Quote of the week:

"Young boys and girls are interested in sodomy, many teens identify themselves as bisexual and the concept of fuckfriends is more and more in vogue." - sexologist Hélène Messervier, on the sexual habits of teens, in Tuesday's Journal.

Sex workers turn up heat

There is a correlation between the amount of flesh one sees of the city’s population and the rise in mercury levels, but summer is the season the local skin trade gets clamped down on. Jenn Clamen, a member of the Coalition for the Rights of Sex Workers, says the city’s annual crackdown on prostitutes, drug addicts and street people in general only saddles sex workers with fines and incarceration rather than actually doing anything positive. It’s in this frame of mind that the Coalition’s second Turn Up the Heat festival will take place. The festival, which opens on Monday, June 14, will focus on prison and sex workers, and, according to Clamen, will take a more proactive approach to the question of sex work.

“Last year’s festival content was a reaction to the anti-prostitution movement” as mainly espoused by the radical feminist thinking, she says. “But this year we want to change the paradigm surrounding the discussion.” The timing is right to tackle the subject of sex worker repression, she says, as the mainstream festival season approaches. The city’s installation of cameras on St-Denis, Clamen believes, is just one more method of targetting prostitutes.

At 9 p.m. on Friday, June 18, there will be a fundraising cabaret party at Station C (1450 Ste-Catherine E., $5). The fest concludes Saturday, June 19, with a film fest at L’X (182 Ste-Catherine E.) from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., free. For more info, visit www.lacoalitionmontreal.com, e-mail lacoalition2000@yahoo.com or call 859-9009. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Ten years of Alternatives

Alternatives, a local lefty organization which is best known for its monthly magazine by the same name, is 10 years old. It is therefore fitting to have a party and remind people how important they are to the local activism scene - and how financially strapped. On Saturday, June 12, there will be a show at Spectrum to do just that. Alternatives media representative France Isabelle Langlois says the organization has always been at the forefront of resistance.

"We were among the first to be against globalization," says Langlois. "And against the Iraq war. We coordinated the Réseau québécois sur l'integration continentale, a network that regroups the majority of the NGOs of Quebec. We work with the unions, social and community groups. We have are a very important voice in Quebec."

Langlois says fundraising for the organization is always an issue, but this year they will have more help, from some celebrity artists donating their time. Gilles Vigneault, Sol, Daniel Lemire, Paul Piché, Karen Young, and Benoît Charest (composer of Les Triplettes de Belleville soundtrack) are among the artists providing music and significance to the event.

The theme for this year's party is the "culture of resistance." After the party, Alternatives has a full roster of activities planned for this summer, all designed to educate you into the ground.

For information about the party or the workshops, go www.alternatives.ca. »Noemi LoPinto

Political double feature

Recognizing that not all moviegoers want to watch nothing but sheer stupidity, Cinéma du Parc programmers have booked two knockout political thriller docs this week. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised has two Irish journalists venture to Venezuela to profile the country's eccentric president, Hugo Chavez. As documentary filmmaking luck would have it, the journalists managed to get inside access as a military coup was executed by the country's right-wing elite, who were horrified by Chavez's talk of spreading the nation's wealth more evenly. The film presents an extremely disturbing picture of the way the privately owned media worked to undermine Chavez's efforts to fulfill his democratically elected mandate. Officials from the Bush administration, not surprisingly, always seem to be lurking in the background, expressing concern at Chavez's wayward ideological choices. There are horrifying scenes of riots captured by the filmmakers and, as with many excellent documentaries, we see all the bits the nightly news didn't bother to show us as the events were initially unfolding.

Filling out the double bill is Discordia, the NFB's excellent take on the 2002 riots that put an end to right-wing Israeli politician Binyamin Netanyahu's planned lecture at Concordia. While Discordia has already screened on Newsworld, for those who missed it, this is an excellent opportunity to catch what has become widely acknowledged as the definitive film about the riots. Both films begin screening this Friday, June 11. See repertory film listings for details. » Matthew Hays

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
June 14–June 21, 1990

On the cover: Marjo, who also features as a model in the beachwear fashion section of the Mirror's first Hot Summer Guide. Other models include Yvan Huneault, Stéphane Richer, Nick Auf der Maur and Sonia Benezra. Other articles include a suggestion of outdoor activities, microbreweries, soccer, barbecues and suburbia.

• Brendan Weston writes from Prague about Czechoslovakia's problems with its new-found freedom. "The country is slowly discovering the cost of capitalism," he writes. "Inflation forces beach blondes to lounge by the slowly-filling foreign hotels and outbreaks of intolerance in the streets are becoming more widespread."

• "Like a gourmet, he simply devoured the text," says director Jean-Paul Rappeneau, of Cyrano de Bergerac star Gérard Depardieu.

• "I think places like Manchester or Leeds have a strong sense of independent sound, because there's no major label based there," says Peter Solowka, guitarist for Leeds' The Wedding Present.

• The Mirror celebrates its fifth anniversary.

Angel >> Louise Arbour The Supreme Court justice and native Montrealer will be giving up her post in Ottawa to become the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva. She knows the field: from 1996 to 1999, she was chief prosecutor at war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. In 1995, she investigated alleged abuses at the women's pen in Kingston. She also served as vice-president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Considered one of the more liberal and activist of the Supreme Court justices, she was widely despised by conservatives for her internationalist viewpoint. She will be replacing Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in Baghdad with 21 other people in the bombing of UN headquarters last August.
Insect >> PBDEs Polybrominated diphenyl ethers - a compound used as a flame retardant in computer casings, furniture and clothing - have been detected in women's breastmilk recently by Health Canada, and at alarmingly high levels. Canadian women have five to 10 times the levels found in women from other developed countries (American women have twice the amount as Canadians). PBDEs are considered similar to PCBs, which were banned in the '70s as a health hazard, but are in much closer daily contact with humans than their outlawed cousins. Significant quantities have also been found in animals, although there is still discussion about how humans and animals absorb them.