The man behind
the Hurricane

By now, the story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is well known, thanks to Denzel Washington, Norman Jewison and Bob Dylan. Less well known, however, is the story of Lesra Martin, the man who helped the wrongfully-imprisoned boxer regain his freedom after almost 20 years in prison. His story is told in a new movie screening next week as part of Black History Month activities.

Befriended by a group of Canadians when he was 15, Martin left the rough Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, moved to Toronto and went on to achieve his doctorate in law from Dalhousie, and now lives in B.C. In the meantime, he and others managed to save Carter from a lifetime in prison for murders he didn’t commit, and became a minor celebrity in his own right, giving motivational speeches to audiences across the continent and as a literacy advocate. He sees real parallels between his plight - poor, unable to read or write and trapped in a violent, crime-ridden life - and that of Carter’s.

“Rubin had a journey involving physical imprisonment, while mine was of a different type,” he says. “When the world is shut off to you, there’s no way of realizing your dreams.”

The Journey of Lesra Martin screens Feb. 5, when Martin will host a Q&A, and Feb. 6, at 7 p.m., at the National Film Board (1564 St-Denis). Cost is $5. : » Patrick Lejtenyi

East End
snow shocker

Sadly, the cozy residential streets of New Rosemount have been littered with snowy mounds measuring over five feet high and 20 feet long, with their origins as far back as last November. The pesky piles have grown since city snow-clearing teams started pushing the flaky accumulation next to sidewalks, and they’ve been bothering residents a lot more than the politicians in the area, according to Equality Party prez Jimmy Kalafatidis, a local whose complaining has been responded to with official shrugs.

“One snow clearing official told me that there’s not enough snow to bother removing,” he says. “One borough rep had his assistant call me back to say that the councillor only deals with political affairs, not this sort of thing,” says Kalafatidis, who’s having trouble parking these days.

Kalafatidis is thinking of trying to get his taxes back in small claims court. “A portion of the taxes I pay are meant to go towards clearing the snow, and they’re not doing it,” he says. : » Kristian Gravenor

Meeting of
movements

Linking the abuses of the environment and human rights isn’t all that hard, as a group of McGill and Concordia students plan to demonstrate this weekend. For the first time in Montreal if not in Canada, the two universities will be hosting a three-day conference called Blue in Green: Articulating Human Rights and the Environment, bringing together a roster of international speakers who will highlight the direct links between the two issues.

“By joining these two, our plan is to get involved in the community of activism and create an engagement between the two movements,” says Alvaro Castro, one of the conference organizers. “One of the best examples is in Burma, where the dictatorship is involved in logging and oil, and uses forced labour and slave labour to build roads. Whole communities of natives are uprooted and moved.”

The conference enjoys the support of a number of different groups, including Amnesty International, the Sierra Club of Canada, Free Burma and Rights and Democracy. The conference runs from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 at various venues on both universities’ campuses, and will feature fun evening stuff including meals and concerts to get your mind off the doom and gloom. Cost is $30, and for more info, visit www.blueingreen.org. : » Patrick Lejtenyi

Angel >> Smelly but conscientious Quebecers It turns out that Quebecers are great at saving water, and they do so in part by bathing less, according to a Léger Marketing poll. Who knows, maybe it’s a French thing. But we in our pungent province are also less inclined to let our taps run needlessly, and flush our toilets less often than anywhere else in the country. Atlantic Canadians seem the most frivolous in terms of water conservation. But whatever we may lack in hygiene, we make up for in ecological smarts.
Insect >> Quebec Public Security Minister Serge Ménard Back when he was just appointed to his post in 1995, Ménard promised he would revamp the province’s jails, making them more humane and modern. Apparently he still has some work to do. Much of the carnage from this weekend’s riots at the Montreal Detention Centre (formerly known as Bordeaux prison), including smashed toilets, pipes and beds ripped out and chunks of concrete torn from the walls, with total damages estimated at over $100,000, is being blamed on the building’s age - it was completed in 1912. Although renovations were underway at the time of the riot, no work has been done on the prison’s oldest wing, A Block, where the riots took place.