Quote of the week:

“U2 vient vivre à Montreal!” —Bono, announcing, perhaps, the Irish rock group’s move to Montreal, during their concert at the Bell Centre on Saturday.

Down with death

As of press time, convicted murderer Robin Lovitt is scheduled to be the 1,000th American executed by state authorities since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. Lovitt, from Virginia, was pre-deceased this week by Eric Nance, executed Monday in Arkansas, and John Hicks, executed Tuesday in Ohio.

The death penalty, enforced in 38 states across the U.S., is still a source of controversy in that country and beyond. Here in Montreal, the local branch of Amnesty International is organizing a demonstration outside the American consulate to protest its continued practice.

“There are three reasons we’re against the death penalty,” says Amnesty’s Anne Ste-Marie. “First, there’s no evidence it’s useful as a deterrent. Second, there is the risk of executing innocent people. And third, a number of studies show that there is a racist and discriminatory element to it—the number of blacks and Hispanics and disadvantaged on death row are much higher than their proportion on American society.”

The demonstration takes place Friday, Dec. 2, from 6 to 8 p.m., outside the U.S. consulate (1155 St-Alexandre). —Patrick Lejtenyi

Sex ed ’n’ roll

Next time you have unprotected sex with a minor only to wake up a few days later wondering why your urethra seems to be shooting fire, don’t blame yourself or the wanton tramp who passed the dose on to you. Save your discontent for the provincial education ministry.

Since budget cutbacks were introduced in September, “There are no longer any funds whatsoever directed towards sex education in the Quebec public school system—and the implications are overwhelming,” says Alex Megelas, fundraising director of Montreal youth-outreach organization Head and Hands.

With StatsCan reporting a full 50 per cent of Quebec teens believing AIDS is curable, and with STD infections among them nearly doubling in recent years, “You really have to question the soundness of these measures,” Megelas suggests.

To raise both awareness and funds for their own mobile sex ed workshop program, this Sunday, Dec. 4, Head and Hands will be sponsoring SEXMAS at Discothèque Cleopatra, (1230 St. Laurent, 2nd floor, 8 p.m., $8), a benefit featuring sonic sensations Chariots of Shame and Jesus and the Headliners. —Chris Barry

Street smarts

Last July, the city announced it would widen Notre Dame in the East End from four to eight lanes by creating a bastard child of the sunken Décarie expressway. Meant as a compromise between road users and residents, it pleased no one. Next Tuesday, Dec. 6, East End residents and anyone who’s interested will conclude a series of public discussions on why the project, as it stands now, sucks, and what other cities are doing to make road management smarter.

“People in this neighbourhood are tired of being laboratories for respiratory illnesses,” says discussion organizer Normand Robert. With 115,000 vehicles driving along Notre Dame each day already, he says, “This neighbourhood is becoming less and less pleasant a place to live.”

Robert says it’s “somewhat contradictory” for the city to be hosting a major environmental conference while it plans to make life easier for car drivers. He says his group has looked at alternatives in Europe and the States for better road management, which they’ll discuss on Tuesday at 1475 Bennett, 7 p.m. All are welcome, call 255-5007 or e-mail taqhm@mac.com. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Auction disaster

Last Tuesday, Nov. 22, Amelia Corrales, 68, a housekeeper and widow, opened the door of the bungalow she’s owned for 20 years in Lachine to a terrible surprise. The visitor informed her that he’d just bought her house at a city auction.

“He wanted to come in and take the measure of his new house,” says Corrales. “Since then I’ve been crying all the time. It’s terrible, I never expected something like that. I pay my bills all the time.”

Corrales recently discovered that her $1,200 property tax bills were being sent to an address she’s never lived at in Ontario. As a result she and her brother, who deals with her financial affairs while she winters in Colombia, were unaware of the debt. Corrales paid prior to the auction but the property was auctioned off anyway. Her repeated attempts to get answers landed in city hall voicemail purgatory.

The Mirror finally reached a city rep who confirmed that the sale would be reversed but could not explain how the mistake occurred. —Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

10 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Nov. 30–Dec. 7, 1995

On the cover: An unidentified guy in a tuque holding a CD in wrapping paper, for the Mirror’s CD buying guide. Among the recommended titles: the Beatles’ Anthology: 1; Def Jam 10th Year Anniversary 4-CD Box; Madonna’s Something to Remember and Frank Sinatra’s Sinatra 80th: All the Best and Live in Concert. Also included are jazz, classical and CD-ROM picks, as well as a list of Mirror Discs of the Weeks (“so far this year”).

• Managing editor Peter Scowen despairs over the state of Canadian politics, he writes in his Heads or Tails column. According to a poll, only four per cent of Canadians trust politicians. “Four per cent,” he writes. “That’s about one million Canadians; two million call JoJo’s Psychic Alliance every night.”

• “What the FUCK is all this techno shit?” asks a RantLine™ caller. “You call these people musicians? They spin a record. Why don’t they sit on their ass and rotate that? There’s more fucking DJs out there than bands! Fuck you, you DJ techno rave pricks!”

Angel >> Intergalactic peace activist Paul Hellyer Lester B. Pearson’s Defence Minister and Trudeau’s Deputy PM thinks it’s high time the Senate opens public hearings on exopolitics (human relations with extra-terrestrials), and fast. At a recent speech delivered to the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, Hellyer warned that the days when humans only fought each other may be waning, as, “The U.S. military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning.” He also condemned the Bush administration for planning to build bases on the moon to track and, if necessary, shoot any potential alien visitors. Given the current lame-ass state of Canadian politics, these views, while debatable, are nothing if not refreshing.
Insect >> Bad political timing So we’re off to the polls. Again. Not only will this campaign—at eight weeks, one of the longest in decades—run over the holidays, but it’s already distracting the Canadian media and public from one of the more pressing issues we face, global warming. It’s no surprise that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives oppose the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but forcing the non-confidence issue as he did this week, as Canada hosts over 10,000 delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference, seems petty and small-minded even for him. The Bloc and NDP aren’t blameless either. But fiddling while the Earth burns doesn’t make for good politics—not that you’d know it in Canada.