Quote of the week

“April Wine has done far more than the flash in the pan, over-hyped ’80s group Loverboy.” —“Dandon52,” posting his thoughts on Canadian Hall of Fame’s newest inductees April Wine, on CBC.ca. The band achieves immortality April 18.

Keeping
it up for Haiti

A month after the earthquake, Montrealers keep organizing benefits to send help down to Haiti. Here’s a round-up of this week’s events:

Une Voix pour Haiti is holding a march on Friday, Feb. 12 at 4:53 p.m. to mark exactly one month since the quake struck. The demo starts at Berri and René-Lévesque.

You’ve Got Mail is a Valentine’s Day event at the Sparrow (5322 St-Laurent) to raise cash for Partners in Health for Haiti. Participants pay to get a number tag and a mailbox then send hot love messages to each other. An amorous soundtrack will be provided by Jeremy Gara of Arcade Fire and Emily Bitze of Big Fun Wednesdays.

Eko/Echo is an art sale of works by 45 local artists to raise cash for Haiti. The sale runs Feb. 19–21 at Galerie du Viaduc (5806 St-Laurent).

Haiti: One Seed, One Land is an initiative that aims to give aid and promote food sovereignty for Haiti at the same time. Participants are gathering seeds from across the province to send to Haiti. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a dollar invested in agriculture could be worth $20–$50 in food aid later on. See 1semence1pays.org.

Bombs on
campus

Campus peaceniks at McGill are preparing for war. The casus belli: weapons research done by the university’s scientists that will now be unrestricted by a 23-year regulation designed to make such research transparent and open to public scrutiny.

The McGill Senate, comprised of faculty and student representatives, met this week on lifting the regulation, which the university says would place it on an equal footing with other research institutions in Canada and the U.S. Nikki Bozinoff, a 22-year-old organizer with Demilitarize McGill, was pessimistic. She says the recommendations by the student senators, who generally backed keeping the regulations in place, were “ignored” by the rest.

“If it passes, we will be back to square one,” she says. “There will be no transparency or regulations over research that is receiving military funding. The regulations have been in place since 1987.”

Among some of the weapons systems being researched at McGill are thermobaric explosives, better known as fuel-air explosives. Fuel-air explosives are considered more effective than traditional explosive fragmentary ordinance against bunkers, trenches and caves. See demilitarizemcgill.wordpress.com for more info.

Missing in
Canada

Missing Justice—the campaign seeking justice for 3,000 indigenous women who have gone missing in Canada since 1980—widens its focus this week with a forum on violence faced by indigenous women in North America. The panel features Jessica Yee, founder of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Janie Jamieson, a land rights activist who lost her aunt to violence, and documentary maker Rachel-Alouki Labbé, whose Désert de Croix examines sexual violence faced by indigenous women in the border town of Juárez, Mexico (see next story).

The event is part of the lead-up to the first national Annual Women’s Memorial March, which takes place on Sunday, Feb. 14 in cities and native communities across the country. The Montreal demo starts at 1:30 p.m. at Parc Émilie-Gamelin (Berri and Ste-Catherine).

“We’re calling on the state and all the institutions of the state to be accountable for their action and inaction in relation to missing and murdered indigenous women,” says Aimee Louw of Missing Justice.

The group now organizes two annual demonstrations to raise awareness about the situation and demand an independent inquiry into the cases—a demand that’s already been put forward by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), Amnesty International and the United Nations.

See missingjustice.ca for details

Missing
in Juarez

In the effort to focus attention on the horrific ongoing massacre of young women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Campus féministe pour la promotion de l’égalité des sexes à l’Université de Montréal will be screening local filmmaker Rachel-Alouki Labbé’s documentary on the issue, Désert de croix, on Thursday, Feb. 11.

Since 1993, more than 400 women have been abducted and brutally murdered in Ciudad Juárez and neighbouring Chihuahua City, with some 4,000 more reported missing. All of the victim’s bodies recovered to date have shown signs of being raped, with torture and mutilation a common thread among them as well. While it still remains to be seen who is responsible for these crimes and/or their motivations—explanations range from forced prostitution and organ trafficking rings to satanic rituals and the production of snuff movies—most agree that the institutionalized corruption that runs rampant through Mexico’s various police forces is a significant factor in these serial murders remaining unsolved.

The screening will be at 4:15 p.m. in room A600 on the sixth floor of the Alexandre de Sève Pavilion (2332 Édouard Montpetit). A post-screening discussion panel will be held between 5 and 5:30 p.m.

For more, go to aloukifilms.ca/nos-films/desert-de-croix

Rear-view mirror

13 YEARS AGO - FEB. 13–20, 1997

On the cover: The Spice Girls. “We have an ongoing philosophy!” says Mel B., aka Scary Spice. “You’ve only got one life—live it to the max! It doesn’t matter if you are fat, black, gay, straight, fat, fat or thin! We’re doing it for the girls!”

• The Mirror “is proud to announce the purchase of Halifax biweekly alternative paper The Coast.”

• Some sex survey responses: Prefer sex drunk or stoned? “I get dehydrated which often makes my box a condom shredder.” Secret Sexual Desire Before You Die? “Do it with Roseanne.” Would You Get Implants? “I would like a bigger penis, but I’m not willing to suffer.”

• In a special collaboration, Dread Zeppelin’s singer Tortelvis writes about Valentine’s Day. “I’ve found that it’s hard to keep ’em away when you present your lover with a heart-shaped cheese log, but it doesn’t always have to be something that romantic.”

• Rentals to avoid on Valentine’s: Love Story, Mahogany, The Way We Were, Endless Love, anything with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.

Angel >>Olympic hockey Say what you want about the Olympics, most sane sports fans would agree it features the best hockey games ever. For the next two weeks, the best players (well, debatable—where’s Mike Green?) will compete for the gold without being encumbered by plodding third- and fourth-line grinders and the drama of underperforming high-profile players (with the exception of Joe Thornton). And with the Habs in yet another late-season funk, beset by personnel changes and injuries, here’s a chance to get behind a team we can all cheer for. So skip work and get drunk, because this is going to be as good as it gets for a long time. Go Canada, eh!


Insect >>Attacking Insite, again Still not convinced that the only supervised injection site in North America is a crucial step in treating IV drug addicts, the federal government announced this week that it will take Vancouver’s Insite to the Supreme Court in a bid to shut it down for good. In January, BC Court of Appeal decision ruled that the federal government is overstepping its jurisdiction in trying to shutter the facility. But Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the 2-1 split decision gives him the authority to keep at it. And on goes the ever-successful war on drugs.