Kitty contacts

It should have been a glaringly obvious priority, if not actually incumbent upon Kristian Gravenor, to have informed his reading public how one might go about adopting a cat from, or making a donation to the industrious Monica Campo [Cover, "House of 100 cats," Oct 3].

Or did he think Ms. Campo could go on indefinitely hostelling more and more of the city's neglected felines at her own expense? Quite an amazing oversight, don't you think? It needs to be rectified. So how about it?

Secondly, it amazes me that journalists still turn to the city's SPCA executive director Pierre Barnoti as the official "expert" in animal welfare issues. If there were such an expert at the helm of the SPCA, don't you think it would be doing a better job than it is? Instead, it refuses to network with other animal rescue agencies, and frowns on those, like Campo, who take action into their own hands.

Perhaps Gravenor's next article should be on the appalling inertia of the SPCA.

» Watson

[Ed: Monica Campo can be contacted at 353-4654 or monica_campo@email.com]

Penile damage
worse than described

This is Justin Scheidt, the guy you wrote about with the strip club incident and the resulting "bruised testicles" [Man bites dog, May 22]. I went to Google to see where the story had been published and came across your page.

Trust me, what happened was a hell of a lot worse than "bruised testicles."

Instead imagine a gash opening on your penis shaft just below the head, about 1/8 inch deep by 1 to 1.5 inches across, due to a stripper free-falling onto your crotch from 6 feet high, and upon returning to your hotel room, finding your boxers completely soaked in blood.

Then to top it off, not being able to consummate your marriage for four weeks afterwards - as the injury needed the time to heal.

I think any guy will agree with me that this was ridiculous and I've got every right to seek damages from the strip club, especially given that I told them to stop after the first time being in a hell of a lot of pain, and their reply was "that's the point."

I'd be glad to give you the full story when the case is over. I'm really not supposed to talk to anyone at the moment while everything is still going on, but I saw your article and wanted the chance to clear up some details.

» Justin Scheidt

Recent cover repulsive

I could not believe your repulsive front cover which I saw this morning in my local video store ["Killer Clubber" Sept. 25].

While I stopped reading the Mirror a long time ago, I happen to be one of those parents who actually cares about what pictures, movies and images my children view. In today's society, it's not an easy job.

Besides being a morbid attempt to hook a few more persons to look inside the paper, did the staff at the Mirror actually stop and think about an image like this one that could be upsetting to a child (let alone an adult) who walks by and sees this garbage? The Mirror is a free paper, accessible to anybody and generally always at children's eye level.

I thought the Mirror purported to have some sense of community responsibility, so how can you justify putting such a disgusting picture on your front cover while trying so hard to bring social issues to the forefront and not just be another alternative rag?

Shame on you.

» Benjamin Hatcher

Activists and gardens

Sometimes we print poetry or adages or other well-meaning things because they sound nice, without thinking too much about what they really mean.

Commenting that the indispensable activist Jaggi Singh should "water his own garden," as a reader suggested [Letters, Sept. 11], instead of rallying behind other people's/non-Indian/non-Canadian causes is one of those times when the words look okay on paper but don't mean much when you think about them.

Passion and compassion are, thankfully, not bounded by the cumbersome fences of nationalism. I commend Singh and his peers in Montreal for their commitments to tending not only "their" gardens, but looking out for their neighbours' gardens as well. It makes for better harvesting all-around, and that way not all the shit gets dumped in one poor sucker's yard.

» Gascia Ouzounian, San Diego, California

Correction:

On the Sept. 18 Artsweek page, the photo accompanying the article on Richard Purdy should have been credited to Valerie D. Walker.

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