Saturday May 17, 2008
'Shock of consciousness' sweeps autocratic China in wake of temblor
With their expensive Mercedes-Benz sports vehicles, the wealthy members of the Chongqing car club are normally accustomed to tooling around town in their luxury cars and taking weekend leisure trips.
Suicide bomber as young as 10 hits Canadians
A boy, possibly as young as 10, was used in a suicide-bomb attack against a joint Canadian and Afghan army patrol in Afghanistan yesterday.Two Canadian soldiers and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the attack about 40 kilometres from Kandahar city, the military said.
Report on Business 
Helping the 'Y,' a bygone refuge
The Donation: $12-millionThe Cause: The UJA Federation of Greater TorontoThe reason: To help build a new Jewish Community Centre.Martin Prosserman says he owes much of what he has accomplished in life to the ''Y.'' As a boy growing up in Montreal during the 1930s, Mr. Prosserman stumbled across the Young Men's Hebrew Association by chance one day. ''God was looking after me,'' he recalled.
Biovail settles U.S. case
Biovail Corp. yesterday settled another of the many legal and regulatory battles that began when founder Eugene Melnyk was running the drug maker, and urged shareholders to put Mr. Melnyk's era behind it.
A master short-seller v. the shorts
Since starting his career as an investment analyst at brokerage Merrill Lynch Canada more than 40 years ago, Eric Sprott has built an enviable reputation as a Bay Street superstar.
Trying to figure oil prices? So are the analysts
Oil's biggest booster has provided fresh momentum to an already red-hot market with a bullish forecast that prices will average $140 (U.S.) a barrel for the rest of this year, while the voices of more cautious observers predicting a correction get drowned out.
DEAD END FOR FREE TRADE
Peter Durant is getting edgy. The 41-year-old Ontario trucker should be on his way to Toledo, Ohio, to pick up a load of Oreo cookies for Kraft Canada.
Globe Sports
Werth a one-man wrecking crew against Jays
Jayson Werth could not remember being this productive in a game - that's including Little League.Werth homered in his first three at-bats and tied a Philadelphia Phillies record with eight runs batted in during a 10-3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays last night.
Russia romps into final
Tic-tac-toe.What else is there to say?Russia defeated Finland 4-0 in the semi-final of the world hockey championship here yesterday and it not only looked as simple as child's play, at times the Colisee Pepsi looked more like a board game than a hockey rink.
The rise of junior hockey's Sunbelt kids
The rink was located in a mall in Palm Springs, Calif., the desert resort that is home to golfing retirees, weekending celebrities, and September temperatures in the high 30s.It is not exactly a hockey town.
Toronto FC aim for revenge
The since-departed Collin Samuel failing on a limp penalty kick late in the first half, and Jim Brennan's shot in the second might well have crossed the line before being cleared but was ruled no goal.
Pens want to end it at home
The Pittsburgh Penguins refuse to listen to the whispers that every 33 years an NHL team manages to overcome a 3-0 series disadvantage in the Stanley Cup playoffs.The Penguins had an opportunity to sweep their Eastern Conference final against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, but the Flyers prevailed with a 4-2 win to give life to the slim possibility that they, too, can join the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders as the only two clubs in Stanley Cup playoff history to storm back with four consecutive victories to clinch a series.
Globe Review
The Six Billion Dollar Ham
Seldom does the team inspire more affection than its top player, but such is the puzzling case of Harrison Ford. In Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Blade Runner, the man has quarterbacked two of the most popular franchises, and one of the most adored cult flicks, in the history of the big screen. Yet history, that fickle judge, seems to find him wanting. As a movie actor, he's more tolerated than respected. As a movie star, he's more respected than loved. Even his all-American name, with its presidential stamps, comes with something of a taint - those sickly Harrisons and that klutzy Ford aren't exactly revered, their reputations a lot less hallowed than the office they held. Change office to box
How an understudy became an actor
Within weeks of arriving in Stratford I was playing a small role in Henry V, starring Christopher Plum mer. Chris Plummer and I are about the same age, but rather than going to college he had started working in the theatre and was prob ably the leading young actor in Canada. In Henry V, I was assigned the role of the Duke of Gloucester, for which I was on stage for about five minutes, as well as understudying Plummer.
Putting science into the dismal science
THE MIND OF THE MARKETCompassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary EconomicsBy Michael ShermerTimes Books, 308 pages, $30I'm about to review a book on economics for you ... no, no, stop, don't turn the page! It's a readable, entertaining book - about lots of things you don't associate with ''economics.'' Like Freakonomics, you'll find no graphs or calculus here, just a wee bit of jargon, and you'll get to read about sex and chimps, the brain wave for shopping, why biology makes us kind and dozens of other unusual topics you never studied in Econ 101.
Jackie Maxwell and the raiders of the lost plays
In 2004, Jonathan Bank, the artistic director at New York's Mint Theatre Company, arrived in Niagara-on-the-Lake clutching an envelope and heading for an ostensibly routine chat with Shaw Festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
TWEEDLE DEE DEEBy Charlotte Voake, Candlewick, 28 pages, $18.50, ages 2 to 5Green, a lovely spring green, is the dominant colour in Charlotte Voake's new book. Her insouciant watercolour-and-ink drawings, mostly of English oak leaves, or so it appears, accompany the text, which is a sort of cumulative round derived from the traditional folk song The Green Leaves Grew Around.
STYLE
Ta-dah, the perfect burger
The May long weekend is here at last, which means it's time to open the cottage and, more importantly, to fire up the barbecue.The first thing many of us slap on the grill is hamburgers, and everyone has their preferred method of preparation. Some use breadcrumbs and egg, some put cheese, onions or mushrooms in the meat, while others just experiment with toppings.
TEST COUNTER: CARGO MELT-PROOF MAKE-UP: BEAUTY TO BEAT THE HEAT
The productCargo Melt-proof Make-Up Collection ($39, only at www.sephora.com). The kit includes a bronzer, a mascara and a three-in-one palette for eyes, cheeks and lips.
Smashing global warming with greener design
The goal of graphic design is to make things look good. Really good. So good that we want to buy these things, even if we don't need them.That can be a problem - or perhaps an opportunity.
Go on, track down your gym crush
Dear Mr. Smith,A woman met a man at a gym. They exchanged idle chatter and flirted. The woman did not pursue the man's attentions at that time, because she was not single. Now that she is single, she is thinking of this man, but she has no way of re-establishing the acquaintance since they no longer attend the same gym. He never gave her his phone number, but mentioned his place of work. Can she track him down and call him there, or would it smack of desperation?
LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN
LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEENBy Poppy King (Atria Books, $26.99, 256 pages)ISBN: 0-7432-9957-4The next time someone tries to convince you that makeup is frivolous, feel free to tell them the story of Poppy King.
TRAVEL
Less sex, more city
It's almost impossible to measure how Sex and the City has altered the sex lives of its fans. Sure, there are women who insist that Samantha's fierce libido encouraged them to embrace their inner ''trysexual'' (someone who tries anything once). But a quantifiable increase in sex? Do tell.
Where Canada pitches its tent
When Globe Travel asked readers last week to submit their favourite places to pitch a tent in Canada, more than 140 suggestions came pouring in. Some adventurous souls touted camping near remote glaciers in Nunavut. The amenity-rich, family-friendly provincial parks of Ontario's lake country proved popular. Still others gushed about watching seals frolic in Newfoundland's Chance Cove.
Tourism boom takes toll on 'wild beauty'
''Experience the wild beauty'' is Montenegro's newest tourist slogan.But while the beauty of the ''pearl of the Adriatic'' is undeniable, the wilderness is disappearing.The tiny Balkan state - nestled in the southeast corner of Europe - is a breathtaking mix of colours: blazing blue skies, lush green mountains, white pebble beaches and the turquoise Adriatic Sea.
Knocking on Heaven's door
The mutilated corpse that Robert Langdon inspects in the opening pages of Angels and Demons is missing an eye. The murderer stole it, according to the bestselling novel, to get past a retina scan and inside a top-secret laboratory at CERN, one of Europe's major research centres.
DEALS
$2,995 REYKJAVIK-ST. JOHN'SThe buy A 14- or 13-day segment from a 67-day Hurtigruten world cruise offered by GLP Worldwide Expedition Travel and Tours. The 14-day cruise is from Reykjavik to St. John's, Sept. 23 to Oct. 6. The 13-day cruise is from St. John's to Port Canaveral, Fla., Oct. 6-18. GLP is the Canadian representative for Hurtigruten (formerly Norwegian Coastal Voyage).
FOCUS
VERBATIM: WHAT WAS SAID THIS WEEK, IN PUBLIC AND IN PRINT: BY MICHAEL KESTERTON
SHAKEN WORDS''My wife died in the quake.My house was destroyed. I am going to Chengdu, but I don't know where I'll live.''Zhou Chun, a 70-year-old
Oooh, Irish immigration to Newfoundland - it just screams 'sexy,' doesn't it?
I've been trying to imagine what the Canada Border Services Agency was expecting when, suspicious that it was pornographic, it confiscated undeveloped footage from the Canadian film Love and Savagery on its way from Ireland to Montreal.
White Knight
John Edwards, multimillionaire,May spend a fortune on his hair,Dress quite unlike your average hick,Have no bad habits left to kick,And do his best to take a pass
TALKING PICTURES: IMAGES OF THE WORLD THIS WEEK: FLYING MACHINES
Finally, we get to say it for real: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Fusion Man!Who, when he's not flying over the Swiss Alps with a jet-fuelled carbon wing strapped to his back, is a Swiss airline pilot named Yves Rossy.
No, Prime Minister
The Prime Minister was in no mood for jokes. Here it was, just two weeks after Elections Canada officials, flanked by RCMP officers in blue flak jackets, had arrived at his party's Ottawa headquarters armed with a search warrant and the Bloc Quebecois had the gall to ask that Parliament give the agency a formal vote of confidence.
Editorials
Sleight-of-hand at the Supreme Court
Seldom in recent years has a constitutional decision seemed so conjured out of thin air. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the youth-justice law's presumption that 14- to 17-year-olds who commit the most serious offences, such as murder, will receive adult penalties. Its legal justification was simply baffling. It can be understood only as a policy choice, usurping Parliament's role.
Message in spray paint
Tourism boosters in Toronto are pushing a new campaign called ''We've been expecting you,'' intended to make visitors to the city feel welcome. If they really want to drive the point home, they could use it as a ''tag'' and spray-paint it on some of the city's many public spaces blighted by graffiti.
The CFL doesn't need this
Politics and professional sports rarely make for a good mix. From American congressmen lecturing and interrogating baseball players on steroid use to U.S. Senator Arlen Spector's obsession over whether or not the New England Patriots videotaped their opponents' game signals, politicians typically wind up so far out of their element that they only serve to embarrass themselves.
Comment
Sour Cherie
The secure telephone at 10 Downing Street was on Cherie Blair's side of the bed. After she had cooked dinner, loaded the dishwasher, read the kids their stories, reviewed her legal briefs and climbed into bed, she would sometimes be awoken, in the wee hours, by George W. Bush, who paid little heed to the five-hour time difference. Groggy and not entirely pleased, she would pass the receiver to her husband, and listen to half the conversation.
Blight of the generals: Myanmar's deadly gamble
As soon as you cross the Thai-Myanmar friendship bridge, you have to shift perspective. From driving on the left-hand side in Thailand, you suddenly veer to the right. The sharp zigzag is just the first clue that, in Myanmar, the world looks different.
Australia has the jump on us
Why are new immigrants doing so badly? Is discrimination to blame? Or are we picking the wrong people?Everybody in Toronto jokes that we have the best-educated taxi drivers in the world. We've got doctors from Pakistan, lawyers from India, teachers from Sudan, and engineers from Bangladesh - qualified immigrants from all over the world who can't get good jobs, even though Canada is crying out for their skills.
A half-empty cup of Canadiana
On this Victoria Day weekend, back home in Newfoundland, there will be thousands of people hustling off to cabin or pond to make a day of trout fishing and having a boil-up. Very likely it'll snow, since a snowfall is an almost infallible curse of the first long weekend of Newfoundland spring. In the old days, if there was to be a boil-up and a few trout to be fried, everyone brought along a block of Good Luck butter and three or four tins of York wieners and beans. Had to be York, had to be Good Luck.
Why this Victoria Day should be our last
Let's all enjoy the Victoria Day weekend - and resolve that it will be the last.Not the holiday, of course, but the name: Victoria Day. Let's grow up, Canada, and take pride in what is Canadian, rather than glorifying an English monarch who died in 1901 after an admittedly stellar reign of almost 64 years.
Obituaries
Journalist roared through life 'like a movie star with charisma'
Paul King was a swashbuckling Canadian journalist, author, artist and consummate raconteur who roared through life with an unquenchable curiosity and joy of the moment. ''He was like a movie star - brimming with charisma; trailing cigarette smoke as he lunged ever forward; talking out of the corner of his mouth in a raspy commanding drawl - right out of a 1930s newspaper movie,'' said Ron Base, his long-time friend, fellow author and screenwriter. ''He was unique, wonderful, irreplaceable and a helluva fine writer.''
JESSIE JACOBS: 17
Actress Jessie Jacobs, who starred in the Canadian-Australian children's TV series The Saddle Club, was buried yesterday after being hit and killed by a train on May 10. She was 17.
ROBERT MONDAVI: 94
California winemaking patriarch Robert Mondavi died at home yesterday.He started his own winery in 1966, after being ousted from a family-run venture with a younger brother. He was 52. Using such innovations as cold fermentation and stainless-steel tanks, he built the business into a vast and thriving enterprise.
LAST WORDS
It has all been very interesting.Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1689-1762
Globe Real Estate
How condo developers could be our school saviours
Toronto's public school system has two big, urgent problems. Its student population is dwindling and close to 100 of its schools are more than 80 years old and often in need of serious repairs.
No trespassing allowed (millionaires excepted)
From inside Edgemere Estate, the largest private property on Oakville's ''millionaires' row,'' there is a stunning view of Lake Ontario sparkling in the bright afternoon sun.For a century, this view and Edgemere's 300 metres of shoreline have been the exclusive preserve of the five-hectare estate's wealthy proprietors - and if Edgemere's newest owner wins a looming battle with Oakville town hall, it will stay that way.
Just who's buying Vancouver's zillion-dollar condos?
The hottest ticket in Vancouver this week was not for a concert or a play, but a lunch hosted by the Urban Development Institute. And they call this place No Fun City.
Pay your voluntary carbon taxes: Move into the fashionable high-rise city
Timing is everything. Anticipating the long weekend fill-up, I realize that every hour of procrastination will only increase its outrageous cost. That leads me to wonder what might have happened had Michael Ignatieff stood up for his one best policy - a carbon tax - two years ago, when the idea needed a champion undaunted by the predictable backlash.
Just a little more off the top
''Forget hair,'' says Ray Civello, while striding into what used to be a dirt-floored cellar. ''This is the ultimate makeover. You can't believe what it used to look like!''
Science
A dandy solution to a weed problem - at least for next year
It's already too late to get all the dandelions out of your yard. Rene Van Acker, a weed scientist at the University of Guelph, has done a number of studies on the life cycle of the yellow weeds in field crops in Western Canada. He says the best time to attack them is in the fall.
Education
Compers to co-chair RCM drive
The Royal Conservatory of Music will name former BMO president Tony Comper and his philanthropist wife, Elizabeth, as co-chairs of a new $50-million phase of its capital campaign to build academic and performance facilities, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Lawyer says he's owed millions in native lawsuit
A Calgary lawyer is suing his former law firm, which negotiated the ground-breaking residential-schools settlement, as well as the federal government, alleging that he is entitled to more than $30-million for work he did on the case.
B.C. students to stay in Sichuan despite quake
Ten kinesiology students at B.C.'s University of the Fraser Valley have decided to stay in an earthquake-torn region of China for the duration of their 10-week visit.
Smarts and the arts
In 1980, I stepped off a plane in Calgary, a newly minted BA, with $150 in my jeans; 28 years later, I pulled the plug on a fascinating career and retired to Victoria, with rather more than 150 bucks in my jeans. According to Gwyn Morgan's logic, I should have learned something technical (Poor Choices In Education Can Make You A Statistic - Report on Business, May 12).
