WINTER CARNIVAL: A fan of the traditional Haitian dance troupe Ekspresyon celebrates Black History Month at a masked ball at the Lion d’Or last Friday night. The carnival, hosted by Ekspresyon and their high-octance combination of music, dancing and voodoo-inspired masks, was only one of many other events happening all month. Photo by Kate Hutchinson

Quote of the week

"The message [the Crown decision] sends is that I guess everybody is entitled to a second chance.” —Steven Greenberg, lawyer for Dorval’s Stephen Fernandes, who was caught drunkenly peeing on the National War Memorial in Ottawa last Canada Day. Charges against Fernandes, who has publicly apologized for the incident, were withdrawn on Tuesday

Anti-green spin watch

If you ever wanted to be a detective when you were a kid, now’s your chance. DeSmogblog—a blog dedicated to debunking claims that climate change is a myth—has sent out a call for help from sleuthing students.

The new program is called “DeSmog Detectives,” and blog creator Jim Hogan—who sits on the board of the David Suzuki Foundation—is hoping students and other enviro-conscious people across Canada will be on the look-out for climate change spin in newspapers, on TV, in leaked documents and on corporate Web sites and send in the tips.

Each month, the detective who contributes the best news tip wins $50 in iTunes credits. The Vancouver-based Hogan says these spin-doctors belong to what he calls “astro-turf” (i.e., the opposite of grassroots) groups, and are often American-based think tanks receiving front-money from corporations who have interests in the energy sector.

The spin-doctors—many of whom used to work for big tobacco—send press releases to the media and write policy papers that Hogan says are primarily done to confuse public opinion and delay action on climate change. “You would think it would be illegal,” he says.

—Giuseppe Valiante

Democracy in Israel

Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who are roughly 20 per cent of the Israeli population, can vote in Israeli elections, and according to the Israeli government, enjoy all the perks democracy can offer. Dr. Jamal Zahalqa, a Palestinian member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, would beg to differ. He will present a lecture at Concordia on Thursday, Feb.15, entitled “Debunking the Myth of Israeli Democracy,” which gives a solid impression of where he stands.

Zahalqa is a member of the National Democratic Assembly Party, which, according to its platform, advocates “state for all its citizens.”

“Palestinians within Israel live as second-class citizens. They are citizens, but are completely marginalized,” says Tania Tabar, an organizer with Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.

Rabbi Reuben Poupko, an organizer with the Canadian Jewish Congress, counters by saying, “The fact that SPHR is inviting an Arab member of the Israeli parliament shows their argument is hollow.”

Tabar says that while there are a number of Arab members of Knesset, Palestinian Israelis—who lived under military rule in Israel until 1966—are systematically discriminated against, and are not allowed to lease state-owned lands.

The lecture begins at 8:30 p.m. at 1455 de Maisonneuve W. Rm. H-937.

—Samer Elatrash

Save hockey, planet

As the planet warms up, Canada risks losing its hockey, as played on frozen rinks and ponds, anyway. The late start to this year’s winter season has alarmed a number of hockey aficionados, and an increasing number of concerned citizens are worried that global warming will wipe out Our Game. And so, to raise some much-needed attention, a number of volunteers from Earth Day/Jour de la Terre and Canadian Youth Climate Change are participating in a Sauvons le hockey! event this Friday, Feb. 16. The outdoor game gets started at 11:30 a.m. at Toussaint l’Ouverture park, on de Maisonneuve and St-Dominique.

“The goal is to reach people, not those who are already ecologically minded, but the wider public,” says Jour de la Terre’s Myriam Broué. “Hockey touches people emotionally, it’s a big part of our culture, and we want to tell people that it’s our hockey and our climate that are in danger.”

All are welcome. For the less athletic, there will be a march on Saturday, Feb. 17, to mark the second anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol’s entry into force. The march starts at Berri Square at 11 a.m.

—Patrick Lejtenyi

Youth for civics

If you start noticing an unusual amount of conscientious, civically minded kids arriving in town over the next week or so, be not afraid. The youth from across Canada will be assembling in Montreal this coming Feb. 23, 24 and 25, for the “Single Actions: A World of Difference” conference being hosted by the School of Community and Public Affairs (SCPA) of Concordia University.

Conference spokesperson Laura Howard says the primary goal of the event will be to discuss the future of Community Economic Development (CED) in Canada, with a strong emphasis on the Montreal area.

“We’ll be looking at how to create programs in neighbourhoods like Côte-des-Neiges that help generate economic opportunities, programs that then help sustain these communities in a certain way economically,” says Howard.

“One important issue we’ll be addressing is what to do in certain areas of the city where there are lots of kids who might not be interested in higher education, but are keenly interested in, say, hip hop or the arts, and how to create economic opportunity for these youth in these areas.”

For more information, go to www.aworldofdifference.ca.

—Chris Barry

Rear-view mirror

On the cover: “Non-belligerent hip hop trio” De La Soul, whose “speak,” Andrew Jones writes, is “a mellifluous, near-Elizabethan hip hop dialect that owes a lot more to King Lear than Big Daddy Kane.” Dave Jolicoeur a.k.a. Trugoy the Dove, says his style “goes back to the 10th grade,” when he was writing for other lyricists. “Our lyrics were sort of complex, and it went way over their heads, ’cos [other lyricists] were all about that LL Cool J kind of line. You know, ‘I’m bad, I’m dope, I’m rich.’”

• In Montreal’s new recycling program, “Disorganization and confusion reigns… as governments claim there is no market for sorted trash and firms say governments haven’t created enough incentives,” writes Eleanor Brown.

• The Performing Arts Guide leads off with an article on “a decade in decline for Montreal’s English theatre community.”

• David Shannon accuses the Gazette of “reinforcing the attitudes that gays are sick” by running stories about a Chinese “cure” for homosexuality and the Archbishop of Dublin’s homophobic comments.

Angel: Trimming anti-terror laws In the raw, emotional days following 9/11, most countries, including Canada, drew up and enacted strict anti-terror laws that handed law enforcement wide powers of search and detention—with the assurance that they would have to be reviewed in five years. Five years have come and gone, and the federal Liberals—the ones who enacted the Canadian laws—have said they won’t support the Conservatives in their bid to renew the laws in a vote set for this week. And while the laws haven’t been used in Canada once, security certificates, which allow for arrests and restricting access to evidence from defendants, have—which more or less shows that law enforcement agencies have enough powers as is.

insect: Politicizing the courts Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives are stacking the committees that select judges with partisan cronies, the Globe and Mail revealed this week. Sixteen of the 33 people chosen by the federal justice minister to sit on the judicial advisory committee have ties to the Conservative party, either as former political candidates or staffers; and many of the non-partisans are well-known for their conservative views. The legal community and opposition groups are crying foul (although the Liberals certainly aren’t innocent of similar shenanigans during their years in power). Plus, the Conservatives made changes to the committee selection process so federal appointees will now have a bigger say in who eventually becomes a judge.