Mirror is the insect

[Re: “Maclean’s” Insect, Nov. 5] No, Mirror, you are the insect. You and people with your “don’t criticize my city” attitude.

Montreal has been in trouble for a while. The Hells Angels control our drugs and prostitutes. The Mafia controls construction and city hall. What this means is that us Montrealers are left with shit weed and bridges and buildings that are literally falling down and crushing us. What Maclean’s said in its article was nothing new; the local media—along with international media—has been reporting on it for the past couple of months. And yet suddenly, when Maclean’s mentions it, Maclean’s is the bad guy?

We are the bad guys: too busy sucking ourselves off to acknowledge the serious problems we have in this city. The municipal dick may be big and thick and God knows how much we love it, but the body attached to it has got a bad case urban syphilis. And now, we are in desperate need of a shot of penicillin.

But heck, we can’t even be bothered to vote.

>>Luc Duplessis

[Re: “Maclean’s” Insect, Nov. 5] Bravo Montrealers! Even with a cover story in Maclean’s and media coverage throughout the province about just how bad things are in our city, we manage to re-elect a mayor who’s been accused of corruption.

That is, of course, if he was actually re-elected and the whole thing wasn’t rigged, which at this point seems entirely plausible.

Sure, Montreal isn’t the only city in the world with these kinds of problems but this is the city I live in and it’s maddening that we can so easily ignore such outrageous claims.

Come on Montreal, wake up and smell the corruption. Or at least feel it—those potholes won’t get fixed anytime soon.

>>Marc Dillon

Habs suck even less ass

[Re: “Canadiens not sucking so much ass,” Letters, Oct. 29] Kenneth Sloan was right in pointing out my “national” team error. I was complaining about the fact that Quebec has only one team that we can root for when the Canadiens are sucking—but guess what? Sloan was right! The Canadiens are sucking considerably less ass than before, which means we might have a hope in hell of making it to the semi-finals.

Here’s hoping the Canadiens will continue their run of not being terrible! Winter is depressing enough around here. Go-Habs-Go!

>>David Miles

Less parks, more condos!

[Re: “Alley fights,” Front, News, Nov. 5] I racked my brain trying to visualize Parc Oxygène on Hutchinson, but came up with nada, so decided to take a trip there myself. (I live in the hood.) The “park” is an effing alley! A neglected little part of the city that you see everywhere in Montreal. It’s mind-blowing to me that anyone could even turn it into a condo. And you know what? Who cares? Who cares if they turn it into a condo? Montreal is so anti-development it makes me crazy! Maybe if there were some nice, newer places to live in—especially in the McGill Ghetto—students wouldn’t be forced to live in that shitty ex-hotel the school has the balls to call a residence.

There are tons of kids whose parents would be way more inclined to buy them a new, safe condo close to the school than putting money into some “cool” over-priced decrepit, townhouse.

Montreal needs to stop worrying so much about condos and face facts: the park is a fucking alley!

>>Casey

Metro station too hot

Why do the public transit authorities choose to overheat Guy Concordia metro station and a couple of other stations but under-heat several other ones? Going into Guy Concordia metro often feels like walking into a sauna. To make matters worse, this busy station also has lousy air circulation. Sometimes smack dab in the middle of winter, my clothes become very sweat-drenched when I walk into the station. It is as though I had just finished running a marathon under the scorching sun.

Hot air? Some metro stations are full of it.

>>Manish Patwari

Stoner blames Dvorak!

[Re: “No stoner jokes, please,” Letters, Nov. 5] It was a brain fart or a typo—I use the Dvorak keyboard layout and b is next to m. Fact check result: I should have written “Because it is nature’s botanical crowning achievement after 3.5 billion years of R&D...” not 3.5 million.

I apologize for the error. Cannabis has been on Earth for about 120,000 years, incidentally.

>>Bruce Codere

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