Quote of the week:

“We wish success to the Parti Québécois in the Quebec election next year so this country will know more than its autonomy, a form of independence.” —French Socialist Member of the European Parliament Pierre Moscovici, even though no provincial election is imminent.

Amnesty for women

It’s no secret that women still face discrimination and oppression in many parts of the world, but according to human rights activists, their predicament is growing ever more dire.

“The discrepancy between the [declarations of international] treaties and the reality of women is worsening, not improving,” says Amnesty International spokeswoman Anne Sainte-Marie.

To raise awareness of the issue, Amnesty and the Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges are sponsoring an evening of poetry and readings with local actors performing works of author and women’s rights activist Taslima Nasreen. Nasreen, who fled her native Bangladesh in 1995 after being repeatedly assaulted and threatened, is an outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism and the treatment of women in her home country. Nasreen herself will not be in attendance.

The event, called La Femme qui casse des briques, takes place Friday, Nov. 25—which happens to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women—at the Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges (5290 Côte-des-Neiges, 8 p.m., free).

Tickets must be obtained in advance from the Maison de la culture. For info call 766-9766. —Chris Hazou

Puppetry of the tree-ness

Four-metre-high puppet trees don’t usually sprout up here this time of year, but on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 1 p.m., one will grow at St-Antoine and St-Urbain to encourage the Coalition of Rainforest Nations (Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, DR Congo, Chile, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Bolivia).

Those countries are proposing a motion that would see the UN dole out cash to countries that protect rainforests. One environmentalist coming in from Los Angeles says that the puppet tree should remind people of the ongoing death of 30 million acres of rainforest a year.

“The Kyoto Protocol hasn’t really done anything for tropical rainforests, so this is probably the most important vote on tropical forests in the last 15 years,” says John O. Niles, manager of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA). “People are coming to Montreal from the U.S. and around the world. So if people wanna come out and see something really cool, they should be at the Palais des Congrès,” where the UN Climate Change Conference will take place from Nov. 28–Dec. 9. —Kristian Gravenor

Nothing for sale

This Friday, Nov. 25, will be an orgy of consumerism, as well as the 13th annual Buy Nothing Day. The first day after American Thanksgiving is supposedly the biggest shopping day of the year, as the Christmas season officially begins to drive everybody insane. That’s why, 12 years ago, Adbusters magazine founders created Buy Nothing Day as a refutation of mass crass consumerism. Buy Nothing Day is now observed by millions across the world, who spend no money for 24 hours on anything.

Here in Montreal, friendly neighbourhood eco-types at the Co-op Maison Verte will celebrate their fifth anniversary bash on Sunday, Nov. 27 by selling nothing. They will have music, free food, tea and coffee—fair-trade and organic at that—and information on how the co-op works.

“It’s going to be a community-oriented event, so we’ll be closing the commercial side of the store,” says Co-op member-worker Aimee Van Drimmelen. “Much to the dismay of people who don’t know it’s Buy Nothing Day.”

Fun starts at the Co-op (5785 Sherbrooke W.) from noon to 5 p.m. All are welcome. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Protect our parks

Algonquin tribes long saw magic in the forests around the Dumoine River along the Quebec border with Ontario. The area remains largely unspoiled and uninhabited, complete with undammed rivers and 90-year-old cedars and white and red pines. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and local nature lovers are holding an event on Thursday, Dec. 1 at the Gèsu (1200 Bleury, 7 p.m., $12) to talk up their campaign to have it classified as a National Park and to limit excessive logging in the area.

This event piggybacks the local pitstop of the nationwide tour to save the Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories, an area of unique limestone caves. It has become a potential site for mining, a prospect decried by such Canadian celebs as Justin Trudeau and comedian Cathy Jones.

The Dumoine is described by CPAWS’s Marie-Eve Marchand as “the last intact watershed in southern Quebec, with the largest intact forest. We’re asking the government to protect it, but the whole thing has been given over to the forestry industry.”

For tix and other info call 278-7627. —Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Nov. 21–Dec. 1, 1994

On the cover: Me Mom and Morgentaler, who ponder the weight of their moniker. “With a name like Me Mom and Morgentaler, you don’t have aspirations to much,” says singer Gus Coriandoli. “It’s hard too,” adds saxophonist John Jordan, “because we feel a responsibility to it. Especially since we met [abortion doctor Henry Morgentaler], and he’s like, ‘I love you boys.’”

• “Just a word of advice, never run up to your friends frantically exclaiming, ‘Hide me! Mitsou is going to kill me,’ and expect to get any assistance or sympathy,” writes Josh Bezonsky, drawing from experience, in his Inappropriate Behaviour! column.

• Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta discusses her film Camilla, about former lovers reuniting in their golden years. “Films have a tendency to make octogenarians totally asexual, don’t they,” she says.

• In the Mirror’s Cool Hot Winter Sex Guide, Al South offers five tips on renting porn: Ascribe to the auteur theory; Be wary of the star system; “Couples” are lame; Amateur can be fun; Don’t feel guilty.

Angel >> FightAIDS@Home Billed as the “first biomedical distributed computing project” ever, the project uses thousands of donated PC downtime hours to compute millions of combinations of chemical compounds that would lead to more effective HIV medications. Individuals run the computations on their computers when not using them, like a similar project looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence, SETI@Home. Their work is needed: This week, UNAIDS, the United Nations program that deals with the disease, reported that the number of people infected with HIV worldwide topped 40.3 million—although it did note that progress was being made in lowering the rate of infection in some sub-Saharan countries.
Insect >> Gridlock Based on research conducted in the country’s nine biggest cities, Transport Canada released a report this week showing that gridlock costs Canada approximately $6-billion a year in lost productivity. A study four years ago showed Montreal alone lost $600-million. No figures are available on how many strokes, heart attacks and fistfights are caused by frustrated motorists, but one thing is plain: Canada needs more, better and cheaper public transportation—especially considering that idle cars stuck in gridlock are responsible for seven per cent of fuel consumption. Automobiles, by the way, are responsible for seven per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.