Turning water into money

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 12 Comments

Dominique Favre/Reuters

Last month, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé SA, the world’s largest food company, made a splash in Alberta for announcing, via an interview with Reuters in Geneva, that Nestlé was in talks with the Alberta government to establish a so-called water exchange—a market in which water, life’s sine qua non, could be bought and sold just like wheat, pork bellies or any other commodity. “We are actively dealing with the government of Alberta to think about a water exchange,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, describing the province as ideal for such a scheme because water there is scarce and competition for the resource between farmers and oil sands operators is fierce.

This was news to the government of Alberta, which swiftly moved to allay fears about the commodification of Alberta’s water, and its potential export. “Alberta’s water is not for sale and will not be,” Environment Minister Rob Renner told the legislature.

Yet Renner did not deny outright that the province had met with Nestlé, or others, to discuss the notion of setting up a water market in which licences to access the Crown-owned resource could be traded for money. (The province left it to Nestlé to clarify the issue: “Nestlé SA representatives have not met the government of Alberta to discuss an exchange-based water trade,” a press release said.) In fact, Renner signalled the province might indeed have an appetite for setting up such a system: “I think there will come a day, at some point in time, when we need to value water. Whether that means in the form of a regulatory regime or whether it means in some form of a market remains to be seen.”

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On suicide watch

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:15 PM - 0 Comments

Pascal Pavani/AFP/Getty Images

No other nation in recent history appears to have taken so fervently to apocalyptic prophesies as France has, reports the London Times. Then again, not many nations have a government agency specifically responsible for investigating “cults and suspicious spiritual activities.” Indeed, the French agency—known as MIVILUDES—delivered a mass-suicide warning last week, apparently worried about a possible suicide frenzy come Dec. 21, 2012, the day the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar ends. MIVILUDES contends that the Internet age, natural disasters, and economic turmoil—combined with the ancient Mayan prophecy—have inspired widespread belief in a coming Armageddon (there has been a recent migration of people to the hilltop village of Bugarach, said to be a place immune to apocalypse).

The agency’s concern is not entirely outlandish: in the 1990s, 74 people belonging to a cult called the Order of the Solar Temple—16 of them in France and eight in Quebec—died in murder-suicides to avoid an Armageddon. But cult expert Susan Palmer of Concordia University says that “MIVILUDES is creating artificial emergencies to support the state-sponsored anti-cult movement.” Palmer, whose upcoming book The New Heretics of France, about the French anti-cult movement, believes MIVILUDES spends more time vilifying cults than actually researching them—“obviously trying to justify its own existence.”

Bachmann goes into overdrive

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:10 PM - 13 Comments

Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images

So extreme was the caricature of Michele Bachmann as a kooky wild-eyed right-wing harpy that by the time she turned in a polished performance at her first candidates’ debate in New Hampshire in June, speaking in smooth, fully formed paragraphs and delving into details of national policy, you could almost hear a national gasp.

Without any Palin-esque winks at the cameras or “you-betchas,” the 55-year-old third-term congresswoman and mother of five from Minnesota has emerged as a serious force in the Republican presidential field, surging into second place behind frontrunner Mitt Romney in polls of Republican voters—and in at least one poll, ahead of him.

At a time when former Massachusetts governor Romney is repenting for past moderate positions, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty can’t quite bring himself to attack Romney head-on, and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman entered the race by describing his opposition to Obama as a genteel “difference of opinion on how to help a country we love,” Bachmann, who formally announced her candidacy on Monday, gleefully serves generous helpings of partisan red meat. On health care: “As president of the United States, I will not rest until I repeal Obamacare.” On Obama’s intervention in Libya: “Absolutely wrong.” On financial regulation: “An over-the-top bill that will actually lead to more job loss.” On reducing corporate taxes: “I’m a former federal tax lawyer. I’ve seen the devastation.” On energy efficiency: “President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want.”

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‘News of the World’ to shut down

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:08 PM - 14 Comments

News of the World, the British tabloid newspaper that has been published since 1843, will publish its last issue on July 10. The paper, owned since 1969 by Rupert Murdoch, recently became embroiled in a major scandal when it was revealed that its reporters were illegally tapping people’s phones in order to get stories, and possibly tampering with or deleting evidence in the case of a missing woman who turned out to have been murdered. Facing increased calls for investigations into the paper and how widely the phone-tapping practices were known in the Newscorp company, Murdoch’s son James announced today that they must “take further decisive action with respect to the paper” by shutting it down. The revenue for the final issues “will go to good causes.”

The Guardian

Feasting on Tofino

By Jacob Richler - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 3 Comments

Photographs by Brian Howell

The vast and forbidding expanse of Cox Bay, near Tofino on the western coast of Vancouver Island, is circumscribed by an impressively deep beachfront of cold, wet sand, as grey and unyielding as lightly set concrete. It is eerily beautiful, but unlike—say—Chinatown, it is not the sort of place I would ordinarily think to stop and enjoy a spontaneous snack when I was not already packing one. My guide, Jae Lazar, felt differently.

“Here!” she exclaimed, scampering back down some craggy rock that jutted into the surf, and handing me something that looked like a heavily armoured snail with an elongated, leathery foot. “Gooseneck barnacles! You can steam them—or just use your teeth to squeeze out the tube of sweet, lobstery meat.”

Despite the thick cloud cover, Lazar’s cluster of gold teeth glinted in the sunlight as she bit down hard on the thing. I followed suit. The verdict: zero points for presentation, but she definitely had a point as concerned the sweet, salty barnacle micro-loin, or whatever you call it. Lazar next pointed out an entree-sized cluster of wild mussels clinging to the far side of the rocky crevice, and then she was off again, this time headed the other way, inland, down a winding overgrown path, in quest of the salad course.

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Baird and the bomb

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:42 AM - 97 Comments

Jonathan McLeod objects to John Baird’s signing of a bomb in Libya.

I do not like this tradition of writing messages on bombs, especially when those messages are written by our politicians. When using a bomb as a form of expression, there is only one message being expressed: Massive Violence … There is no political action more severe, destructive and permanently altering as war. We should undertake such activities as rarely as we can. We should avoid war, violence, blood and death as much as is reasonably possible. We should - when forced into such grim duty - take lives, destroy communities and shatter families with the utmost reverence for life.

Casey Anthony sentenced to four years in jail

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:42 AM - 0 Comments

A Florida judge sentenced Casey Anthony to four years in jail Thursday after she was convicted of lying to police investigators. Anthony could nonetheless be released as soon as late July or early August for good behaviour and time already served. Judge Belvin Perry also fined her US$1,000 for each of the four counts of lying to police officers. Earlier this week, Anthony was acquitted of killing and abusing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, who disappeared in June 2008. Defence attorneys argued that the child had accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool and that Anthony’s father, a retired cop, tried to make the accident look like a murder. Anthony’s father has denied these allegations and the prosecution called them absurd. Caylee’s body was later found in a wooded area a short distance the Anthony family home.

Los Angeles Times

System overload

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 12 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP; Global News

In the wake of Vancouver’s riots, B.C.’s populist premier Christy Clark was quick to read the public pulse. “We will hold you responsible,” she said the morning after the mayhem. “You will not be able to hide behind your hoodie or your bandana.” A special team of experienced prosecutors, she said, would work with police to ensure swift, severe punishments for rioters—jail time, she made clear, sounding more like an Old West sheriff. The public roared its approval. The riots touched a raw nerve in Vancouver, where 19 of every 20 residents want the troublemakers prosecuted to the full extent of the law, according to a new poll by Angus Reid.

The reality of prosecuting the mess, however, will soon sink in. The premier is “out of touch with how our courts are operating,” Vancouver criminal defense lawyer Jason Tarnów tells Maclean’s. There is “no way” riot cases will get preferential treatment just because politicians are asking for it; that would be unconstitutional. Rioters will be processed by a justice system hobbled by judge, sheriff and prosecutorial shortages and a legal-aid system that no longer meets even basic needs, according to a recent report. “Justice will not be swift,” adds criminologist Robert Gordon, of Simon Fraser University. “This will be a long, drawn-out process.”

A week before the riot in fact, five Vancouver trials were ordered shut down after judges deemed courtrooms unsafe to proceed due to a shortage of sheriffs. More than 2,000 criminal cases, meanwhile, are at risk of being quashed over delays. In the past year, a range of cases, from drunk driving to drug dealing have been tossed because it took up to two years to get to trial. “It takes 12 to 18 months to get a single-day trial in Vancouver right now,” says criminal lawyer Michael Shapray. “What will happen if police suddenly lay 300 criminal charges? How are you going to find the judges, sheriffs and prosecutors for this?” In an eye-opening report released last fall, the provincial court warned that 17 new judges must be hired just to bring B.C. back to 2005 levels and slow the backlog. Instead, B.C.’s spring budget approved cuts totalling $14.5 million to the judiciary, court services and prosecution services. (In the wake of the riots, funding for sheriffs was quietly restored.)

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Ignoring history

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 8 Comments

Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Recent history grads may be forgiven for not knowing the significance of the 1st Baron of Dorchester, or that his 1744 Quebec Act was once known as Canada’s Magna Carta. They don’t teach much pre-Confederation history in school. “In high school, we had to take one history course and all I learned about was World War One, World War Two—maybe we touched on the Depression,” says Amy Legate-Wolfe, the 22-year-old co-president of the University of Toronto’s History Students’ Association. She didn’t choose any Canadian history courses in university either, preferring to learn about British monarchs and the origins of Hong Kong.

But considering that the Quebec Act was the first piece of legislation to enshrine minority rights for French Catholics in the British Empire, more Canadians should have studied it, says Chris Champion, one of the five editors of a new journal, the Dorchester Review. The Review’s first issue is modest in circulation (500 copies), but it has attracted some big-name contributors, including Conrad Black. They’re united by the belief that Canadian history teachers are overlooking many key moments. “[Professors] emphasize the notion that the really important things happened after John A. MacDonald, that World War One was Canada’s war of independence, that we didn’t really become a country until we had our own flag and that our rights and freedoms began in 1982 with the Charter,” says Champion. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

The kind of things one might have learned if studying in the 1960s. The University of Toronto’s 1960-61 course calendar shows 27 of 33 history classes focused on Canada, Britain or America. Queen’s University only offered two courses on anything outside of North America or Western Europe that year.

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A gift fit for a king

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 9 Comments

All in all, it does make a charming souvenir gift. Just ask the Prime Minister. A copy of Maclean’s May 15, 1939, souvenir edition of the 27-day royal visit made by King George VI and his consort Queen Elizabeth—Prince William’s great-grandparents—formed part of a personal gift from Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, to the prince and his wife, Kate, on the occasion of their current visit to Canada. (The gift also included a copy of Chatelaine of similar vintage.) The 1939 royal tour of Canada, the first ever visit of a reigning monarch to the Crown’s senior dominion, was like no other royal visit before it, and Maclean’s, naturally, treated it as such.

In many ways the souvenir issue, with the king’s portrait on its cover, set the template for the magazine’s coverage of royal visits ever since. That included printing the Queen’s portrait first, on the cover of the otherwise business-as-usual May 1 issue: early recognition that the royal women, whether as rulers or consorts, from Elizabeth II to Diana, princess of Wales to Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, have always been the stars of the show. Photos were a huge part of the special edition, including a shot of the two royal children, who had been left at home for this arduous cross-continental odyssey: princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, seated at a piano.

But it wasn’t just that George VI was a reigning king that infused his arrival with historical significance, but rather how—by what right—he was reigning over us. In 1937, King George, the first monarch crowned since the 1931 Statute of Westminster established the full independence of the self-governing dominions, was also the first to swear in his coronation oath to govern Canada by its own laws and customs. The monarchy was now the final institutional glue holding the Empire (soon to be Commonwealth) together. Although not yet formally king of Canada—that legal change in title didn’t occur until his daughter’s reign—George was very much coming to his dominion in that capacity. The tour marked another step, both real and symbolic, on the long road to equality between motherland and former colony that had, so far, stretched from the Canadian Corps’ victory at Vimy Ridge in 1917 through Canada’s seat at the Versailles peace treaty negotiations two years later and the Westminster statute and the coronation oath.

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Grandest slam

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 2 Comments

Photograph by Michel Setboun/Getty Images

There is nothing even remotely intimidating about Milos Raonic—until he has a tennis racquet in his hand. Galumphing across the lobby of his Paris hotel in his size-14 Nikes, he makes you think of Bambi on ice, or Michael Phelps out of water: a collection of limbs that appear to be moving in all directions at once with no common purpose. The handshake is limp, the smile is shy, and his voice cracks when he talks. Sure, he’s six foot five, but at just 198 lb., the 20-year-old still has the face and frame of a teenage boy. And, as it turns out, the serve of a natural-born killer.

At the Australian Open this past January, he clocked the fastest serve of the tournament with a 143 mph (230 km/h) slam in an upset victory over France’s Michael Llodra. In the final of the SAP Open in San Jose the next month—his first career ATP championship, and the first singles tournament win by a Canadian player in 16 years—Raonic touched 149 mph (240 km/h) playing against Fernando Verdasco, then ranked No. 9 in the world. In early March, at a Davis Cup match in Mexico, he hit 152 mph (245 km/h) tying for the fourth fastest serve in history. (Ivo Karlovic holds the current record of 156 mph—251 km/h—established during a Davis Cup match in his native Croatia that same week.) Heading into Wimbledon, Raonic had scorched opponents for 479 aces and counting this season, 83 ahead of Karlovic for the lead on the circuit. Which makes his claim that he isn’t even trying to hit it that hard all the more frightening. “When I get high numbers, I’m not thinking full-out bomb. It just comes off the racquet that way,” Raonic says as he sips mineral water in the lobby bar. “Some days, the ball is going close to 150, and I just feel like I’m swinging my arm.”

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Greenpeace lauds grocery chains for seafood practices

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:06 AM - 3 Comments

In its third annual report on seafood practices in major Canadian supermarkets, Greenpeace applauded their progress towards seafood sustainability. Even though only three grocers—Loblaw, Overwaitea and Safeway—received passing grades, the environmental advocacy organization told says they’re “beginning to walk the talk and turning sustainability commitments to action on supermarkets’ shelves.” All eight major grocers have better marks this year than last year; three years ago, all eight grocers had failing grades. Greenpeace bases its scoring on supermarkets’ ability to trace the origins of the seafood they sell, the nature of their sustainability plans and how they communicate those plans and practices to customers. National chain Loblaw placed first with a grade of 62 per cent, while Costco came in last with a score of 37 per cent.

The Globe and Mail

Power of the placebo

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 20 Comments

Stephan Elleringmann/laif/Redux

In Western medicine, placebos have long been the bridesmaids, never the bride. That’s not surprising: they’re sham pills or simulated medical interventions, seen as handmaidens for use in clinical trials rather than the real thing. Their influence, known as the “placebo effect,” is understood to be a perceived (and not necessarily real or measurable) improvement in a medical condition. Now a spate of new studies trumpeting placebos’ efficacy and their prevalence in mainstream medical treatment is dramatically shifting that perception.

In March, a study by the German Medical Association, or BÄK, revealed half of German doctors prescribe placebos—including vitamin pills and homeopathic remedies—and that they were effective treating minor maladies such as an upset stomach. (A study from Erasmus University in the Netherlands in May found placebos effectively treated migraines in 36 per cent of participants.)

“Placebos have a stronger impact and are more complex than we realized,” said Christopher Fuchs, the managing director of the BÄK, when the study was released. “They are hugely important in medicine today.” The following month, a McGill University survey triggered shock ripples with its revelation that 20 per cent of Canadian medical school doctors prescribed placebos to unknowing patients and that more than 35 per cent of psychiatrists prescribed medications in “subtherapeutic” doses, or below the minimal recommended therapeutic level. A glimpse into why that is the case can be found in The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, a new book by British psychologist Irving Kirsch, who embarked on a 15-year scientific quest that examined all 42 FDA reviews of the six most widely used antidepressant drugs; he discovered placebos to be 82 per cent as effective.

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Big band sound with an Indie feel

By Mike Doherty - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:55 AM - 0 Comments

Lindsay Beyerstein; Dani Gurgel; Photo illustration by Stephen Gregory

Most jazz musicians, asked about the defining concerts in their careers, will name a prestigious venue or heralded festival. For Darcy James Argue’s Grammy- and Juno-nominated big band Secret Society, old-school adulation is all very well, but the sweat, grunge and intimacy more common to indie rock has given them a vision of the future of jazz.

The Vancouver-born Argue recalls a revelatory gig in the basement of a house of twentysomethings living communally in D.C. His 18-piece band was “playing acoustically, without a PA, for kids who had never heard of us. The musicians came up to me afterwards and said, ‘We’re losing our shirts, but it’s so great to have a direct connection to an audience that had no idea what to expect.’ That’s what you live for—to have your music be memorable in someone’s life.”

Certainly Argue isn’t in it for the money. Over the phone from his home in Brooklyn, the 36-year-old conductor and composer says, “There are few things that would be more financially irresponsible than running a big band—like maybe a serious gambling addiction.” The Secret Society is about turning heads rather than emptying wallets, and their forward-thinking music has earned them a raft of awards—and now the chance to tour Canada for the first time this summer.

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Revolution delayed?

By Ruth Sherlock - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

George Henton

The Egyptian revolution took the world by storm. As images of the mass protests beamed into homes around the globe, millions looked on, captivated by what people power could accomplish. Feb. 11, the night beleaguered president Hosni Mubarak resigned, will forever remain an iconic moment, with its scenes from Cairo’s Tahrir Square of Egyptians celebrating new-found freedom and the end of 30 years of autocratic rule. For many of the protesters who had spent years risking their lives by planning revolution in a tightly controlled state, and then 18 days battling against tear gas, bullets, and brutality in a popular uprising, that evening in Tahrir Square was the closing chapter. As influential blogger and activist Wael Ghonim tweeted, “Mission accomplished.”

The Egyptian military stepped in to fill the leadership vacuum. To shouts of “the people and the army are one,” it quickly suspended some provisions of the unpopular constitution. On March 19, a set of constitutional amendments that paved the way for elections was overwhelmingly approved in a referendum that drew record numbers of voters. The military’s 18-member ruling council has set a firm end date for its leadership: parliamentary elections in September will permit legislative powers to be transferred to a civilian government, while executive powers will be handed over after a presidential election in November. This was to be the road map to the “new Egypt.”

But more than a hundred days on, the revolution appears to be faltering. The ideals that drove the revolt still exist, in continuing calls for reform and institutional change. But in the aftermath of the uprising, the most populous country of the Arab world is also struggling to maintain law and order, wrestling with a dying economy, facing continued protests and strikes—and battling to keep the lid on boiling religious divisions. During those heady days in Tahrir Square, Muslims and Christians appeared to have found a new unity. But no longer: the last four months have witnessed continued outbreaks of sectarian violence.

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Voluntary and unanswered

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:37 AM - 36 Comments

Jennifer Ditchburn checks on the progress of the National Household Survey.

Under the previous system, census workers would call up a household that had not filled out its mandatory long questionnaire, and then pay a visit — or even several — to make sure it was completed. Now Statistics Canada is accepting incomplete forms — called partial responses — and there is no followup…

One census enumerator, who spoke to The Canadian Press on condition of anonymity, said workers had been instructed to accept the long forms with as few as 10 of 84 questions answered. They can also declare somebody has given them a “total refusal” simply by speaking to them on the phone.

Credit card tricks

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 2 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

Credit card fraud is big business in Canada. Last year, crooks racked up nearly $366-million worth of charges on lost, stolen or otherwise compromised cards, targeting nearly half a million customers, according to figures from the Canadian Bankers Association. That explains why the industry has been pushing the adoption of more secure microchip cards that require users to slide their plastic into a terminal and enter a PIN, similar to the way debit cards work. But a word of caution: just because you have a new chip card in your wallet doesn’t mean you’re safe.

While the industry says it has already seen instances of fraud drop since the new cards were first introduced two years ago, the expensive process of moving cardholders and merchants to the new technology has also created new opportunities for crooks—including some scams that can make it appear as though it’s the cardholder that is at fault, possibly leaving them on the hook for losses.

The problem stems from the fact that chip cards are still equipped with a magnetic stripe. That’s so cardholders can pull out their plastic at stores that may not have the latest equipment, or use them in the United States, which so far has balked at the cost of adopting the technology. Like regular credit cards, the stripes can be “skimmed” by thieves using special equipment and a compromised terminal. The new twist is that if crooks also manage to observe the cardholder entering their PIN—either by watching over their shoulder or by setting up a hidden camera—it may be possible for them to use the forged cards either in bank machines without chip and PIN technology, or on machines designed to fall back on verifying magnetic strips (to accommodate foreign visitors without chip cards).

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Brand Catherine

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:15 AM - 0 Comments

Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images

When Prince William and Kate step off the Canadian Forces jet in Ottawa this week, the global fashion industry will be watching. Their laser-like scrutiny will not stem from any interest in relations between the royal family and its Commonwealth subjects, but from a far more practical concern: what is she wearing? And how can we capitalize on it?

Welcome to the incredible brand power of Kate: a young woman who can set a global trend on a whim, and a future queen who, in the world of fashion, is already an established kingmaker in her own right.

The industry-bending nature of Kate’s appeal has grown exponentially since plans for the royal nuptials were announced last fall. Back then, all eyes were on the ring, a priceless diamond-encircled sapphire, which once belonged to the late Princess Di. But while Kate flashed her new rock for the cameras, designers and retailers were rushing to knock off her outfit—a royal blue wrap dress by the then-little-known label Issa. The discount fashion retailer Peacocks produced a $22 copy, as did the grocery chain Tesco, which were reported to have sold out of their version in a matter of hours. The ring itself was replicated in every form, from gumball-machine plastic to a $50 “Princess” cocktail ring by Martine Wester.

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Review: David Crockett: The lion of the west

By Peter Shawn Taylor - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

If all you know about Davy Crockett comes from a Disney song—“Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee…Kilt him a b’ar when he was only three”—then you don’t know a thing about Davy Crockett.

He never called himself Davy. He rarely wore a coonskin cap. He wasn’t born on a mountaintop. And while he kilt an impressive number of b’ars during his life, he was almost certainly toilet trained before bagging his first one. This new book, which makes ample use of Crockett’s own memoirs, is a lively read that deflates many of the myths surrounding the famous frontiersman while preserving the popular appeal that has made him such a recognizable cultural figure.

David Crockett was born in Tennessee to pioneer parents. He was a veteran of the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 and a putative farmer who repeatedly moved his family westward in search of better land. But his real passions were hunting—he once killed 47 bears in one month—telling yarns and drinking whisky. A career in politics beckoned.

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Review: Beggar’s Feast

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments

Boyagoda’s novel follows the sprawling life of Sam Kandy, who begins as a nobody in a village in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and ends up a self-made shipping magnate with three marriages and 16 children. When he is seven, an astrologer tells Sam’s low-caste parents that their son will ruin them, and his father later abandons him at a monastery. Through vast ambition and predatory instincts, however, this “no one from nowhere” manages to escape the temple by selling on the streets of Colombo, then hopping on a ship to Australia to work for a wealthy man, whose dog, he notes, sleeps on a rug thicker than his father’s mattress.

Sam Kandy (a name he invents) is propelled by an early promise: if he ever goes back to his ancestral village, he’ll “return like it had never been done before.” Through relentless work and the trading opportunities afforded by the world wars, he manages to climb the social ladder in Ceylon. But this beggar in a world that has given him nothing can’t seem to escape his early rejection: not through wealth nor through his upwardly mobile first marriage to Alice, daughter of the village headman. He sends his family clothing, toys, and cars, but remains indifferent to their emotional needs. His rough beginnings do not fully explain the extent of his cruelty. When a man mistakes Sam for Alice’s driver, and his wife does not console him about the error, Sam, “raging that the fate-roped world was holding his head in place,” kills her.

Boyagoda uses language as deliberately as a poet to depict the politics and lushness of colonial and post-colonial Ceylon. But there’s sometimes a gap with “historyless” Sam. His lack of an interior life renders him unknowable and, often, unlikeable. One is left wanting to know more about the motivations of a man willing to go so far to change his fate.

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The doctor will see you now

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 11 Comments

Richard Human/Getty Images

Waiting could soon become a thing of the past. A new Canadian technology venture, called Blink Connect, seeks to eliminate “waiting-line frustration” with the use of a Web-based text messaging system. Rather than sit in a doctor’s waiting room or pace a restaurant parking lot, patrons receive a text message exactly when it’s their turn. Blink Connect also acts as an automatic Day-timer, says the company—providing clients with text reminders leading up to their appointments. According to company CEO Harry Battu, Blink Connect has an ancillary benefit as well. “I don’t know about you,” he says, “but I’d rather not go to the doctor’s office to get better and catch something even worse from the person sitting next to me.” The company has already licensed its service to a number of downtown Toronto restaurants, and plans to expand in the next few months. “Restaurants are just the beginning,” says Battu, “and the medical and salon sectors are the future.”

Too hot to handle

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:25 AM - 0 Comments

When the online radio company Pandora debuted on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month, its share price soared, boosting the value of the Oakland-based firm to US$2.8 billion—a figure more than 20 times its sales in 2010. But within a week, the stock had plummeted from a high of US$25 back to US$13.50. This blip left many market-watchers scratching their heads and underscores the difficulty even seasoned analysts face when valuing today’s much-hyped tech firms. Are they really worth billions, or are we seeing hints of the exuberance and inflated prices of a new 1999-style dot-com bubble?

Several other tech companies have experienced similar jumps after going public this year. When social networking site LinkedIn opened on the stock market in May, the value of its shares shot up by more than 100 per cent. Now, its share price is back down close to where it started. Despite the temporary frenzy such surges have created, the shares of the 19 tech companies to go public this year have dropped by two per cent overall, according to Renaissance Capital.

Still, more giants of the online world are preparing to go public, including online bargain dealer Groupon, which some analysts predict will be worth as much as US$15 billion on the stock market. HomeAway, a vacation-home rental site, is also hoping to cash in on an investment surge. The New York Times reported that HomeAway will be pricing its shares between US$24 and US$27, bringing the company’s value to over US$2 billion.

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Something a can of paint can fix?

By Joanne Latimer - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

Photographs by Rob Durston

Is Belfast whitewashing its troubled past?

In an attempt to put more distance between today’s uneasy peace and the Troubles—that 30-year-period of bloody sectarian violence that pitted Catholic Republicans opposed to the British presence in Northern Ireland against Protestant Loyalists—the city has been embarking on a face change. One of its most infamous murals,“You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row,” depicting a balaclava-clad Protestant gunman protecting his turf, is due to be replaced soon. Softening the imagery on such an aggressive mural is considered an important step forward for reconciling the two sides, and comes after five years of tense negotiations between former Loyalist area “gatekeepers”—now known as community representatives—and development workers. Funding the new mural is the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, which is in charge of the Re-imaging Communities Programme that works with artistic and local communities to tackle the signs of sectarianism and racism.

With a $6-million budget to date, the program has shepherded through 150 art projects since 2006. Its first major success was replacing the famous Grim Reaper mural of a paramilitary gunman in a pro-British area of Belfast. “We haven’t moved from the Grim Reaper to Andy Warhol quite yet, but re-imaging Sandy Row is a big step,” notes Nóirín McKinney of the Arts Council. “We came to an agreement on a new painted image of [Loyalist hero] King Billy and a garden.”

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A smooth sale

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

Ratcliffe/Getty Images

“Not on the silk sheets!” screams one father to another while changing a diaper in the 1987 comedy Three Men and a Baby. That the best pop culture reference for this bedding goes back so far is telling: in the minds of many, silk sheets are a dated, laughable indulgence not fit for real life.

But to hear Toronto entrepreneur Samantha Maker describe Cilque, her new line of silk sheets, is to enter a universe in which the luxury linens are actually practical. “Silk is a really durable fabric. It’s long-lasting. It can be machine washed. It’s drier-friendly,” she says. “It’s hypoallergenic—unlike cotton, which is an absorbing fabric. It’s also room-temperature adjustable: cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”

Maker, who imports her silk from southeastern China, launched the company after learning that many celebrities sleep on the fabric because of its “nourishing” properties: silk is “less abrasive on skin and hair” than other materials, says Maker, who points to high-end salons that sell silk pillowcases because they’re a “beauty secret.”

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