Whose victory?
You quote Moammar Gadhafi saying of his fate: “Dead, alive, victorious. It doesn’t matter” (With Gadhafi’s Death, Libyans Face An Unknown Rebirth – Oct. 20). It matters greatly to the people of Libya. The dictator is dead, but how much do Libya’s women really have to celebrate now before the spectre of an Islamist state?
Anna H. Gallagher, Saint John
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Irony or hypocrisy?
Ontario’s population exceeds 13 million – 38.3 per cent of Canada’s population. It has been underrepresented in Ottawa for decades, yet the Harper government is giving Alberta and Quebec seats that Ontario should have on the grounds that Alberta is growing fast, and Quebec is special (Alberta Gains In Newest Seat Redistribution Plan – Oct. 20). Remember Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s anti-Ontario rant not so long ago? When will Ontarians stop tolerating this?
Colette Wilson, Brantford, Ont.
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The Conservative government plans to give more seats to Alberta, which votes Conservative, based on population projections from Statistics Canada, whose ability to forecast such matters is compromised by the Conservatives’ killing of the long-form census. Irony or hypocrisy?
Glen Estill, Lion’s Head, Ont.
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One per cent
So, the financial experts want ordinary Greeks to pay – with their jobs, pensions and futures – so bondholders can keep getting interest payments (Greece Erupts As Leaders Of Euro Zone Fumble For Solutions – Oct. 20). Meanwhile, those same bondholders, a.k.a. banks that are too big too fail, insist on bigger and bigger risk premiums (higher interest rates) because of a possible default they expect the Germans and French to prevent with yet more loans that will be harder to pay off because Greece will have more unemployed and fewer taxpayers. It all sounds like the Top 1 per cent telling the Greeks to shut up and eat cake (or some other four-letter word).
Katrin Horowitz, Victoria
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Class dismissed
When learning becomes real and personally engaging, the lessons are never forgotten (MBA Class Gets A Lesson It Won’t Forget – Oct. 20).
In 1969, students in my Grade 13 English class were in a frenzy of gossip: a classmate’s mother had just committed suicide; this was after her husband’s slow death from cancer.
Our teacher walked in, book in hand but ignored, and made eye contact with each of us as she slowly, powerfully recited: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less; as well as if a promontory were; as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
Deep silence. “Class dismissed.” And she walked out.
There wasn’t a dry eye; few left, preferring to discuss what we had just witnessed. I’m certain I’m not the only one there who has loved poetry in the years since, who, in the darkest nights of our lives, were given hope by remembering the personal truth of the words spoken by that teacher during that eternal English class.
Claudette Claereboudt, Regina
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Walk the mile
Re Legalizing Drugs Isn’t The Answer (Oct. 20): Progress toward “the answer” comes when we understand people’s need to numb themselves to life. Why is direct experience of the normal (i.e. joy and pain) so difficult for so many? We do crazy things to experience pleasure and we run like hell from pain. And we use drugs for both. Compassion means that we empathize with (and not criminalize) this human struggle. Fully legalizing marijuana is the next step of many steps to join, arm and arm, with our fellows who hurt, and commit to walking the mile with them.
Brian Kirsh, MD, Toronto
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