December 7, 1987

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COVER

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES GROWS UP

“Suddenly I felt like the Ghost of Green Gables. I dreamt I was walking home, pondering new depths of despair, when I stopped to gaze at my reflection in the Lake of Shining Waters, wishing that some miracle would turn my horrid red hair to an exquisitely mature shade of auburn.

CANADA

Division in the house

The clash of opinions was carefully restrained—and icily correct. First, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told reporters at the close of last week’s First Ministers’ meeting in Toronto that Ottawa has the legal right to implement all aspects of its proposed free trade agreement with the United States, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

COVER

CANADA’S RISING ‘BRAT PACK’

She is a long way from Green Gables. The camera is set up in the parlor of an ornate Victorian residence in Pasadena, Calif. —passing as a Tennessee mansion. Costumed as a young woman of the 1920s, her corn-silk hair swirled into a stylish knot, Megan Follows seats her tiny frame in a chair across from Kirk Douglas. By Brian D. Johnson7 min

COVER

JOYS FOR YOUNG READERS

While Anne of Green Gables continues to dwell in the imaginations of children and adults, the Canadian heirs of Anne author Lucy Maud Montgomery are generating new dreams and distractions for juvenile readers. And for those who find holiday shopping no more enticing or magical than an evening at the laundromat, the new books for young people can provide an eye-catching and entertaining antidote to gift-buying overload.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Hidden costs of takeovers

The company’s new owners watched helplessly. In December, 1985, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, truck after truck pulled up outside Consumers Distributing Co. Ltd. stores across Canada. But they were unable to unload all their merchandise because a new computerized distribution system installed by the old management at Consumers had broken down. By ANN SHORTELL6 min

WORLD

An old-fashioned senator on the move

On the outskirts of Shenandoah, a farm town of 6,000 in southwest Iowa, a crowd had gathered in the Depot Deli and Lounge to hear from a Very Important Visitor. It was not an impressionable audience. Shenandoah was once the home of Don and Phil Everly, the 1950s rock ’n’ roll stars, and residents have seen many celebrities in their time. By MARCI McDONALD6 min

THEATRE

Bright lights, Big Apple

Defying the stock market slump and predictions of an economic downturn, New York theatre is off to its best start in more than five years. The loss of a half-trillion dollars on the New York Stock Exchange this fall has done little to dampen audience enthusiasm for the glitter of the Great White Way and its off-Broadway tributaries.

WORLD

The spectre of famine

Three years ago television screens around the world were filled with haunting images of famine in Ethiopia. Emaciated men scoured the parched countryside in search of food. Skeletal women lined up at dusty, fly-infested distribution centres for a meagre handout of grain.

TECHNOLOGY

Toward a global village

Recent advances in computer telecommunications have brought the world enticingly close to becoming the global village that the late Canadian communications guru Marshall McLuhan predicted. One major obstacle has stood in the way of reaching that goal of instant worldwide communication: the various telephone and data transmission systems around the world operate with different technologies, each competing with the other and requiring its own set of elaborate, expensive, specialized hardware. By SHARON DOYLE DRIEDGER5 min

CLOSE-UP: JOHN DINGELL

Taking aim at Canada

The carefully worded letters are among the most dreaded documents in Washington. Most recipients of “Dingellgrams”—which summon witnesses to appear before Democratic Representative John Dingell’s powerful Committee on Energy and Commerce or its Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee—are aware of the six-foot, three-inch congressman’s reputation for toughness. By IAN AUSTEN5 min

November 301987