Magic Teeth by Gareth Gaudin

Letters - May 21

One day’s paper

Re: “TC Ditches Monday Edition,” May 14-20

Way back in ancient times (circa 1974-75) I was one of the original reporters for Monday, when founders Sam Bawlf and Gene Miller started up the mag. It strikes me that if you were to shift your publication to Monday, you would now have on a plate a brilliant opportunity to live up to your name, courtesy of CanWest croaking the Monday edition of the Times Colonist, just as the National Post whacked its Monday edition nationally (for the time being, if not forever). When you only have 10 percent—or less—paid ad content on the first business day of the week, it’s down to desperate days, indeed.

Dave Todd, via mondaymag.com

How ironic that the reason Monday was founded—to produce a paper for the one day that there was no Victoria daily—has now returned. Apart from the sleazy method of quietly slipping out the announcement on a Saturday morning, there are lots of questions about this move.

First, why didn’t publisher Bob McKenzie offer to reduce subscription rates by one-seventh, if we’re only getting six-sevenths the number of papers? Second, if high TC salaries are a problem (as McKenzie claims), then why not reduce them—including his own? It sure looks like the TC’s advertisers and customers are the last thing on the paper’s mind.

I’ve got a better idea: Why doesn’t the TC stop the other six days as well, and let an organization like Monday Magazine—where the staff actually care about news, readers and advertisers—plug the hole? Meanwhile, advertisers, even if they are promoting big box stores, SUVs or anything else legal, might want to hurry things along by switching to a weekly paper in which the columnists and writers are actually awake and know something about news.

Stuart Robinson, Victoria

Perhaps what would have been helpful here is some context about how the newspaper industry as a whole is doing. Is the Times Colonist’s circulation dropping slower, faster or on par with other major metro dailies around North America? To note it is falling without offering that context doesn’t help me understand how dire things might be. Maybe that was left out because it didn’t serve the writer’s bias?

Lisa Wallace, via mondaymag.com

So the Times Colonist sent me a subscription renewal notice which I paid on May 1. The notice says cost ($20 per month, minimum two months) is based on daily delivery. On May 9, a terse notice in the TC informs its readers that. Soon, “daily” means six out of seven days per week, a 14 percent reduction.

In the past five months, the TC missed delivery 16 times, due to ice, snow, carrier not well, carrier car problems and, most recently, “trucking issues,” whatever that is. Can the TC really afford to keep pissing off its paid-in-advance subscribers? Maybe what needs to be reduced by 14 percent is the collective agreement with the union.

Hennie Stibbe, Saanich

Not quite endangered

Re: “Cultivating Camas,” May 14-20

The Camas collective would like to correct a statement made in the last issue regarding the Freedonia grant. Contrary to what was said in the article, the grant hasn’t fallen through yet; we applied for it again this year but haven’t heard back from them yet.

The Camas Collective, Victoria

It would be a very sad thing for Camas to be closed. It is a great space that has something to offer for everyone in the community. I have done a voluntary shift at Camas for the past year; in the time I spent behind the till I have seen people of all ages and income brackets come in and feel welcome to browse books, attend informative and useful workshops, share and gather herbs, information, coffee, conversation and experiences. It has become a prominent community space in Quadra Village and I have spoken to a few business owners in the area who have offered discounts to get food for our shows.

Camas is more than a business—it is a not-for-profit community organizing space that has played a vital role in the last year-and-a-bit since it started. Let’s all unite and try to make the deficit of $500 per month this year to help Camas pay rent and stay open. It’s for all of us and together we all can keep it open.

Anu, via mondaymag.com

Cruising for trouble

Re: “Harbour Authority gets heavy,” May 14-20

Let me see if I understand the math. According to Harbour Authority CEO Paul Servos, one lone protester at the cruise ship terminals is “a nuisance.” But hundreds of smoke-belching cruise ships each disgorging thousands of tourists at once to jam the streets of James Bay plus dozens of roaring, smoke-belching tour busses and speeding taxis to whisk the over-fed passengers a few blocks to downtown—plus numerous slow-moving, animal-exploiting carriages and noisy ships’ whistles and loudspeakers are a good thing?

Servos went on further demonize this one brave protester by saying she “was impacting the guest experience” for cruise ship patrons. Isn’t the power of one person amazing? Just imagine what a few hundred protesters could accomplish. Earlier, Servos had the gall to characterize the arrival of extra cruise ships in Victoria as a “windfall” after they were diverted north from Mexico because of the swine flu outbreak. He got it half-right: they’re an outfall.

Brian Mason, Victoria

Dolla Bill’s

Re: Calendar, May 7-13

Bill Stuart’s abrupt ejection from Monday’s pages left me scratching my head with one hand and reaching for my Riot Grrl Brick with the other. Bottom lines aside, Bill was a fantastic arts booster who’d dig out the more outre events of the week and give them a little trumpet blast. His Calendar spot had a local meaning—if you made it in Bill’s review, you were probably doing something interestingly outrageous that could benefit from a few more eyes flickering over it.

Monday Magazine holds an important place in our local media as the only widely read arts/entertainment/specialty paper in a town with scads of DIY events happening that the majors simply won’t pick up. Keeping people aware of this growing culture is no less than a political action and extremely important to the organizers of events with “fringe” appeal, something Bill always got behind.

Stay gonzo, Monday. The Times Colonist is never going to tell us what our friends are up to.

Marlaina Buch, Victoria

Voting is better than not

Re: “Fixing Democracy,” May 7-13

The principle of individual freedom is responsible for the peace and prosperity British Columbians enjoy today, to the extent to which—and when—it has been respected. The opposite approach can be seen in the tyranny, aggression, descrimination and starvation seen around the world.

That principle supports the ultimate vote: the choice by each individual of who to support and who to deal with in personal and business relationships. The aggregate is people making decisions and taking the consdequences, not being ruled by the modern version of priests, kings and clerks—nor by a mob of voters.

Keith Sketchley, Saanich