April 27, 2009

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Environment

THE GREEN 30

• Organic waste drop-off program with secure waste-collection bins for residents and visitors, in part because backyard composting can attract wildlife inside the park. • “Towards Zero Waste Events” program to eliminate non-recyclable garbage generated at special events. By RICHARD YEREMA

Environment

PLAN B FOR GLOBAL WARMING

There’s a drawing of Don Quixote tacked to the wall of David Keith’s University of Calgary office; one of Gustave Doré’s famous illustrations showing the aging knight flying backwards off his horse as his lance bends against the blade of a windmill. By JONATHON GATEHOUSE

National

THE FEUD

The thing about the fight that Stephen Harper has managed to pick with Brian Mulroney, the paradox that elevates it beyond a few days’ bad headlines into the sort of event that makes party members wonder about the boss’s judgment, is that Harper was only doing what he has always done to win. By PAUL WELLS

Newsmaker

NATION IN PROGRESS

The Canada of the Grants was a small-town nation of modest brick houses with white verandas, Protestant and Catholic churches on wide, leafy streets and the railway station within walking distance. George Parkin Grant’s Lament for a Nation was a cry of grief and rage at its passing.

MAIL BAG

I FOUND YOUR ARTICLE “Generation tame” (Society, April 13) to be particularly upsetting. I lament the fact that teenagers nowadays are losing their freedom and their sense of rebellion. Growing up, I found that sex, drugs, and alcohol were important aspects of my life that helped me mature and find my place.

Newsmaker

NEW NATIONAL DREAMS

Q: Your new book, True Patriot Love, is in part an exploration of Canada, but also an exploration of your family and your family’s past in Canada. What led you to these subjects? A: I previously wrote a book about the Russian side of my family, the Ignatieffs, but my mother’s people, who were Grants and Parkins originally from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, had an interesting story to tell, starting with a great-grandfather who helped to lay out the line for the transcontinental railroad, a grandfather who fought at the Somme, and my uncle who wrote Lament for a Nation.

INTERVIEW

Q: You wrote Fat is a Feminist Issue in 1978. Now, in Bodies, you discuss how the thin, Westernized body is such a global brand, women in South Korea routinely undergo surgery to make their eyes appear more Caucasian. What surprised you most?

World

NEW DELHI’S END GAME?

Few things are more disturbing than a spy giving you the once over. It’s that look in his eyes that makes you feel slightly less than human—more like a locked box he’s carefully assessing with the intent of cracking open—and the cold, cruel precision of it all. By ADNAN R. KHAN

National

Let us watch what we want

If Canadian broadcasters were capable of producing a decent drama, this would have the makings of a pretty good pilot: “In a world turned upside down...as an empire lies in ruins...the name of the game is survival. One man has the power...to decide who lives, who dies, and who pays. By ANDREW COYNE

Business

NEW LIFE FOR DEATH ROW

Try as you might, it’s impossible to imagine Lara Lavi dangling Vanilla Ice off a 15th-floor hotel balcony. Or negotiating a record contract with a lead pipe in her hand, pistol-whipping artists, engaging in nightclub gunplay, or really duplicating any of the countless misdeeds—large and small—attributed to the founder of the company she now runs. By JONATHON GATEHOUSE

April 202009