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FIESTA FINERY: One of the many Carifiesta parade participants shows off her stunning costume at Saturday’s parade. The post-parade party continued over two days at Parc Jean-Drapeau and was entirely peaceful, according to Montreal
police. PHOTO BY DOMINIC GOYET
Quote of the week
“Car thieves don’t target Americans any more than they target Canadians. They just go for more expensive cars, like SUVs.” —Montreal police commander Michel Guillemette, following a string of luxury car thefts and break-ins that affected some 40 American families visiting Montreal for a teenage girls’ softball tournament.
Lebanon post-war
One year ago this week, a border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas sparked a massive Israeli military assault on Lebanon that became the July, or Second, Lebanon War. After five weeks of fighting, more than 1,100 Lebanese and 43 Israeli civilians were dead. Members of Montreal’s Lebanese community and their supporters will gather this Saturday to remember the victims and reflect upon the events of the past year.
“My family had to leave their house because the bombs were [falling] too close,” says Sawsan Kalache of the Lebanese-Canadian social justice collective Tadamon!, one of the event organizers, who was in Beirut when hostilities erupted. “A few days after the beginning of the war, there were already 60,000 people displaced from the southern suburbs.”
The program will feature dinner, a photo exhibition, poetry from Ehab Lotayef and others, and testimonials from Montrealers who were in Lebanon at the time or whose lives were touched by the violence, including Hassan El Akhras, who lost 11 members of his family in an Israeli airstrike on July 16.
War on Lebanon: One Year Later takes place July 14, at the Côte-des-Neiges Community Centre (5347 Côte-des-Neiges, 2nd floor) at 6 p.m. Free admission, but donations welcome. Info (514) 664-1036.
by Christopher Hazou
Soccer without winning
No Gods, no Masters? Someday, perhaps. But for now, Montreal anarchists have set their sights on the more practicable goal of achieving a soccer game with no referees and penalties. And no winning nor losing. A soccer game with no “machismo” and no “discrimination.”
“It’s about participation,” says Leah Dolgoy, a regular at the Anarchist soccer games that occur every Thursday and Friday. “If winning is your main concern, you’re going to exclude the people that are not going to help you to that end.” Not that there’s anything wrong with the idea of winning, she says, but “in anarchist soccer, you think of everybody when you make a play. It’s a fun way to build a community.”
Here’s how it works: teams are composed of about six players, who have to play within certain rules—no handling the ball, and head butts and shin kicks are to be deprecated—and that’s all. “We don’t keep track of the score, so players can just have fun.”
The games are held Thursdays at NDG Park (corner of Sherbrooke and Girouard) at 6 p.m., and Sundays in Mile-End’s Laurier park (corner of Laurier and Mentana) at 2 p.m. For more information, contact organizer Alex Megelas at alexmegelas@hotmail.com.
by Samer Elatrash
Head & Hands launch
racy zine
The good Lord knows that if there’s anything youth needs to be educated about, it’s their sexual health and well-being. But tell that to the Quebec Ministry of Education, who in recent years have all but eliminated sex ed from the required high school curriculum. Meanwhile, half of all reported cases of gonorrhea in Canada are presented by 15-24-year-olds, certainly something to think about next time you’re cruising your neighborhood park looking for some youthful companionship.
This Sunday, July 15, at 8 p.m., NDG-based community organization Head and Hands’ excellent travelling sex education workshop, the Sense Project, will be throwing a wingding/fundraiser at la Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) to celebrate the launch of their new zine, The Birds and the Bees, with featured guests People for Audio, City of a Hundred Spires, Anti-School-Year and Nightwood.
“Don’t forget we’ll be having our pan-sexual kissing booth on-site too,” says Sense Project coordinator Christina Foisy. “We certainly aren’t judgmental when it comes to sexuality.”
Ten bucks buys you admission and a free copy of the debut issue of The Birds and the Bees. For more information, go to www.headandhands.ca.
by Chris Barry
Human rights on video
WITNESS, the human rights organization founded by musician and activist Peter Gabriel, is coming to Montreal. The group is bringing its Video Advocacy Institute (VAI), a new program that intends to teach human rights activists around the world to use video as a tool for advocacy and social change, to Concordia University’s communication studies program and Documentary Centre from July 15–27.
Concordia professors and students, with the assistance of the VAI teaching staff, will train a group of 30 human rights activists, whose causes range from the eradication of female genital mutilation in Gambia to stopping human trafficking in Thailand, in the finer points of video production and editing.
“The University is very proud that WITNESS has chosen us to host the very first VAI workshops,” says Concordia representative Tanya Churchmuch. “It’s incredibly important that we help provide these advocates with a new voice to get their messages out.”
While the training workshops are private sessions specifically for the selected activists, the public is welcome to attend “An Evening of Screenings and Discussions on Media, Human Rights and Action,” co-hosted by WITNESS and the Centre, at the NFB Cinema (1564 St-Denis) on Tuesday, July 24 at 6:30 p.m. For more info, visit witness.org.
by Steve Zylbergold
Rear-view mirror
20 years ago - july 3 – 24, 1987
On the cover: Westmount novelist Edward Phillips, whose protagonist in two of his three books is a white, upper-middle-class lawyer and homosexual. “I think that there are a great many homosexuals who do live in the mainstream and simply because they maintain a low profile they do not get coverage,” he says. The paper misspelled his name (“Philips”) on the cover and in the headline.
• With Jean Drapeau’s retirement only months away, Julien Feldman examines  his “first 10,000 days.” The iconic, autocratic mayor “achieved the ultimate in style over substance, symbolism as a substitute for real accomplishment.”
• Jenny Ross notes, cryptically, that at the Mirror’s first birthday party was the “Montreal Women’s Gin Drinking Association, sampling superlative entertainment of astonishing variety along with their Beefeaters.”
• An article laments the lack of independent cinema in Montreal. “Increasingly, independent productions are being used simply to fill holes in the major chains’ programming schedule, and increasingly, these holes are getting smaller and smaller.”
• The Mirror Vol. 2, no. 1 runs 16 pages.
 Angel >> Rethinking Canada’s prostitution laws A group of lawyers and law students announced this week that they’ll be challenging Canada’s existing laws around the buying and selling of sex. The status quo, they say, is inherently dangerous to prostitutes plying their trade—a point guaranteed to raise interest as the trial of Robert Pickton, the B.C. pig farmer accused of murdering 26 Vancouver streetwalkers, continues. Current laws state that while exchanging money for sexual services isn’t illegal, communicating about it beforehand is, meaning prostitutes often have to make split-second decisions about jumping into a car with a man who may be dangerous. The case will be argued in Ontario Superior Court, probably next month.
Insect >> 0.05 So much for joie de vivre. Last week, Quebec Transport Minister Julie Boulet said she will push for a road-safety pilot project that would include lowering the blood alcohol limit to .05 from .08 per cent when the National Assembly resumes in October. If a driver is caught blowing .05 in a roadside breathalyzer, he faces a 24-hour suspension of his licence—meaning, depending on your size, consuming as little as one glass of wine with dinner instantly puts you on the wrong side of the law. While criminal charges would not be filed—Canada’s Criminal Code won’t be changed—restaurateurs are crying foul, saying it discourages people from going out and actually having fun. |
