Mordecai's version
To his readers' great delight, Mordecai Richler's favoured literary device of holding up a mirror to the foibles and petty parochial politics of his fictional characters has now been made comically real (Door-Kicking And Nose-Thumbing - editorial, Dec. 27).
Unable to countenance their own fashionable prejudices, the modern doyens of CanLit academe have tossed the bothersome messenger off the formal curriculum and into the discounted bargain bin. This, while Montreal's municipal politicians are planning to honour the great man with a street-naming. No lack of chutzpah there.
From wherever his current perch, I'm sure Mordecai is relishing this classic Richlerian plot.
Mark S. Rash, Winnipeg
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The longer that universities ignore Mordecai Richler's work, the longer the public will read it.
Vladimir Konieczny, Salt Spring Island, B.C.
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In high school, I was forced to read some of the most poorly written, irrelevant garbage imaginable on the grounds that it was Canadian literature. So I'm pleased to see that a younger generation is also forced to undergo this dismal ordeal, as evidenced by the absence of Mordecai Richler from the canon - the one man who prevents "Canadian literature" from being an oxymoron.
James Hymas, Toronto
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Thank you for your excellent "door-kicking and nose-thumbing" Richler tribute. When Mordecai Richler said, "When I wrote the novel [ Barney's Version]I was Barney Panofsky, but not before and not after," he defined the role of a fiction writer.
And how can I possibly forget his great smile when I asked for his autograph in Hebrew in my copy of Barney's Version. It was not for the book - it was the man, the real mensch, I came to see - and he did not disappoint me.
Jesse Vorst, Winnipeg
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Mordecai Richler was, indeed, politically incorrect. In the controversy over free trade with the U.S., he was on the "wrong" side, for which Farley Mowat famously denounced him. The CanLit crowd never forgave him.
Leslie B. Marcus, Granville Ferry, N.S.
Whiplash!
Why should innocent clients of Canada's auto insurance industry pay for the financial shortfalls associated with fraudulent insurance claims (Bumper To Bumper Fraud - Dec. 27)? Why did the provincial and federal governments not step in a decade ago and tackle insurance fraud the way the United States did?
Simply put, as long as the insurance industry can pick the pockets of honest consumers, there's little incentive for the industry to change things.
Police forces say they have more important issues to deal with, and prosecutors argue that their resources are stretched to the limit. So everyone - the insurance industry and the regulatory and enforcement agencies - has an excuse for doing nothing.
Is it any wonder the criminal element sees Canada as a soft touch.
Paul Kennedy, Calgary
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If insurance companies dictate which auto repair centre can carry out the required work when you're involved in a car accident, why don't they also provide their clients with a list of preferred health-care clinics and only pay medical treatment claims from those approved clinics?
If the real money in insurance fraud is made through health-care clinics, then this approach should greatly reduce the overall amount of fraud, as well as cut the cost of premiums required to offset this criminal activity.
Beth Bailey, Ajax, Ont.
Not so fast
So UBC economics professor James Brander thinks that all the big ideas are already out there (Has Innovation Hit A Brick Wall? - Report on Business, Dec. 27)? Let's go back to the head of the U.S. Patent Office who said around the turn of the century before last that they might as well shut down the office since everything that was going to be invented had already been invented.
Or maybe the professor who felt that, had the Soviet Union lasted just a bit longer, bigger, faster computers would have made a centrally planned economy viable.
And let's not forget the academic who, just a few years ago, said Microsoft was the last big company that would appear in the computer industry. I was going to Google his name but realized he might prefer anonymity.
Colin Lowe, Nanaimo, B.C.
Buddy, can you …?
Your cover story Small Charities, Outsized Results (Report on Business, Dec. 24) reflects so much of my reality in Bududa, a town in eastern Uganda where I run a vocational school, an orphans program and now a microfinance program for women.
I went to Bududa in 2003 to help build the school for AIDS orphans, returning each summer to work while raising money during the rest of the year. In 2007, I decided to live there, on the beautiful slopes of Mount Elgon. The school works well - we teach five disciplines - and I believe we've really made a difference.
Every donation I receive is touching, and helps give me the strength to continue the work.
Barbara Wybar, Mbale, Uganda
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Good intentions, it seems, take precedence over critical thought. Fighting poverty is apparently so simple that anyone can do it. The wealthy see a problem and rush in with new charities, without stopping to consider that an existing organization, one with years of experience and mountains of expertise, might be much more capable of creating change.
Enthusiastic founders work hard, raise money little by little, struggle to run programs, and perhaps eventually learn what those already in the development sector have long known: Helping people out of poverty isn't easy. The duplication of efforts and waste of resources while tiny start-ups stumble are unacceptable.
Whether we're talking about families starting foundations or the Canadian International Development Agency, good intentions are not enough. We need to be directing our dollars to where they have the most worth.
For private donors, that means to organizations with the knowledge, skills and size to make it happen; for Canada, that means to a CIDA that is creative, transparent and accountable to the people it serves.
Duncan Farthing-Nichol, Engineers Without Borders, Winnipeg
True Grit?
So Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff wants to attract voters who currently support the NDP and Bloc Québécois (Ignatieff Wants To Lure NDP, Bloc Voters - Dec. 27). It would probably be easier if he could motivate erstwhile Liberal voters, but, at this, he remains unsuccessful.
The NDP converts he covets are socialists who've grown soft and bourgeois and now worship the green movement. Their trademark anger has transmuted into feelings of moral superiority.
The Bloc voters are separatists who don't want to leave the Canada that subsidizes them. They're parasites with a sense of entitlement who use nationalism as a pretext and manufactured outrage as a tool to extort.
What fine additions to the Big Red Tent. They'll fit right in.
Brian Beckett, Nepean, Ont.