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Montreal’s Sarah Bernstein explores power and prejudice in Booker longlisted ‘Study for Obedience’

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

When Sarah Bernstein started writing her second novel, “Study for Obedience,” the words of another artist were on her mind. She had previously attended a retrospective of visual artist Paula Rego’s work in Edinburgh, Scotland and was struck by a particular quote emblazoned on the art gallery wall. “She said something like, ‘I can turn the tables, I can do as I want, I can make my women obedient and murderous at the same time,'” Bernstein recalled in an interview. The Montreal-born author said that quote captured an “interesting tension” and provided inspiration for the novel that has now been longlisted for this year’s prestigious Booker Prize. The literary award recognizes the best long fiction work published in the U.K. and Ireland and written inEnglish.Bernstein, who lives and teaches in Scotland, said she was in “disbelief” when her editor told her about the Booker Prize nod.“I can’t stress enough how inconceivabl...

Québecor stops paying rent at legislature, says 100K fee a threat to democracy

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

MONTREAL — A major Quebec media company is at risk of becoming a squatter in the province’s legislature district.Montreal-based media and telecom conglomerate Québecor has announced it will stop paying rent for the office its political journalists use in one of Quebec’s legislature buildings, in the provincial capital. The company, which owns television station TVA and newspapers Journal de Montréal and Journal de Québec, says its rent amounts to $8,448 per month — more than $100,000 per year before tax.In a letter to the legislature, Québecor vice-president Jad Barsoum said the company’s rent “goes against the principles of access and is detrimental to democratic life.”Quebec’s legislature, known as the National Assembly, charges media outlets at an annual rate of $269.86 per square metre of office space they occupy — a “prohibitive” sum, according to Canadian Association of Journalists president Brent Jolly.“I think it’s ...

Children of man who died in N.S. floods question why roads open, alerts delayed

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

TANTALLON, N.S. — It doesn’t make sense to Robie Holland that — as 250 millimetres of rain poured down in rural Nova Scotia — there was nothing to stop his father from travelling down a rapidly flooding road.“Why was the road open? That’s the main question I keep coming back to …. It was flooding, and it wasn’t safe for people to be going down those roads. Why, if you’re out in the rural communities, is it a free-for-all?” he asked in an interview Friday.“In my eyes, this was an avoidable situation.”Nicholas Holland, 52, was among the four people who died in the historic, inland flooding on July 22, as torrential waters poured over rural Route 14 near Brooklyn, N.S. — northwest of Halifax — and swept two vehicles into a hayfield.Robie Holland, 25, and his sister Sophie Holland, 23, said in an interview that while they’re grateful for the efforts of searchers that night, an independent probe is needed to answer questions abo...

Sunday Bulletin Board: How a collector of postcards became a collector of ribbons!

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

Dept. of Neat Stuff . . . The Best State Fair in Our State DivisionGREGORY J. of Dayton’s Bluff reports: “I attended my first Minnesota State Fair in 1958 and have been hooked ever since.“At some point, I realized I wanted to be a participant and enter something to be exhibited at the Fair and possibly win a bona fide State Fair ribbon.“It was a long journey. I finally got around to doing it in 2010.“One major stumbling block was figuring out what to exhibit. It was fairly easy to eliminate such things as cows, pigs, chickens, giant vegetables, and anything that requires artistic ability, baking skills or handiwork of any kind. However, I do collect stuff — but there is no category for Neat Stuff as such. Creative Activities does have a postcard-collection category, and I also collect postcards, beginning with, you guessed it, Dayton’s Bluff postcards and others related to St. Paul.“So in 2010 I put together a postcard frame titled ‘A ...

Rockies Journal: Ryan Feltner takes big steps three months after skull fracture

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

In the blink of an eye, Ryan Feltner’s life was upended.His season, his career and even his long-term well-being were put in jeopardy May 13 at Coors Field. For those who saw the game live, or later on replays, it was a chilling moment.Now, remarkably, Feltner is edging closer to returning to the big-league mound. In a difficult Rockies season colored by injuries and mounting losses, Feltner’s comeback is something for fans to hold on to. For Feltner, returning this season is vital.Three months ago, in the second inning, the Phillies’ Nick Castellanos scorched a 92.7 mph line drive toward the mound. Feltner had just enough reaction time to avoid getting hit in the face, but the baseball struck Feltner in the back of his head, just above the right ear.He sprawled on the mound, blinking his eyes and shaking his head, not quite knowing what had happened. Castellanos crouched near first base, hands to his face, eyes wide, as he hoped for the best.Feltner, a 26-year-old...

Why CU Buffs’ return to Big 12 has some parents singing Pac-12 blues: “It’s a little bit sad.”

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

BOULDER — Kevin Moschetti will go to Moon and back to watch his daughter play soccer for the Buffs. Although from his home Irvine, Calif., Morgantown, W.Va., might as well be the Mare Tranquillitatis.“As far as travel, sure it’s a bummer,” said Moschetti, whose daughter Angelina is a freshman defender for the CU women’s soccer team. “(Angelina) played club soccer in both the Seattle area and in Southern California, so she had friends and former teammates from every former Pac-12 school. And we had parent friends at all those schools, too. So we’re looking forward to being able to reunite with them and to (be) around to watch her play.”Last season, the Buffs played twice in Northern California and twice in Washington. This fall, they’re slated to play once in Southern California, twice in Washington and twice in Oregon.Suddenly, the news of CU re-joining the Big 12 next year, a league they’d left in 2010, could make the 2023 regular season, which kicks off Thursday night agains...

Mathews: Which is more dangerous, ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘Barbie’?

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

Which region is the greater threat to humanity: Northern California or Southern California?That’s the most urgent question raised by 2023’s great cinematic contest between “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie”.Sure, these are entertaining films about a physicist and a doll. But both movies are also, in no small part, California-based stories about global nightmares, about the earth-altering threat of bombs and bombshells alike.Embedded in those nightmares are warnings about the damage that Northern and Southern California can do when we send our ideas out into the world.Oppenheimer is the Northern California nightmare. While much of Christopher Nolan’s film takes place in New Mexico, where the first atomic bombs were built, the most important moments occur at Berkeley, where J. Robert Oppenheimer was a a professor from 1929 to 1943.It’s there that he meets the Manhattan Project’s military chief, Leslie Groves, and befriends the physicist Ernest Lawrence (the Lawrence of...

Opinion: Why grocery stores are no longer her happy place

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

Some people seek a bar or nature hike when they feel low. I go to the supermarket.My spirits lift as I stroll the aisles. I bop along to easy listening music. Exchanging pleasantries with cashiers lessens my loneliness. I celebrate the small wins — I procured broccoli (OK, and ice cream) — and leave with renewed purpose.As someone with depression, I find that brick-and-mortar businesses help me avoid isolation by providing a space to be alone with others. But my happy places — supermarkets and pharmacies — say they have seen increasing theft and violence.Locked glass cabinets safeguarding merchandise are now ubiquitous in chains like Target, Walmart and Walgreens. Asking clerks to retrieve detergent and baby formula is demoralizing enough, but businesses are implementing more severe security measures that erode customers’ spirits and our social fabric, even though it’s unclear whether shoplifting has become the national crisis that some retailers claim.A grocery run shouldn’t feel l...

One of the hardest roles of a lifetime? Being a successor trustee

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

Question: Last month, my eldest brother’s wife began her role as successor trustee on behalf of a deceased out-of-town aunt. The aunt owned a large home. The disposition of the aunt’s belongings is underway. Next is the home sale. Yesterday I heard my brother praising the relinquishing of his designation as the successor trustee for our parents’ trust. Fascinating, considering this brother’s insistence 20 years ago to be named the successor trustee. It’s interesting timing. What does my brother now know that my parents, siblings and I do not?Answer: Your brother has been experiencing a real-time, first-hand education of the duties and challenges of a successor trustee. He’s unpleasantly surprised. Perhaps your brother thought a successor trustee operates like a CEO. The successor trustee acts in many roles — especially as the investigator. Full stop. The immense loss of time a successor trustee spends pursuing paperwork and information is avoidable. Many successor trustees search a ...

Review: ‘Heart of Stone’ is an impressively generic spy film

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:38:50 GMT

By Jake Coyle | Associated PressIt’s turning out to be quite a summer for superspies and supercomputers.A month after the action feast of “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part I,” in which Tom Cruise faced off with an AI supervillain called “the Entity,” comes a very “MI”-like international espionage thriller with an equally fancy and powerful machine.“Heart of Stone” stars Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone, an agent for an elite and clandestine intelligence agency called the Charter. Like “Mission: Impossible,” “Heart of Stone” hits glamorous global destinations (the Italian Alps, Lisbon, Senegal, Iceland) and features lengthy actions sequence including a wingsuit skydive.Whereas “Dead Reckoning” pushed old-school filmmaking to extremes for a gripping theatrical experience, “Heart of Stone” revels in its digital wizardry, feels vaguely algorithm-y in its conception and was made for Ne...