Quote of the week:

"Paul Martin may be two years younger, but his ideas are two decades older." - Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, coming out of retirement at age 68 to run in Ottawa, setting the tone for one fun month of electioneering, in Tuesday's Globe and Mail.

Dangerous labels

This weekend, a group of local and international activists are gathering in Montreal to examine the impact of anti-terrorism laws on national liberation movements and political and economic dissent.

From May 28 to 30, the "Laws, Labels and Liberation" conference will focus on the case of Professor José Maria Sison, co-founder of the Philippine communist party and chief political consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDPF).

Sison, who was imprisoned for nine years under the Marcos dictatorship, has been placed on a "terrorist list" by the Canadian, American and Dutch governments.

"The fact is that José Maria Sison is a known revolutionary, active with the liberation struggle for many years, so he's been targeted and deemed a terrorist," says Michelle Smith, spokesperson for the Centre for Philippine Concerns. "His name was put on this list without any due process, without any investigation, any evidence, without anything concrete."

Currently living with his family in exile in the Netherlands, Sison is challenging his terrorist label in the European Court of Justice, the first individual to do so.

Speakers at the conference include Canadians Dr. Sunera Thobani and Amir Khadir, as well as Paul Hoffman, current chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International, and Romeo Capulong, a justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Sison himself will also appear via satellite.

"Laws, Labels, and Liberation" takes place at Université du Québec à Montréal's de Sève Pavilion (320 Ste-Catherine E.) from May 28–30. Attendees must register: $150 or $50 for students/unemployed. For more information, visit www.justiceforjoma.org. » Christopher Hazou

Laughing against seal slaughter

Canada's seal hunt is no laughing matter. Last year, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans authorized the killing of 975,000 seals in Canada's north until 2005, enraging animal rights activists worldwide, and none more so than Montreal's own Global Action Network. To get the feds to listen, though, they first want to get you to laugh. Next Friday, May 28, GAN will be hosting a fundraiser at the Comedy Nest in order to raise their campaign's profile and continue voicing their concern.

"In 2004, 321,199 harp seals have been killed, which is close to the 350,000 quota for the year," says GAN's Zipporah Weisberg. "And 95 per cent of the seals killed are under three months old. Harps are supposed to be protected while they have their white coats, which they shed after they're 12 days old, but they're still babies when they're killed. They're no less babies at 13 days old than at 12."

Weisberg recounts a gruesome litany of suffering that seals endure when hunted. For example, an estimated 40 per cent of hunted seals, she says, are skinned alive. Pups are dragged across the ice with hooks while still breathing or thrown onto a pile of carcasses and left to die. While new regulations forbid this kind of behaviour, "There's very little actual enforcement," she says.

GAN's fundraiser will be headlined by Kristeen von Hagen at the Comedy Nest, 2313 Ste-Catherine W. (inside the Pepsi Forum), at 8:15 p.m. Cost is $13. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Noise pollution solution

Now that Montrealers are opening their windows again, we're realizing that part of the summer is the earsplitting noise emanating from car alarms, mowers, stereos, airplanes and leaf blowers. But gone are the days of unnecessarily suffering, says to Noisebuster's Les Blomberg.

"Noise is pollution, it's litter on the soundscape - as opposed to litter of the landscape," he says, adding that those who dislike noise have been unnecessarily vilified. "There's a lot of blaming the victim when it comes to noise pollution. People often say, ‘If you don't like it, move,' but if I dumped litter on your yard and said, ‘If you don't like it, move,' that would be the same argument."

Blomberg - who has been counselling noise victims since he was awoken by a cleaning truck at 4 a.m. in 1996 - has noticed that many are too meek to object to being disturbed. "People don't say anything because they're wrestling with politeness. They wonder if it's polite to impose upon these people, whereas they're imposing on you." But he confesses to being a fan of certain noise that doesn't disturb others. "Listening to The Who doesn't sound right unless it's loud."

He recommends that consumers think about noise when plunking their cash down on items such as car alarms (bar locks work just as well), or gas mowers, which are far noisier than their electric cousins. The Montpelier, Vermont, based group welcomes calls from troubled noise victims all over, including those from this - the city he "loves to visit." Dial 1-888-200-8332. » Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

10 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 26–June 2, 1994

On the cover: Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," superimposed with a comix rendition of the goddess drawn by Abitibi artist Sylvie Rancourt, author of the steamy Melody: The True Story of a Nude Dancer. Her books are hard to find in Canada, largely due to Toronto's vice squad. "You don't even have to seize a comic like Melody - all you have to do is make your presence known as an enforcer," says Rancourt's partner Jacques Boivin.

• "It's the rollerbladers who are in the wrong place, not the cyclists," says a Montreal cop, referring to the recreational culture clash along the Lachine Canal bike path.

• "Despite what one expects with such a a self-explanatory title here, OutKast avoid falling into the trap of misogyny or self-destructive trigger tales," reads the review of Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.

• Reporting from Cannes, Joanne Latimer takes in a simulcast of the Palme d'Or award ceremony. Pulp Fiction wins. "‘Scandale!' shouts a woman in the audience. Tarantino gives her the finger, and suddenly anti-Americanism raises Le Palais's roof."

Angel >> National Do Not Call list A new series of measures introduced by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will make life harder for telemarketers, but stopped short of creating a national Do Not Call list. Which is too bad. A great number of people are damn sick of those annoying, invasive shills, and even the Canadian Marketing Association says the new measures don't go far enough - they proposed to create and run their own registry three years ago because they were so worried about consumer irritation. Speculation suggests that the CRTC isn't setting up a list because they fear it could turn into another fiasco like the gun registry.
Insect >> The "10/90 gap" A group of Toronto researchers brought attention to the "10/90 gap" - meaning that less than 10 per cent of health research spending is used to fight conditions that lead to 90 per cent of the world's death and illness - by looking at six leading medical journals over a year. They found that diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition and measles, which kill millions in the developing world annually, received scant coverage, while diseases that affect rich and poor, like HIV/AIDS and heart disease, are widely studied. The editor of the Canadian Medical Journal, which published the study, said there aren't enough studies on these diseases to print, and that more scientific outreach to developing countries is needed.