Quote of the week

“He’s God in Florida. I’d be stunned if he came to the CFL for a (starting) salary of $75,000 or $80,000.” —An anonymous source on University of Florida quarterback and outspoken pro-lifer Tim Tebow, who will be appearing in an anti-abortion ad during this Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIV. The Alouettes hold first options on his CFL rights.

Still more
Haiti help

More than three weeks after the earthquake that devastated the area around Port-au-Prince, events to raise funds for the three million people estimated to have been affected by the quake keep happening:

On Friday, Feb. 5 at 6 p.m., the Olivieri bookstore (5219 Côte-des-Neiges) is holding Étonnants voyageurs, an evening of readings of works by Haitian authors, with proceeds going to the Centre for International Development (CECI). Ten per cent of sales by Haitian authors will also go to CECI.

“S.O.S. Haiti—Réunissons Nous” takes place Saturday, Feb. 6 at the Belmont (4483 St-Laurent), featuring over 20 local hip hop acts including Dirty Taz, Negsayo and Any Double U. Funds go to the Canadian Red Cross.

Not to be left out, the city’s top mediums, astrologers, palmists and reiki masters will be performing a public healing ritual outside the esoteric bookstore the Magical Blend (1928 Ste-Catherine W.) from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 7. Donations will go to the Red Cross.

The Comité québécois pour la reconnaissance des droits des travailleurs haïtiens is holding a Valentine’s Day merengue/bachata night to raise cash for the Red Cross. That takes place at El Caballero (7474 St-Hubert) on Saturday, Feb. 13.

To check for more events, see agendapublic.net.

Boll does
Darfur

If you’re looking for an effective way to ease your conscience about doing absolutely nothing for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, now in its seventh bloody year, Stand Canada will be making it easy for you. This Thursday, Feb. 4, they will hold a special screening of Darfur, directed by Uwe Boll, the peculiar German filmmaker often called “the new Ed Wood,” at StarCité (4825 Pierre de Coubertin, 7 p.m., $10) as part of their Stand For the Dead campaign. The movie stars Billy Zane (Titanic, Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight) and Edward Furlong (Terminator II: Judgement Day, Detroit Rock City) as American journalists in the region.

“Boll’s film is fictional, but it effectively portrays what’s going on over there,” says Stand Canada spokesperson Lisa Pires. Describing itself as “the leading youth-led anti-genocide group in Canada,” Stand Canada is “concerned people are starting to forget about Darfur, so we’re trying to raise both awareness and funds for victims through this campaign.”

The group is urging people to purchase a t-shirt with a victim’s name on it. The t-shirts will be available onsite and can be purchased via the group’s website (standforthedead.com).

Mind food

The structural causes of global poverty and inequality— and what Canadians can do about them—will be the focus of the Social Justice Committee of Montreal’s upcoming workshop series “Alternative Responses to the Global Food Crisis.”

The workshops deal with how the fight for food sovereignty—the right for a country and its people to determine its own agricultural policies—is playing out in countries such as Guatemala. There, mega-development projects like the Marlin mine owned by Goldcore, a company registered in Canada, are permitted to use intense amounts of water in a place where water is scarce, and where local subsistence farmers desperately need access to it.

“We’ve got a letter writing campaign going for support for Bill C300—a bill that would call for the Canadian government to withdraw support from mining companies that repeatedly don’t respect human rights and environmental standards abroad,” says Leah Gardner, the education programs coordinator for the SJC.

The workshop series, hosted in collaboration with le Comité Amérique Latine UQÀM, will be presented in French on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at noon at UQÀM, Salle D-R200, Pavillon Athanase-David (D) (1430 St-Denis). An English version of the series is upcoming in March. For more information, visit s-j-c.net.

Montreal
transitions

Worried about the future? Think it’ll look more like The Road than Star Trek? Dead oceans, dead forests, dead skies and cannibals? A new movement is already discussing the future and what it holds at the local level.

Admittedly, the Resilience Cycle isn’t too concerned about wandering through a burned and boiled world. But its members do believe in the (still controversial) peak oil theory and the reality of global warming. But instead of stockpiling food, water and ammunition, they are forming regular meetings to discuss the coming issues and how they’ll affect our city. With climate change, they argue, will come more expensive energy, including gasoline, and food prices. Crumbling infrastructure—this is Montreal, after all—will also be problematic, given its effects on the cost of transporting goods into the city. The group is part of the Transition Towns network, which encourages sustainability-minded citizens to learn about and discuss the issues they consider real and on the horizon.

The local chapter will gather this Sunday, Feb. 7 at Main Film (4067 St-Laurent, 7 p.m., donations accepted) to talk about spreading the word, ending their first cycle that covered food, transportation, housing and community. See resiliencecycle.ning.com and transitiontowns.org for more info.

Rear-view mirror

10 YEARS AGO - FEB. 3–10, 2000

On the cover: Filmmaker Errol Morris outside Auschwitz, for Mr. Death, his doc about electric chair designer/Holocaust denier Fred A. Leuchter. Wondering whether his subject is genuinely evil or just misguided and used by deniers for their own purposes, Morris can’t make up his mind. “It is hard for me to believe that he could do his stuff as innocently as he planned. But on the other hand, it’s hard for me to believe that he could do it under any circumstances.”

• The life of Else’s pub/restaurant proprietor Else Smith will be celebrated at the Bayou, following her death in a house fire.

• Russell’s Books on St-Antoine W. is expropriated for the Palais des Congrès extension, joining the Central Stamp and Seal and the American Tavern, “inebriated birthplace of Trivial Pursuit,” in history

• “My housekeeper calls me Mr. Humpy. My Jewish friends call me Engeh and my Japanese friends call me Engie Chan,” says Engelbert Humperdinck.

• Zeke’s Dirty Sanchez is Disc of the Week.

• Under the logo: “CCRAP free.”

Angel >>Rejecting corporate-funded elections A Quebec citizens jury, consisting of 12 non-experts picked from a voting list, decided this week to maintain a ban on corporate and union donations to political parties. Good news, especially since that can of worms is now deemed A-OK stateside, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision. The citizens jury was convened following last November’s bitter municipal election, dominated as it was by allegations of corruption and influence-peddling and a general atmosphere of sleaze, and has presented its decision to the province’s chief electoral officer. Whether or not this will actually clean up local politics, or be even the slightest bit effective, is still debatable.


Insect >>Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice Here we go again. Every time a Conservative Environment Minister opens his or her mouth, he or she says something that makes the environment worse. This time it’s Jim Prentice, who told a Calgary audience that Quebec’s vehicle greenhouse gas emissions legislation is “absolutely counter-productive and utterly pointless,” since it requires large auto manufacturers to actually make cars that conform to its stricter standards or face a fine of up to $5,000 by 2016. Quebec shot back, saying Prentice is misinformed. But the point remains that since the Conservatives’ emissions targets are so weak, their spewing on anyone who makes them look bad by comparison is nauseating.