July 21, 2008

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NATIONAL

IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT ABORTION

This is not about abortion. This is about democracy. It is about how we decide things, and by what rules, and how we treat each other when we disagree. Indeed, it is about whether we are allowed to disagree; whether dissent on a contentious issue is respected, or even recognized; and whether, in the face of clear evidence over many years that an issue is not settled—that it was never settled— a democracy should be allowed at last to debate and decide it. By ANDREW COYNE

BUSINEES

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BILL

When the historians go looking for the moment when the world changed for Bill Gates, they might want to consider a visit the founder and then-CEO of Microsoft took to South Africa in 1997. Like many corporations, Microsoft’s modest offerings to charity at the time were mostly gifts of their own products. By STEVE MAICH

NATIONAL

IT WORKED FOR RICHARD NIXON

Twice before, Stephen Harper overhauled the team around him as he prepared to meet a new challenge. In November 2001, as a candidate for the Canadian Alliance leadership, he fired the high-priced professional campaigners he had put on the payroll only three months earlier and turned the campaign over to his inexperienced but highly motivated friends. By PAUL WELLS

MAIL BAG

YOU TELL US THAT more and more young boys are looking at porn online (“Guess who’s watching porn,” Home, June 30). While that in itself is a tragedy for our entire society, it is also a tragedy that the experts our society consults for advice do not see this issue as a problem.

INTERVIEW

Q: Was being a nerdy kid what made you who you are today? A: Yeah. The sad thing is that now I'm married, I have two children, my career is going well, but I still couldn’t feel like more of a goofball. The feeling doesn’t go away, which I’m finding deeply depressing.

SPORTS

ONE MARTIAL ART BATTLES COLD WAR CORRUPTION

If they had been alive, or out of prison, or had briefly ignored the martial arts mayhem that they’d wrought, some of the founders of tae kwon do would have been proud of Karine Sergerie. Sergerie, Canada’s martial arts champion, was losing 3-0 in the finals of the 2007 World Taekwondo Championships (an almost insurmountable score), when she told herself that she shouldn’t give up, shouldn’t think about past losses. By ALEX GILLIS

THE BACK PAGES

HOLY IDENTITY CRISIS BATMAN

Which version of Batman is the real, authentic one? Is it the dark, depressed treatment in movies like the upcoming Batman: The Dark Knight (opening July 18), in which the Joker is a terrifying serial killer and Batman is plagued by self-doubt? By JAIME J. WEINMAN

NATIONAL

WESTERN UNION

Back in April, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall flew Peter Lougheed, the original blue-eyed sheik and former premier of Alberta, into Regina on the provincial dime. “He came out here for the price of a steak sandwich and an airfare,” Wall says. By NICHOLAS KÖHLER

HOME

KILLER NAILS

The white paper cup was taped onto the construction worker’s chest, rising and falling as he lay on the hospital emergency room table, fully conscious. Staring down at him was Dr. M.L. (Mary Lee) Myers, a heart surgeon at London Health Sciences Centre—University Hospital, in western Ontario. By ANDREW MCINTOSH

NEWSMAKERS

What happened to Britain’s top spy? Alex Allan, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was found by a tenant last week in his London home, unconscious and reportedly covered in blood. The colourful spymaster, who runs a Grateful Dead fan site and once windsurfed down the Thames to work during a transit strike, was raced to a hospital and subjected to a battery of tests, though doctors have yet to make a diagnosis.

July 72008