Harassing the critics

It was strange that I saw no letter published in response to Kristian Gravenor’s provocative column of Feb. 7(“Arresting e-mail”). The Mirror traditionally has been at the vanguard of protecting free speech, and your readers are among its most zealous defenders.
So Edward Arzouian had his house raided by cops because he kept sending highly critical e-mail to Gazette scribes and columnists. If being irritating, critical or loud-mouthed were a crime, hundreds of critics and activists should be incarcerated.
Are we becoming a police state or what? Can anybody whose views are regarded as odious be accused of harassment? The Gazette is guilty of intimidating a reader in this case, regardless of Arzouian’s views. Arzouian, from what I read, never has a history of violence and did not send spam or viruses. Besides, spamming is technically not illegal anyways.
The Gazette is abusing its powers egregiously. This makes a great argument against concentration of media ownership. With concentration of media ownership comes intimidation of those who are regarded as “inconvenient.” Already the Gazette is harassing staffers and columnists who criticize the policy of printing national editorials based in Winnipeg.
Grade A for Gravenor for writing the column.
—Lawrence Garbanzo

Neglecting Mapfumo?

If one of the aims of your magazine is to inform people of interesting and important events that are happening in Montreal I wonder why you’ve neglected Thomas Mapfumo. I would expect a magazine that prides itself on being “culturally diverse” to have at least taken notice, if not given a cover story to, “The Lion of Zimbabwe” but alas, no.
You’ve proven once again that you are not interested in reaching people from the various ethnic communities in Montreal, but merely in appearing to do so for the college kids who make up the bulk of your readership. We all know it’s “cool” to be multicultural but if you are going to be the magazine you are supposed to be, how about actually trying to reach every Montrealer, not just the left-leaning, cynical twentysomethings who have more than enough media aimed at their demographic.
Thomas Mapfumo is a musical and cultural giant whose presence is a gift to the city and yet he is given less notice than some crappy “sounds like all the rest” garage band that sings about how hard it is to be a suburban Canadian. Please.
—Jerry

[Ed.’s reply: Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited’s new album, Chimurenga Explosion, was reviewed in the February 21 issue of the Mirror.]

Plane-spoken

In your cleverly worded article with the eye-catching headline “Take-offs tick off suburbanites” [Feb. 7], there were some mis-impressions which I would like to correct.
As well as on the West Island, Citizens for a Quality of Life has members in St-Laurent, Town of Mount Royal, Villeray, Chateauguay etc.
Apart from regional jets, prop-jets and emergency flights, no aircraft may land between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. or take off between midnight and 7 a.m. at Dorval Airport. It is the take-offs of aircraft such as the Airbus 320 and the 737 that wake us between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.
—Thomasine Mawhood, Secretary
Citizens for a Quality of Life

From Mensa to Densa

In the January 24th issue, there is the article “Smarty-pants” by Chris Barry on page 6. Very interesting. But what about the rest of us who are not of Mensa standards?
In the ‘70s, there was an organization with a postal box in Toronto. It was called Densa. Does it still exist? If so, then give equal time to Densa.
—Roman

[Ed.’s reply: Densa’s official Web site seems to be out of order; you can still take the “Densa test” to see if you qualify (with questions like “Do they have a July 4 in England?” ) at www.gomilpitas.com/homeschooling/humor/
090.htm]