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 April, 2015 Feeling low about the climate future? Wondering, as punk rocker-turned-energy-reporter Geoff Dembicki asked in a recent series of stories, “Are we screwed? No, we’re not (necessarily). But if you live in the Anglosphere — and if you’re
JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs April 2, 2015 TOKYO, Japan — China’s war to supplant the United States as the regional super power in the Far East and western Pacific is under full steam and gobbling up its objectives. Over the last 15 years,
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERS March 2015 In 1976, at age 41, Ronnie Hawkins was as old as Elvis. And like Elvis, he was packing some weight around the middle. But unlike Elvis, then rumoured to be near retirement (he died the following
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERSMarch 2015 Chris de Burgh was 27 years old and something of a British cult favourite when I spoke to him about his music. A single from his first album, Far Beyond These Castle Walls, had spent 17 weeks
JONATHAN MANTHORPE: International Affairs March 20, 2015 The decision by the Canadian government of Stephen Harper to extend and expand its military mission against ISIS in Iraq is in wilful disregard of the real threat posed by the radical Muslim group and how
CHRIS WOOD: NATURAL SECURITY March, 2015 Where I’ve been recently in Vancouver, Canada, the cherry blossom petals are already flocking on the ground, the daffodils wilting and the camellias almost over. The interior of the province of British Columbia posted heat records last
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERSMarch 2015 The Mephistophelean eyebrows, like symmetrical question marks on a massive forehead, projected an attitude of fierceness. But the twinkling eyes, grandfatherly disposition and easy laugh told another story. If you had dressed him in a red suit,
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERSMarch 2015 David Clayton-Thomas was a Canadian singer who fronted an American brass-rock band, Blood, Sweat & Tears (BS&T), during the four years, 1968-71, when it achieved its greatest commercial success. One of the first groups to add horns
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERSFebruary, 2015 By envisioning King Lear’s age as “four score and upward,” Shakespeare created a great role for an actor to play in the autumn of his career. So wasn’t Len Cariou, at age 44, a bit young for
BRIAN BRENNAN: BRIEF ENCOUNTERSFebruary, 2015 Tennessee Williams had always wanted to reimagine Anton Chekhov’s 1896 play, The Seagull. He considered it the greatest of modern plays after Brecht’s Mother Courage, and he felt it had never been properly released from the confines