Long live sleaze

Thank you, Mirror, for highlighting Johnny Zoumboulakis and his defence of the “sleazy” Main in last week’s cover story [“The last stand on sleaze,” Nov. 14]. My heart sank when I read about the city’s plans for redevelopment on the Main and the possibility of a “pedestrian zone near Clark… dotted with cafés and terrasses.” And that developer Michel Croze wants to turn Ste-Catherine west of the Main into a “tourist magnet” for “street festivals and concerts.” Oh, the unutterable boredom of it. The sameness. The repetition.

Café Cleopatra is full of extraordinary characters. Further down you have those wonderful french fry and hotdog joints, and nowhere on that strip can you smell that repellent pretension of black-clad latté-sippers in award-winningly designed hip places playing blood-pressure-raising jazz. There are enough of those in the city already.

Developers, of course, want to make money, and they usually do so by pulling down an old building with immense character and putting up a soulless structure, as bland and boring as the coffee that will inevitably be consumed in its groovy interior. Long live the seedy strip.

» Cecilia Grayson

Agitators unacceptable

As I read on news Web sites about a Palestinian terrorist ambush that has killed 12 Israelis and wounded 15 others on their way to Sabbath services in Hebron, I am thoroughly appalled by Mirror article attempts to turn victims into perpetrators and vice versa [“Protective presence,” Nov. 14].

Palestinian terrorists are murdering Israelis on an almost daily basis while local leftists have nothing better to do than try to interfere with Israel’s self-defence. It is reported that a few of these agitators sustained minor injuries in clashes with Israeli soldiers. If so, they more than had it coming to them. In any other country in a struggle for survival against fanatical and ruthless enemies, these characters would almost certainly have been shot without hesitation. Only Israel shows such restraint in the face of outrageous provocation.

» Barry Merson

Fisk the arrogant

How jolly good of Robert Fisk to fancy that possession of a British press badge and the requisite self-righteousness qualifies one to pass on the world’s right and wrong [“Malevolence daily,” Nov. 7]. Or do you think his brand of Grand-Mufti-meets-Neville-Chamberlain “objectivity” has done quite enough to redden the Middle East over the last century?

In any case, where was this supposed objectivity back when Mr. Fisk and his Fatah handlers were inventing the “Massacre at Jenin”? (Thanks to your oh-so intrepid interviewer, Ken Hechtman, for neglecting to mention that little tidbit of journalism history, and for completely decontextualizing Mr. Fisk’s splendid 30-year career as a rationalizer of the murder of Jews, in yet another sterling example of the fair, honest reporting we have come to expect from the Blame-Israel Choir.)

But perhaps Fisk of Arabia’s arrogant self-righteousness reaches its pinnacle of absurdity when he blames America for his beating at the hands of an enraged mob of Afghani refugees. I guess the great truth-seeker didn’t hear the results of that international survey released a few months ago, wherein Englishmen were actually voted the world’s most disliked tourists.

» Joseph Trumpeldor

FTAA forgotten

Absent from your Nov. 7 issue was anything about the remarkable 10,000-strong pro-justice, anti-Free-Trade-Area-of-the-Americas demonstration on Halloween that wove through the streets of Montreal. It is understandable that news taking place on a Thursday may be considered untimely one week later. Nevertheless, most readers would have found some background interesting.

Our demonstration coincided with thousands in the streets of Quito, Ecuador, where the trade ministers were meeting. Moreover, it was part of a hemispheric campaign to stop the FTAA, which saw 150,000 people on Oct. 24 take to the streets of tiny El Salvador against both the FTAA and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Similarly, on Oct. 31 thousands took to the streets of Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires.

This time, however, Mirror readers were left in the dark. We deserve better.

» Yves Engler, VP Communications, Concordia Student Union and FTAA organizer

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!

Send your comments, compliments or criticisms to:

Letters to the Editor,
c/o Montreal Mirror,
465 McGill, 3rd Floor
Montreal, Quebec
H2Y 4B4

You may also fax us at (514) 393-3173, or reach us by e-mail:

letters@mtl-mirror.com

All letters should include your name, address and daytime phone number.

If you wish to reach someone in particular, here's a list of people involved with the production of the newspaper and this site.