Enough rope

[Re: “Legend calling,” Feb. 14] I’m definitely not going to cast any aspersions on Joe Strummer’s character, in fact, I find his commitment to a “humanist message” deserves to be revered and emulated, but let’s be real about the article’s pussy-footing around the issue of his “semi-manufactured beginnings.”

I’ll let Jim Goad’s words from his article, “Silver Spoons and Rotten teeth” speak for me on this issue: “Wealth doesn’t bother me. Neither does celebrity. And I don’t think it’s wrong for rich people to feel BAD about the poor. But it bothers the FUCK out of me when they PRETEND they’re poor. And I’m irked that Joe Strummer, who SEEMED so authentic, was just another in a long tradition of rich white kids pretending they’re oppressed... and getting away with it.”

No one can challenge the “excitement of the early English punk movement,” but the fakery left wounds that still smell foul.

>> David Paluch

No heart for Hitler

[Re: “I “heart” Hitler,” Motion Picture Purgatory, Feb. 14] The Danish publication of cartoons offensive to Muslims sparked off riots around the world. At the very least, Jews and others who understand the violence and degradation of the Nazi final solution, will find the latest Motion Picture Purgatory review of Love Camp 7 deeply offensive.

In this cartoon, Jewish women are depicted as sex slaves being tortured by Nazis. Rick Trembles comments that the movie he depicts was devoid of any eroticism, and that Jews themselves were involved in the making of the film.

These facts are relevant only if they inspire further dialogue about the nature of oppression, violence, and how people of a given culture cooperate in their own oppression. But this cartoon does none of those things, and simply shows a horrible thing, and attempts to make us entertained.

A further investigation shows that your magazine is dominated by male columnists, and regularly participates in the degradation of both men and women, via the back page ads, and also the promotion of alcohol and drug consumption, responsible for a host of social problems that your magazine only sparingly addresses.

This is further proof that people are inadequately educated, because if thinking were to exist at a higher level, much of what you promote would cease to be so popular. In a world so filled with violence and inequity, it is facile and callous to advocate decadence to the extreme that appears in the Mirror on a weekly basis.

People who are trying to raise children in this obscene world deserve better. Obviously, your editors and publisher devote little thought to this question.

>> J.M. Wolowitz

No pro-Israel
bias in media

[Re: “Letters play an important role” Letters, Feb. 07] Mira Khazzam seems to be another shill for the Muslim-run Mirror. Any educated person can see through the charade of her biased post. The Palestinians have been given short shrift by mainstream media? Nothing could be further from the truth!

I guess she hasn’t read a French newspaper in Quebec where 99 per cent of all articles and editorials have been Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel and anti-Zionist over the past 30 years. Not to mention Reuters, the BBC, the Guardian, The Independent, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post... the entire list would fill this page.

So the opposite is true, the Israelis are the ones who have been vilified by the MSM. Time after time. It seems Mira’s entire comment was composed to fit in two words: “ethnic cleansing.”

Good job Mira, smooth, real smooth, the makers of KY Jelly would be proud of that stealthy entry. Real smooth, but totally inaccurate.

Mira Khazzam, if that’s her real name, might want to take a look at the 800+ murders in Kenya over the past two months alone, along with tens of thousands left homeless and displaced; the ongoing cold-blooded murders and beheadings of Christians and Africans by Arabs in Sudan.

The murder of innocent Buddhist monks and Christians in Thailand by Muslims. The list goes on and on... but only Israel gets labelled with “ethnic cleansing” and the “apartheid wall” buzzwords. Yes, it’s chic and cool to piss on Israel today.

I guess the wall between Eygpt and Gaza isn’t an Apartheid Wall, right? And the 768 rockets that have fallen on Sedrot over the past few months don’t mean a thing.

After all, what’s another dead Jew, right?

>> Bossman

Pit bull not a sexual object

[Re: “Pit bull pal,” Feb. 14] In last week’s people column writer Chris Barry asked Franc Desmond, the founder of the Pitbull Club, “If one were looking to have sex with a canine, or film one’s girlfriend engaged in the activity, would a pit bull make for a good partner or would it be wiser to stick with tradition and go with a German Shepherd?” Have sex with a dog? Yep, goes a long way to “help” the stereotyping of these poor animals and their owners.

>> B.Noakes, Mississauga ON.

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