BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS June, 2015 At age 18, Debbie Lori Kaye became the youngest performer in history to have her own variety special on CBC TV. A tiny singer with a big voice, her star had been rising steadily
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CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITY September 26, 2014 Canadians have been aware for some time that their Prime Minister subscribes to an arcane fundamentalist strain of Christianity. Being the polite and generally go-along types we are, we have quite properly left his faith between
JONATHAN MANTHORPE September 24, 2014 As rival candidates for power in Afghanistan signed a power-sharing deal on Sunday, an understandable sigh of relief swept through the corridors of power in those countries that have expended troops and treasure in the last dozen
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS September 2014 I just knew I had to interview Burt Mustin when he walked into the newspaper office in June 1973 and told the receptionist he was “the best they-went-that-a-way” actor working in Hollywood. Work had stopped in the
JONATHAN MANTHORPE September 17, 2014 Supermarket tabloid divas like the Kardashians and Miley Cyrus are rank amateurs in the league tables of manic self-obsessives and insatiable exhibitionists of their own excruciating bad taste when stacked up against the gold standards set by Gulnara
CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITY September 12, 2014 The single most useful thing that many national governments could do for their natural security today is to start by taking a good long look at it. How does this come up? Funny story. I learned
JONATHAN MANTHORPE September 10, 2014 Not content with stealing other people’s territory, the Beijing government is now manufacturing islands to boost its insubstantial claim to ownership of the South China Sea. The Philippines government has released aerial photographs of Chinese dredgers and construction teams
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS September 2014 When I first met him in 1978, Randy Bachman had seemingly committed career suicide not once but twice. Or so it seemed to his fans at the time. First he walked away from the Guess Who immediately
JONATHAN MANTHORPE September 3, 2014 The occupation of the heart of Pakistan’s capital by thousands of demonstrators demanding the resignation of the government is not so much a political crisis as a sad, public flameout by the protest leader, former cricket hero and
CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITY August 29, 2014 Ever had a clam roll? I know, sounds like a straight line. But in the Canadian Maritimes a clam roll is a load of breaded, deep-fried clams in a hot-dog bun, usually with shredded lettuce and
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS August, 2014 I had two questions for choreographer Norman Maen: 1. How did he choreograph an ice show for Olympic skating champion John Curry when Maen didn’t skate? 2. What was it like working with Rudolf Nureyev on The