Bertuzzi sets bad example
Re: Bertuzzi the bully, Mar. 15
On March 10th, Moore was unexpectedly hammered by Bertuzzi, first by his fist, then by his 245 pound body. Such acts have occurred throughout history in different forms. But with the Bertuzzi/Moore incident a substantial novelty was introduced, which was that a few million people were simultaneously watching attentively. And subsequently a few more million watched it on the news.
So Bertuzzi earns the Guinness World Record for performing a brutal act without a weapon while simultaneously being observed by more people than ever before in history of mankind.
This is not as bad as the fact that amongst that throng of spectators were children who probably cheered for revenge to be taken for the concussion Moore incurred on Markus Naslund the last time the two teams met.
I say this because I have seen on numerous occasions children clearly enjoying a triumphant left hook or a dramatic out of control body check and other such acts which permeate our “National Game.”
Although I agree with Andrew Bricker’s assessment that hockey is a “clean game” which contains only the best intentioned “controlled violence” and that “it is hard to blame Bertuzzi” (I would have cried too), nevertheless the indirect effects on the multitudes who watch live violence must be considered.
In a world burdened with violence, it would seem that we must be more sensitive even to the (anger spurred) retributive violence that persists in the NHL and is glorified in mass media.
Y.M.D. Fremes
Homophobia not dead
Re: Sexual preference no reason for levy, Mar. 15
Noel Semple’s Op-Ed piece decrying LGBTOUT’s proposed 69-cent levy doesn’t make much sense. Not even touching on Semple’s confusion at equating $25,000 with “a quarter of a million,” nor his automatic and off-hand dismissal of LGBTQ people as “not a needy or victimized subset of society,” the most shocking thing about Semple’s article is his labeling of the term “homophobia” as an ad hominem argument (implying its use is illegitimate).
To infer that the term “homophobia” has no legitimacy in debate, as Semple does, goes against any of his platitudes supporting the LGBTQ community. “Homophobia” is a descriptor-it expresses a whole range of actions, ranging from defacing Positive Space stickers to insults and worse.
Homophobia isn’t confined to “a few scumbags” as Semple suggests-varying degrees of homophobia exist throughout Canadian society, and to suggest that even a “modern, urban university” like U of T is free from it is just plain silly. LGBTOUT’s work for equality and access on campus goes a long way to familiarizing everyone in our community that these issues continue to be a serious concern for a large portion of U of T’s population-sadly, not everyone has “gotten used to” queers on campus. Semple’s article trivializes and demeans a real and serious issue, and ignores any real debate about equality at U of T.
Luke Stark
Aborted coverage
The Genocide Awareness Project, an event that involved thousands of U of T students, was ignored by this paper while journalists from other universities saw that this was in fact a news item and so covered the story.
I think that it is time that the students who this paper represents and pay for this publication not be ignored and that you no longer ignore news of important issues such as that of Wednesday, March 17, when thousands of students not only saw the evidence of abortion but participated in discussion at the university approved location outside of Sidney Smith Hall.
Andrew Gillies
