Stop whining about the unemployed

Instead of giving the unemployed tools, resources and encouragement (for once!) to get on with life and the job hunt, you helped put them down ["We give up," Dec. 11]. I'm sure the employers out there who still insist on credentials are smarting at the corners of their eyes over your scathing report. What a big favour, Mirror!

Yeah, there are problems with unemployment, but nothing that individual determination, patience and a good attitude can't overcome. Unemployment is a dynamic statistic! Whining, quitting and relying on welfare are not options, not if you want to succeed.

Maybe if Canadians stopped relying on the (overblown, wasteful, corrupt) government and started contributing more to their communities (and stopped looking gift-horses in the mouth), we'd all feel a little less alienated and cynical and a little more positive, inclusive and effective. This country would be so much better and cooler if everyone, from the shareholder, bank executive, politician, editor, storekeeper, to administrative assistant to the job seeker would say, "the buck stops here."

Jane Sorensen

A Hong Kong Christmas

I'm sitting here in Hong Kong, listening to Crosby's "White Christmas," trying unsuccessfully to awaken the spirit of Noël past while I glance at the midget palm trees on my terrace. I really need help here and I turn to you guys. I surf the Web to Montreal, hoping to find images of snow covered Shed Cafés, of frost-bitten politicians and what do I find? A picture of an oriental beauty (I don't care if you tell me her name is Rita Tremblay) applying purple lipstick! Thanks, dear editors, you made my day. I can go back to trying to figure out where I'll be able to find a kosher turkey in Hong Kong.

Guy Nolin

Do cops hate anglos?

I was at the Verdun city hall Dec. 11 for the council meeting and to wait the arrival of Raymond Villeneuve, who did not show. Too bad. I'm a member of the Verdun/Nun's Island Citizens for Canadian Unity. Verdun's finest were out in force. Due no doubt to public pressure considering their lack of action the last council meeting.

A recent article in the Mirror was headlined "Cops keep tabs on their adversaries" [Dec. 11]. After being seated beside them and listening to their conversation I can only ask: who do they consider to be their adversaries? Villeneuve? Or "les maudits partitionistes anglais" they kept referring to? Which leads to the question: are there no English cops in Montreal anymore? Does the ad in the newspaper that says "Montreal You Are My City" include me?

Or is it possible that we are among the "activists they like the least" because we are seen by them to be les autres. Or am I just being critical?

John C. Underwood

Don't light up with radon in the room

The tobacco legislation which will hopefully soon be tabled in the National Assembly is a public health measure long overdue in this province. Its purpose is to put in place those means which have been effective in protecting the health of the majority of the adult population who chooses not to smoke, as well as that of children who have no choice regarding their passive exposure to this known carcinogen.

As an epidemiologist, I deal every day with data evidencing the risks associated with tobacco smoke. A little known but important impact of tobacco smoke is its magnification of cancer risks from other sources. This magnification, or "synergy," implies that the risks of developing cancer as a result of exposure to two agents is greater than the sum of the two separate risks. As examples, synergistic effects exist between tobacco smoke and alcohol in causing throat cancer, and between tobacco smoke and ionizing radiation in causing lung cancer.

In regard to ionizing radiation, the greatest source of population exposure is from radon gas, a naturally occurring contaminant of indoor air. Some regions of Quebec show relatively high levels of indoor contamination by this odourless, colourless, lung carcinogen. Although the relative risk associated with radon by itself is small, when multiplied by the large relative risk from tobacco smoking (up to 35 times that in a nonsmoker), the combined risk is magnified. Lighting up a cigarette in Quebec may therefore carry even higher lung cancer risks than in areas with lower levels of radon, and not only for the smoker, but for those passive victims who share the smoker's indoor environment.

Vanessa S. Catalan