Pot shot

This letter is regarding Dave Rosen's March 10 editorial cartoon, which can be summed up in one word: inexcusable. How dare he exploit the senseless tragedy that cost four RCMP officers their lives by suggesting that they would have been saved if marijuana were legal?

James Roszko was a convicted criminal who had a very long and bitter history with the RCMP and was well known in his area as a ticking time bomb. To send four rookie officers out to guard a crime scene on the property of a violent criminal with issues against the police was simply courting disaster. But, of course, if pot were available for purchase at any corner store, none of this would have happened, right?

Dead wrong. Those officers, in addition to guarding Roszko's pot-growing operation, were also guarding his stash of stolen auto parts. If Rosen had bothered to pay attention to current events, he would probably know that stolen auto parts are a huge commerce in this country. Why didn't he break out his crayons and draw up a cartoon suggesting that those four young men would still be alive if stolen car parts were on sale at every Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart in the country?

» Gerald DesChamps

Dave Rosen responds: I was going to follow up with the auto parts angle the week after. Okay, not to be flip about it, my excuse for how that cartoon turned out is pretty mundane: my long lead-time.

I draw my cartoon on Monday for publication in the Mirror on Thursday. Thus I have to base my take on the facts as they are reported at that time.

The available facts on the Roszko case as of Monday, March 7, were that the officers were killed in a raid on a marijuana grow op. There were no details about Roszko's background, other than he was "known to police." Had I known otherwise, I would have changed the toon or decided to go with something else altogether.

Feminism and balls

Just for the record and hopefully for the last time: most feminists do not hate men, as Kristian Gravenor suggests, we just aren't part of the patriarchy fan club ["Missing feminists," Kristian Perspective, March 17]. In fact, as a heterosexual, it would be difficult for me to hate men, and I try to stay away from the two most popular songs of het women everywhere: "All Men Are Dogs" and "I'll Never Find a Good Man."

No one likes criticism. Not men, not women and not feminists. There are almost as many kinds of feminisms out there as there are feminists, but the pro/anti debate is lame. Everyone faces difficulties in life. Feminism deals with the fact that women face obstacles that are specific to them as a result of living in a patriarchal society, just as elderly people inevitably struggle in an ageist society, etc.

» Brenda

So what happened to Kristian Gravenor's testicles? I noticed before that he writes as though he were walloped one too many times in the groin, but his column in last week's issue impelled me to question whether Gravenor really did lose his marbles.

Two weeks ago, Gravenor lugubriously confessed his impotence in getting Jaggi Singh, an activist hitherto unknown for his reticence when confronted with a mic or a megaphone, to talk to him ["Parallel universe streetfights," Kristian Perspective, March 10]. Then, in his "Missing feminists" column, an anguished Gravenor recounted how some women joked about castrating him at a party.

So did the "giggling girls" rob Gravenor of his bearings? He doesn't say, noting only that one of the women went on to work in CBC (she could probably interview Singh any time). However, Gravenor evidently consults an empty nut sack when he writes a column - last week he turned to the orchitic Jeffrey Asher, another deprived victim of "the feminists," for answers.

Asher taught at Dawson College until he was forced to leave - he didn't retire, as Gravenor claims - after years of complaints from students and faculty who were fed up with Asher's notorious sexism. More recently, Asher has wanked himself into a frenzy against women's equity legislation, "a logical" struggle according to Gravenor, who nevertheless fears that he won't get laid if he were to "begrudge" women their rights.

Asher, writes Gravenor, was turned off from feminists (who apparently are turned off by Gravenor) when he read a book that argued that consensual sex was rape. Gravenor mentions that as if to say we have a feminist to thank for Asher's gunk about an all-powerful "sisterhood" that's out to terrorize quivering white men and impose "lesbianism" on women and destroy the family.

Ah well, a turgid dick seldom rises above the navel. But wouldn't Gravenor feel bigger if he worked for the National Post? Kristian, they hate the CBC there, and you might stand a chance with Barbara Kay.

» Samer Elatrash

Kristian Gravenor responds: Asher retired from Dawson College May 2000 and currently receives a pension from the school. After his retirement he complained to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, saying he was forced out of his position because of his views on feminism. The Commission deemed that he was not forced out.

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