Making music a marathon rather than a sprint

Larysa Musick has taken the stage countless times, armed with the verses she’s written and rehearsed.

The Winnipeg poetry-slam artist will do the same Friday night at the Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club, except she’ll have songs from her debut EP to perform rather than poems to recite, and she’ll have a band to back her up instead of being alone to earn the audience’s kudos or criticism.

“It’s a little nerve-racking but it’s also exciting.” says Musick, who released the six-song Tomorrow Is Bound to Come on streaming services Oct. 13.

“The stakes are the same, because people are still watching you, but the difference in poetry slam is you’re scored from zero to 10 on your poetry. I’ve received five out of 10 on stage; I’ve received 10 out of 10.

Award-winning labour mediator Fox-Decent dies at 82

For more than a decade, if there was a log jam in contract negotiations between management and workers, Wally Fox-Decent was the person you called to settle the dispute.

Fox-Decent, who helped bring labour peace to more than 120 public and private-sector disputes as a mediator and arbitrator, died Sept. 5 at age 82.

Former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon said he respected Fox-Decent's ability to bring different sides together so much he appointed him to chair the Meech Lake constitutional task force and later brought him back to head the all-party constitutional task force on the Charlottetown Accord.

"He was renowned as a labour arbitrator and the person who could bring disparate sides to the table," Filmon said Tuesday. "But he also was a political science professor... He was well-respected.

It’s not about bikes, it’s about openness

Contrary to what's been written, I am a big fan of active transport (AT) (Give cycling, walking plan green light, June 11). I have worked with my community over the last 10 years to build a dedicated AT network that is now more than 15 kilometres and hopefully growing. It is therefore disappointing not being able to support the existing proposed policy.

Following the last election, the first time non-executive policy committee members heard about the report was on Jan. 23, when we received an email from Bike Winnipeg asking us to vote for the report. This was very interesting, because we had not received any report, yet clearly the bike lobby had, or at least was aware of its contents. Following this, I contacted the mayor's chief of staff who assured me no report was complete.

On Feb. 19, a council seminar was held and no report recommendations were provided. Around this time, I made a point of meeting with the director of public works who assured me I would have input into the report, especially when it came to the Transcona ward.

This never occurred.

Statistics, media, and public opinion

‘Beautiful game’ stained by Trump, Infantino

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has improbably managed to turn the success of the recently completed and profoundly challenged World Cup finals into a defeat.

Just two weeks ago, with confetti from the World Cup final still hanging in the air, Infantino unveiled plans for FIFA Forward Enterprise, a US$20-billion company that would run future FIFA events including the World Cup. The entity would sell a US$4 billion stake to a company called Thrive Eternal, which is owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

The nature of the proposal and the people who are involved in it sent shock waves through the global football community. Reverberations so severe, they could knock Infantino from his perch atop the footballing world.

Within the week, the 55 member nations of UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, the 47 members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the 41 nations represented by CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) rejected Infantino’s proposal. UEFA went the furthest by unanimously threatening to boycott future FIFA events, including the 2030 World Cup to be hosted in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.