September 18, 1978

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Environment

Leonard Cohen says that to all the girls

When he opened up his guitar case in Jerusalem there were still a few traces of “magic powder” in it. “Well,” said poet-singer Leonard Cohen to his band, “shall we take one last ride to the moon?” As he came on stage that warm July night in 1974 Cohen felt the shock of the acid race through his system. By Barbara Amiel10 min

World News

A step, small and faltering but in the right direction

It was a Summit hastily assembled to stave off disaster, and there were moments when the lack of preparation—there was very little protocol, less organization and no agenda—seemed certain to precipitate the three protagonists into a muddle if nothing worse. By William Lowther, Cathy Fox7 min

Theatre of the absurd

Several thousand years ago another whale coughed up a man named Jonah, and Jonah ended up sitting in the dark on the edge of a city, puzzling over where he had succeeded and where he had failed in his mission to spread the good word. According to available reports, Jonah was in the process of learning a valuable lesson: do as you are first commanded. By Roy MacGregor7 min

Letters

I very much resent being labelled among the red-necks by John D. Harbron in his column on the Quebec language law, Do Not Ask, Westmount, For Whom the Bell Tolls... (August 7). Mr. Harbron, who surely knows better, made it appear as if I was opposed to a bilingual policy in Canada and in Quebec. Quite the opposite is true.

Canadian News

Fear and loathing on Parliament Hill

Political meteorologists in the prime minister’s office could not decide on the long-range forecast after Pierre Trudeau’s solitary decision not to call an election for Nov. 6. But they were not optimistic. As the last summer stragglers toured Parliament Hill, the chill, dense haze on the horizon certainly looked like menacing cumulonimbus— and the weathermen knew their boss had hunkered down in a corner against a gathering fall storm. By Robert Lewis7 min

Television

If it worked once, it’ll work again... and again

The new TV season beckons so brightly in the networks’ annual orgy of selfaggrandizement that a casual viewer may be gulled into believing something new is about to appear. But this year the prime-time manoeuvring, which makes Korchnoi-Karpov’s chessboard ploys look imbecilic, is minimal, designed only to firm up soft spots in last year’s successful schedules. By Kaspars Dzeguze7 min

Frontlines

Thursday Night Fever

Sometimes when she's standing up there on stage, awash in the glitter, wearing her red-sequined dress with the slit up to there, or her gold lamé harem pants, or even her pheasantfeathered body suit, Patsy Gallant gets so high it scares her. By Judith Timson5 min

A sin of the mother is visited upon the child

60h

Health

A sin of the mother is visited upon the child

Jenny Pike, a 27-year-old Toronto nurse, was pregnant and still smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. She knew vaguely that her smoking might cause her baby to be smaller than average, but was confident that there would be no other significant ill effects on the fetus. By Brenda Rabkin5 min

Health

But how will they teach little girls to write their names in the snow?

It is useful to have one’s smallest actions put in perspective. Recently after a moment of connubial bliss I looked at my husband’s hands lying next to mine. Tenderly I held them up and compared them to my own. His hands are muscular and the backs of them even boast a few ginger hairs. By Barbara Amiel4 min

Books

For proof that power tends to corrupt look no further than Pierre Trudeau

What is so astonishing, in this sour fall of 1978, is the shift in mood and perception. The mood belongs to Pierre Trudeau and his face toward the public: it is cynicism. Relationships between the unwashed and those on high always are bound to alter, but the most remarkable thing about Pierre Trudeau’s link with his subjects in this autumn of our discontent is that it is so diametrically opposed to the original understanding. By Allan Fotheringham4 min

September 41978