Marking history of Mennonites in Canada

The women’s 100 metres in Tokyo ended with Elaine Thompson-Herah’s celebration. It might have cost her a world record

Thompson-Herah beats compatriot Fraser-Pryce and leads a Jamaican sweep of the podium.

Tokyo Olympic aftermath still being untangled a year later

TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics survived the COVID-19 postponement, soaring expenses and some public opposition. A year later, the costs and benefits remain as difficult to untangle as the Games were to pull off.

In his speech at the closing ceremony, IOC President Thomas Bach said a major accomplishment of the Games was simply reaching the end.

“We did it,” Bach said. “We did it together," he repeated, crediting the athletes, Japanese government officials, and deep-pocketed broadcasters for refashioning the Games despite no fans, disappointed sponsors, and no buzz around the city.

Organizers said the Games would drive tourism, showcase Japan's technological prowess, and create memories similar to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The pandemic erased that.

Festival riffs off Main Street’s storied past

Fifty years later, Billy Joe Green can still remember one of the biggest breaks of his career. It was 1971, and his band was asked to become the house band at the Brunswick, an old Main Street hotel and bar.

People would line up around the block to see them, and for a while Green, who was barely out of his teens, could really feel as if he’d made it.

“That was like the high-end place to play for our people,” he says, with a nostalgic smile.

Oh, if the walls of the Main Street strip could talk, they would tell a million stories, and Green would be in a bunch of them. An Ojibwa man and member of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, Green is one of Winnipeg’s most iconic blues guitarists; back then, he was jamming on the Main Street circuit, slinging out country and rock hits.

Banning controversial songs is a tone-deaf solution

Along with sipping egg nog and trimming trees, Canadians engaged in another reliable holiday tradition this week: debating whether or not Baby, It’s Cold Outside promotes date rape.

On Tuesday, three of the country’s major broadcasters — CBC, Rogers and Bell Media — announced they’d be putting the chill on the contentious duet, written by American songwriter Frank Loesser in 1944, and would not be playing it on their radio stations this year.

Several American radio stations have also put the song on their naughty lists, arguing it has no place in the #MeToo era. 

Through a modern lens, it’s not hard to see how some people might view this song as a woman being pressured into sex by a guy who won’t take no for an answer. 

Biographer delves deep into the comedy and the tragedy of Robin Williams' troubled life

Whenever I’m asked with whom I’d love to dine, entertainer Robin Williams always tops my short list of three. Still.

It’s immaterial that we didn’t move in the same social circles. Or that our career paths never crossed, even though one of his many movies, The Big White, was partially shot in Winnipeg in 2005. Something about him — that hairy persona, those kind blue eyes, the “aw shucks” grin — had intrigued me since watching the debut of his Mork & Mindy TV sitcom in 1978. His off-the-wall goofiness simply sealed the deal.

Comedian Williams became movie-star Williams, and I bought every flick — the good, the not-so-good and the real stinkers. His raunchy standup recordings, often released between his movies, were just an added, adult-only bonus.

So I, like many, was gutted when, at age 63, Williams took his own life in 2014. I didn’t “get” it: how could an award-winning, funny guy, admired by so many for so long, get so beaten up inside that he’d off himself?

Dozen of Manitoba highways remain closed weeks after storms

Thirty five highways remain closed weeks after torrential rain caused destructive flooding in several Manitoba communities.

Crews continue to assess flood damage and repair roads and highways as conditions allow, after historic precipitation washed away many routes.

Some areas in the Parkland region of the province received more than 200 millimetres of rain between June 6 and July 1.

The majority of road closures are in the Roblin area. A storm at the end of June undid a lot of repair work in the Municipality of Minitonas-Bowsman after an early June deluge, officials said.