Montreal is not cheap

[Re. “Down with hipsters,” Letters, October 2]

[Re: “Mad Lieutenant,” Letters, Oct. 9] I’m going to leave aside the hipster discussion because it’s been done too much lately. My issue here is, dear Lieutenant Canada, the seven most terrible words that I have read from you: “As for McGill tuition, university is expensive...”

Okay. Let’s get facts right here. I remind you that the continent America is made of three parts, of which North America is the wealthiest. Compared to, say, Mexico, McGill’s tuition is a rip-off. Mexicans pay two pennies for a semester in one of the 100 best public universities in the world. So, if my calculations are right, YOU are wrong. Compared to anywhere else on the continent, McGill’s tuition IS NOT CHEAP.

I am not trying to start a debate here. I just want to tell not only you but other people who underestimate Montreal in so many ways that this city is expensive. Buying a box of cereal for more than $5 is ridiculous. Not for you, of course, because your minimum wage is $8 an hour, not $4 for an eight-hour day, as is the case in most Central and South American countries.

I love Montreal and Canada, but I think most people who talk shit about minimal situations in this country are just whiners. You really need a wider view of this world—appreciate what you have. Go spend a week with people who live under bridges in South America (who, by the way, probably don’t write poetry) and tell me how many times you got raped—I mean, if you are still alive.

>> Adriana C.

Down with Bobos

[Re: “Mad Lieutenant,” Letters, Oct. 9] Lieutenant Canada, I don’t know why you’re getting so upset at me for calling you out for what you clearly are. I have no issue with you “defending” your ’hood from some conservative asshole, but the way you went about it (i.e. kissing your own ass) didn’t make you or your kin sound any less pretentious/annoying than they already are.

I think you’re ignoring the larger context I was driving at, other than you being a douchebag: it doesn’t bother me that you appropriate countercultural “references” from ’70s punks, ’40s hepcats etc. It bothers me that you appropriate your entire image from past social/cultural movements that were actually sincere. Except in your case, you turn them into a consumer identity to be bought and sold with little impact on culture, politics or art.

So get real. If you want a better idea of the issue I’m getting at, check out the Adbusters article “Hipsters: The Dead End of Western Civilization.” Maybe if you understand that point of view better, you’ll see why you came off like another decadent/apathetic/pretentious trendy piece of shit.

Oh, and if you seriously drive a BMW (...), why are you speaking on behalf of hipsters? They would probably stick their noses up at your Bobo nonsense too.

>>Arthur-Anonymous

Latrines for all!

[Re: “Latrine lament,” Letters, October 9]

Manish Patwari is absolutely right. How ironic that in a modern metro system like Montreal’s, with countless people continuously on the go, there are no public washrooms when one really wants to “go.”

One of the reasons why the metro authorities are reluctant to install such facilities is based on the fact that Montreal is a very romantic city and that a certain segment of the population would be using the washrooms as a Lovers’ Lane, which is all right, but what about people like Patwari and many others who are less romantically inclined and all they want is to respond to an urgent call of nature?

Once, when I was visiting San Francisco, I was puzzled by the washroom signs in a downtown restaurant. Instead of the usual two restrooms, there were three. One sign read “Ladies,” another “Gentlemen,” and the third “Miscellaneous.”

“What’s with the three restrooms?” I asked the manager. “In Montreal, we often can’t find even one.” “This is San Francisco, sir,” he replied. “The ‘Ladies’ is for what ladies do, the ‘Gentlemen’ is what gentlemen do, and the ‘Miscellaneous’ is what the miscellaneous do. No one bothers anyone and we all live in peace.”

How about it, metro authorities? A good idea is a good idea, even if it originated in San Francisco.

>> Ed Binder

Circular reasoning

[Re: “Understanding He, She or It,” Letters, Oct. 2]

Arguing for the existence of God, L.S. Cattarini uses the biblical tale of Job as “evidence” that God is “both omnipotent and compassionate.” That is a classical definition of circular argument: Jesus-loves-me-this-I-know-because-the-Bible-tells-me-so.

Is this the best creationists can do?

>> John Dirlik

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