Retrospective: Fatherhood
I attended classes and read books. I learned the mechanics of back labour and the action of intravenous pitocin. Experts taught me all about breech birth, water birth and afterbirth. Nobody, [...]
Marcello Di Cintio
Marcello Di Cintio
Head Bangers
Tristan Rice didn’t remember the hit. He didn’t remember much of the rest of the game either, only that sometime in the third quarter one of his fellow offensive linemen asked him, “What the hell [...]
Language Limbo
In December 2014, Hetty Roessingh of the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education received a call for help from her colleagues at the Faculty of Engineering. A third of the faculty’s [...]
Weightless in Exile
Ballerina Hayna Gutierrez comes from the tropics, but her long journey to Alberta Ballet began in a Canadian snowstorm. In November 2007, Gutierrez—a star with Ballet Nacional de Cuba and one of [...]
A Hymn in Aramaic
Noël Farman performs a rite born in ancient Babylon and sung in the language of Jesus Christ. Farman is a Chaldean Catholic priest. The Chaldean Order, originally known as the Church of the East, [...]
Fatherhood
1. The downy hair that forms on a baby in utero is called lanugo; the soft spot on its head, the fontanelle. A pregnant woman is called a gravida, and the dark line that appears on her belly and [...]
The Zookeeper
As we tour the aviaries on his Denman Island property, Peter Karsten doesn’t hold doors open for me. This isn’t rudeness; it’s a zookeeper’s etiquette, a behaviour Karsten picked up during his 30 [...]
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Perpetual War
I have always tried to avoid getting into arguments with Alberta premiers. After all, as a journalist it’s my job to question politicians, not quarrel with them. But sometimes premiers seem to want to get into arguments with journalists.
In 2006, for example, I got into a verbal tussle with then-premier Ralph ...
Heritage Trust Fund
A decade ago, when Alberta was debt-free and staring at a $7.4-billion surplus, Premier Ralph Klein decided it was time to spread the wealth. He announced that every person who lived in the province—and, as it turned out, more than a few who didn’t—would receive a cheque for $400 as ...
Kenney’s First 100 Days
On August 7, 2019, Premier Jason Kenney gave a press conference announcing his government’s progress over its first 100 days—“promises made, promises kept.” There’s no magic in “The First 100 Days.” It’s an arbitrary construct used by the media and political observers to measure how a new political leader is ...