In Buenos Aires the people live for and by the tango. We went in search of it in this sprawling metropolis of more than 15 million ‘portenos’ on the south shore of the broad Rio de la Plata that forms the border with Uruguay. What we found was the iconic heart of the city.
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Everyone has an image of the old West. Americans like to depict it as the Wild West, the myth of a free land ripe for the conquering replete with scalp-happy Indian war parties, covered wagons and courageous lone gunmen who stayed just shy of outlaw status. In Canada, the West, and particularly the northwest,...
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Few Canadians will have heard of the infamous Ludlow Massacre, a “slaughter of the innocents” at a workers’ tent city in the coalfields of Colorado in the spring of 1914. Fewer still will know that in the footnotes to that show of corporate bullying against miners and their families a familiar name pops up,...
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Celebrated American anarchist Emma Goldman once tried to enter the world’s oldest profession to help pay for an assassination attempt by her sidekick Alexander Berkman, a gesture that was meant to help the workers’ cause. Both attempts failed. Goldman was sent home by her first client, who said she was too inexperienced, Berkman went...
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A gaggle of tourists winds its way through the labyrinth of mausoleums secluded behind the high walls of Buenos Aires’s La Recoleta cemetery. Great mounds of mortar and marble dwarf the passers-by who gawk at the graves of the city’s great ones – generals, priests, politicians, diplomats. Here too lie the city’s famous writers...
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How do America's Christian fundamentalists justify their support of the horrendous atrocities committed by their government in the name of God? That was the nagging question posed to American historian Nick Salvatore at the 36th annual Qualicum history conference in Parksville, B.C., on Jan. 28, 2011.
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It is 1976. The separatist Parti Quebecois has just handily won the Quebec election and Rene Levesque will soon be premier. The setting is a fictitious newsroom in Ottawa. The main action revolves around an impending strike at the news service. The newsroom is a hotbed of anger, resentment, ego clashes and power struggles....
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It is the spring of 1945. The war will end in Europe in early May. In the small city of Trail, B.C., families mourn the loss of their loved ones and await the return of survivors. More women than men populate the city on the Columbia River near the American border. About 2,000 of...
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Innocent. You were so innocent. Following a shadow, slipping into the Dark forest Near the old school, Lured by curiosity. Heart pounding in Expectation and wonderment. You heard a twig break under your feet. Then another cracked a heartbeat away In the darkest part of the forest. Suddenly, he was upon you. A young...
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It’s too dark too early. Too quickly autumn.  Everything dying slowly, beautifully, Magnificently.  Naked Ladies And Lilies of the Nile, Only memories now.  Hydrangeas withering. The scent of roses Stolen by the cold.  Pansies and marigolds Silent, still life. A lamp shines On the lemon tree.  A lemon tree. Very pretty.  Growing in our...
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