Magic Teeth by Gareth Gaudin

Letters - July 2

Pony up, school board

Re: “Alpha vindicated,” June 25-July 1

Many thanks to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Metzger for his fair and just ruling in favour of school trustee Catherine Alpha. I have watched with dismay the actions of the board majority (McEvoy, Pitre, Ferris, Holland and Leonard) toward trustee Alpha.

As a former trustee and board chair in the Greater Victoria School District, and as a taxpayer and elector in the district, I expect the board to compensate Alpha for her legal costs. Moreover, I believe that the electorate and Alpha deserve an apology for the lack of fairness and competence in the handling of this matter by the board, and in particular by its secretary-treasurer, George Ambeault.

Unnecessary expenditures on an unnecessary by-election in a time of school district deficits is an unacceptable waste of our education dollars.

Carol Pickup, Victoria

Nuts to you

Re: “Beer, Peanuts and Rubber Chickens,” June 25-July 1

Ahhh, I remember the days. I too was a fixture at this incredibly fun establishment. In my younger years (barely legal) we, a group of good ol’ guys and gals, would gather our dimes and nickels and head out to Big Bad John’s for an “MDA Special.” To this day, I can’t recall what was in that drink but it sure made you want to come back for more; it was the only place in town that made that one-of-a-kind drink. Gerry Laing was the only one that knew the recipe, so I’m guessing it was his concoction!

The last time I was there I too succumbed to the “giving up my bra” thing. Mind you, I got paid $50 bucks to do it, but I’m told it’s no longer there . . . apparently it was so big someone thought it was a hammock and decided to take a nap and the roof came down. Hi to Gerry and next time I’m down in Victoria I will stop by. Hopefully he will remember that recipe and make me a double! Till then, cheers!

Joanne Degirolamo, Coombs

Behold the reckoning

Re: “No-booze buses,” 25-July 1

Hey, you ever feel like when you’re inching along to work in your metal coffin that you could be doing something better? Do you find yourself wishing that never again would you have to humour some fucking chucklehead who just doesn’t get it?

Well, listen up, friendo. We are hitting the streets in the spirit of punx, with the goal of being the embodiment of youthful hooliganism. We aren’t trying to change the world but we’re not going to sit back and let it keep sucking the life out of us either. This city is more concerned with catering to 300-year-old geriatrics and American tourists than making it a livable place for badass dudes and chicks, so we’re going to cater to ourselves. It’s our city too, cornflabbit!

We’ll play our music loud and keep our parties raging. We’ll roam the streets under the cover of darkness, looking for fun wherever we can find it, to break free from the monotony of our dead-end jobs. Forty-ouncers will be rocked, joints blazed and illicit drugs consumed. Gnar will be shredded and times kept crucial.

If the punx are united, we will never be divided! Take heed, all you bureaucrats in Victoria—there will be a reckoning.

The Human Man and the Seventh Moon Of Jupiter, Victoria

Doctor needs a check-up

Re: “MP Abstains on C-15,” June 11-17

I was shocked to discover that Liberal Member of Parliament Keith Martin (Esquimalt Juan de Fuca) was featured in a June 21 article in the Toronto Star entitled “Rx: A Strong Dose of Privatization.” In the interview, Martin espouses that the only cure for the beleaguered Canadian health care system is to bring American-style health care to Canada.

Martin’s solution of just walking away from the problems facing health care and shifting to a privatized system violates a fundamental Canadian value. Martin knows his medical background carries a lot of weight on these issues and I believe that he is misusing his position in the community.

In the interview, Martin calls the Romanow Report (which recognizes that “health care must be shaped around health needs of individual patients, their families and communities”) a mistake—a sentiment echoed by prime minister Harper, who called the report “entirely wrong.”

For decades, Canadians have worked hard to make our public system of health care available to everyone. This system faces challenges with increased wait times and bed shortages but Martin’s solution is to toss the baby out with the bath water and adopt a system that will cost taxpayers more in the long run and bankrupt families, which is just wrong.

In order for our health care system to function it must be sensitive to the opinions of medical professionals and the users of the system whose opinions and concerns are equally important.

Jared Butcher, View Royal

Why make sense?

Re: “Re:Design,” June 11-17

Now that your publication is about the same thickness as the no-longer-existent Monday edition of the Times Colonist, you could actually publish Monday on Monday. It would finally make your name make sense.

Jo Rosen, Victoria

Look beyond the stats

Re: “Failing Grade,” May 28-June 3

I am an elementary school teacher working in Victoria and would like to make a further point related to the shocking “dropout” rate in our education system. Many of these students are barely literate, which makes school a very difficult place to be—and, of course, the world in general. How can this be? It is a well-studied and undisputed fact that 30 to 40 percent of the general population have brains that are not particularly well-adapted to reading alphabetic text. They inherit this characteristic from a parent in a predictable way: if one parent is “dyslexic,” each of the children stands a 50/50 chance of inheriting it.

Dyslexics require very structured and specific instruction on the workings of the language or they will have a lot of trouble learning to read; our system in B.C. places a lot of emphasis on the pleasure of reading, but how the actual mechanics of learning to read are taught is up to the individual teacher to a large degree. Some are more thorough than others, but the comprehensive and systematic program that is needed by about a third of our school population isn’t provided to any of our teachers. Thus 30 or 40 percent of our school population have varying degrees of difficulty learning to read, even though the will is almost always strong.

Of course, there are learning assistance teachers in the schools, but even before the recent years of steady cuts to their numbers, they had time for only a few students per classroom, nowhere near the percentage that were not reading up to the expected level for their age, which can vary from school to school, but is often about 20 percent—the consistent “dropout” rate John Young mentions.

Perhaps the rest of the children who find reading natural and can practically teach themselves would find an explicit and exhaustive program like the one required by the other children tedious. Why not test the children and give them the program only if they need it? It is only necessary for a few years until reading and writing are firmly in hand. This approach would surely save the government much in the end and I’m sure the dropout rate would drop precipitously.

One thing we teachers do know is the students really do want to learn, just give them half a chance.

Sheila Drew, Victoria

If you didn’t figure out who was on the cover of last week’s cover, just ask the aptly-named Gordy Smart, who knew it was retired Times Colonist photographer John McKay. Oh, the irony!