Heartbreak
Didn't she almost have it all (Whitney Houston, Pop Superstar, Dies In Beverly Hills Hotel – online, Feb. 12)? If only she'd learned to love herself – as she implored us to do in The Greatest Love of All. Instead, she spent years struggling with colossal demons and self-destructing. While she inspired us to pursue our dreams in One Moment in Time, she squandered her gifts and ruined her dreamy voice.
Let's hope she's answered a question she posed long ago: Where Do Broken Hearts Go? RIP.
Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins, Montreal
Heartstrings
Imagine a world full of people with the romantic sensibilities of Margaret Wente (Why Romantic Love Is Overrated – Feb. 11). In her world, we'd be left to write poems and songs of meaningless encounters that lead to boring lives lived. Come on, dearheart, believe in magic. Just a little bit.
Luther Wright, Kingston, Ont.
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When I was a teenager, I took out a young woman. On our first date, I proposed. She laughed and said, "Wait a minute." Two years later, we married. Now some 45 years later, she pours my coffee in the morning (the coffee maker is on her side of the table) and I get the cereal from the cupboard (my side of the table). Then we grab for The Globe.
The one who saw Margaret Wente's column first says: "You won't believe what she wrote!" The other says, "You've got to be kidding." Then our eyes lock in recognition that, no matter what else is going on in the world, we still love each other, and that Ms. Wente doesn't know what she's talking about.
Eric Mendelsohn, Toronto
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Thank you, Margaret Wente. After several absolutely dysfunctional relationships with young men I'd fallen hard and fast for, I decided to look for a friend instead of a Romeo. That friend became my husband. Over the years, he sometimes worried that ours wasn't a real love because there'd been no love at first sight.
But now, 25 years and three kids later, our "unromantic" love clearly has staying power.
Michelle Adelman, Toronto
Heartburn
It's no wonder, judging by the list of supposedly erotic books chosen by your selected club of "celebrities," that Canadians are among the unsexiest people on the planet (Hot Type – Books, Feb. 11). Anyone who's taken Erotica 101 would have named at least one of the following books: The Decameron, Thérèse Philosophe, The Lifted Curtain, Memoirs of a Venetian Courtesan, Teleny, The Romance of Lust, My Secret Life, Mémoires d'une puce, Story of O, My Secret Garden etc.
The naming of Philip Roth's American Pastoral, Marguerite Dumas's The Malady of Death and Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion clearly shows the state of affairs in our bedrooms: boring and unimaginative.
Lee L'Clerc, Toronto
Torturous logic
Canada will neither condone nor engage in torture, according to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Torture, Rights – letter, Feb 11). But information gained by torture is okay for use "in an operational context," although not in a Canadian court. It seems Mr. Toews both condones and engages in tortured logic.
Ken DeLuca, Arnprior, Ont.
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It's an understatement to say that the juxtaposition of your editorial Moral Leadership On The World Stage (Feb. 11) next to Vic Toews's letter justifying the fruits of torture is ironic.
Patricia Edwards, Toronto
Rural intersections
Re 'Crash Did Not Have To Happen … Lives Did Not Need To Be Lost' (Feb. 9): I recently took a two-week trip by car through England and Scotland. The only stop sign I saw was on a bridge in Scotland. Intersections were all furnished with roundabouts. I don't know how this translates into accident statistics, but isn't it worth looking into?
David McCray, Walkerton, Ont.
The Celil case
Your article on the tribulations of Husseyin Celil in a Chinese prison (Celil Case Full Of Missteps, Government Records Reveal – Feb. 11) shows once again the dangers that Canadians with dual citizenship face when travelling outside of the country. Unfortunately, you err when you say Beijing is flouting "international law" in its refusal to recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship.
Beijing is doing no such thing. The only piece of international law, a still-valid 1930 League of Nations treaty, calls for persons to have "one nationality only" and prohibits a country from coming to the assistance of a citizen when in a second state of citizenship. Canada was a signatory to this treaty but denounced it in 1996, reflecting recognition of dual citizenship in the 1976 changes to the Citizenship Act.
In 1997, just before the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, Canada and China negotiated a treaty that improved consular protection for Canadians in China and sought to provide protection for dual-citizen Canadians. The treaty contained one key exception: The new rules only applied to persons who entered China using their Canadian passport. There's no evidence Mr. Celil entered China using a Canadian passport when he was extradited to China from Uzbekistan. In Chinese eyes, he's exclusively a citizen of China.
The only hope for Mr. Celil is Beijing will quietly allow him to be reunited with his family in Canada. But, as with most things in dealing with China, patience and quietude will succeed more often than loud noises.
Gar Pardy, ex-diplomat, Ottawa
Cheer, not jeer
Re The World's Losing Its Workers – How Will We Compete? (Feb. 11): Compete with whom exactly? If our world has fewer workers, must we now fear falling behind the economy of Mars or some other planet?
"Peak people" will have some clear environmental benefits, and the lesser supply of cheap labour should benefit most working people, who will be in a stronger position to demand a fair share of the pie that's currently being consumed disproportionately by economic elites.
On the whole, it sounds like a very welcome development.
Anders Hayden, assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University
Red hot, indeed
Interesting front page on Saturday: On the left side, you bemoan the "alarming" number of working poor in the Greater Toronto Area; on the right side, you suggest a $1,300 purse as the perfect gift for your Valentine.
Charles Taylor, Uxbridge, Ont.
Just asking
Did Bay Street titan Tony Fell put his black dress shoe in his mouth when he said stockbroker Murray Pollitt (Obituaries, Feb. 11) "was difficult to work with because he had uncompromising integrity and ethical standards"?
Michael FitzGerald, Toronto