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Faces of homelessness
Congratulations on your issue of Sept. 20, when my friend George Robert's smiling face graced your cover ["Cheap grub: A survey of Montreal's food banks and soup kitchens" by Craig Segal and Noemi Lopinto]. I met George one morning in the spring of 2001 in the vestibule of L'Acceuil Bonneau. Maybe we were outside--that's more likely--waiting for our numbers to be called to go in for our 10:30 a.m. meal. George and I are both people of action. We don't stay put long. He paces up and down while we talk; his day is spent on the move. When we meet, I talk to George about his health and his lodgings. He has a lot of worries, so it was great to see him smiling on your cover. I had to check twice to make sure it was him. We are among the few anglophones who hang out at the missions. I am in Montreal less and less as I have found work on farms near Quebec City, but I know that L'Acceuil Bonneau is part of George's day.
That your paper took the time to notice George and to check on the state of affairs at the missions is admirable. I lived "the circuit" from Sept. 2000-May 2001--a 47-year-old female literacy teacher and now farm labourer, I also now work as a volunteer with Frontier College.
I am currently writing many versions of my story, my experiences as a sometimes jobless, homeless itinerant. A messy divorce mixed with psychiatric labelling and medical powerplays have left me frozen out of my bank accounts, business and home, cut off/cut out of the lives of my precious teenagers.
I am not any less itinerant yet. I live in an old school bus on a farm. While the work lasts, I'm here. I can't get mail because my address is too ephemeral--the frost hits the zucchini plants and poof: I move on. I also sing with a choir of itinerant women. We sing in the Berri-UQAM metro, Fridays, 7:30-9:30 a.m. on the Angrignon platform. We're called Les Voix du choeur--15 stories of women survivors right there!
--Jennifer Ottaway
Pro-protesters
I have been reading the Mirror regularly for many years now and was quite surprised to see the letters to the editor last week. I had thought of your paper as more objective and alternative than the regular media, so it was quite a shock to see these two very "mainstream" points of view on the anti-war protests.
How can this guy Sandro call the protesters' rhetoric "absolutely useless"? He obviously is an American sympathizer who thinks he's got all the answers. It's true that aggression and oppression have been hallmarks of civilization since day one, and it might also be true that the U.S. is "not occupying any country or actively in control of any regime," but culturally, it is affecting and influencing far more than it ever has. It's invisible, insidious and widespread and that is the main point, Mr. Dickwad.
If students don't have a chance to ask questions and be natural agitators, what is their purpose in society? You want them to just go to school and be quiet? Someone has to stir the muck from the bottom and react to the uncomfortable realities that surround us. The truth often hurts, but it can also set you free.
As to the second letter, Adam Barken is presumptuous to reduce an issue that many people feel very strongly about to a "'West Bad/Everybody Else Good' dichotomy" or a "juvenile fantasy." What's his problem with people asking why this happened? If you ask why, it seems obvious you've taken into account who is involved in the picture. Is the "American imperialist aggression" guilty? Quite probably. It seems like Mr. Barken has read many articles on the topic, but they may have been in the wrong books. He's suffering from tunnel vision, methinks.
Lastly, who said a protest is a debate? A protest is a result of a debate and much introspection. Where does this dude come off calling the students a "mob"? Does it make him uncomfortable to see people asking too many questions? Well, poo poo on him.
--Dim
Question of taste
Your choice for the cover picture for the Sept. 27 issue was wrong. Dead wrong. The bodies in New York are still warm and you have the bloody nerve to publicize four mock-bloodied faces. Boy, now isn't that just hilarious! An apology for the total lack of good taste is in order.
--Allison Turner
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