Quote of the week:

"The goal isn't always to just manage the crisis better. The situation has to improve." - Housing activist François Saillant, on the city's admittedly more competent handling of the annual moving day crunch, in Monday's Le Devoir.

Everyone gets rich
except Orphans

Until Friday, June 20, three bureaucrats running the province's Duplessis Orphans Reconciliation Program were paid $1,000 a day to process settlement payments of $1,000 per year of incarceration to adults forced by the province into insane asylums as children. The Duplessis Orphans were also given a lump sum of $10,000 each under the terms of the controversial deal.

In contrast to the scant cash for victims, panel chief Francine Fournier (paid $1,100 a day), lawyer Jean Lemoine and Dr. Jean Gaudreau hauled in up to $300,000 each from the province to sit on the panel since it began in September 2001. Others involved with the paper shuffling were also paid handsomely for their efforts.

"They originally said they'd close the program down in the fall of 2002, but they always came up with excuses to keep it going," says Duplessis Orphans rights crusader Rod Vienneau. He plans to keep fighting for an improved settlement and has a letter from Jean Charest - dated November 1999 - promising to "pursue all steps until full and complete justice is given to the Duplessis Orphans."

The Orphans don't forget such vows. "In 1994, Premier Parizeau promised to compensate the orphans but never did, so when he came here to Joliette nine years later, we were waiting outside his car with a huge sign calling him a liar and criminal."

The orphans plan to demonstrate in front of the Premier's office at 770 Sherbrooke W. on Friday, July 11, at 1 p.m. » Kristian Gravenor

Push for
traffic-free Duluth

For a cute little street with cobblestones, BYOB restaurants and hole-in-the-wall brunch and juice joints, Duluth sure looks like a pedestrian-only walkway. It isn't of course, but at least one young restaurateur, a city councillor and about 170 citizens would like to make it one.

For the past month, Pascal Truchon, the 26-year-old owner of El Taco del Tabarnaco on Duluth E., has been hosting a petition to get cars off the cozy thoroughfare. He says he first got the idea from Nicolas Tétrault, the youthful Plateau city councillor, who proposed it last year and was promptly ignored. He wants to get the idea back on the agenda.

"I just think that it'd be nice for people in the area to have a small spot to get away from traffic and noise, where they can bring their kids and walk around," he says. And while he would like to see all of Duluth, from Parc Ave. in the west to Parc Lafontaine in the east, closed to traffic during festival season, he says there is always room for compromise.

He acknowledges that the idea sounds nice but that there is strong opposition to it from some locals. "Some people are worried that it'll turn into another Prince Arthur, that we'll lose the peace and quiet, that it will become too touristy and that there will be a lot of noise," he says. "Others are just worried about parking."

Anyone willing to sign the petition or argue with Truchon can do so at 916 Duluth E. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Get your pop on

Montreal will up its hipster-nerd cred a notch as the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) holds its Practising Popular Music conference at McGill, July 3–7. Don't be fooled by the name, this is not just about Britney and Beyoncé, as local organizer Geoff Stahl explains: "Popular music is very broadly defined in this case. Yes, it's music consumed by the masses, but we're also talking about Finnish tango here, and Mexican folk music."

The IASPM was started back in 1981, and major conferences are held every two years in selected cities around the globe (last hosted by Montreal in '85). "The idea of the organization was to merge perspectives," says Stahl, "to include a historical and sociological angle in the study of popular music."

Panel discussions will cover the gamut: from marketing to music videos to radio to copyright laws. With over 200 invited scholars from more than 30 countries, there is also the promise of a wide range of fancy-titled paper presentations. Stahl himself will be presenting a paper that looks at the local music scene.

The conference will take place in the McGill Arts Building (853 Sherbrooke W.) and is open to the public at the rate of $20 a day. Full schedule and other details are available at www.wyldware.com/~x/iaspm/schedule.shtml. » Alexandra Spunt

Rear view

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
June 30-July 13. 1989

On the cover: Spike Lee, who discusses his film Do the Right Thing, and the tensions remaining in the wake of the Howard Beach incident, where a black youth was murdered by a mob of white teens in 1986. "You know that nothing's going to happen… and you have a complete lack of faith in the judicial system. I understand [his character] Mookie's frustration completely, and why people in Liberty City in Miami rioted in Super Bowl week."

• Remand centres in Canada, including the notorious Parthenais detention centre, can hold prisoners indefinitely, the Mirror notes, which some lawyers argue is a violation of the Charter of Rights.

• In Notes from Underground, Jenny Ross writes that local faves the Gruesomes' video for "Hey!" is "fun and not offensive or insulting to the intelligence like most vids."

• In his gay life column "Out in the City," David Shannon lambastes the Gazette while lauding the new Daily News tabloid for their coverage of the Joe Rose murder and the International Conference on AIDS.

Angel >> Earthquake-detecting mice Japanese researchers have discovered that mice act erratically after exposure to low levels of electric and magnetic fields similar to those detected before earthquakes. The lead scientist first noted agitation among his lab mice the day before the 1995 Kobe earthquake. He acknowledges the method is crude and more experiments are needed, but the discovery may help humans detect imminent earthquakes and act accordingly. In other mouse-related news, scientists at the University of Ottawa have successfully infected mouse cells with HIV, after 15 years of trying. While animal testing is obviously controversial, the scientists say this will help them discover a vaccine much quicker than the previous testing on monkeys and human cells.
Insect >> Pride shame An open letter from the American National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association asks that mainstream journalists bypass the obvious - "drag queens and brigades of lesbian motorcyclists" - at summer Gay Pride celebrations and opt for other stories. "[They] make great pictures, to be sure," the release says. "It's easy to cover the flamboyance of the parade, but you'll find plenty of informative stories by spending more time exploring your local LGBT community." Exploring the true diversity of queer life is laudable, but to do it by denigrating the "flamboyance" of much of the LGBT community smacks of shame, and doesn't do anyone - neither queers nor general readers - any favours.