpen proletariat, regard all of those in high places.
Richard Seymour, Brechin, Ont.
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Residential pain
The historical quote referenced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his 2008 apology on residential schools was "to kill the Indian in the child."
Fortunately, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings have revealed the true nature of the schools, where native children were psychologically traumatized by attacks on their very being, traditions and spirituality, as well as subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
As a survivor of one of these schools, I can only say: If only it were as simple as visualized by Brian Purdy in his letter, Cultural Genocide (June 1).
But then, we weren't the immigrants, the settlers were.
Elizabeth Lightning, Edmonton
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Reasonable, how?
Re We Need Skilled Footwork Around Religious Freedom, Gender Equity (June 2): Sheema Khan writes: "This observance [not being able to play sports when girls are on the opposing team] is not out of disdain, but out of modesty and respect."
How is it reasonable to perceive a bit of male/female contact in the hurly-burly of a high school soccer match as immodest or disrespectful? Wouldn't playing soccer with the girls, while ignoring the fact they are female, be more modest and more respectful?
Are the young Muslim male students barred from riding the subway at rush hour if they are unable to exercise this kind of modest mental self-control? Barred from attending busy sports events with crowds? Crowded public hearings at city hall? Packed Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa?
And if the risks of inadvertently coming into physical contact with women are too great in these other cases, how can they participate in the Canadian civil society we hold dear? If not, why are soccer games different? Where does the reasonable compromise lie?
Beatrice van Dijk, Toronto
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Preferred? Check
A preferential ballot would be preferable to our current system of plurality voting, but your claim that it would reduce the advantage of name recognition seems doubtful (Voter Feedback – editorial, June 2).
A better reason to support it is that preferential voting would never select as the winner of an election the candidate least preferred by most of the voters, which plurality voting sometimes does. It happens when a majority of voters prefer either of two candidates to a third, but split their vote between the two, allowing the third to collect a plurality of votes. So a majority of voters may discover that as a result of voting for their most-preferred candidates, they have inadvertently contributed to the election of their least-preferred candidate.
A system of preferential voting would forestall this result.
Bernard Katz, Toronto
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On her watch
Re Don't Mess With Jenni Byrne (Focus, May 30): That a nursing school dropout, who is indifferent to policy and has a disdain for debate, dictates the machinations of the Harper government might well explain its approach to both the scientists in its employ and almost anything scientific in nature (e.g. the climate, the environment, the census).
Elizabeth Clarke, Pugwash, N.S.
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The stuff of fiction
Margaret Wente takes aim at the same old fish in the same old barrel (Adventures In Academia: The Stuff Of Fiction – June 2). Every year, pundits cherry-pick a few papers or presentations from the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that appear, by virtue of their titles alone, to be goofy. It's an easy game to play.
Ms. Wente suggests that Canadian academic all-star Northrop Frye would be aghast at what's going on in literary study these days. I doubt it. Prof. Frye had a sense of humour.
English literature programs in high schools and universities continue to teach the works of Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Austen, Dickinson, James, Joyce, Beckett etc., but they look at other cultural artifacts as well.
Perhaps pop culture plays a different role in the academy than was once the case, but Andy Warhol's soup cans – to name a shopworn example – have been around since 1962. The literary canon is just fine.
Dale Churchward, Toronto
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As a semi-jaded, semi-academic myself, I share Margaret Wente's despair about the humanities. But for different reasons. Gender and race-based obsession in middle-class society – and by extension university – is absurd to most reasonable people I know, academic and student alike.
But to dismiss indigenous hip hop would be the equivalent of denying the likes of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, influenced by the improvisational expression of real American culture called the blues and jazz, their place in the big conversation. We have to pick our battles and it's not always easy. But nuance never gets old.
Anne Moriarty, English Department, Langara College; Vancouver
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Up with Uber
After using Uber in London and Paris, I'm a big fan (L.A. By Uber – Life & Arts, June 2). The app means you know the who, what, when and how much about your ride. If we still had gas lighting in Canada, the anti-progress lobby would be protesting the evils of the electric light.
Claude Daley, St. John's
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Mr. MacKay's exit
Regarding your May 30 headline, MacKay Steps Down From Federal Politics: "Down"?
John Lazarus, Kingston
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David Orchard and Peter MacKay signed a deal that would send Mr. Orchard's delegates to Mr. MacKay, providing Mr. MacKay agreed not to merge the Progressive Conservatives with the Canadian Alliance. The rest is history.
Regardless of his commitment, Mr. MacKay merged the parties, thereby invalidating his own signature and proving he is untrustworthy. Good riddance to him.
Mary Garner, White Rock, B.C.
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Peter MacKay is resigning for personal reasons, with one young child and another on the way. I guess this will bring a new definition to "helicopter" parenting.
Ted Dodd, Winnipeg