Quote of the week:

“He made me ashamed to be a man.” —Michel Vastel, author of Nathalie Simard biography Briser le silence, on disgraced Quebec entertainment mogul Guy Cloutier, who molested Simard as a child performer, on Monday.

Dead trans remembered

The seventh annual Transgender Day of Remembrance takes place on November 20, with memorial events planned in Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa, Ste. Catharines and Toronto. The day was created to honour people who have been killed due to anti-transgender hatred—worldwide, there’s an average of more than one murder per month in the last 10 years.

The first memorial ceremony was held in 1999 in San Francisco after the 1998 murder of Rita Hester, still unsolved. Now, events are held in over 230 cities worldwide.

Queer McGill has planned a candlelight vigil on the steps of McGill University’s Arts Building (853 Sherbrooke W.) at 5 p.m. on Sunday, with speakers including Joëlle Circé-Laramée of the International Intersex Organization. All are welcome.

“Although Queer McGill is committed to fighting transphobia 365 days a year, the vigil is a rare chance for us to take a moment, take a step back, and reflect on the diverse lives of those who’ve come before,” says Craig Ross, Queer McGill’s trans resource coordinator.

For more information on the day, check www.rememberingourdead.org. —Andrea Zanin

Mentally ill wanted

If you’re recovering from a mental illness, young ears need to know of your battle with the crossed wires in your skull. For the past eight years, the Décarie-Avenue-based AMI Québec has brought the mentally ill to describe their personal struggles to students in mostly English language high schools. “Whenever we have someone who could talk from his own personal experience the impact is much stronger,” says director Ella Amir.

Last year, AMI did 148 presentations in 48 schools, exposing the gears of mental disease to over 4,000 students. AMI needs more volunteers to help educate young minds as well as “fight misconceptions and stigma,” she says.

All stripes are welcome. “It doesn’t matter what type, as long as someone suffered from mental health issues that disabled him to a sufficient degree—the person might have OCD, depression, schizophrenia,” says Amir. No credentials are required other than “having gone through the experience and feeling comfortable talking about it. Very often the volunteers love it because it validates their own experience.” Call 486-1448 for more info. —Kristian Gravenor

Condos on film

St-Henri has undergone some drastic changes since the reopening of the Lachine Canal in 2002. A rush of real-estate development has seen old factories and warehouses give way to lush, new condominiums that promise “waterfront living” to the upwardly mobile, ousting working-class residents in the process. The situation is the subject of Going Condo: The Gentrification of St-Henri, a documentary film by Montreal resident Brett Story.

“I’m really hoping to involve people in a very essential debate on issues that aren’t specific to St-Henri, but are also being grappled with in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and the Mile-End,” says Story, who had her own childhood home repossessed in the name of development. “Gentrification isn’t random, it emerges out of the calculations of politicians and economists who see a profit in what once were poor and working class neighbourhoods.”

The film will have its first St-Henri screening in French and English at the Bread Factory (617 St-Rémi, second floor) on Monday, Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. The filmmaker and housing activist Louis Gaudreau will be present to field questions and facilitate discussion. —Jason Gondziola

Peace stroll

This Sunday, Nov. 20, is International Children’s Day, and to mark the occasion, the first Walk for Peace for Palestinian and Israeli children will take place on Mount Royal.

The brainchild of Palestinian-Canadian activist and writer Rania Arabi, the walk is designed to bring attention to the plight of Palestinian and Israeli children, whose lives are marked by a distinct lack of peace. Since October 2000, more than 110 Israelis and almost 700 Palestinians under the age of 18 have died violently.

Arabi says she was partly inspired by the story of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, killed recently by Israeli troops, whose family donated his organs to sick Israelis.

“A lot of people think that peace is impossible,” says Arabi. “[But] here’s an example of peace in action.”

Slip into some comfy shoes and do your part, as the Walk for Peace for Palestinian and Israeli Children kicks off Sunday, November 20, at 1:30 p.m. Participants will meet at the Belvedere Chalet at 1 p.m. before heading out on the Olmsted path.

For more info contact marchedepaixpeacewalk@hotmail.com. —Christopher Hazou

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

15 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Nov. 15–Nov. 22, 1990

On the cover: Two unidentified Redskins—anti-racist, pro-communist skinheads—as the Mirror examines the rise of a KKK-racist-skinhead alliance in Montreal. Local anti-racist activist Martin Thériault says the Klan is recruiting aggressively and instilling a new sense of discipline among Montreal skinheads.

• Brendan Weston also profiles Thomas Martinez, a former Klansman who turned state’s and now lectures against white supremacy. But, he notes, he wouldn’t want his daughter to marry a black man. “I want her to marry her own.”

• Another story, reprinted from the Pacific News Service, looks at the rise and fall of California white supremacist Tom Metzger.

• As the third Image + Nation gay and lesbian film fest opens, Steve Kokker worries about how homosexuality is portrayed in film. “Gay men have been justifiably concerned about cinematic depictions of themselves as suicidal perverts, unbalanced murderers and amusing poofs,” he writes.

• “Indian summer was delayed this year because of the Mohawk crisis,” writes Jenny Ross. “It lasted five days. Now it’s Eskimo winter.”

Angel >> Booze for seniors A nursing home in Ireland (go figure) found that having their elderly residents drink a pint or two a day extends their lives. By installing a pub in County Monaghan’s St. Mary’s Hospital, administrators found that seniors, instead of pondering their inevitable end, live longer with the added element of socialization. “They aren’t bored to death,” says one nurse there. The pub also has seen an increase in visitors, as friends and relatives become less reticent to visit the lonely residents. It’s the only hospital with a built-in bar, but surely having some kind of entertainment that doesn’t involve game shows and the weekly hokey-pokey is a good idea whose time has come.
Insect >> Incompetent copyright-protection measures Sony BMG had to wipe some egg off its face this week when it revealed that copy-restriction software on 20 CD titles actually acted like a virus and made it easier for spyware and trojan horses to infect host computers. A patch the company produced to fix the shortcoming made the problem worse; in desperation, Sony BMG called in Microsoft to fix the problem. One expert estimates that up to half-a-million networks, including government and military ones, could be infected. Sony won’t identify the titles, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org), a non-profit digital freedom organization, names them, including CDs by Celine Dion, Our Lady Peace, the Coral and the Dead 60s.