April 20, 1987

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COVER

THE FUTURE NOW

Eighteen months ago, 31-year-old Allan Lee was a systems analyst at the University of Manitoba. Now, with the help of seed money from the Manitoba government, Lee runs his own small company, CAD Systems Inc., in downtown Winnipeg. His three employees are all computer scientists proficient in the specialized task of using computers to design systems for other computers.

WORLD

Gorbachev’s Prague Spring

The visit was heavy with irony and undertones of profound political disagreement. During a 45-minute walkabout, a smiling Mikhail Gorbachev warmly greeted crowds standing 10 deep and waving Soviet flags in Wenceslas Square where, almost 20 years earlier, Soviet tanks had crushed the last vestiges of the Prague Spring.

CANADA

Remembering Vimy Ridge

Dapper in a dark blue pinstripe suit, his white hair and moustache neatly trimmed, Frank Young of Ponoka, Alta., stood staring into a four-foot-deep shell crater on what had been the Canadian front line one dreadful day 70 years ago. “We’ve got to find some other way of settling things,” the 91-year-old veteran said, his eyes filling with tears.

LETTERS

Team of the year

While reading your article on our [Swift Current] Broncos (“Of tragedy and triumph,” Sports, March 30), I could not help but relive many of the emotions I felt on the night of Dec. 30, and for many days afterwards. What our Broncos accomplished is nothing short of outstanding, remarkable, amazing and even miraculous.

FOLLOW-UP

A case that will not die

The theories about who shot Olof Palme—voiced at dinner tables throughout Sweden—are varied and inventive. According to one, officials of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, eager to prevent the left-wing Swedish prime minister from becoming the next United Nations secretary general, hired the assassin who shot him on the evening of Feb. 28, 1986.

MEDIA WATCH

Villains, and victims of AIDS

In the March 7 issue of The Spectator, London, Auberon Waugh in his weekly column denounced what he called The Big Lie about AIDS—“the pretence that there is any evidence to suggest it could ever become a major health hazard in the Western world outside the ‘high-risk’ areas of homosexuals, heterosexual sodomists, drug abusers and recipients of blood through plasma or conventional transfusion.” True? By George Bain5 min

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COLUMN

The survival of Canadian culture

Last year, before the beginning of the fall television season, British viewers were preoccupied by a dispute between the BBC and the competing Independent Television (ITV) network. The argument concerned the American series Dallas, and at one crucial point it looked as if English audiences might miss the opening show with its solution to the great problem of “How to bring back Bobby Ewing.” By Barbara Amiel5 min

THEATRE

Getting back on the theatrical track

Director Richard Ouzounian —called the Stephen Spielberg of Canadian stage by the country’s not-always admiring theatre critics —can track his morale by his waistline. When he is unhappy, he eats. In Toronto, where a personal crisis two years ago coincided with a professional one— and led to his abrupt departure as artistic director of the city’s CentreStage company—he gained 15 pounds.

CANADA

Fraternity at the top

The hug said it all. Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan had just completed vigorous discussions on the subjects of arctic sovereignty and acid rain. But when reporters demanded to know whether any agreement had been reached, the President stopped, flashed his trademark grin and replied:

April 131987