About last week...

Like most Montrealers, the Mirror too was a victim of the ice storm. When our Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu printing plant lost power right in the middle of the Mirror's print run, the printing of last week's issue had to be moved to a press in Quebec City. By the time the bundles were ready to return to Montreal, it became impossible to drive back into town because the bridges were closed.

On Saturday, our distribution routes were altered to stay away from parts of the city that were impossible to access and we decided to distribute some of our issues directly to shelters.

As for this week, rest assured that we are doing our best to have the papers out on the streets on time.

-Catherine Salisbury, Publisher

Stop discrimination against bugs

Concerning your weekly "Angels and Insects" column, I would like to point out that life as we know it would not exist if insects were not around to pollinate much of the plant world. A great deal of agriculture is dependent on honey bee pollination. Insects are an integral part of the life of the planet. The gigantic use of insecticides, documented in Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, is harmful to all species, humans included. To put insects forward as undesirable beings is not a good "mirror" of reality. Insects are frequently angels!

Ironically, you use the term "chickenshit ass" in your Nov. 13 Insect blurb ["Barney the litigious purple dinosaur"]. Chickens are birds raised for the slaughter under horrendous factory farm conditions. Most male chicks are killed soon after birth.

-Shloime Perel

Blame the system

I am replying to a letter by Jane Sorensen ["Stop whining about the unemployed," (e)Mail, Dec. 25] which referred to your Dec. 11 cover story ["Oh, screw the job market"]. It is as stereotypical and infuriating as it can get to put the onus back on the job seeker. A statement like Ms. Sorensen's "unemployment is a dynamic statistic" merely states the obvious: we all know that the numbers change. They hardly change, however, because a few determined job hunters stop whining and push successfully ahead.

No individual can exert control over an all-powerful economic system and situation which is custom-designed to siphon money out of poor pockets and into rich pockets. Capital (money) that does not yield its owner the desired profit (interest) does not get invested (strikes)--hence the continuous economic fluctuations which give us, among other gifts, bankruptcies and rising public debts (ever wonder who the debtors are?) and, if we are very unlucky, the occasional Black Friday or Black Monday, plus depression.

That is the deplorable background to unemployment, which will not yield to individual concerted efforts unless these are directed against the exploitative system itself. This system is man-made and can be unmade--obviously not by whining but through properly directed energy. Let's kick the system and not the unemployed!

-Gisela Nolting

Measure this!

An open letter to the Office de la langue française

Dear Office,

I have a confession to make. One night, after a few drinks in a bar on Ontario, I dropped into one of the tattoo parlours located there. I had passed it by many times already, in daytime strolls from my job as a civil servant employed in the city's east end. On these excursions, I had toyed with the idea of a tattoo but judged (and rightly so, I believe) that it would not be well received by my "patron." So it was in a spirit of juvenile defiance that I stumbled drunkenly, that night, into a chair and demanded a coy inscription in one place where my employer would surely never witness it. I am referring, of course, to my honourable member. I will not reveal the nature of the inscription, since the person to whom it is addressed feels somewhat proprietorial in this regard. However, I will say that it was inscribed in both official languages.

My problem arose (and that is precisely the right word) when I noticed that, in its moments of "plein épanouissement," my member did not seem to be in compliance with the strictures of the law. In other words, the English version of the inscription appeared to be slightly larger than the French. I am a loyal public servant and, as such, have certain qualms about this matter. "Going public" is not easy for me, since the demands of privacy are at least as important as those of service. However, at certain times, particularly in summer, my companion and I leave the confines of our dwelling for "night-time excursions." On these occasions, I must admit that the inscription in question sometimes enters the public domain, and I am troubled by the thought that, at these moments, I may be in open infraction of the law.

I have come forward as a good citizen. I will readily make myself available to one of your agents at my home, at your convenience. My companion has agreed to be on hand to perform the preliminary services required for you to complete your measurements.

-Dick Wittingly