Category: CBC

In memory of Alice Munro

Canadian author, Nobel Prize winner and master of the short story, Alice Munro, has passed away at 92. This photo was taken on September 21, 2005 at Massey Hall,during the CBC Lockout, when the leaders of Canadian arts came together rally in support of CBC workes on the picket lines. Munro’s superb short stories gained […]

Rex Murphy, dead at 77, from astute commentator to bitter curmugeon

Rex Murphy, one of Canada’s best known, loved and hated TV commentators and columnists has died at 77. I have mixed feelings about his passing. I was Rex Murphy’s online editor from 1998 to 2003 when I was web producer for CBC’s The National. In those days his writing was superb and he had incitive […]

Prisoners of the Empire: a disappointing, cherry-picked mishmash

Earlier this summer I saw a prepublication notice for Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of the Empire Inside Japanese POW Camps, where the Harvard University Press promotion  called the book “A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners.” I eagerly pre-ordered the book. […]

Robert Heinlein’s nightmare vision. The US elects a dictator in 2016.

In the year AD 2100, an evil Dictator rules the United States. He maintains power through the clever use of advanced science and pyschology. And he is backed by a dedicated military clique…. From Robert A. Heinlein, the dean of space-age fiction, comes this thrilling novel of a soldier who dare to defy Authority who […]

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the children of veterans

On Sunday, March 16, 2014, the lead item on CBS Sunday Morning was about how the trauma of war is often passed on to the children of veterans.  The item concentrates on the current crisis with U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and also touches on Vietnam through the story of Christal Presley who took […]

The CBC logo is a real smart idea, IBM “smattah planet” borrows the pizza

  IBM’s smarter planet ad campaign had been on television for sometime, with “ordinary” folks from around the world talking about smarter cities, smarter everything, to be answered by others saying “I’m an IBMer.” While I am a CBCer and have worked for many years under the expanding C logo of  Mother Corp,  also known […]