Quote of the week

“For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza.”—Kabul zoo director Aziz Gul Saqib, in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail. Afghanistan’s only known pig has been isolated since Sunday.

Roots radicals

Having flexed their activist muscles since the 1960s, Laura Whitehorn and Susie Day will bring their wealth of experience to the Festival of Anarchy to discuss the question of what radical activism looks like today.

The New York City pair will address a range of topics, from Palestine to political prisoners to the need to confront racism within leftist groups.

“The hardest questions to raise are the ones that are most important to raise. It’s necessary to challenge those things within our own comfort zone,” said Whitehorn. “But the things that are hard to face, we face them with great joy, because they touch on what it is to be human.”

Whitehorn was once a member of the American radical group the Weather Underground, and spent 14 years in prison for engaging in conspiracy and destruction of government property. She is currently an editor at POZ, a magazine for HIV-positive people. She met and fell in love with Susie Day in 1988, when Day interviewed her in jail. Day now writes a political satire column for Gay City News.

The event takes place at Concordia’s J.A. de Sève Cinema (1400 de Maisonneuve W., Room LB-125) at 7 p.m.

HEATHER ROBB

Coathanger
retaliation

Forty years ago this week, abortion was decriminalized for therapeutic purposes in Canada. And while it might seem like the struggle over abortion rights was settled long ago, pro-choice advocates warn that religious and political conservatives are trying to roll back the clock and limit a woman’s right to choose. That’s why they’re hitting the streets today, Thursday, May 14, to mark the occasion with a demonstration starting at 5:30 p.m. in Cabot Square (corner Ste-Catherine and Atwater).

“It’s really a counter-attack,” says Mahée Lamoureux, a spokesperson with le collectif La Riposte. “We want to send a message to anti-choice groups that we’re still here and we’re watching them.”

What Lamoureux and company see isn’t comforting. Since February, the Morgentaler Clinic has been the site of regular protests by a local anti-abortion group, and last year a Conservative MP introduced a private member’s bill into Parliament that would have given legal rights to fetuses. It was ultimately abandoned by the Harper government, but only after a public outcry.

Organizers are asking marchers to bring clothes hangers and knitting needles as a graphic reminder of the bad old days. For more info, e-mail collectiflariposte@gmail.com.

CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Teens on the march

If you’re happening through the Plateau on Friday, May 15, and find yourself amid a small army of socially engaged teenagers, fear not—as long as you don’t look them in the eyes, nobody’s likely to pull you aside for the chastisement you and your pathetic generation deserve for your pitiful inaction with respect to global warming.

Leaving from Parc Lafontaine at 10:15 am and returning around noon to “party” to sets by entertainers Charli Arcouette-Martineau, Roxane Bourdages, Éric Paulhus and others, Oxfam Quebec’s youth division, Club 2/3, will be steering some 15,000 high school students from across the province through the streets of Montreal as part of their march to address climate change, Ça chauffe sur la planète, BOUGE.

“Bouge is the biggest youth rally in North America, and this will be it’s 39th edition,” says Oxfam Quebec’s Justine Lesage. “The kids have been involved with Oxfam all year [in school] doing fundraising events while we’ve been holding information sessions with them on subjects like international solidarity, the plight of war children, agriculture in the developing world and other issues like that. The Bouge walk is the culmination of their year’s work with us.”

CHRIS BARRY

Virtual therapy

Psychotherapy in Second Life and depression support groups on Facebook are among the issues that will be discussed at the first North American conference on mental health and the Internet, which begins today in Montreal.

Conference co-organizer Christophe Herbert says that the event will address ways in which psychologists and psychiatrists can use the Internet as a new tool to diagnose, treat and research mental illnesses. Providing online psychological support to victims of major traumatic events, such as terrorist attacks, is also on the conference’s agenda. However, the negative influence the Internet can have on mental health, such as Internet addiction, will not be talked about, according to Herbert—apparently that’s a whole other show.

Presenters from all over Europe, Taiwan, Israel, Mexico and the United States will attend the International Conference on the Use of the Internet in Mental Health, which runs May 14–16 at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute’s Douglas Hall (6875 Lasalle). Registration costs $225 for students and $325 for everyone else. Those who register at the door will have to pay an additional $25. For more information, visit douglas.qc.ca/internet-mental-health.

LINA HARPER

Rear-view mirror

18 YEARS AGO - MAY 16–22, 1991

On the cover:Ivan Doroschuk of Men Without Hats, discussing their “hard-rocking,” “punk-inspired” new album, featuring members of the Doughboys and Voivod. Doroschuk argues that the Hats were always a heavy band at heart. “Obviously, the record company tried to fit us into a mold that we didn’t fit into. I wasn’t into being the next Duran Duran, which is what MCA wanted.”
•After Tories gut the national rail system, Bombardier takes interest in VIA’s proposed high-speed, Montreal–Toronto train, provided a quarter of the $5.3-billion bill is footed by taxpayers.
•Impoverished Pointe St-Charles is profiled in a depressing piece entitled, Last exit to the Point. “When you’re unemployed and on welfare, there’s not a whole lot you can do,” says playwright David Fennario. “You can go out and protest, but after doing that about a dozen times, you just realize it’s not going to do anything and then you give up.”
•Martin Siberok addresses the absurd hype around Madonna’s Truth or Dare film, but praises her work ethic, showmanship and openness about sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular.
•Playing the 1991 Jazz Fest: Cab Calloway, Steve Reich, Shirley Horn, Maceo Parker, Ben E. King, Andy Summers.

Angel >> Daydreaming Despite the ample distraction provided by the Internet’s naked ladies, jackass videos, Top 5 lists, trivia quizzes and status updates, we still spend one third of our time daydreaming. But next time you (or your teacher/boss/mom) catch yourself staring out a window thinking about sex or sports or food (or your teacher/boss/mom), don’t feel guilty. Research at the University of B.C. reveals that brain activity increases when the mind wanders, especially in areas associated with complex problem-solving. The study also found that the brain sorts through “important problems in our lives” when it stumbles into this maligned, misunderstood cognitive state.

Insect >>Polluted groundwater If you’re not worried enough about the carcinogenic, hormone-disrupting contaminants in your home, workplace, car, food, gadgets, soap and air, now there’s pollution underground too. A study led by former Environment Canada scientist James Bruce finds that global warming, energy production, intensified agriculture and industrial contamination are threatening the country’s slow-moving groundwater, a vital resource that needs to be better understood, managed and protected to avert tragedies like the E. coli poisoning in Walkerton, ON. It’s estimated that there is 100 times more water underground than in Canadian rivers and lakes.