Eco-friendly economy

By Manisha Krishnan - Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

Steve Clapp

Every week, starting in midsummer, a Vancity employee packs some tomatoes, peas, carrots, squash and a few herbs onto a bicycle and delivers them to a local nutrition program in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The vegetables are grown on the rooftop garden of the credit union’s head office, a project that started two years ago. “It was a volunteer effort from some employees who said, ‘You know what? We should just make this a more livable place,’ ” says Maureen Cureton, the green business manager at Vancity.

A few Saturdays of hard work later, the “sky garden” was complete. It now serves as a place where employees can hang out on sunny days, and its harvests supply non-profits that bring healthy food to marginalized communities. Vancity has been named one of this year’s “Green 30”—a list of 30 Canadian businesses whose employees are most positive about their record of environmental stewardship. Compiled by global consulting firm Aon Hewitt, the list is based on opinion surveys from more than 190,000 employees at 280 organizations across the country.

Vancity is certainly a model of environmental stewardship. It boasts a robust recycling program—82 per cent of waste from its head office was diverted from landfill in 2012—and has been carbon-neutral since 2008, encouraging employees to carpool or bike to work. It also purchases offsets that go back into B.C.-based projects such as conserving the Great Bear Rainforest.

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Breaking Amish: This ‘Brave New World’ feels a little dark and depressing

By Manisha Krishnan - Monday, May 13, 2013 at 11:28 AM - 0 Comments

People are often resentful of how quickly reality TV stars acquire wealth and fame without really having to do anything.

In the case of Breaking Amish, it almost feels like someone should set up a donation fund for the cast.

If Sunday’s premiere of Brave New World is any indicator, life has not been kind to the five young protagonists who left their Amish and Mennonite communities behind. Their “new world,” is in fact a dark and depressing one.

The series kicks off in Lancaster, PA, with Sabrina, now a bottle blonde (with some serious roots), reading aloud a letter from her aunt, who is unhappy about her niece’s decision to leave the Mennonites.

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A beginner’s guide to ‘Breaking Amish’

By Manisha Krishnan - Saturday, May 11, 2013 at 5:15 PM - 0 Comments

America’s over-the-top and egregiously inaccurate portrayal of life after Amish is back and it’s headed to the Sunshine State in tomorrow night’s premiere of Breaking Amish: Brave New World on TLC.

In preparation for what promises to be an unapologetic train wreck, it’s worth taking a look back at Season 1 of Breaking Amish and its fallout, which, save for one intensely hostile reunion episode, I missed altogether.

If you’re in the same boat, the premise is: five innocent Amish youths trade in their buggies and chicken coops for tattoos, sex and some serious boozing — last year in New York City, this time around in Sarasota, Fla., a hotspot for the ex-Amish (who knew?)

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Plastic surgery: Where do parents draw the line?

By Manisha Krishnan - Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 7:32 AM - 0 Comments

Photo illustration by Lauren Cattermole

Kelly Jarvis still remembers being called buck-toothed as a kid. The North Vancouver mother of two had a severe overbite that didn’t get fixed until Grade 8. Even after she got rid of her braces, the insults continued. “It really bothered me,” says Jarvis. “People still teased me about how my teeth were before.”

It’s a fate she wanted to spare her son, Adam, which is partly why she had him start two-phase orthodontic treatment at the age of 7. Now, at 10, his overbite is already corrected despite the fact that he only has eight adult teeth.

In the two-phase method, kids as young as 5 wear dental appliances for a year, before switching to retainers for three or four years, until all their baby teeth fall out. Then they have regular braces for at least one more year.

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Transgendered beauty queen lands reality TV show

By Manisha Krishnan - Friday, May 3, 2013 at 5:59 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Young/CP

Jenna Talackova loves the spotlight.

The transgendered Vancouver beauty who made Donald Trump eat his words when she demanded the right to compete in the Miss Universe pageant will be starring in her own reality TV show this fall.

E! and Bell Media’s Brave New Girl (the show’s working title) will follow Talackova, 24, as she moves to Toronto to launch her modeling career. The eight-part, “unscripted” drama is set to begin filming this summer. ”It will be fun letting the world watch as I take the next steps in pursuing my dreams,” said Talackova in a media release.

Last year, the beauty queen made international headlines when she was banned from the Miss Universe competition because she was not a “naturally born” female.

After hiring celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and gaining media attention, Trump, who owns the Miss Universe organization, reversed the decision.

Are no-fee chequing accounts too good to be true?

By Manisha Krishnan - Friday, May 3, 2013 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

When it comes to saving money in this era of low interest rates, banking fees can be a big hindrance. But two U.S. companies are giving consumers the chance to pay nothing at all for a chequing account and a host of other web-based services. Bluebird, the latest offering from American Express and Wal-Mart, is offering a chequing account with online bill payment, ATM access and mobile depositing—all without annual or monthly fees. GoBank, owned by prepaid-debit-card provider Green Dot, has many of the same free services, though it’s in the midst of rolling out a pay-what-you-wish option, allowing customers to give between $0 and $9 a month at their discretion.

Critics say the pay-what-you-wish model isn’t sustainable and reads as a publicity stunt. But musicians, software distributors and even restaurants have all employed it successfully, so why not banks? With fees as low as $0, patrons have nothing to lose.

CBC executive Kirstine Stewart leaves for job as head of Twitter Canada

By Manisha Krishnan - Monday, April 29, 2013 at 1:04 PM - 0 Comments

A high-ranking CBC executive is leaving the public broadcaster to run Twitter Canada.

Kirstine Stewart, who today changed her Twitter handle from @KStewartCBC to @kirstinestewart, has taken up a job as head of Twitter Canada after two years as executive vice president of CBC’s English Services.

So happy to have @kirstinestewart as our new Managing Director of Canada!

— Twitter Canada (@TwitterCanada) April 29, 2013

“I’ve had some of the happiest moments in my life at the CBC, and I’ve been honoured to represent such an important name to Canadians,” said Stewart in a media release.

Hubert T. Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio Canada, said Stewart has played a valuable role in establishing CBC as a “modern public broadcaster.”

The corporation is currently on the hunt for her replacement.

What Would Ryan Lochte Do?

By Manisha Krishnan - Monday, April 29, 2013 at 8:32 AM - 0 Comments

Lochte and his mom in front of the Lincoln Memorial (Instagram)

Ever so slightly enticed at the prospect of Ryan Lochte making a fool of himself in Washington, D.C., I tuned in for another episode of What Would Ryan Lochte Do? It will probably be the last time I do.

So little happened that I’m able to sum it up in about two sentences:

Lochte and his mom visited the nation’s capital so that Lochte could pick up an award for his Muscular Dystrophy charity work.

OK, that was one sentence.

Since I won’t be getting those 30 minutes back anyway, I thought I’d go ahead and relay Lochte’s dumbest quotes of the night.

 On preparing his speech for the Muscular Dystrophy event:

“I’m just going to wing it. . . . I’ve talked in front of, like, a lot of big business people about stuff I didn’t even know.”

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Frank Simchak Jr.

By Manisha Krishnan - Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Julia Minamata

Frank Simchak Jr. was born on Sept. 3, 1982, in New Westminster, B.C., the third child and only son of Frank Sr., a drywaller, and Susan, a homemaker. In chasing construction booms for work, Frank Sr. moved the family around often. When Frank was 2, they left for Los Angeles.

With his sisters, Susan and Helen, eight and six years older, respectively, Frank was the baby and the blue-eyed object of his dad’s affection. As a preschooler, his father took him fishing for the first time. Frank couldn’t throw the line far, but he managed to reel in a five-inch catch. “He was running all over, showing it to people he didn’t even know,” recalls Frank Sr.

The family moved back to B.C. in 1989, settling in Port Coquitlam. From a young age, Frank was protective of those closest to him. At age 6, he met Brent Aldred, a four-year-old who lived in the same apartment complex. “This kid was actually beating me up and Frank came and stopped it,” recalls Brent. The two became best friends.

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What Would Ryan Lochte Do? ‘Go big or go home’ … (Don’t we wish?)

By Manisha Krishnan - Monday, April 22, 2013 at 8:37 AM - 0 Comments

Ryan Lochte loves catchphrases.

“Turn it up,” “Go big or go home” and “Jeah” — a loose translation of “hell yeah” — are some of his favourites. But for all the talk, there was surprisingly little action in E!’s series premiere of What Would Ryan Lochte Do?

First, we’re taken inside the Olympian’s closet, where he shows off the Lochte shoes — a pair of hideous neon green and yellow sneakers that he “designed from the top to the very sole, to the very top, to the bottom … laces.” Quotes like that are all too common for Ryan; he confuses himself, blanks out, and is generally unable to string together a sentence that’s not one of his catchphrases.

Within five minutes, the producers get to the point of the show — seeing Ryan without a shirt on. First we get a glimpse of him training at the pool and later he strips during a game of flag football with his friends, whom he refers to as the “Lochterage.” Ironic for a guy who later, in a camera interview, asks, “What is a douchebag? I really don’t know what it means.” He’s not being rhetorical — he actually wants a dictionary definition, though he need not look farther than his T-shirt, which reads: “#Lochtenation.”

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What would Ryan Lochte do? Nothing that involves critical thinking

By Manisha Krishnan - Sunday, April 21, 2013 at 9:55 AM - 0 Comments

Manisha Krishnan dishes on the often outrageous, always entertaining world of reality television. Follow Manisha on Twitter: @ManishaKrishnan

Let’s get right to it: Who is Ryan Lochte and why should anyone care what he might do?

The 28-year-old swimming sensation is an 11-time U.S. Olympic medallist. He holds world records in the 100-metre medley and a bunch of other stuff, but basically, he’s hot, wealthy and astoundingly dumb.

So, of course, now he’s the star of his own reality TV show.

E!’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do? follows the athlete as he chases girls, cries, gets wasted and coins catchphrases that he does not always understand. Consider, for example, the “Lochte edge.” What is it? “I honestly have no idea,” he muses, followed by 10 seconds of silence.

On tour to promote his eight-part series, Lochte demonstrated that his dim-wittedness is not an act.

During an interview with Fox’s Good Day Philly, he was asked how he planned to party while training hard for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“If you’re a man at night, you gotta be a man in the morning,” he replied.

Er … yeah — that’s generally how biology works.

Describing what makes him “a lot different” than any other Olympian, he said, “I like to go out and have fun, go dancing, hang out with my friends.” Anchors Mike Jerrick and Sheinelle Jones openly laughed at Lochte, though the notion they were mocking him went over his head. 

To sum up: if Michael Phelps and Kim Kardashian had a baby who was repeatedly dropped at birth, it would be Ryan Lochte.

This is unlikely to be enlightening television — we might get more from it if we watch on mute — but there will be plenty to ridicule, which could well make up for such shortcomings as Lochte’s IQ.

What Would Ryan Lochte Do? premieres April 21, 10 p.m. ET on E! Check back here for my take on it.

Wed and in the red

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

Mohamad Dabbouss/Reuters

Expensive weddings are a headache for plenty of grooms, but in the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar, it’s the reason many are forgoing marriage altogether.

Fewer people are tying the knot in the tiny nation, where one in four women of marriageable age is unable to find a partner, according to recent statistics. A report by the Population and Social Statistics Department says the “high cost of marriage” is partially to blame.

Wedding ceremonies in Qatar are separate for men and women, with men generally footing the bill for both. The price of renting a banquet hall ranges from $19,000 to $42,000, and that is typically topped off with a dowry and all the usual entertaining expenses. One soon-to-be-divorced man told Al Jazeera he saved up for nine years for his $125,000 celebration.

Small weddings are less of an option in the tight-knit region; couples send out mass invitations to avoid excluding acquaintances. To tackle the problem, an organization called Qatar Charity has rolled out a program through which it gives newlyweds financial assistance and the use of complimentary wedding tents. Four months ago, Crown Prince Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani ordered the construction of five wedding halls, also to be available free of charge.

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A razor-thin scam and one bad cup of joe

By Manisha Krishnan - Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 7:00 AM - 0 Comments

Police notes from all over:

British Columbia: A Prince George man was arrested for impersonating a police officer and pulling over drivers after he mounted red and blue lights on top of his car. In one incident, the man allegedly flagged down a woman and told her he would be revoking her driver’s licence unless she performed a sexual act; when she refused, he asked instead for $50.

Alberta: A scheming shopper who allegedly cut himself with razors and blamed it on grocery stores to get refunds is facing charges of fraud and mischief. The 59-year-old Calgary man visited several shops in the city, each time slicing his own hands with a hidden blade and claiming sharp-edged merchandise or a shopping cart was at fault. He then presented illegible, blood-stained receipts that supposedly coincided with big-ticket items and demanded a full refund.

Saskatchewan: Regina police have apprehended a 25-year-old man with an alleged penchant for violence. The man is accused of swinging an axe at a 37-year-old woman after kicking and punching her. He was missing when police showed up at the scene, but was quickly located nearby after he allegedly kicked and punched another woman. While being treated for minor injuries, he is said to have damaged hospital equipment.

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Sleeping on it: Spanish company unveils mattresses with built-in safes

By Manisha Krishnan - Friday, April 12, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

DESS

Taking a cue from paranoid hoarders, a Spanish mattress company thinks it has the cure for Europeans losing sleep over the economy’s ups and downs. Descanso Santos Sueños (DeSS) has released a line of mattresses with built-in safes, rationalizing that people might feel more secure storing savings in their beds than at the bank.

Called the Caja Mi Colchón, meaning “my mattress safe,” the product features a small keypad and deposit box hidden underneath a flap at the foot of the bed. Its launch coincided with a massive bailout in the EU nation of Cyprus that saw depositors in the country’s largest bank suffer major losses.

A dramatic commercial by DeSS imagines Spain in a similar crisis, with looters and rioters running wild in the streets. But one lucky man opens his Caja Mi Colchón to find his money safe and sound, and is so relieved that a tear reverses up his cheek back into his eyeball. The message, “Your money is very close to you, and very far from the banks,” then splashes across the screen, bolstering the ad’s not-so-subtle sell.

Paco Santos, president of DeSS, claims sales for the $1,140-mattress are exceeding expectations, though he has declined to give specific figures.

Real Housewives of Vancouver: Going out with a bang

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 8:02 AM - 0 Comments

From last week's episode

Feeling much how I imagine Andy Dufresne does in Shawshank Redemption when he frees himself from prison, but not before one last trek through a sewage pipe, I settled down to watch the Real Housewives of Vancouver Season 2 finale last night.

Amanda has come a long way from the beginning, when she could barely pronounce Kombucha, and is now ready to launch her line of the sweet fermented tea. She decides to throw an Alice in Wonderland-themed party at VanDusen Botanical Garden for the occasion and invites all of the Housewives.

“Mary can be a mushroom. They grow in sh-t,” declares Jody, who plans on dressing as the Queen of Hearts, obviously.

Meanwhile, Mary consults with her matchmakers to see which suitors they’ve picked out for her. Bachelor 1, a suave Italian; Bachelor 2, an old-school gentleman with a penchant for skinny-dipping; and Bachelor 3, a tall 50-year-old (seriously, that was his entire description), don’t make the cut. The reason? They’re mere millionaires whereas Bachelor 4 is a billionaire, or as matchmaker Jane says, “he’s the whole package.”

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Real Housewives of Vancouver: Like hamsters, the ladies eat their own

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, April 3, 2013 at 1:25 PM - 0 Comments

A scene from the last episode.

Last night, my roommates warned me that if the Blue Jays game didn’t end in time for Housewives, they would not be handing over control of the TV. I felt a glimmer of hope, but alas, the timing worked out fine and I settled in for my weekly dose of masochism.

It seems Ronnie’s gong show birthday was still top of mind for everyone.

Jody and Amanda meet up on the beach to discuss how Ronnie could have possibly gotten so drunk on the boat trip to Granville Island. The obvious answer seems to be: because she drank alcohol. But the ladies are determined to Sherlock Holmes it up.

“I don’t know how it got to that,” says Jody. Infuriated that Robin was drinking around her alcoholic friends, Jody concludes that she must have slipped something into Ronnie’s drink.

“I think Robin is the instigator of this event.”

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Who’s suing whom

By Manisha Krishnan - Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

British Columbia: A Vancouver woman, less than impressed by her daughter’s acting coach, is suing him and the school, the Canadian Film and Television Institute, for breach of an education contract. The suit claims that the student was falsely promised a chance to star in a movie and that some of the acting classes were used for martial arts training.

Alberta: A St. Albert, Alta., woman is suing Calgary Stampede organizers after a horse unexpectedly knocked her to the ground during the rodeo, resulting in whiplash, a fractured nose and elbow, and a host of other injuries. In the $285,000 suit, the plantiff alleges she has been unable to run her cake-decorating business since the incident and that her sleep and sex life have suffered.

Ontario: A Toronto woman is seeking $1 million from the Toronto Police Services Board and four officers because of a strip search she claims violated her Charter rights. In a statement of claim, the 24-year-old, who was arrested for shoplifting, says she was particularly humiliated because of her skin discoloration, which she alleges an officer called “disgusting.”

Quebec: Two First Nations communities in Quebec are suing mining giant Iron Ore Co. of Canada to the tune of $900 million for allegedly operating on their land without consent. The Innu First Nations of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam and Matimekush-Lac John claim the company’s presence over the last 60 years has ruined the environment and displaced band members.

Nova Scotia: Halifax’s largest hospital, doctors and the city’s health authority are being sued for negligence following the death of a man involved in an ATV accident. The man was treated at Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre last year and died after being sent home, allegedly in spite of test results that revealed he might have had a collapsed lung and a laceration to the spleen.

The Real Housewives of Vancouver: More booze than brains

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 4:15 PM - 0 Comments

Thankfully, for all of Toronto at least, the Housewives are back on the West Coast this week where we’re taken straight to matriarch from hell, Jody’s house.

Jody has Robin over and immediately starts to dig into Robin’s alliance with Mary. “I’m not going to stand here and pretend I’m unintelligent,” she says (I didn’t realize it was an act). “Mary is Lucifer, she’s a terrorist.”

Unable to convince Robin, Jody writes her off. Interestingly, she also rants about how Mary has tried to mess with her business. This week, Vancouver media reported that the Animal Liberation Front vandalized Jody’s fur-selling West Vancouver boutique (Karma: 1, Jody: 0). She blamed the attack on Mary for publicizing the fact that she sells fur, though perhaps the giant mink coats, Russian trapper hats and feather boas she sports around town are also a giveaway.

Mary, meanwhile, bids farewell to her son Cole, who is moving to New York to pursue an internship with former President Bill Clinton. She’s sad that he’s leaving but it’s nice to see her cry about something other than Housewives-related rubbish.

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Kevin Wayne Wadham

By Manisha Krishnan - Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 8:00 PM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Marc Ngui

Kevin Wayne Wadham was born Sept. 16, 1962, in Uranium City, Sask., the third and youngest child of Keith, a farmer, and Lillian, a housewife. When Kevin was 2, his father bought a cattle and grain farm in Virden, Man., and the family moved.

Kevin, his four-year-old sister, Patricia, and five-year-old brother, Brian, were quickly immersed in the farming world, joining the 4-H club. Though Kevin loved cattle, he despised horses. When the three kids took part in an annual musical ride, his gelding, Spitfire, would always buck unexpectedly. To take revenge on his siblings, who were much better on horseback, he would hide in bushes and scare them while they were riding, or pick up rats and chase the kids around. “He was a brat,” says Patricia. “Most of the time, we’d beat him up.”

Stubborn and blunt, Kevin relished arguing, sometimes getting under his mom’s skin just for kicks. But the Wadhams were tight-knit, often taking camping trips together and travelling for the boys’ hockey games and Patricia’s figure-skating competitions. Kevin was devoted to hockey and played throughout school, including when he went to college in Fairview, Alta., in 1980.

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Survey says: Albertans still use tanning beds and Quebec is ready to ban hockey fights

By Manisha Krishnan - Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

British Columbia: Vancouverites have more faith in Google than just about anything else. A “trust report” by Concerto Marketing Group listed 30 “items,” including politicians, police and corporations; residents placed Google, Apple and Microsoft at the top of their lists. While 81 per cent trust Google, just 67 per cent feel the same way about the Vancouver Police Department. A mere 36 per cent have confidence in Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Alberta: Albertans may endure long winters, but that’s not going to stop them from getting a tan. One-quarter of people aged 18-24 have used an indoor tanning bed in the past 12 months, according to an Ipsos Reid survey on behalf of Alberta Health Services. The results were pretty even between the two sexes, with 28 per cent of men and 26 per cent of women admitting to the practice.

Ontario: New Ipsos Reid data has found that the construction of a casino in Toronto would be embraced by the public. If a vote were held tomorrow, 52 per cent of Torontonians would be in favour of building a casino while 42 per cent would be opposed. Those most receptive to the idea are from the suburbs of North York and Etobicoke, while the majority of resistance comes from East York and downtown Toronto.

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Warning: Real Housewives of Vancouver contains immature content

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 3:13 PM - 0 Comments

I have to admit, Housewives is getting harder and harder to stomach.

And it’s not just because, as a friend said, “they all look like aliens,” or the fact that I’m losing brain cells by the second watching the show. It’s more that the constant barrage of immaturity and nastiness — scripted or not — is infuriating and, as Ioulia points out in episode 7, kind of boring. If I’m going to watch a show with high school themes, it should really be Glee.

This week picks up in Toronto, where Jody is still judging Top Chef Canada.

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Peter Kirk Fachnie

By Manisha Krishnan - Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 9:13 AM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Julia Minamata

Peter Kirk Fachnie was born June 22, 1952, in Barrie, Ont., the first of three children born to Lionel Gordon Fachnie and Kathleen Piper. Lionel was a sergeant in the Royal Canadian Air Force, so the family moved often. After the birth of Steven, their youngest, the Fachnies left Borden, Ont., for Penhold, Alta. Lionel piled suitcases and blankets on the back seat of the car, a makeshift bed; Kirk, then 5, and four-year-old Claire stared out the rear window the whole way.

In Alberta, Kathleen, a bank teller, won the kids a pony in a contest. They named it Patches for its brown, black and white colouring. Kirk, a big fan of westerns, rode Patches alongside his dad in a fringed vest and a cowboy hat he was rarely seen without.

When Kirk was 10, his dad was posted to CFB Baden-Soellingen in Germany, where Kirk quickly made friends with the other army brats, playing hockey and baseball. His parents took full advantage of their European location: the family camped all over Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and France.

In 1967, the family moved to Ottawa, where the kids enrolled at Rideau High School. Kirk, 13, though shy at first, eventually joined two rock bands, Buster Brown and Trillium, that practised in the Fachnies’ basement. Kirk’s passion was the guitar—he loved the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

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Morbid tradition of ‘ghost marriages’ persists in rural China

By Manisha Krishnan - Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 4:19 PM - 0 Comments

A scene from last year's Qingming Festival, thought to be a lucky occasion for celebrating ghost marriages. (kevinykchan / Flickr)

It’s a strange and morbid tradition, all but abandoned by modern China. But ghost marriages, the pairing of a deceased bachelor and bride to keep each other company in the afterlife, are quite the moneymaker for those willing to get their hands dirty.

Four men in China’s central Shanxi province were recently sentenced to more than two years in prison each for digging up the bodies of 10 female corpses, cleaning them, tampering with medical records to make them appear newly deceased and selling them on the black market for a sum of $39,000.

The ancient custom, which dates back to the 17th century BCE, rests on the belief that burying an unmarried young man with a “bride” can prevent his soul from becoming restless and lonely. It was outlawed in 1949 when Communist revolutionary Mao Zedong came to power, but is still practised in rural parts of several provinces, including Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Guangdong. In Shaanxi, where coal money has resulted in an affluent but stubbornly superstitious population, families are willing to pay top dollar for suitable dead spouses, sometimes employing a matchmaker or even purchasing remains straight from the hospital morgue. Younger and more attractive bodies tend to cost more.

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Real Housewives of Vancouver have a train wreck trip in Toronto

By Manisha Krishnan - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Jody with Lisa Ray on the set of Top Chef Canada

This week’s Housewives begins with a coincidence that would only ever occur on reality TV.

Mary’s agent informs her that she’ll be kicking off a press tour to promote her album and the first stop is — gasp — Toronto. This, of course, aligns perfectly with Jody’s TO trip to guest judge Top Chef Canada.

Out of the kindness of her heart, or maybe because she just wants friends, Mary invites Robin to sing background vocals during her performance of Hero on Global Toronto’s Morning Show.

Robin replies, “That would be the most exciting thing ever in my life.”

Really? I thought these women were meant to be Oprah rich.

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