Quote of the week:

"I was devastated." - Montreal-born singer/poet Leonard Cohen, on hearing that almost all of his retirement fortune, some $5-million (U.S.), is gone, in Maclean's magazine. Cohen is suing his personal manager and financial adviser.

Market share

The St-Jacques market on the corner of Amherst and Ontario might be getting new owners, and it won't be condo dwellers.

A month ago, the Mirror reported that residents, market vendors and borough councillors were worried that the three-storey, 123-year-old building, now mostly vacant, would be sold to condo developers. But a new potential buyer is interested, one that should be palatable to all concerned parties: a non-profit corporation made up of several organizations, including the Écomusée du fier monde, a Centre-sud heritage group, which sits across the street from the market.

Michel Gendron, the Écomusée's financial director, says he already has potential tenants lined up if and when they buy the market. He plans to convert the upstairs floors into a 400-capacity cultural space and offices for community organizations, and the downstairs into a dozen shops, including the vendors and the florist still there.

And while renovations will be required, he promises the building's art deco design will be preserved. "I'd be crucified if it wasn't," he says.

He doesn't expect to be able to acquire it anytime soon, but says he believes the political will is there to facilitate the process.

» Patrick Lejtenyi

Needle nicks up

The total number of Quebecers accidentally pricked by errant needles has been shooting up in the last few years. In 2000, 140 incidents of unintended needle pricks were reported among health workers, a total that has risen to 331 in 2004. Blue collar workers have been pricked more often: 82 were injured in 2000, 108 last year, according to stats from Quebec's Commission de la santé et sécurité du travail (CSST).

"We don't have the details to say why it's going up. We don't know the cause," says CSST rep Normand Legault.

Diane Parent, the executive director of ASSTSAS, a health awareness group affiliated with the CSST, suspects the numbers don't tell the whole story. "It might not be that there's more accidents, just more being reported," she says. "People are more informed about this issue now."

Parent wants more syringes with needles that retract inside when not in use. "There's a trend towards implementing these, but some hospitals aren't doing it because of costs."

People pricked by errant needles can get specialized treatment at the Post Exposition Centre of the St-Luc Hospital. Call 890-8000. - Kristian Gravenor

Know your Plateau

It's no secret that the Plateau wasn't always the stomping grounds for the chic and well-heeled. Now, L'Autre Montréal, a non-profit urban education group with a passion for Montreal heritage, will be leading a group of paying customers on a tour of the Plateau and St-Laurent Boulevard, pointing out areas of interest and discussing the neighbourhood's changing nature. On Saturday, August 20, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., they'll be touring around the Plateau. The next day, at the same time, they'll be investigating St-Laurent. The tours will point out the changes, challenges and points of interest along the way.

"We want to show the Plateau's diversity, its rural roots and its longtime connection to the working class," says tour leader Bernard Vallée. "If people want to keep it a special place, they have to know about this."

He says his group has done this tour for other groups with more of an emphasis on serious problems like housing shortages, but promises this one won't be all doom and gloom.

Tickets are $15 per tour. For more information visit www.autremontreal.com, e-mail info@autremontreal.com or call 521-7802. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Eco U

A group of social justice and environmental activists will be getting together at the end of the month in beautiful Arundel, Quebec, to discuss the creation of a new university. But this will not be your run of the mill institution of higher learning: the New University will be dedicated exclusively to teaching a "holistic understanding" to sustainable development, says Cameron Stiff, one of the school's founders.

"I imagine that the program will, in a progressive sense, blend theory and practice," says the 23-year-old Concordia student and eco-activist.

The university is still in its very preliminary planning stages. Organizers from across the country will be arriving in Montreal to pound out what's been discussed only on listservs for almost a year. Questions like accreditation, location, course work and more have to be ironed out. Everything will be decided by consensus, he says.

"Right now, we're going to look at other universities and see what they're doing, what they're teaching, what they're offering," Stiff says. "We're just getting the process underway."

For more information, visit www.newuniversity.net. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

15 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
August 16–August 23, 1990

On the cover: Soul II Soul's Jazzie B. The Mirror interviews American vocalist Kym Mazelle, who's touring with the band. Of the group's "revolving door policy on guest artists" and "liberating tolerance," Mazelle says, "Everybody is so individual that it enhances each other. Just positivity - absolute positiveness."

• Brendan Weston investigates crack use in Montreal. "How true is the equation: Poor x Young x Black = Crack + Crime?" he asks. Not very, according to Université de Montréal criminologist Marc Leblanc. "The studies show there's as much drug use in well-off areas as in poor neighbourhoods," he says. "In rich neighbourhoods, though, they're not in the street, they're in the basement, or in the chalet when the parents are away."

• The Mirror's second annual music directory lists over 300 bands and musicians, from A Few Colours ("Jazz with balls and feeling!") to Jim Zeller ("Blues").

• "Rand's theory, basically, is that most people are pond scum," reads the review of Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Angel >> Quebec's drinking culture Brewing and boozing in Quebec go back a long way, and with this history comes a lax approach towards alcohol, reflected in a relatively low legal drinking age. We've become accustomed to treating alcohol as no big thing, and our relaxed attitude rubs off on long-term visitors. So says American journalist Barrett Seaman, in his new book Binge: What Your College Student Won't Tell You. Seaman visited a dozen U.S. campuses as well as McGill (because of the number of American students here) and found that, thanks to alcohol's ready availability, students in Montreal were less likely to drink themselves stupid every time they got their hands on some. Many binged at first, of course, but when they realized booze would always be there, they soon settled down, as much as students can.
Insect >> Militarism and 9/11 Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld unveiled his plans to commemorate the 9/11 attacks: a two-mile "America Supports You Freedom Walk" starting from the Pentagon, where one of the four planes hijacked that day crashed, through Arlington cemetery to the National Mall, where country singer Clint Black will perform his new song, "I raq and I roll," among other hits. The Washington Post retracted its sponsorship of the event this week, saying the walk would be too pro-war for its journalistic objectivity to support, and that it would emphasize non-existent links between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers. A D.C. anti-war concert is planned for Sept. 24.