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Mean streets
Re “GTA: Vice City” (Opinion, Aug. 17): As a medical humanitarian, I’ve worked in some dangerous settings: conflict zones, natural disasters and epidemics. Despite this, I have never felt as exposed as I feel on the roads of Brampton and the broader GTA. It seems that every time I go out, I have a close call or witness an egregious act of dangerous driving. It will be ironic if, after taking calculated risks all my life and surviving, I die in a flaming wreck on Queen Street in Brampton.
I will vote for any politician who promises to clamp down on these “vehicular psychos.”
Lauralee Morris, MD Brampton, Ont.
On a roll
Re “Can Kamala Sustain Her Momentum?” (Opinion, Aug. 17): Seriously? This is all so irritating. If Americans can elect a mean-spirited, unfit, pathologically lying, racist, misogynistic, unscrupulous, narcissistic, cheating, megalomaniac, convicted criminal of very limited intelligence who tried to overthrow the government, surely they can elect someone who is intelligent, successful, experienced and is a decent human being with a good heart. This reeks of a misogynistic double standard at best and an uninformed, self-sabotaging electorate at the bare minimum. People deserve the governments they elect.
James Quinn Vancouver
On the value of gold
Re “A golden lesson - aim for excellence” (Editorial, Aug. 17): Your Saturday editorial positively gushes over “targeted excellence” and the cleverly named Own the Podium. How satisfying, all this jingoistic preening over medal counts. Nation versus nation in surrogate war. The athletes and the number of baubles soon forgotten, of course.
And why not question the value of spending, since 2010, $850-million on elite athletics? On the few, not the many? Wouldn’t it be better to invest that many taxpayer dollars on supporting recreational athletics? On encouraging kids to get active and eat healthy?
Dr. Brian Green Thunder Bay
So Own the Podium aimed solely for excellence in sports and delivered results. Can we look forward to the day when federal research programs learn from this lesson and adopt a similar exclusive focus on excellence and leave progress in social justice to other initiatives?
Terence Colgan, professor emeritus, University of Toronto Burlington, Ont.
To each, his own
Re “Is neurodiversity a superpower?” (Opinion, Aug. 17): Jeff Karp’s personal experience with neurodiversity is a lesson in education to readers. Fortunately, he was able to transcend the limitations of his conventional education and, with his “Swiss Army knife” questioning adaptation, develop a learning model for other neurodiverse thinkers. However, his criticism of education in general as dysfunctional, owing to its teacher-centred approach, is unfair because serious educators have always been student-centred.
Actually, Karp’s push for embracing neurodiversity is hardly revolutionary – Socrates was telling his students to “Know thyself” centuries ago. The role of a good educator, as implied by the Latin root “educare” (to bring out), is to facilitate each student’s journey of self-discovery and learning. A good educator isn’t just an instructor. They’re a role model and guide, leading students on their personal quest for meaning. Call it the inquiry method, differentiated instruction, neurodiversity “superpower” enabler or just good education and personalized learning, the goal remains the same: unlocking the potential within each learner to be true to one’s nature, thereby growing a self and coming to know reality to the best of their ability. So thanks, Mr. Karp, for knowing yourself and thus being a good personalized educator – who teaches by example.
Tony D’Andrea Toronto
Neil Postman once commented “What the education system does is find out what students do poorly and give them more of it.” Jeff Karp found the value of asking questions of the world and of himself. Few of his teachers did. The power of questions is enormous. If we don’t ask, we are stuck with what we bring or what we are told. The world remains sealed. When I began asking my students, “What have you learned? What are you learning? What do you want to learn?” I became an informed teacher. All forms of diversity can be superpowers if recognized, guided and valued. Ask. Listen. Ask more.
Kathleen Moore Toronto
The best it can be
Re “The only thing holding us back from Toronto’s best park is an airport” (Aug. 17): I share common ground with Alex Bozikovic in the need for European-style intercity train service to get planes out of the sky. However, the notion that Billy Bishop Airport is the impediment to fulfilling the Toronto Island park’s potential is ahistorical.
That land (previously a ball park) has been an airport for more than a century. The only fixed link exists because of the success of the operation out of YTZ. That Pearson can handle a 5-per-cent increase in passenger load is magical thinking, to say nothing of the loss of air ambulance services in proximity to the downtown hospitals.
Time and again, the outsized influence of island residents, 31 years into a 99-year lease negotiated by a Bob Rae NDP government, has kept this piece of parkland paradise from reaching its full potential for Toronto families.
Stephen Halman Toronto
If you don’t live downtown, the Pearson rail link is inaccessible/inconvenient. I prefer Billy Bishop Airport because it is a short Uber ride away and far more time-efficient than Pearson. I completely agree that we need better access to our island. Ferry-only access in Toronto is both inefficient and costly. Why can’t we have the best of both worlds? Aren’t we already using landfill as part of the Don River mouth naturalization projects? Why can’t we mandate this approach to continue to expand our waterfront ecosystems, create pedestrian/cycling access to our islands and sustain our convenient and useful airport?
Anthony Brade Toronto
Drug policy
Re “Ford labels drug-use sites a ‘failed policy’ as he defends shutdowns” (Aug. 22): The hypocrisy of Doug Ford’s position on supervised consumption sites is breathtaking. The federal government is not the biggest drug dealer in Ontario. This title belongs to Ford’s government through the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. In fact, with evident pride, Ford has expanded the network for the dealers of this category of drug to include grocery stores and corner convenience stores. The profits returned to the government by sanctioned dealers are clearly seductive – so much so that Ford seems unconcerned with the proximity of dealers to schools, parks and playgrounds. After his attack on supervised consumption sites (for drugs other than alcohol), Ford promised $378-million toward treatment and recovery centres. Forgive me if I take this promise with a very large grain of salt, given that this is the very same government to have promised to end hallway medicine and overcrowded ERs.
Martin Birt Uxbridge, Ont.
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