Homophobia hits home

After reading the article titled "Fear of a queer planet" in last week's Mirror [Dec. 17], I wondered where that fine line lies between freedom of speech and hate speak.

Is a freedom that causes--directly or not--the deaths and beatings of thousands of gays every year, from Africa to the Americas, someone's right?

If Mister Mathematik wants to envision a future breakdown of society, he can imagine one where people are so isolated and afraid of each other that they forget that we can only make it to Zion--or any other promised land--TOGETHER. But that's not a vision. It's our culture's present reality.

Until love and tolerance rule our hearts, and therefore the planet, there will be no liberation of the black or any other community. As Mister Harewood said: there is no separation, we are as one. Peace.

--Gerard Alain Dufour

I've never seen so much dumb-ass "homophobia" as what exists in this city. And that includes bisexual, gay, lesbian and transsexual (at any stage).

People who don't fit into a particular dentist's or physician's vision of a heterosexual are denied treatment under a ton of excuses--the reason being: "the patient has ARL, AIDS, HIV, blah, blah, blah," even if the patient doesn't.

It's a pathetic spectacle to behold and it brings the meaning of the word "stupid" into extremely sharp focus. The stupidity of the dentists and doctors in this here iceberg of a city apparently knows no bounds.

--Anonymous

Mother of Vice

I have just read the article entitled "Vice's Million Dollar Swindle" [Media Circus, Dec. 3]. I am not a journalist, but I assume that one of the primary rules of that profession is that the title of an article should at least contain some hint of its contents.

You talk about the "organ's rise"--how they managed to "wangle a welfare grant." Are grants like this not meant to produce exactly the results that Vice has achieved? They now employ people, pay taxes and will no doubt invest more money into their business. In the rest of the country (outside Montreal), this is seen as entrepreneurial success.

You state that Swalwinski's investment will "increase exponentially." Again, where is the swindle? Why is successful investment a bad thing?

You state that the three founders will not squander their money "on liquor, drugs, whores, big white cars and villas in the South of France." Again, why is this wrong?

Where is the swindle in your article--or is it all just sour grapes?

--Loraine McInnes

Mind over matter

In his letter "Orpheus philosophizing" [Dec. 17], Frederick J. Tatlow wrote: "One must recognize that imagination ensues from life and consciousness, which in turn are emergent properties in complex patterns of physical matter." This statement is philosophical, not truly scientific.

Science makes the widespread assumption that consciousness emerges from matter, but there is no proof of that whatsoever. To believe in that concept requires an act of faith in materialism, similar to any religious belief. Many people implicitly accept scientific dogma--ever since science has begun debunking inconsistencies in religious beliefs, giving new interpretations to mysterious phenomena and therefore opposing the truths of the church. "Rational thought" has eclipsed "symbolic truths," although both reflect different aspects of reality.

But the belief that matter gets organized randomly and--boom!--life appears, has no solid scientific basis. As countless thinkers throughout the ages have concluded, it is closer to actual life experience to assume that matter, on the contrary, exists within consciousness.

Music does not eventually emerge from sufficiently evolved instruments, but rather from those who play them; nor do words spontaneously organize themselves to create a play. Of course, this is an "ungraspable" area, for I doubt we will ever see a molecule named "intelligence."

There's a story about two Russians, an agnostic astronaut and a Christian brain surgeon. The astronaut says, "I've been in space many times, but I've never seen a single angel." The surgeon replies, "Well, I've operated on many of the world's greatest brains and I've yet to see a single thought."

The nature of life and consciousness is best explored, described and interpreted poetically, symbolically and artistically; the languages that, by definition, somewhat evade the mind, and speak to and from the imagination. Even great scientific minds such as Einstein converge on this point--the quote "Imagination is more important than knowledge" actually originates from him.

--Nicolas Maranda