Centropolis scorned

Why anyone would want to live at the corner of Peel and Ste-Catherine is one thing, but why they'd choose the Laval equivalent of said intersection is doubly baffling ["Centropolis found," Kristian Perspective," March 24].

Are francophone professionals really moving in droves to this place they call Centropolis, as Gravenor suggests? I realize he's being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but are there really many people who buy this as a better lifestyle?

When I read Gravenor's description, I could only picture the cheap, wannabe-futuristic apartment megacomplexes that wall the 401 in my native Toronto - one of the many things I don't miss about the place. If their tenants are lucky enough to face in a certain direction, they get a nice view of our national phallus: the CN Tower. Comparatively, it sounds like the more blessed Centropolis tenants will be getting a nice view of that spaceship complex nearby, which, were it not for the Big O, would be a shoo-in for national nutsack.

I've always thought Montreal had potential as an environmentally progressive city because of its long-established walking and public-transport culture, the beautiful park in the middle, the bicycle paths, the canal, the river, etc. That's why modern abominations like Centropolis worry the hell out of me. Dense living is sound, but if it spawns more cars pumping fumes on the road, more strip malls and more flat-out bad taste, it might be time to uproot this island and float it up the St. Lawrence, well out of eye sight from Laval.

» David McKenna

Love knows no gender

No doubt Kristian Gravenor intended to offend or provoke in his article entitled, "Missing Feminists" [Kristian Perspective, March 24].

I am a feminist. I coped with teenage angst 10 years ago by reading many well-known feminist writers, who, sadly, are grossly misrepresented by both the male and female population. What these feminists are driving at is that there are as many types of feminists as there are females.

Gravenor's source, Jeffrey Asher, seems to have some "living in bitterness" of his own that he needs to address. Extremism is not effective from either end of the gender-political issue. Think of the film Magnolia. You will recall that Tom Cruise's "Power of the Penis" anti-feminist rants gather many followers, but nothing productive emerges from the cause.

More positive approaches exist. Those familiar with Puppetry of the Penis, a wonderfully clever show erected for audiences to celebrate men and men's sexuality, will know that it was not an aggressive reaction to the equally worthy Vagina Monologues.

Speaking to Gravenor's idea that we've traded ideology for dumbness, I would argue that new feminism is a bit New Age, calling on women and men to celebrate themselves in more authentic, less superficial ways, gaining power without anger, and finding deep, spiritual love that is non-gender-specific - love that abolishes role-playing and stereotypical lifestyles.

» Jeanie Keogh

Retro-Christian Jews

The March 17 edition of the Mirror published letters by two different members of Jews for Jesus under the very appropriate banner of "Religious propaganda." These people are, of course, perfectly entitled to believe what they wish and to talk about it. I also have no trouble in understanding that they consider themselves culturally Jewish and thus wish to include Jewish customs in their life, while at the same time believing in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Why not?

The earliest followers of Jesus were virtually all Jews, as was Jesus himself. There are just two related things that are somewhat annoying about them as a group. One is that they are very actively seeking converts among Jews for Judaism, frequently in very aggressive and inappropriate ways. The other is that in order to avoid scaring off the prospects, they call themselves Jews for Jesus, or Messianic Jews, or similar titles. The one name they carefully avoid using is the one that most accurately describes what they are, Christians. There is no shame in that. Billions of people have no trouble admitting to it. Indeed, these Christians are probably more like the early believers than their Europeanized co-religionists.

» Ken Frankel

Dealing with drugs

Regarding the Cactus needle exchange's difficulties in finding a new locale ["Needling exchange," March 10]: people don't want landfills or junkies in their neighbourhoods, that's pretty much a given. But there will always be garbage and there will always be addiction. So, it would be more productive to stop stubbornly crying, "not in my backyard," and look at more progressive solutions. The heroin addicts downtown aren't simply going to pick up and leave, so as a start it wouldn't hurt to provide them with bigger, cleaner facilities in an area where they're already concentrated. There's plenty of evidence from around the world that programs that treat addiction in a clean and healthy way, rather than sweeping it off somewhere else then turning a blind eye, lower the spread of HIV and crime.

» Mike LeBlanc

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