Party blackout signals need for serious reflection

Crop storage headaches loom on horizon

A sense of calm descends over Prairie fields this time of year — at least on the surface.

Activities become more limited in the weeks leading up to harvest. There’s not much farmers can do now to support this year’s crop, other than monitor and protect it from diseases such as sclerotinia in canola and leaf stripe and fusarium head blight in wheat and barley.

July is when you might see farmers wading into a thick stand of canola, conducting a so-called “wet pants test” to get a low-tech read on how much disease-inducing moisture is lurking in the canopy.

Disease pressure is high in a humid, hot summer like this one and it’s kept aerial applicators busy applying fungicides. Sclerotinia spores live on plant residues in the soil and blossom into a mould that destroys the canola stem, starving the maturing pods.

Netflix comedy set will make you think

The title of Hannah Gadsby’s new 70-minute comedy set (currently available on Netflix) has absolutely nothing to do with the material. The 40-year-old Aussie standup makes that clear right away: Nanette is someone she met in a café, a possibly interesting woman who turned out not to be, and that is the last we hear of her.

Instead, this wonderfully misleading title signals that whatever we are expecting will not be what we get. And that is the whole point of this show, a funny, powerful bait-and-switch ploy that uses comedy to deconstruct comedy.

Gadsby keeps the paradoxes coming in this farewell-to-comedy tour that has actually launched her international career. She tells jokes — lightly, casually, almost shyly — and then circles around and comes back to them, forcing us to confront the pain that was hiding in plain sight.

Like one of those thrillers where a twist ending reveals everything that has come before in a new and blinding light, Nanette forces a tough and timely re-evaluation of humour and its tricky relations with power, trauma and misogyny. Watching Nanette in the #MeToo era of comedy, you’ll laugh. You’ll cry. Most of all, you’ll think.

Sagkeeng's scars: colonization has left a traumatic imprint

At the mouth of the river.

In Anishinaabemowin, that is what “Sagkeeng” means. It is what the people of Sagkeeng First Nation have called their homeland, located on the lush banks of the powerful Winnipeg River, since time immemorial.

The Canadian government would rename that land the Fort Alexander Indian Reserve, as federal agents carved new territorial boundaries out of the countryside in the aftermath of the signing of Treaty 1.

But in the language of the people who call it home, it has always been Sagkeeng.

School funding increase called skimpy in light of escalating expenses

Annual operational funding for public school divisions that are strapped for cash, owing to expenses related to COVID-19, staff wage settlements, and a surge in the cost of living, will not keep up with inflation in 2022-23 — for another consecutive year.

Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools will receive $120 million in provincial funding next year to undertake regular operations and address new cost pressures, Manitoba Education announced Friday.

That sum includes base funding of $20.2 million for public and independent schools, a one-time $77-million allotment to address current financial strains, and a $23.2-million grant (the equivalent of a two per cent tax hike) to make up for a mandated freeze of education property taxes, as the province works toward phasing out the tax.

Education Minister Wayne Ewasko touted the commitment as one that will both ensure divisions have the resources required so that all students can succeed, no matter where they live in the province, and reduce the tax burden on residents.

Philippines reports world's 1st virus death outside China

BEIJING - The first death outside China from the new coronavirus was recorded Sunday in the Philippines, as countries around the world evacuated hundreds of their citizens from the infection zone and Chinese authorities completed a new, rapidly constructed 1,000-bed hospital for victims of the outbreak.

Chinese authorities also delayed the reopening of schools in the hardest-hit province and tightened the quarantine in one city by allowing only one family member to venture out to buy supplies.

The Philippine Health Department said a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan, the city at the centre of the crisis, was hospitalized Jan. 25 with a fever, cough and sore throat and died after developing severe pneumonia. The man's 38-year-old female companion, also from Wuhan, tested positive for the virus as well and remained hospitalized in isolation in Manila.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved a ban on the entry of all non-citizens from China. The U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that such measures were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel.

Housing-first initiative aims to offer city’s homeless dignity, understanding

Ken St. George has dedicated the last 20 years to taking care of people in the community-health sector. Now he will enact the Housing First model in Winnipeg for the first time.