Angel >> Those hard-working activist-types at Voices of Conscience, still fighting the sanctions against the people of IraqThe Montreal-based group is holding a benefit soiree to raise funds for a delegation they're sending to Iraq on January 3--including federal NDP MP Svend Robinson. Proceeds will be used to buy school supplies for Iraqi children which, says the group, "the embargo is murdering, starving and depriving of pencils and notebooks in their schools." Festivities begin Tuesday at 8 pm sharp at 9155 St-Hubert. Call Voices for tickets: 858-7584.

Insect >> Guns Monday marked an emotional 10-year anniversary for the 1989 massacre of 14 women at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique. Canada's gun lobbyists were all over the airwaves, humbly offering their deepest sympathies while still insisting that Canada's gun-control laws should be scrapped. But mere hours after the commemorations ended, news reports started coming in about still more shootings around the world: one by a school kid in Oklahoma, another in the normally docile Netherlands. Ten years later, the lesson is the same: yes, guns do kill people.