Archbishop battles ‘Big Society’

By Jenn Cutts - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 8 Comments

Ho New/Reuters

Touching off a decidedly old-school debate, the head of the Church of England took Britain’s coalition government to task last week, accusing it of imposing “radical policies for which no one voted” on its electorate. In an article titled “The government needs to know how afraid people are” in last week’s issue of the New Statesman, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, criticized reforms to health, education and welfare being implemented by the government led by Prime Minister David Cameron. The PM shot back in a news conference: “The Archbishop of Canterbury is entirely free to express political views,” but “I profoundly disagree with many of the views that he has expressed.”

Williams was particularly critical of Cameron’s “Big Society” policy—a plan to have volunteer and charity groups play a crucial role in delivering social services—insisting that key questions about how it would work remain unanswered and calling the slogan itself “painfully stale.” Cameron was unmoved: “I’m absolutely convinced that our policies are about actually giving people greater responsibility and greater chances in their life, and I will defend those very vigorously.”

RIM plunges 18% in early trading

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Disappointing first-quarter earnings released on Thursday night resulted in an 18 per cent loss for Research in Motion (RIM) as the TSX opened on Friday. The drop was the result of investor responses to lower-than-anticipated BlackBerry handset sales and weak projections from analysts for the second-quarter and fiscal year. RIM says it plans to cut jobs as it develops a new generation of products to survive in the competitive smartphone market. It’s not clear where or how many jobs the Waterloo-based company will eliminate.

CBC News

Review: Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped

By Chris Sorensen - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

In theory, making money off a rock concert should be relatively simple. The promoter hires the band, secures the venue and charges an admission price sufficient to cover the costs, plus a profit. But, as Dean Budnick and Josh Baron explain, the live entertainment business has evolved to become a particularly complicated beast. And in most cases, it’s the fans who pay the price. The two trace the rise of industry behemoth Ticketmaster, which last year merged with concert promoter Live Nation, further tightening its grip on the industry. The story is one of big ideas, big business deals and near-constant push-back from bands, concertgoers and anti-trust regulators.

The authors, who also edit the music magazine Relix, itself spawned by a Grateful Dead newsletter, clearly know their subject matter—so much so that the well-researched book sometimes feels like it was written for a music industry audience. But the casual reader is nevertheless rewarded with gripping accounts of Ticketmaster’s showdowns with bands like the Dead, which launched their own ticketing service for their devoted fan base, and Pearl Jam and String Cheese Incident, both of which accused the company of behaving like a monopoly. Dozens of other big names pop up throughout, resulting in a fascinating insider’s portrait of the music business once all of the pulsing lights, fog machines and sound equipment have been turned off.

But perhaps the biggest revelation is the sheer complexity of the business model. Pearl Jam, for example, wanted cheap tickets for its fans, but was frustrated to learn it had no control over the extra fees, where all of Ticketmaster’s profits are made. The authors also explain why thousands of $50 concert tickets can sell out in less than a minute only to appear, frustratingly, a short time later for hundreds of dollars more on websites like StubHub, or in the hands of brokers or yelping scalpers. In its quest for profits, they argue the industry has too often taken its most important stakeholders—the fans—for granted, which hardly seems like a recipe for long-term success.

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India's corruption stories, online

By Julia Belluz - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 1 Comment

If you measure the level of corruption in India using Ipaidabribe.com, it appears many more citizens in the world’s largest democracy are getting ripped off than not. On the site, regular Indians blog about their brushes with bribery or share tales of hoodwinking the hoodwinkers. Right now, though, there is only one story of triumph for every 10 tales of sleaze. The site’s creators hope the ratio will tip the other way, as Ipaidabribe.com becomes one of many recent Internet tools intended to shame governments into addressing the problem of bribery—part of an anti-corruption campaign that’s sweeping India. In some states, applications for birth and death certificates have gone online, as have bids for government contracts, minimizing the opportunity for petty in-person bribery.

For now, Ipaidabribe.com will serve as a cultural document of India’s ubiquitous culture of graft, and as a repository of frustrated Indians’ stories. One user in Hyderabad had to fork out an “appalling” 15,000 rupees for electricity; another in New Delhi says it took 2,000 rupees to get her medical school to hand over her medical certificates. And another threw his hands up after a brush with a crooked customs officer at the airport: “God bless India,” he wrote, “because India needs God more than ever.”

Identity of mystery kissing couple revealed

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 1 Comment

The identities of the couple captured kissing on a Vancouver street as rioters and police surrounded them after the Stanley Cup final have been revealed. The photo of Australian Scott Jones, 29, and his Canadian girlfriend Alexandra Thomas locked in an embrace quickly went viral Thursday, a sweet reprieve from the photos and videos of thousands of angry Vancouver fans trashing the city’s downtown after Boston defeated the Canucks 4-0 Wednesday night. Jones’ sister, Hannah, first identified her brother as the man in the photo to an Australian news network. Thomas had apparently been knocked down by a riot police officer’s shield, and Alex kissed her while comforting her. Vancouver photographer Rich Lam says he didn’t realize what he had taken a picture of until he sent his photos to his editors.

Toronto Star

No sex please, they're children

By Leah McLaren - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 9 Comments

Chris Helgren/Reuters

Culturally speaking, Britain is not a country known for its flagrant attitude toward sex, but today’s youth are bucking the trend. Teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates are shockingly high. But Prime Minister David Cameron seems bent on trying to deal with the problem in a roundabout sort of way. His government recently welcomed a plan to crack down on the sexualization of childhood by placing restrictions on advertisers, media outlets and manufacturers when it comes to sexual imagery or products directed at (or at risk of coming into contact with) children.

The government-commissioned Bailey report, led by Reg Bailey, the head of the Mothers’ Union, a Christian group for family welfare, was published earlier this month. It recommends, among other things, keeping sexualized imagery on the front of newspapers out of sight of children, restricting sexualized imagery in outdoor advertising near schools, nurseries and playgrounds, and enacting restrictions to ensure retailers offer more age-appropriate clothes.

While there’s been much media outrage over T-shirts that say “Future WAG” (shopping-obsessed, super-thin “wives and girlfriends” of sports stars), junior “vajazzling” (applying rhinestone decorations to waxed nether regions), and padded bras for eight-year-olds, not everyone is certain the recommendations, when and if they become legislation, will even be effective in Cameron’s mission to “let children be children.” Some commentators worry that the report is pure politics on the part of the government, and will not result in lasting social change. As Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley recently put it, “It isn’t the problem that’s in doubt, it’s the way it’s been framed and answered.” (She goes on to compare the campaign to grandstanding against childhood obesity and dangerous dogs.)

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Police not looking into three wrongful MP expense claims

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:32 AM - 5 Comments

Three Liberal MPs who filed incorrect spending claims worth thousands of dollars have not been investigated by police, even after an Ontario Superior Court Justice sentenced a former Senator to six months in prison for misuse of taxpayer funding. “No one is above the law,” said Justice Robert Smith as he handed out the sentence to ex-Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne. NDP Leader Jack Layton said Thursday that police should be called in whenever there is evidence of wrongfully claimed spending by MPs and senators. The Chronicle Herald and Ottawa Citizen revealed last year that Liberal MPs Judy Sgro and John Cannis claimed tens of thousand of dollars in rental expenses that violated spending rules. And during the most recent election campaign, Global TV discovered that Liberal MP Wayne Easter had also received money after filing incorrect expense claims. All three have paid back the thousands of dollars they wrongfully obtained.

The Chronicle Herald

A dangerous herder mentality

By Emma Teitel - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 1 Comment

Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

The conflict between Inner Mongolia’s indigenous herders and its Han Chinese mining community spans five decades, but recent events confirm it may continue indefinitely. Last month, a Mongolian herder known as Mergen was trying to prevent a mining convoy from crossing the fenced prairies of Xiwu when, his people allege, a Chinese coal-truck driver ran him over on purpose. Enraged, and further angered by government-backed mining operations on their land, the herding population erupted with protests, the largest since 1991, in over three cities.

Beijing insists that the mining, and fencing off of herding territory, is essential for development and environmental protection (they made no mention of Mongolia’s status as China’s leading producer of coal). The herders, on the other hand, say their rights have been unfairly reduced, and that the mining is actually poisoning the environment. Mindful of the unrest, authorities swiftly sentenced the Chinese truck driver to death last week, but tensions continue to simmer.

Review: The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

By Brian Bethune - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

It’s New York in June 1897, and William Guldensuppe’s body parts are popping up all over. The city’s lumbering police department, still mired in corruption and incompetence, is slow off the mark, but its notoriously competitive newspapers race into action. And all a reader of Collins’s entertaining, fast-paced account of events can say is—ah, the good old days.

Two main press protagonists went to the mat. The established champ was Joseph Pulitzer’s World, which had grown rich on a mix of lurid stories, the first colour comics ever, and splashy stunts—when Jules Verne was big, Pulitzer sent pioneering female journalist Nellie Bly to see if she could get around the world in 80 days (she only needed 72). The up-and-comer, just starting to eat the World’s lunch, was William Randolph Hearst’s Journal. Hearst loved headlines like “Genius has conceived a plan for a machine that will kill everybody in sight,” and indulged in catchy promos and populist fare as much as Pulitzer. He was just better at it, and faster.

Journal reporters, nicknamed the Murder Squad, dashed about New York on bicycles, carrying (licensed) pistols, and beating World staffers—and the cops—to key pieces of evidence and potential crime sites. Hearst himself pedalled 50 blocks to a flat occupied by one potential suspect after he learned she was abandoning it to catch a steamer to Germany; he thought it might be the murder scene so he rented it on the spot, posted his reporters at the door to keep Pulitzer’s out, and had the cords to nearby pay phones cut to short out World communications.

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Meet the single-serve baby formula machine

By Stephanie Findlay - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 16 Comments

Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Ever wish you could feed your nursing babe by simply pressing a button? Nestlé has the product for you: BabyNes, a single-serve baby-formula machine that resembles a single-serve coffee maker. The US$297 contraption makes formula out of a range of capsules (costing roughly US$65 for a 26-pack) to feed infants up to three years of age. In May, BabyNes went on sale in Switzerland and is expected to launch globally next year. “We think this could be as successful as Nespresso,” Martin Grieder, director of BabyNes, told Fox News, referring to Nestlé’s capsule coffee system. Nespresso is its fastest-growing brand—sales increased 20 per cent to US$3.55 billion in 2010.

Predictably, breastfeeding advocates are unimpressed, accusing the food giant of undermining the World Health Organization’s guidelines recommending breastfeeding for the first six months. But Nestlé prefers to highlight the technological genius of its product. As Grieder puts it: “This is a game changer.”

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Sarkozy and Merkel decide Greek bail-out terms

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:28 AM - 6 Comments

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy met in Berlin recently after a public disagreement about the role their countries’ private sectors should play in a potential Greek bail-out. Both leaders announced that the private sector would not be forced to bring the debt-stricken country into financial stability, and any European corporate involvement would be strictly voluntary. They also decided to reshuffle the cabinet, replacing George Papaconstantinou with Evangelos Venizelos as Greek finance minister. Experts are unsure whether or not the changes will benefit the country.

BBC News

U.S. welcomes al-Qaeda leadership change as sign of weakness

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:26 AM - 0 Comments

American officials are welcoming the news that Ayman al-Zawahri will succeed Osama bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda, saying his divisive nature and lack of charisma will alienate young supporters and weaken the terrorist network’s influence. “He’s just personally disliked by many in al-Qaeda. His personality gets in the way,” Brian Fishman, an expert on al-Qaeda, told The New York Times. Other experts say al-Zawahri is a ruthless and intelligent leader, whose militancy dates back many years, when he started an anti-government group in Egypt when he was 16. Since formally joining al-Qaeda in 1998, al-Zawahri has helped coordinate several terrorist attacks, including the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.

The New York Times

Review: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

By Marni Jackson - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments

This is not a cookbook. And it’s not your average novel, either. Bronsky is a young German writer, born in Russia, whose first novel, Broken Glass Park, was shortlisted for one of Europe’s top literary awards. To judge by this second novel, she’s definitely someone to watch. Her writing is muscular and mordantly funny, and with this book, set in the Soviet Union and Germany, she’s created a magnificently unpleasant and irresistible main character, Rosa Achmetowna. Rosa is profoundly selfish, and doesn’t know it. Her opinion of herself is high, very high. “I stood up elegantly. Not everyone had the ability to gracefully extricate oneself from a soft chair. But I did.” Even when she gives thanks to God before she goes to sleep, she does it so “He wouldn’t feel totally useless.”

Rosa is proud of her intelligence and good looks but despairing of her teenage daughter Sulfia, who is ugly, she declares, and stupid. “And yet somehow she was my daughter.” In fact, Sulfia is a soft-hearted, loving woman who lets her mother ruin her life, drive away her husband and dominate her only daughter, Aminat. All “for her own good,” of course. Rosa is so fixated on the survival of her family and so eager to escape their life in the Soviet Union that she uses her own granddaughter as bait, to snag the affections of a creepy German food writer who is researching ethnic cuisines. Rosa cooks Tartar dishes for him, and the three women leave Russia for the West, where life is hard in a fresh way.

Rosa’s monstrous ability to feed her own ambitions, all in the guise of “caring for others,” would become tedious if Bronsky didn’t manage something impressive as the novel deepens. We begin to feel for Rosa and the profound loneliness she has constructed for herself. And in this comic portrait of a dysfunctional family struggling to survive, we’re also reminded of how capricious our own destinies can be.

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Wal-Mart goes to Africa

By Emma Teitel - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments

Globalization can be a risky business. Starbucks was forced to close its Israeli branches in 2003 because Israelis preferred their own coffee chains, and Kellogg’s expansion into India failed miserably, possibly because Indians don’t eat cold cereal for breakfast. Fortunately for Wal-Mart, though, everyone likes cheap retail. The big box chain that swept through North America, Europe and Asia with its relentless price slashing will soon move into Africa (the “final frontier,” as some marketers call it), having recently bought out the continent’s current megastore—Massmart—for US$2.4 billion.

Foreign investment is no stranger in Africa, but until now the continent’s unpredictable property prices and transport routes, and its isolated neighbourhoods of affluent consumers, have kept offshore retailers away. Wal-Mart plans to beat these challenges using Massmart’s model and experience, though many Africans wish they wouldn’t. Labour unions are afraid the corporation will cut jobs and lower wages. Others view the expansion optimistically, as a much-needed test case for wider foreign investment in African countries. Still, the question remains: even if cheap goods and services benefit the consumer population, will the Wal-Mart way really suit a largely developing continent?

More than $250B in spending to bypass normal scrutiny

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:22 AM - 14 Comments

Members of Parliament in the House of Commons are facing criticism over their unanimous support of a motion that allows more than $250 billion to escape normally-required scrutiny. According to parliamentary rules, 24 House committees should examine bills that approve spending before they’re allowed to pass in the House of Commons. But on June 3, MPs unanimously approved a motion that will allow billions of dollars in spending to by-pass that process. The money will be available for government spending by June 23, after being looked over by just one House committee. A former MP speaking anonymously told The Hill Times that “this is like Christmas for the government, it came early.” The move came just eight days after former Auditor General Sheila Fraser issued a warning that Parliament is failing on its responsibility to properly scrutinize government spending.

The Hill Times

A Wii problem

By Chris Sorensen - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Phil McCarten/Reuters

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata unveiled the hotly anticipated successor to the Wii gaming console last week at the E3 games show in Los Angeles. The Wii U, which won’t go on sale until next year, features a tablet-style controller that lets gamers take the game “off the TV,” and play using both screens or surf the Internet. But while the device got a warm reception from the assembled masses, it didn’t fare so well among investors. Nintendo’s shares fell nearly 10 per cent over the following two days. Analysts said it wasn’t immediately clear how the device worked. Was it just another tablet, or a whole new outlook on gaming, as Iwata promised? It didn’t help that no full-fledged games are yet available to demo the hardware. Of course, the original Wii was met with a similar puzzled response following its initial debut five years ago. Nintendo’s shares later tripled as the console went on to become a bestseller.

Concussions: they're not just for men anymore

By Cathy Gulli - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Strong/Reuters; Adrian Wyld/CP; Todd Korol/Reuters

If all you ever heard about concussions was what turned up in the sports news or highlight reels, you’d be justified in thinking that they mostly only happen to elite male athletes­, especially NHL players. A couple of weeks ago, Nathan Horton of the Boston Bruins was rocked by a hit so hard it knocked him out of the Stanley Cup finals. In May, Derek Boogaard of the New York Rangers, who’d been battling concussion symptoms since before Christmas, accidentally overdosed on alcohol and painkillers. In March, scientists announced that the late Bob Probert, a famous brawler, had brain degeneration. Days later, Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens had a head-on collision with a thick metal stanchion. And, of course, superstar Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is still recovering from back-to-back blows he received in January.

Despite such evidence to suggest that men are the main victims of concussion, an unsettling body of scientific research reveals that the rates of concussion among female athletes are significantly higher than for male athletes. “What we know right now is that females are about two to three times more likely to have a concussion than males,” says Dave Ellemberg, a professor at the Université de Montréal, who has a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study the effect of gender on concussion outcomes. There are also early indications that females might take longer to recover, and that their symptoms might be different from, or worse than, those experienced by males.

The problem is widespread: high rates of concussion in females are occurring at both the youth and adult levels, and across the sports spectrum. Recent studies have found that in gender-comparable sports such as soccer and basketball, which have the same rules and equipment for both sexes, females are far more likely to receive a concussion per number of “athlete exposures” (one player participating in one game or practice). Dawn Comstock, a principle investigator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, runs the national sports surveillance study, which collects detailed injury data from 200 high schools across the U.S. on a weekly basis. Between 2005-2010, female high school soccer players received on average three concussions per 10,000 exposures compared to 1.98 among boys. In basketball, girls sustained 2.01 concussions versus just one among boys per 10,000 exposures.

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Can I crash at your place?

By Alex Ballingall - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 2 Comments

Ever wish you could find a perfect stranger willing to pay for the opportunity to crash in your spare bedroom? Well, Airbnb, Silicon Valley’s most talked about start-up, has created a billion-dollar business out of connecting people online from all over the world who want to rent out their homes to strangers.

Although the company won’t comment on “rumours,” reports have emerged saying Airbnb’s net worth was driven up by a recent surge of investment worth more than $100 million. On top of this, CEO Brian Chesky told the New York Times that Ashton Kutcher has joined the firm as a “significant” investor and social media adviser. “We realized that Airbnb needs to leverage pop culture and social media,” he said. It’s enough to have some convinced it’s the next rising star of the online world, much like Groupon and Twitter before it.

Airbnb operates as a mediator between people seeking out a place to stay and others who want to rent out their own living space. Those hoping to find lodgers post their digs on the website, airbnb.com. Travellers looking to find a place to stay can search the site until they find something that fits their price range. Both temporary lodgers and those offering their quarters are invited to post reviews of their experience, informing others about what to expect. The lodgings posted on the site vary considerably, from a seven-bedroom flat in London for over $1,600 a night to more modest single-room apartments like one in Buenos Aires for $60 a night. So far, Airbnb offers listings in over 14,000 cities in 183 countries.

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Is organic food from China safe?

By Sarah Elton - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 1 Comment

Nelson Ching/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In the new China, everything is big. Drive south on the wide highway from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, and for hours you will see field after field of vegetables with farmers stooped over crops, and pass trucks, motorized tricycles and bikes overflowing with fresh cabbages, onions and greens. This farmland outside Kunming is one of dozens of vast agricultural areas in the country that grow about half of all the world’s vegetables, an increasing number of which are now certified organic. Over the past 10 years, China has converted millions of hectares to organic agriculture—between 2005 and 2006, the amount of organically managed land went up more than tenfold. Today, China has more organic land than any other country, positioning it to be the world’s largest organic producer.

This potential to grow a lot in one place is what motivated Gary Lloyd to look to China in 2000 to source organic peas, spinach and other produce. Lloyd’s company freezes and packages the produce on behalf of other brands that then sell it under their own names at supermarkets in Canada and the United States. He was one of many who saw opportunity in China’s rapidly growing organic export industry—today, Canadians eat a wide range of organic produce from China. The country supplies one-third of all the green peas we eat, both conventional and organic, and much of our apple juice.

But while organic agriculture is big in China, so too are tainted food scandals—think melamine in milk and, more recently, exploding watermelons—and now concerns about food safety in the country are starting to push production back to Canada. Chinese exports of organic fruits and vegetables may be on the rise, but the question is, how long will they continue to be?

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Bollywood confidential

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 4 Comments

Reuters; Keystone Press; Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

If there had ever been doubt about the appeal of Bollywood stars in Toronto, it evaporated on a Sunday afternoon in the fall of 2006. The occasion was the gala premiere of a Hindi movie called Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye) at the Toronto International Film Festival. Thousands of screaming South Asian fans jammed the street outside Roy Thomson Hall as two Indian superstars hit the red carpet—Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood’s most revered patriarch, and Shah Rukh Khan, the heartthrob who ranks as India’s Brad Pitt (even if, to respect his wife, he doesn’t kiss his leading ladies). The previous night, the real Brad Pitt had worked the same red carpet for a TIFF premiere—but didn’t create half as much mayhem as King Khan. “When the stars pulled up in their SUV limos, it was absolute pandemonium,” recalls TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey. “Thousands of people rushed the barriers trying to get a glimpse of them.”

Five years later, that pandemonium will be replayed on a grand scale as Toronto hosts the International Indian Film Academy awards. The IIFA celebrations, which run from June 23-25, are expected to attract a pantheon of Bollywood stars and some 40,000 tourists to the Greater Toronto Area. The festivities will include concerts, screenings, a fashion show, a TIFF retrospective honouring screen legend Raj Kapoor, an exhibit of vintage hand-painted film posters at the Royal Ontario Museum—climaxing with the pageantry of the awards at the Rogers Centre, which will be watched by some 700 million people in 60 countries.

Despite the “Academy” brand, the IIFA awards are not quite India’s Oscars. They’re an annual road show designed to promote Bollywood around the world. Now in their 12th year, they have been staged in capitals from London to Bangkok, Johannesburg to Singapore. Toronto is the first North American city to play host—a privilege that Premier Dalton McGuinty bought with a $12-million pledge from the province to the IIFA.

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Aritzia joins fashion's big leagues

By Cigdem Iltan - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Courtesy of Aritzia

It’s been three years since Vancouver’s Aritzia LP took its repertoire of feminine, fashion-forward wares south, but next week’s opening of its flagship store in New York marks the boutique’s official coming out to the U.S. market. The successful execution of the clothing retailer’s 50th location is crucial, given its plans for a wider expansion in the U.S. Hot on the heels of the June 15 opening is another store launch in August in neighbouring New Jersey.

The two-storey New York store’s prominent corner location at Broadway and Spring Street in fashion haven SoHo has Aritzia rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the industry, from J.Crew to Prada. It’s a move that puts the firm in a better position to attract attention from prospective landlords, fashion media and tastemakers, says retail analyst and DIG360 Consulting principal David Ian Gray. “There are lots of retailers seeking prime spots in prime locations, and because Aritzia is coming in as an unknown entity, they’re having to fight that fight much like they did when they started out in Canada.”

But the company has little reason to be intimidated: Aritzia boasts some of the highest average sales per square foot amongst retailers in North America. And while it doesn’t reveal specific sales numbers, the private company earns somewhere between $200 million to $300 million each year, says Aritzia’s vice-president of marketing Sally Parrott.

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Hail to the royal visit's chief organizer

By Patricia Treble - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 6 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

While Canadians planted flowers over the Victoria Day weekend, Kevin MacLeod was “brain-dead.” Pause. “Not that there’s much to go dead.”

Small wonder. The chief organizer of the upcoming royal tour of William and Kate, the new duke and duchess of Cambridge, had just finished a gruelling cross-country tour. For 16 hours a day for two weeks, he, along with Canadian and British officials, nailed down every detail of the nine-day visit. Nothing escaped inspection, from mapping the hundreds of routes the couple, and everyone in their entourage, will use to get from A to B and every point in between, to detailed seating charts for guests and standing charts for the world’s media (mustn’t forget good photo angles!).

The organizers don’t have a moment to spare. Normally, planning a cross-country tour starts close to a year in advance of the visit. This time, MacLeod, the Canadian secretary to the Queen, and his team had just over four months since the announcement was made in February. They’ve been living out of suitcases for months.

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The world's most misguided musical returns

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Everett Collection; Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Bradley Reinhardt

Are we finally ready to enjoy a musical about supernaturally powered mass murder? That’s what a New York theatre company is hoping by bringing back Carrie, the 1988 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a telekinetic teenager, and the only musical with a rock ’n’ roll production number where people slaughter a pig. The MCC Theatre announced last month it would be sponsoring a major revision of the work by the original creators. A well-known Broadway actor, Marin Mazzie (Stephen Sondheim’s Passion), has signed on to star as Carrie’s crazed mother in the theatre’s 2011-12 season. The time could be right for the only musical with a higher body count than Sweeney Todd.

In 1988, there wasn’t much hope that the show would stand the test of time. Critics mocked the combination of King’s violent revenge fantasy with peppy music by the creators of Fame. Frank Rich, in the New York Times, proclaimed that the famous climax—where Carrie gets blood dumped on her and then slaughters the rest of the cast—made all the blood “look like strawberry ice-cream topping.” Other reviewers felt Debbie Allen’s pelvic thrusts and arm-flailing choreography didn’t fit in with scenes of mass murder.

Adam Feldman, theatre critic for Time Out New York, told Maclean’s that the show failed so spectacularly it’s become “a legendary flop in the way that Bigfoot is legendary. It has myth built into it.” Broadway historian Ken Mandelbaum even called his book on musical theatre flops Not Since Carrie, placing it above Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge as the most misguided idea for a musical.

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Virginia Dorothy Little

By Kate Lunau - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Julia Minamata

Virginia Dorothy Little (née Crossley), better known as Ginnie, was born on Oct. 12, 1942, to Leslie and Kathleen Crossley in Vancouver. Leslie worked as a mechanic and later as a letter carrier, while Kathleen stayed home with Ginnie and her younger brother Phil. “We used to sit in the bedroom, and she’d teach me how to whistle,” says Phil. “Ginnie was a hoot. She was always laughing and giggling.” Shirley George remembers “getting into trouble” with Ginnie, her lifelong best friend. They’d tie their hair in pigtails, “roller skate all over the place,” or go to the movies. “Singin’ in the Rain had just come out,” says Shirley, “and we’d go down Burrard Street singing songs.”

After high school, Ginnie got a job as a bank teller in downtown Vancouver. A co-worker introduced her to a navy man named Eric Badminton, and “they hit it off right away,” says Susan Fox, their daughter. The two were married in Eric’s hometown of Victoria on June 6, 1964; Susan was born in 1966, and brother Duane one year later. When Susan was in Grade 1, the family moved to Brentwood Bay, outside Victoria; Ginnie stayed home with the kids while Eric continued in the navy. He was often away, but returned in the summer “so we could go camping,” says Susan. On those week-long trips, “my dad would go fishing every day, and my mom would read.”

In 1988, Susan got married—and her parents got divorced. “For the most part, they’d been happy together,” she says, “but they were two different people.” Ginnie, who’d gone back into banking, handled it well: “She got an apartment in downtown Victoria,” Susan says, “and went to work.” Several years later, Eric passed away. At his funeral, a man named Don Little, who’d been Eric’s commanding officer, approached Ginnie to give his condolences. She’d briefly met Don before, and “thought my dad was not a nice man,” says Karen Pelletier, Don’s daughter. She must have changed her mind, though. Not long after the funeral, Don paid her a visit at the bank, and asked her out on a date; on Oct. 22, 2001, they were married.

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