Quote of the week

We’re not going to take foie gras off.” —Globe restaurant owner Joao Pereira, responding to Pamela Anderson’s request that he remove the offending dish from the menu.

Pranks
and francs

Montreal-based pranksters the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted From Haiti (CRIME) say the hoax they pulled earlier this month is having a snowball effect in Haiti. Two weeks ago, the group aped the French government’s website to announce that France would be repaying the 90-million gold francs it expropriated from Haiti for lost profits when its former slave colony became independent in 1825. France responded by denying the claim and threatening to sue the group, which helped thrust the prank into global headlines. Laurence Fabre, the group’s pseudonymous spokesperson, says the call for repayment is now being heard again in Haiti.

“It was all over the Haitian media before it got attention anywhere else,” she says. “Now we’re seeing Haitians using this momentum to demand restitution.”

Fabre says the CRIME spent hours poring over videos on the French government’s Diplo TV to figure out how to imitate them.

“It’s amazing how inane the language is and what terrible production value there is,” says Fabre. “We were worried that if we made it look like their videos, everyone would think it was fake.”

Though the original site has been shut down, a mirror is available at diplomatiegov.info.

MATT JONES

De-car
your hood

Just in case motorists aren’t frustrated enough trying to get around this pothole-laden town already, the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre, in tandem with the Goethe Institut, is inviting citizen committees, neighbourhood organizations and commercial avenues to close a street section of their respective ’hoods to traffic on Sept. 22, aka International Car-Free Day.

“In Montreal, we’re trying to make it a Car-Free Neighbourhood Day this year,” says the MUEC’s Alexandra Coelho, local coordinator of the project. “So we’re asking interested parties to arrange to close off certain blocks of their neighbourhoods to motorized vehicles in solidarity with other Car-Free Day events taking place around the world.”

Coelho says the goal of Car-Free Day is to raise awareness of the harmful effects of increased motorized traffic in urban areas while encouraging alternatives like public transit and active transportation. “And also, of course, to promote community. Once a block is closed to motorized vehicles, there are countless ways to utilize the space: you could have a street party, a community picnic, a communal garage sale, a musical jam session, a giant tic-tac-toe game—the options are infinite.”

For guidance on jumping through the bureaucratic hoops required to see your neighbourhood participate, contact Alexandra via urbanecology.net/cfn2010.

CHRIS BARRY

Unbanning
pit bulls

The pit bull controversy in NDG is cooling down.

Peter McQueen, city councillor for Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, is re-thinking his call made last week for a ban on pit bulls in his riding following a flurry of complaints from angry residents.

The call followed a July 19 pit bull attack on 24-year-old Amanda Gatti. She was bitten repeatedly by a neighbour’s dog in her apartment on Clifton. The dog in question has since been euthanized.

“I was personally involved,” says the Projet Montréal councillor of his reaction to the attack, which occurred down the street from his home.

But McQueen says reaction to his plan has convinced him that a breed ban is not the way to go. He says he’s been flooded with evidence that such bans are ineffective, and that misbehaviour in aggressive dogs can usually be linked to bad owners. McQueen says his party is now looking at other ways to deal with irresponsible dog owners, including higher licence fees.

That’s good news for the SPCA. Tara Garland, director of the emergency shelter, says, “Our position would be opposed (to a ban). It’s not an effective solution to a larger problem, which is ownership.”

ELISABETH FAURE

Thirst in
the street

Dans la rue, the roving charity that services Montreal’s population of street kids with food and drink year-round, is running low on the drink part. Blame the hot summer weather. And so they are hoping their co-citizens will drop off or donate any amount of bottled water they can spare.

“We have noticed that some of our stocks are perilously low,” says Dans la rue’s executive director Aki Tchitacov. “And young people can be a bit careless, not taking things too seriously and minimizing the consequences” of not staying properly hydrated. “A lot of them are also addicted to drugs and so are unable to take proper care of themselves. It’s very easy to be overexposed [to heat] and not realize until it’s too late.”

Tchitacov says Dans la rue’s van hands out around 400 bottles of water a night, five nights a week, to all of its clients, young and old. Demand is up, staff has noticed, while supply is falling. The all-volunteer staff, trained in emergency first aid, has not yet had to treat anyone for dehydration or heat stroke, but Tchitacov says they are acting pro-actively.

To donate, call (514) 526-5222 or visit danslarue.com.

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Rear-view mirror

13 YEARS AGO - JULY 31–AUG. 6, 1997

On the cover: A pair of arm-wrestling, sailor-uniform-clad dykes, for the Divers/Cité special. One article looks at the “rise and fall of dyke night.” Queer women tend to be forced out of spaces, speculates Sky Pub DJ Bobzilla, because, “Women are less aggressive about taking up space than men, and men take up too much space.”

• Because of complaints of homophobia at BBCM parties, promoter Robert Vézina says tickets to future events will only be purchasable at a gay establishment.

• Daniel Harris, the author of The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, says it’s in decline because the oppression that caused it is declining. As homosexuality is more accepted, “The fop becomes the stockbroker.”

• Noting the 10,025 cheering fans at an Alouettes game at the Big O, Terry Haig writes, “That’s one of the nice things about football. There’s nothing cerebral about it.”

• “I’m sure that any Mexican who meets me would spot me right away as an impostor,” says Lhasa de Sela, about her Spanish-language album La Llorona.

Angel >>Happy Montreal Late July being the traditional time of year for breaking Earth-shattering news, consider this: Montreal, according to a Lonely Planet survey released in May, picked up by the Huffington Post and written about this week by the Canadian Press, is the second happiest place in the world! Right behind Vanuatu! The HuffPo write-up makes much of our festivals, especially the very happy Just for Laughs. Others on the list include the happy Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Happy, Texas and Malawi (happy despite appallingly high infant mortality and HIV rates). Smile everybody!

Insect >> Asbestos subsidies Quebec’s reputation, meanwhile, is taking a beating overseas, as the Charest government considers approving a $58-million loan to reopen the asbestos mine in the eponymous Estrie town. Not that much mined asbestos—banned in 30 countries and thought to cause 90,000 cancer deaths a year—will wind up in Canada. Most of it will be shipped to India, Thailand and Vietnam, where safety standards for asbestos workers are far slacker than here. A major BBC investigation last week slammed the industry and its government promoters in its report titled “Exporting an Epidemic,” joining an international chorus of health professionals and anti-asbestos activists in denouncing the fibre.