Series: Spring 1998

ON LAND, THE INDUSTRIOUS BEAVER TENDS TO BE SOMEWHAT SLOW and clumsy. It prefers to stick close to home and constantly sniffs the air for signs of danger. When cutting down the trees it uses to construct its lodge, a place of shelter and protection, the beaver cannot predict which way the trunk will fall.… Continue reading They’re History?

It’s standing room only at the October meeting of the Ottawa Independent Writers. The monthly gathering of local novelists, poets and freelancers awaits the man whom Conrad Black selected a year earlier to transform the Ottawa Citizen into a smart and provacative newspaper worthy of the nation’s capital. With his scowl and dated clothes, 57-year-old… Continue reading Capital Offensive

We were acting like rave DJs, who are the hottest shit in music right now,” says Stephen Marshall, ex-frontman of the now defunct Channel Zero “video-news company.” “DJs take tracks and they assemble them into collages that keep people dancing for eight to 10 hours. I think that’s what we were doing. It wasn’t that… Continue reading Video Killed the TV News Star

The Globe and Mail‘s veteran science reporter–a tall, burly, balding man with green/grey eyes and greying hair that stands straight off his head was at the bottom of Inco’s Creighton Mine near Sudbury, Ontario. His mind was filled with the day’s experiences: the four_minute, ear_popping elevator ride straight down (a distance equivalent to five stacked… Continue reading Lost In Space

It is 1978. Women’s lib is a hot topic. Women are busy getting in touch with their ovaries and men are busy getting in touch with the dishes. Marty Goodman, editor of The Toronto Star, is in his office with his newly hired women’s columnist. “Do you understand,” he asks her, “what we mean by… Continue reading ”The Personal Is Political, Honey”