Dousing the flame

If pretty well everything that the Olympic Games stand for pisses you off, rest assured you’re not alone. Topping the list of those who regard the Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Olympic Games as “a propaganda tool that promotes gentrification, repression and environmental destruction” are the Secwepemc tribe from the B.C. interior, who have steadfastly resisted the Sun Peak ski resort on their territory.

To mark the Olympic Torch Relay that will be passing through Montreal next Thursday, Dec. 10, local indigenous solidarity and social justice organizers are lending their support to calls by the Olympic Resistance Network for protests and disruptions to the event. The campaign, No Olympics on Stolen Native Land, begins with a 5 p.m. art auction/party on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 3942 Ste-Emilie and will be followed by a series of events throughout the week, culminating in a protest against the Olympic Torch Relay on Thursday, Dec. 10, that will be gathering at 5:30 p.m. on the corner of Notre Dame E. and Place Jacques Cartier.

According to organizers, “the history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, fascism, repression and violence. Only the political and corporate elite have anything to gain from the Olympics industry.”

For the week’s schedule information, go to amp-montreal.net.

Peace wins in Iraq

The principle of non-violence isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when someone mentions modern-day Iraq. But it does have its adherents there, and Rights & Democracy, a local non-governmental human rights advocacy group, is awarding its annual John Humphrey Award to La’Onf, an Iraqi group that preaches peaceful co-existence in a very fractured place.

Ibrahim Ismael, the chair of the group’s board of directors, tells the Mirror through a translator that being non-violent in a country plagued by violence isn’t easy, and ethnic fissures don’t help. But the group’s makeup helps bridge those differences, he says. “We have people who are Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christians, Yezidis, Muslims who are all working under our umbrella. Everyone is doing their best to disseminate the culture of non-violence.”

That means doing everything from organizing peace rallies and Global Peace Days to building a civil society and calling for the removal of foreign troops. Winning the award, says Ismael, shows that unofficial global networks can also work for peace. “We always hear about terrorists getting help and support from other parties. Rarely do peace movements get help from others.”

Ismael will speak in Montreal on Monday, Dec. 7 at 535 Viger E., 6:30 p.m. For more info, see laonf.net or dd-rd.ca.

Wheels need cash

You’d be hard pressed to find anybody in this town with anything negative to say about Santropol Roulant and their Meals on Wheels program. Yet food and resources don’t just arrive magically, so every year, SR reaches out to the public for the funds needed to continue the fine work they do.

This Sunday, Dec. 6, beginning at 6 p.m., they’ll be trying to meet their goal of raising $30,000 by throwing a fundraising bash at the Musée Juste Pour Rire (2111 St-Laurent). “The space will be decorated as a magical fairy-scape of snow and ice,” says event coordinator Sarah Pearson. “It’s going to be a beautifully enchanting affair with unbelievably delicious food, live aerial acrobatics, Tarot card readings, French Impressionist music from the Lotus Trio as well as the Wandering Fuscia Boys playing their Leonard Cohen covers. We’ll also be having an art auction and general silent auction going on with great things to bid on: trips, restaurant certificates, lots of cool stuff that’ll make for excellent Christmas presents.”

Tickets are on a sliding scale of $100, $65, $45 and $30, and available online at santropolroulant.org, by phone at (514) 284-9335, or in person at 111 Duluth W.

For more information, contact Sarah at sarah@santropolroulant.

Splitting the truth

American-born Native activist Splitting the Sky is ready to blow the whole rotten thing wide open. The Attica rebellion veteran, American Indian Movement member and Gustafsen Lake protestor, is also a crackerjack researcher who says he has definitive, incontrovertible proof that 9/11 was, yes, an inside job. And he has a presentation to prove it.

Arrested in Calgary last spring for attempting to carry out a citizen’s arrest on George W. Bush, Sky says the former president, his vice-president and their shadowy allies were convinced they could get away with blowing up the World Trade Center, murdering thousands of innocents, engaging in two ruinous wars and earning the enmity of the world in order to gain access to distant oil and gas fields in faraway and difficult to access seabeds. Telltale stock trading prior to the attacks and an impending, potentially costly lawsuit against WTC owners over asbestos are just parts of his case, he says.

“I have conclusive evidence” that will expose the conspiracy, he says. “I’ll be exposing all the corporations, all the players, and charging the real terrorists. The war on terror is bogus.”

Splitting the Sky speaks on Saturday, Dec. 5 at the Centre St-Pierre (1212 Panet), at 7 p.m., $10 suggested donation.

Rear-view mirror

11 YEARS AGO - DEC. 3–10, 1998

On the cover: MusiquePlus’s Elsie Martins, for the annual CD buying guide. Recommended by Elsie: Manic Street Preachers’ This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. By Mirror writers: Amon Tobin’s Permutation; Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter in America; Slayer’s Diabolus in Musica; Plastikman’s Artifakts/Consumed; Sloan’s Navy Blues; Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill; Art Tatum’s God Is in the House.

• Dominique Ritter spends the (provincial) election night at the Cowansville prison and finds inmates are overwhelmingly separatist. “We’re better off with Bouchard than Charest,” says Moose. “Charest wants to hang us all.”

• Trey (South Park) Parker’s Orgazmo is “a funny premise (Mormon ends up inadvertent porn star) ruined by lack of innovative jokes and punchiness and—are you ready?—an overdose of sophomoric humour. Okay, so this last point is precisely what makes the cartoon phenom so damn appealing, but it doesn’t work here.”

• Photo of the week captures an elephant standing on St-Jacques. Sheeba is actually on set, “starring in a miniseries about the life of legendary showman P.T. Barnum.”

Angel >> La Presse’s reprieve Thanks to a series of agreements made over the past several weeks, the last one coming Monday night, the 125-year-old broadsheet will survive the current storm buffeting so much of old media—for now. It hasn’t been pretty though: unions representing editorial, IT, office and distribution workers were forced to make big concessions, including working longer hours at the same pay, pay freezes and cutbacks to vacation time and the pension plan. The best part: There will be no cuts to editorial staff, other than a few voluntary departures. Given the current state of print media, more news is good news.


Insect >> Climategate The worst thing about the hacking of the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Climatic Research Unit two weeks ago is the ammunition it’s given to climate change deniers. Having published hundreds of e-mails and other documents online, the deniers have been having a ball cherry picking data and quoting researchers out of context. The university is investigating the incident, and although some of the protocol may have been questionable, the science remains solid. Nevertheless, the deniers are in full attack mode, ironically accusing the world’s leading climate scientists of collusion and data manipulation—hardly helpful and very suspicious in the week leading up to the Copenhagen summit.