Quote of the week:

"I had no malicious intent by singing it." - Cop-killer Stéphane Boucher's lawyer Christian Gauthier, after being chastised for singing Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" within earshot of the victim's family during a trial, in Tuesday's Gazette.

Listen up

Getting kids to listen to their parents is always challenging, especially if their lack of attention and temper tantrums are due more to learning disabilities than rotten attitudes. This is something Sophie Garneau, the director of the Montreal Listening Centre, has known for over a decade. The Centre, which opened this week, is the first in Montreal and the second in the country (after Toronto's) to use the Tomatis method, named after French doctor Alfred Tomatis, who pioneered the study and treatment of hearing difficulties. The method, which involves listening to voices and music over a headset, has been used to treat a variety of problems, including attention deficit disorder, dyslexia and autism. It also helps people suffering from Down's syndrome to better connect with their environment and increase communication skills.

"There were all sorts of treatments that came out in the last 20 years that were sort of New Age-y, saying that they could help with brainwaves, increase alertness and that sound is an energy," says Garneau. "These were all inspired by the Tomatis method but they only take a certain part of it. They forget that for hearing to stay focused, it must be auto-stimulated." That means that speaking is an integral part of her 60-hour, three-month treatment.

The Listening Centre's program, however, isn't covered by Medicare and isn't cheap. After an initial assessment, each two-hour session costs $110, meaning $3,300. "I am hoping to eventually get subsidies," Garneau says. The Centre has an open house on Wednesday, Nov. 12. For more info, call 521-0314. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Admission spam lament

One locally based world expert in Internet spam counsels caveat emptor to those who buy concert tickets from the Admission outlets - the Canadian arm of the American Ticketmaster quasi-monopoly giant - and provide the company with their e-mail address.

"In 1998, I gave the Réseau d'admission my e-mail address so I could buy tickets online, and since last April I started getting e-mail about circuses and King Crimson concerts," says Neil Schwartzman, who tracks such activities by providing a unique e-mail address for every transaction. "I did some research and found that Admission had changed their privacy policy in March without telling anyone that they can rent your e-mail address out like a blonde at a Hells Angels convention."

Schwartzman says the e-mail address swap is less than benign because third parties could then sell it to others, "and then next thing you know your e-mail will be overwhelmed with ads for herbal Viagra." He notes the businesses that sent him unsolicited e-mail list no privacy policy on their sites.

The www.admission.com site offers customers a chance to refuse their address be shared. But Schwartzman says customers weren't offered such an option years ago and were subsequently retroactively reclassified into the spam-welcoming category without their consent. Schwartzman says a cordial letter of dissent he wrote three weeks ago has since gone unanswered. Admission folks couldn't address the issue by presstime. » Kristian Gravenor

Grenada invasion revisited

To date, there have been few movies about the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada (Clint Eastwood's flag-saluting Heartbreak Ridge being one). But this weekend, to commemorate the invasion's 20th anniversary, there will be talks addressing its impact and a screening of a documentary that captured the island's society before the Marines showed up. Dave Austen, the event's organizer and director of the Alfie Roberts Institute, a Montreal African and Caribbean community development group, says the invasion still resonates today.

"The invasion was a trial run for all future pre-emptive strikes," he says. "It was all part of the rhetoric at the time. There were all kinds of excuses used that laid out the groundwork for what's being done today. Grenada was the first time in our present era that the doctrine of pre-emptive strike was used."

Austen says that the documentary, Grenada: The Future Coming Towards Us, by American filmmaker John Douglas, shows a functioning, dynamic country of 100,000 that, "for the first time, had a brief window in which to experience what it is to be part of a society." All that ended 20 years ago.

The event takes place at Concordia's Hall Building (1455 de Maisonneuve, Rm 937). On Friday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m., Caldwell Taylor, Grenada's former ambassador to the UN, will speak about pre-invasion life, and on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 5 p.m., John Douglas will present his film. Both events are free. For more info, call 961-9267. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Nov. 3-Nov. 9, 1989

On the cover: Public Enemy, with Chuck D. pontificating about a wide range of societal ills, especially the media. "The black people's point of view has never been interpreted correctly through the media; the system is not intended for us. Anything black or anything that goes against the grain of the establishment is viewed as controversial or radical, so the media will bring it out and exploit it."

• The phenomenon of non-smoking bars is examined. One, l'Envol, doesn't even serve alcohol. "For many people, smoking and drinking go hand in hand," says its owner. "Put a beer in a person's hand, and he'll want a smoke."

• In town for the Image & Nation gay and lesbian film fest, director Isaac Julien reveals that he had problems getting his Looking for Langston, about gay black poet Langston Hughes, shown in New York. "The Hughes estate didn't like the film trying to turn Langston Hughes, a black cultural icon, into a gay cultural icon."

Angel >> The deadly fugu fish Also known as the puffer fish, whose intestines, liver, skin and gonads cause rapid and violent death if consumed, it can also ease the pain of terminal cancer patients and heroin addicts, as a recently completed analysis shows. Results from treating cancer patients in six Canadian cities, including Montreal, with controlled amounts of the toxin found in the fish, indicate that 68 per cent of the respondents felt relief from chronic pain. The treatment, developed by Vancouver-based International Wex Technologies, has not passed the final stages for approval, but studies in Montreal are ongoing at the Jewish General. For more information on receiving the treatment, call 1-877-477-2277 ext. 8162.
Insect >> CBS cowardice regarding the Reagan miniseries Craven CBS executives have surrendered to right-wing pressure over the controversial - and Montreal-made - two-part Ronald Reagan biopic, moving it from their broadcast network to their pay cable channel Showtime. While casting James Brolin, aka Mr. Babs Streisand, as the commie-hatin' president was a dubious idea to begin with, the network has shown an eye-popping spinelessness when confronted by outraged conservative viewers. The show has come under fire for making Reagan looking like a heartless Jesus freak in the face of the AIDS crisis and, CBS says, doesn't portray a "balanced portrayal" of the president. It airs Nov. 16 and 18.