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Your essential daily news

weekend, February 24-26, 2017

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‘Struggling to pull pennies’ Education

Board, teachers union call to end private school funding Kevin Maimann

Metro | Edmonton

RETHINKING SEX ED KEVIN TUONG/FOR METRO







How a group of health providers hopes to change what Edmonton kids are taught metroNEWS

The Alberta Teachers Association and the Edmonton Public School Board joined a coalition of 14 organizations calling for an end to public funds for private schools Thursday.

Public Interest Alberta organized a press conference calling for a phasing out of public funding for private schools — except those that specifically cater to special needs students — over three years.

The groups suggested $100 million could then be redirected to public, Catholic and francophone school boards to reduce class sizes, reduce mandatory school fees, increase classroom

supports and beef up school lunch programs.

“It’s going to be a very tough budget year. The government has been very clear that there is no new money, they are struggling to pull pennies where they can.

This is an opportunity where we can think about what would make the most difference for kids,” said Edmonton Public School Board Chair Michael Janz. “(Private schools) don’t have publicly elected school boards, they can accept and reject students, they are separate private businesses that are able to charge sometimes enormous tuitions,” he said.

John Jagersma, Executive Director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges in Alberta, said private schools serve a public good and cutting their funds would only punish the 34,000 students that attend them.

He said ending subsidies would also push private school students into the public system, where they would then be publicly funded at a higher rate.

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Your essential daily news

Livestream of giraffe birth at New York zoo pulled from YouTube for being ‘explicit’

Willing, waiting to work employment

The rest? Asked to come back the next day and hope again.

The daily grind of turning away potential clients is getting to Bishop, who said Water Wings could easily double, maybe even triple, the 2,000 people it serves annually if his $500,000 operation could keep up with demand.

Matt But a sluggish economy and Kieltyka growing expectations placed on Metro | Edmonton new hires is working against The day starts with hope outside the city’s “most down and out” the Water Wings job training and his program’s bottom line, centre in downtown Edmonton. he said.

By 9 a.m. there are as many as “People are definitely looking 40 people lined up outside the for work, but it’s an employer’s royal blue building, all waiting market. They’re actually forcing for a chance to head down the prospective employees to come stairs, and join a daily training with all their training up front,” class that will give them the com- Bishop said.

“And our clients are some of puter skills and safety training that — they hope — will help the most impoverished people them get a job. you’ll find in Edmonton, they But most of them will be just don’t have the money to turned away. purchase those kind of tickets.

The courses are “There are quite a few so expensive to disappointed offer that we people that will had to drop our People are be leaving us enrolment to envery shortly,” definitely looking sure the people program cowho do get in ordinator Eric for work, but it’s an are able to get Bishop said as employer’s market. the services they he watched need.”

Eric Bishop Wednesday morBishop said ning’s crowd file into his train- Water Wings used to accept ing centre.

12 new registrations each day.

“This time last year, we turned That number dropped to 10 in away seven people for the whole December.

As of this week, it’s six. month. This past January, we had to turn away 80 potential clients,” Bishop has doubled his volhe said of the free program run unteer pool and Water Wings

by Boyle Street Community is branching out into providing Services at 10112 105 Ave. private training, like first aid, to Just six people snagged a spot paying customers to help subsidin the class Wednesday. ize the program to try to cope

Job program turning people away in record numbers

People looking for work at Water Wings job training centre are being turned away.

Kevin Tuong/for metro

but is still discouraged to turn so many people away at the door.

Consuelo Lax was lucky enough to get in. The 60-yearold is currently unemployed and in need of updated computer skills.

“This is the first place that just gives you a kind of hope,” she told Metro before tackling an Excel tutorial at a workstation.

“I’m in my 60s so looking for a job is kind of hard and, right now, they’re helping me prepare for it,” she said.

“I’m not really a computer person so, yes, it’s giving me a little bit of confidence. I just noticed right now they’re cutting to six. They should be taking 20 instead of cutting.”

At this point, Bishop says he’d like to see the business commun-

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Boyle Street Community Services’ Water Wings job training program can only take in six new clients a day, leaving dozens more out in the cold. Kevin Tuong/for metro

ity get involved.

“We’d really like to build empathy for the types of clients we see … they deserve jobs as much

as anyone else,” he said. “They’re actually fighting to get back into the workforce and we want to be able to support them in that.”

Video on the metro app readership

Metro is most-read weekday newspaper Metro is staking out its position as the No. 3 newspaper in Edmonton as the national brand continues to be the most-read weekday paper in Canada, according to data released Thursday.

Vividata, the media industry’s single-source, print and digital audience measurement released its survey results for the third quarter of 2016 on Thursday, based on surveys completed between October 2015 and September 2016.

The results show Metro Edmonton has 149,000 daily print readers — down 11 per cent over the second quarter of 2016.

The Journal has 205,000 readers, a 15 per cent loss over the same time period.

Nationally, Metro’s daily readership across seven English markets was steady at 1.68 million, making it again the most read weekday daily newspaper in the country.

Elsewhere, in Halifax, Metro is the most-read paper, with 112,000 daily print readers.

In Vancouver, Metro has widened its lead over 24Hrs, holding the third place spot in the city with 297,000 daily print readers — up 3,000 over the previous quarter.

Behind only the Toronto Star, Metro Toronto has an average weekday readership of 645,000. metro

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recommendations

Report calls for strict extreme driving rules

A judge says unregulated extreme driving stunts such as the one that led to the death of an Edmonton university student should be banned.

The recommendation is in a fatality report into the May 18, 2013, death of Melinda Green.

Green was watching a “Jeeps Go Topless” charity fundraiser in a strip mall parking lot in which one vehicle drove on top of the front wheel of another one.

For some reason, the top Jeep lurched forward into the crowd, injuring the 20-year-old. She died later that afternoon.

In the report released Thursday, provincial court Judge Jody Moher notes the event had no safety plan, no safety precautions and no insurance. There were also no barriers between the demonstration area and spectators.

Moher said gaps in provincial and municipal rules allowed the “inherently dangerous” driving demonstration to take place.

“Extreme driving demonstrations/driving stunts such as the one that killed Melinda Green should be prohibited whether on private property, public property or ‘off-highway,’” Moher wrote.

Moher recommends that extreme driving events not be allowed in public unless there

are safety marshals present and barriers between vehicles and spectators.

The report also recommends that all municipalities have bylaws to regulate special events involving motor vehicles and that they set out clear rules to follow.

Those rules should require an event safety plan, insurance coverage and the attendance of police and emergency medical services staff, the report says.

Mira Green, Melinda’s mother, said she is satisfied with the recommendations and hopes governments take action.

“We believe that had there been concrete barriers when that demonstration went wrong and the stunt went badly, it might have saved Melinda’s life.”

While heartened by the recommendations and grateful for the work of the judge, Green said the report does not provide her and her husband with much solace.

“It doesn’t change anything for us. We will still wake up every day without Melinda,” she said.

“But there is some comfort in knowing that maybe we have made a difference that somebody else doesn’t have to experience this and suffer like this if these recommendations are implemented.” the canadian press

travel

Two men charged for false luggage claims Two men are facing charges involving false baggage claims at the Edmonton International Airport.

RCMP say video shows that on two occasions last fall a man retrieved luggage from a carousel and then went to the WestJet baggage counter and reported his bags were missing.

In one case, attendants were told that $5,000 worth of merchandise was in the bags.

In the other case, a man made a claim for more than $2,000.

Hussein Zeitoun, who is 27 and from Edmonton, is charged with fraud over $5,000.

Samy Hanna, who is 63 and also from Edmonton, is charged with fraud under $5,000.

Zeitoun was to appear in Leduc provincial court on Thursday. Hanna’s first court appearance is set for March 23, also in Leduc. the canadian press

Brook Biggin with HIV Edmonton is part of the new Sexual Health Educators Collective of Edmonton. kevin maimann/metro

Sexual health group engages teachers education

Collective gives educators first lesson in sex ed Kevin Maimann

Metro | Edmonton A group of sexual health providers hopes to reshape how Edmonton schools teach sex ed, after parents raised concerns about the information some of their children were getting.

The Sexual Health Educators Collective of Edmonton teamed up with Edmonton Public Schools and the University of Alberta to deliver its first round of learning sessions to more than 200 teachers and education students Tuesday.

“We’re talking about pregnancy, we’re talking about healthy relationships, consent, STIs, HIV, very tangible things that can have a huge impact on their life,” said Brook Biggin with HIV Edmonton, who is part of the collective.

He said comprehensive sexual health education is often undervalued, and abstinencebased programs, which have been used in some Edmonton schools, are linked to higher rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV. “There’s really no evidence to show that withholding accurate sexual health information from youth is of any benefit to them at all. In fact, we see the opposite,” Biggin said.

Parents raised concerns with the Edmonton Public School

There’s really no evidence to show that withholding accurate sexual health information from youth is of any benefit to them. Brook Biggin Board in 2014 that outside groups coming in to teach sex ed were using an abstinenceonly model.

Kristy Harcourt with the Pride Centre said the collective — which now has a website and hopes to continue working collaboratively with teachers and students — can keep educators up to date on terminology and new statistics, and ensure they are “current and authoritative” when they talk to young people about sexual heath.

Harcourt presented to teachers Tuesday on dealing with secrecy, stigma and shame, promoting disclosure of sexual

abuse, and how to talk about gender diversity in classrooms.

She said it is important to talk about feelings with students, not just dangers.

“Sometimes we talk about fear and danger at the expense of giving information about how sex works,” Harcourt said.

Other groups involved include the Zebra Child Protection Centre, the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, The Compass Centre, the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, the GSA Network, The Canadian Red Cross and the Students Invested in Health Association.

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No change to $10.8B deficit Province’s growth to 2017 forecast

budget

But Alberta economy improving

We’re still very early in the recovery phase.

A rebounding oil sector is delivering an extra $1.5 million to the Alberta government this year, but Finance Minister Joe Ceci says that money — and more — has already been spent and the deficit will remain at $10.8 billion.

Critics say no matter whether times are good or bad Premier Rachel Notley’s government lacks the will and the fibre to make hard decisions needed to balance the books.

“We’re still very early in the recovery phase. Alberta families are worried about the basics and the government is focused on basics,” Ceci said Thursday as he released the third-quarter update for 2016-17.

“We’re here to make life better for Alberta families.”

The update shows Alberta is on track to take in $42.9 billion this fiscal year, which ends March 31. But $1.5 million in gains are offset by an extra $2.6 billion in spending.

Finance Minister Joe Ceci

Dean Bennett/the canadian press file

The province, at the suggestion of the auditor general, is booking a $1.1-billion accounting expense now for payments to be made to operators over the next 14 years to move the electrical industry off coal-fired power by 2030.

The province is also spending

$774 million more than planned to cover higher operating costs, mainly in health, education and social services. There is another $818 million for disaster assistance needed after severe flooding in 2013 and last spring’s Fort McMurray wildfire.

To keep the deficit from

ballooning to $11.5 billion, the province is throwing in a $700-million cushion it had kept to guard against low oil prices.

Ceci said the province is still committed to reducing the deficit and debt and decreasing the cost of government.

“We’re looking at all areas to

be fastest in Canada

reduce expenditures and in the (2017-18) budget coming up next month we’ll even have more of those identified,” he said.

Government borrowing, including money to pay operating and capital costs, is expected to reach $32.3 billion against $19.7 billion in the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

Debt servicing costs this year are pegged at just over $1 billion.

Ric McIver, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives, said the government does not have the will to rein in spending.

“They can’t make the tough decisions that Albertans need them to make,” he said. “They can’t differentiate between what Alberta needs and what they would like to offer up to get them re-elected (in 2019).”

Wildrose critic Glenn van Dijken said Alberta’s debt will reach $56 billion by the end of the decade.

“Finance minister Ceci refuses to admit that the size of our government is a problem,” said van Dijken. “The government will continue to run massive deficits and pile up debt, which will eventually drain billions away from hospitals and schools.”

A new report says Alberta is on the mend and poised to grow its Gross Domestic Product faster than any other province in Canada this year.

The Conference Board of Canada’s quarterly report projects a 2.8 per cent growth in 2017, after a -2.9 per cent drop in 2016 and a -3.7 per cent drop the year before.

“It’s quite a big change from what we have seen over the last two years,” said Prince Uwusu, senior economist with the think tank.

Alberta’s GDP grows about four per cent annually on average, but previously tanked by -5.3 per cent in 2009.

Uwusu attributes the turnaround to a resurgence in the oil sector, sparked mostly by stabilizing international oil prices.

the canadian press

with files from the canadian press

Kevin Maimann

Metro | Edmonton

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weekend events

Check out all the fun things going on FRIDAY What: Lotus Art Gallery is having their monthly art exhibit opening night party on Friday.

This is your (monthly) chance to mingle with local artists, and meet some of the people behind the works on display at this popular local gallery. Free.

When: 7-9 p.m.

Where: 10321 124 Street

Designer Gilles Wouanko founded Edmonton’s African Fashion Week, now in its fourth year. Kevin tuong/for metro

Celebrating African fashion culture

City marks fourth annual show of artistic expression Alex Boyd

Metro | Edmonton When designer Gilles Wouanko first visited Edmonton in 2013, he told a friend he was looking forward to attending African Fashion Week here.

He was understandably disappointed, then, to learn there wasn’t one.

“I said to him, ‘Why don’t you do it?’” Wouanko recalled.

“And my friend was like, ‘Well, why don’t you?’”

So Wouanko did.

Four years later, Wouanko is busy preparing for the fourth Edmonton African Fashion Week, now an annual event that mixes runway displays with a trade show and after party.

“The event really commemorates Black History Month and it also shows African culture in a very artistic way,” he said.

The show runs Friday and Saturday evening at the Sutton

Place Hotel, with tickets available online and at the door.

Wouanko, who will be showing his second collection, describes it as an inclusive show that mixes designers and vendors with African heritage with local designers inspired by the continent.

The result? A very fun, diverse show, Wouanko said.

“Africa being such a big continent, you can have a couple of designers from there and because of the culture their designs are totally different.

Even in the same country, you can have someone from the north and the south and they’re totally different.”

Although the show has always been scheduled to correspond with Black History Month, he said they plan to include more information about Edmonton’s history this year.

He joked that he had no idea the show would grow so big — last year’s drew a crowd of 500 over two days — or that Edmonton would be so enthusiastic.

“It’s actually amazing how people respond to it,” he said.

“People want to know about it, people want to participate.”

“Seeing the response is really what’s pushing us to keep it going.”

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SATURDAY What: African Mud Cloth Workshop. Work together with your family or friends to create a communal African mud cloth, as part of the Carrot Community Arts celebration of Black History Month. Suitable for anyone 10 or older. RSVP required.

When: 1-4 p.m.

Where: 9351 118 Ave.

SATURDAY What: On the Keemooch (“On The Sneak”). The Strathcona County Public Library is celebrating Freedom to Read Week with an evening of provocative poetry and spoken word performances, presided over by writer-in-residence Richard Van Camp. No minors.

When: 7-9 p.m.

Where: #300, 2020 Sherwood Drive Edmonton

SUNDAY What: This is your last chance to catch contemporary artist Brandy Saturley’s series of Canada-inspired paintings at Gallery@501 in Sherwood Park.

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‘Social licence’?

No, not buying it Poll

Majority don’t believe carbon tax aided pipelines Brodie Thomas

Metro | Calgary A majority of Albertans just aren’t buying the idea that the carbon tax somehow helped with federal approval on pipelines, according to a new ThinkHQ/Metro poll.

The Notley government has said Alberta’s creation of a carbon tax gave the province the social licence it needed to get federal approval on those pipelines.

The survey of 1,357 Albertans found more than 60 per cent believe the federal government definitely or probably would have approved two pipeline applications earlier this year without the carbon tax.

Bad news for the NDP, says ThinkHQ public-affairs president Marc Henry.

“This notion that the NDP climate plan will get credit for these new pipelines is just not bearing true for them,” said Henry.

“They’re really not getting any credit in return for a significant policy decision, and it’s probably the most significant

policy that they’ve approved.”

What’s more, the poll suggests carbon rebates aren’t buying Albertans’ love.

The numbers show acceptance of the tax was not tied to whether or not someone got a refund — which went to households earning under $100,000 per year.

“The expectation would be if you’re getting your money back, maybe your acceptance of the new tax regime would increase. It just doesn’t show up in any significant number,” said Henry.

Overall, 64 per cent of Albertans polled were opposed to the expanded carbon tax.

Looking at those polled who personally received a carbon-tax rebate, the disapproval rating only dropped to 59 per cent.

Looking at past data, Henry has found that support for the tax has not grown at all. In fact, opposition grew by 3 per cent.

This poll used the Voice of Alberta panel and the Angus Reid Forum to survey 1,357 people across the province, with the results weighted to reflect the gender, age and region of Alberta according to Statistics Canada.

The survey uses a representative but non-random sample, so margin of error isn’t applicable, However, a probability sample of this size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points at a 95% confidence interval.

Alberta’s Carbon Tax An exclusive ThinkHQ / Metro poll 1

Overall, would you say you personally approve or disapprove of the plan to expand Alberta’s carbon tax?

Approval Rating

Disapproval Rating

32%

64% (4% unsure)

2 If Alberta did not have the climate leadership plan, these new pipelines...

60%

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Province behind on info requests Two sections of the Alberta government don’t have adequate staffing or resources to keep up with Access to Information requests, investigations have concluded.

Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton released the results of two investigations Thursday into complaints that access requests made to Alberta Justice and Solicitor General and the Executive Council and Public Affairs Bureau were being repeatedly delayed.

“While the reports had different findings and recommendations, a few themes emerged,” reads a statement from Clayton’s office.

“Senior leadership support is essential to engender a culture that respects access to information … resourcing and staffing for processing access requests has not kept paces with the number of requests received.”

Clayton’s review of Alberta Justice and Solicitor General found there were 187 additional access requests outstanding (on top of the original 14 that made up the complaint) that had been in the system for more than 30 days, the legislated timeline for government to respond.

One request was more than 1,000 days overdue.

“The approval time was of concern,” Clayton concluded.

“The investigation noted the average approval process was 33 days, more than the legislated timeline of the 30 days alone.” matt kieltyka/metro

Edmonton

Business leaders have keen eye on Notley trip

economy

Premier will travel to U.S. to discuss trade with president Matt Kieltyka

Metro | Edmonton Edmonton business leaders hope Premier Rachel Notley establishes some goodwill and stability with the United States with her trade mission to Washington, D.C. next week.

Promises of protectionist policies, border taxes and a disdain for outsiders from President Donald Trump during his election campaign put Alberta on edge, according to Edmonton Chamber of Commerce president Janet Riopel.

“I can tell you it’s been very unsettling for our business community to experience this uncertainty, and even unpredictability, from our largest trading partner,” Riopel told Metro. “The uncertainty was already in our economy, as you know, and business have been suffering from almost two years now from a

Premier Rachel Notley heads to Washington, D.C. from Feb. 26 to March 1 to meet with American president Donald Trump to discuss trade with the new administration. Relations between the province and the U.S. totalled more than $100 billion in 2015. Jason franson/the canadian press

declining economy … and then you have this sea change in the United States.”

Notley is making the trip to Washington from Feb. 26 to March 1 to protect and shore up a provincial economy that

I think it sends signals how important this is when the premier if the one leading the charge to go down and build these relationships. Janet Riopel

is incredibly dependent on U.S. trade.

University of Alberta economics professor Stuart Landon said 75 per cent of the province’s exports are to the U.S. and more than 90 per cent of Alberta’s energy sector is reliant on U.S. trade.

Possible protectionist policies floated by the new government include border tariffs, labeling meat products with their country of origin and requiring infrastructure products like Keystone

XL to be U.S.-built, he said, adding that all could have big impacts on the province’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

“We’re going to have to worry a lot about them putting on Buy American policies, tariffs and taxes that are going to inhibit Canadian exports,” Landon said. “(Build America) is something they’ve signalled very strongly and there is no indication they’re going to pull back from that.”

Notley’s first priority, however, should be making sure the

Trump administration has no plans to tax energy from Canada, Landon said.

“The most important thing from the Alberta economy perspective that’s potentially on the horizon is this border adjustment tax. That could be really bad for Alberta if energy exports aren’t exempt,” he said. “If I was Notley, I would talk about that.”

Fortunately, Trump seems to have a cordial relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and seems to look favourably on Canada in general.

“From everything we’ve heard, we’re not a target,” said Landon. “The main thing is for Notley to make sure the people she meets understand how important Alberta is for the U.S. economy in terms of energy exports and as a supplier of safe, stable energy.”

Going herself, instead of sending a delegation, will make all the difference, Riopel and Landon agreed.

“I think it sends signals how important this is when the premier if the one leading the charge to go down and build these relationships,” said Riopel. “This is really important to make sure we put priority on strengthening this relationship we have with the U.S.” Trade between Alberta and the United States totalled more than $100 billion in 2015. Goods worth about $80.6 billion were sent to the U.S. from the province that year. with files from the canadian press

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Edmonton

Alberta task force ready for disaster emergency response

Rescue crew deploys for simulated quake Elizabeth Cameron

For Metro | Calgary

A crew practises freeing someone trapped underneath heavy equipment, a likely scenario in the event of an earthquake. Elizabeth Cameron/Metro

If you found yourself trapped under a forklift, don’t worry — the Canada Task Force 2 Alberta (CAN-TF2) has a plan for that.

Rescuing someone pinned by heavy machinery is just one of the numerous simulated exercises members of CAN-TF2 have been practicing to prepare for a catastrophic event such as an earthquake or tsunami in British Columbia — should “the big one” hit, this team is prepared.

“In a training exercise, if things don’t go exactly right, we can take a step back and make it a teaching moment, so that when the real thing happens we’re ready,” said Matt White, a firefighter from Red

Part of the training included medical emergencies at the Multi Agency Training Academy. Elizabeth Cameron/Metro

Deer and disaster specialist with CAN-TF2.

CAN-TF2 is comprised of 150 police officers, logistics specialists, paramedics, physicians, and other highly skilled personnel who volunteer their time.

“We brought all of those talents together to create a response for a major event, in this case a tsunami or

earthquake scenario,” said Tom Sampson, chief of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency.

The most recent deployment for CAN-TF2 was to Fort McMurray for the 2016 wildfires.

The team was also there when southern Alberta was flooding, and when Slave Lake experienced their own devastating wildfire in 2011.

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Study shows plight of detained Canadian kids Refugees

One boy spent 803 days in an immigration holding centre Canada has placed more than 200 Canadian children in immigration detention with their non-status parents since 2011, alongside hundreds of formally detained non-Canadian children, says University of Toronto study.

Based on data obtained from the Canada Border Services Agency, the U of T International Human Rights Program found at least 241 Canadian-born children — an average of 48 a year — were held in the immigration holding centre in Toronto between 2011 and 2015. The data do not cover detention facilities in other parts of Canada. On average, they spent 36 days at the detention centre with their incarcerated parents, with one boy spending 803 days — over two years — in the detention facility.

Two-thirds of the detained chil-

Lena Alexander, a failed refugee from Grenada, was held at the immigration holding centre with her Canadian-born children Crystal and Dameon in 2005. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

dren were housed there for longer than a week and about 31 per cent were held for longer than a month. Eighty-five per cent of the children were under age 6.

“Children who experience even brief periods of detention have extremely negative psychological reactions that often persist long after they are released,” warned the 63-page study, Invisible Citizens: Canadian Children in Immigration Detention, released Thursday.

“Children who are spared detention but are separated from their detained parents experience similarly grave consequences for their mental health.”

Interviews by researchers with nine detained and formerly detained mothers of Canadian children from the Middle East, West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean found the children had difficulty sleeping, lost their appetite, lost their interest in play, and developed symptoms

of depression and separation anxiety, as well as a variety of physical symptoms.

“Many of these symptoms persisted after release from detention,” the study warned.

According to the border services policy, Canadian children should only accompany their detained parents if there are no family members or friends to care for them, if they are still being breastfed, are too young to be separated from parents or have health issues.

“Canadian children are invisible in Canada’s immigration detention system,” said Samer Muscati, the human rights program’s director. “While all detention of children is horrible, these children are particularly vulnerable because they lack important legal safeguards, including their own detention review hearings.”

Under immigration law, these Canadian-born children are citizens and cannot be formally detained, hence they are unable to access legal proceedings that review their continued “de facto” detention, said Muscati.

TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

Canada border crisis

Manitoba steps up to help asylum seekers Jessica Botelho-Urbanski For Metro | Winnipeg

After calling on the federal government to adopt a “coordinated approach” in dealing with the influx of asylum seekers, the premier of Manitoba announced

his own plans to dispatch emergency resources on Thursday.

Premier Brian Pallister and Minister of Education and Training Ian Wishart announced 14 emergency beds and tens of thousands in funding.

“Manitobans have never, ever turned their backs on people,” said Pallister.

immigration

‘Extreme vetting’ is not really so extreme U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for “extreme vetting” of migrants may seem a stark contrast to Ottawa’s “openness” approach, but the two countries’ systems are more closely aligned than many people would like to believe.

Trump’s stance on immigrants and refugees cannot be more different from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s. That contradiction was on full display at their joint news conference at the White House after the two leaders’ recent first meeting in Washington.

But despite the general impression that Canada has more tolerant and lax border security than its neighbour to the south, experts on both sides of the border say the countries have similar security screening processes to keep suspected terrorists and criminals out.

“Obviously there’s a tremendous amount of informationsharing between our intelligence and law enforcement services,” said John Sandweg, former acting general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security. torstar news service

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16 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

Canada

challenged Time for saying sorry Boyden on story’s originality ‘has got to be over’ Books

Indigenous issues

Feds accused of racially discriminating against kids Indigenous leaders are slamming the government for “racial discrimination” and a lack of funding that forces too many children on reserves to be taken from their families into foster care.

Clutching a plush teddy bear at a Thursday news conference, Indigenous children’s advocate Cindy Blackstock called on the Liberal government in Ottawa to show the same leadership and urgency for Indigenous kids that it has shown in bringing Syrian refugees to Canada.

“This is a country that stands up for human rights around the world and yet we are racially discriminating against little kids,” she said. “I can’t tell you

Chief Perry Belle­garde listens as Cindy Blackstock addresses a news confer­en­ce in Ottawa Thursday. THE CANADIAN PRESS

how tired I am of seeing the government apologize to successive generations of First Nations children for problems they could have prevented,” she said. “The time for saying ‘I’m sorry’ and the time for sending condolences has got to be over.”

Speaking later outside the House of Commons, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett acknowledged the problem.

The Indigenous leaders — including Blackstock and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde — were marking the 10th anniversary

of a human rights tribunal case that led to a landmark decision last year. The tribunal concluded that the federal government discriminated against thousands of Indigenous kids for failing to provide adequate funding for services.

Torstar news service

Controversy continues to follow Canadian author Joseph Boyden. Accusations of similarities between one of his texts and a story by an Ojibway storyteller have now surfaced, barely a month after the authenticity of his Indigenous identity came under question.

An article by Jorge Barrera published by APTN focuses on similarities found in a small book by healer and storyteller Ron Geyshick called Te Bwe Win and a story titled Bearwalker that appeared in Boyden’s 2001 short-story collection Born With a Tooth. Boyden denies he copied the story.

The similarities were brought to light by Chuck Bourgeois, a graduate student at the University of Manitoba.

Boyden, award-winning author of The Orenda and Through Black Spruce, responded on Twitter: “I have always been fascinated by the oral stories that travel through communities.” The story, he says, “stuck with him” and he eventually wrote the story Bearwalker.

He goes on to say that “I saw it as a type of modern par-

Canadian author Joseph Boyden THE CANADIAN PRESS

able, a Christian story, filtered through the distinct local experience and lens.” The story, he says, “stuck with him” and he eventually wrote the story “Bearwalker.”

“The point is that Ron Geyshick’s piece is not a story, it’s not a sacred legend. It’s very much is own autobiography and he’s talking very concretely about how he became a medicine person,” said Bourgeois in a phone interview.

Boyden’s publisher, Penguin Random House, said that the author was in transit on Thursday and was unable to comment.

TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 17

World

Free speech alive and well in U.S. Rosemary Westwood has relocated from Canada to the U.S. She chronicles her observations in a weekly column with Metro.

Rosemary Westwood

From the U.S. Everyone loves a hypocrite, which is to say, hates. Hates with pleasure, really, and never more so than in politics.

Enter the left-wing glee this week when Milo Yiannopoulos lost his book deal, lost his job at the extreme right wing website Breitbart, and was kicked off the program for the Conservative Political Action Conference.

For the avowed free-speech loving right-wing of American politics, Yiannopoulos’s resurfaced support of sex between men and 13-year-old boys was a bridge too far, and in rejecting him, they tripped over the “acceptable speech” line so many had, in their own glee, raged against for years.

Down came the implicit support for the extreme right, though not for conferencesponsor Breitbart itself, and out went white supremacist Richard Spencer when he tried to enter the conference on Thursday.

If this all sounds a little college lefty, safe-space-esque, “we don’t condone that kind of talk here,” that’s because it is. And in becoming what they supposedly detest, a great swath of extreme right sympathizers masquerading as firstamendment lovers have been undone.

But the proof that no one need fear for the state of free speech, especially not anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Muslim and anti-Black speech, came in it’s most abundant, outrageous and glowing orange from a year and a half ago in Donald Trump himself. If Trump, who possesses an uncanny ability to mix pointed insults with otherwise inscrutable speech, could find himself in the oval office, America’s problems do not include threats to rightwing free speech.

Shutting down Yiannopoulos’ campus talks or criticizing publishers or firing that nonprofit director who called Michelle Obama an “ape in heels” — these are not attacks on free speech. They are sim-

ply evidence of consequence.

As in, individual responsibility, or the right’s political raison d’etre.

It’s somewhere on the spectrum of irritating to outright infuriating that I, and thousands of people on Twitter, feel the need to keep pointing out this idea of consequence, as well as the fact that no one is obliged to listen to you.

When I ran all this by a friend the other day, he shook his head in disgust at the very idea of spending a whole column, like this, yet again discussing the first amendment.

“Everyone talks about free speech,” he said. “What about good ideas?”

What, indeed.

The cultural focus on what one can say does seemed to have drowned out questions about what’s really worth listening to. Richard Spencer was swarmed by media as he was kicked out of CPAC. Yiannopoulos has found fame through bigotry. Donald Trump, well, we all know what happened to him.

And it wasn’t a good idea.

Milo Yiannopoulos announces his resignation from Breitbart News during a press conference in New York City. After comments he made regarding pedophilia surfaced in an online video, Yiannopoulos was uninvited to speak at CPAC and lost a major book deal with Simon & Schuster. Getty Images

Caitlyn Jenner calls Trump ‘a disaster’ on transgender rights

A new sticker is placed on a bathroom door. torstar news service file

Caitlyn Jenner is taking President Donald Trump to task for his administration’s reversal of a directive on transgender access to public school bathrooms.

Jenner addresses Trump in a video posted Thursday night on Twitter. She says, “From one Republican to another, this is a disaster.”

The Trump White House has ended a directive issued during Barack Obama’s presidency that told public schools to let transgender students use bath-

rooms and locker rooms of their chosen gender.

Jenner is particularly critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying, “Apparently even becoming attorney general isn’t enough to cure some people of their insecurities.” Addressing Trump, the former Olympian says: “You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community.

Call me.”

Meanwhile, bills to curtail transgender people’s access to public restrooms are pending in

about a dozen states, but even in conservative bastions such as Texas and Arkansas they may be doomed by high-powered opposition.

The chief reason, according to transgender-rights leaders, is the backlash that hit North Carolina after its legislature approved a bill in March 2016 requiring transgender people to use public restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. Several major sports organizations shifted

events away from North Carolina, and businesses such as PayPal decided not to expand in the state. In November, Republican Pat McCrory, who signed and defended the bill, became the only incumbent governor to lose in the general election.

“We don’t need that in Arkansas,” said that state’s GOP governor, Asa Hutchinson, earlier this month. “If there’s a North Carolina-type bill, then I want the Legislature not to pass it.” the associated press

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18 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

World

Immigrants brace for arrests Deportations

U.S. crackdown prompts many to change up daily routines In Orange County, California, dozens of immigrant parents have signed legal documents authorizing friends and relatives to pick up their children from school and access their bank accounts to pay their bills in the event they are arrested by immigration agents.

In Philadelphia, immigrants are carrying around wallet-size Know Your Rights guides in Spanish and English that explain what to do if they’re rounded up.

And in New York, 23-yearold Zuleima Dominguez and other members of her Mexican family are careful about answering the door and start making worried phone calls when someone doesn’t come home on time.

A r o u n d t h e c o u n t r y, President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on the estimated 11 million immigrants

Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. for 20 years, has taken refuge in a church in Denver, Colorado, with her family for fear of being deported. AFP/Getty Images

living illegally in the U.S. have spread fear and anxiety and led many people to brace for arrest and to change up their daily routines in hopes of not getting caught.

In El Paso, Texas, Carmen Ramos and her friends have developed a network to keep each other updated via text messages

on where immigration checkpoints have been set up.

She said she also is making certain everything she does is in order at all times. She checks her taillights before leaving the house to make sure they are working. She won’t speed and keeps a close eye on her surroundings.

“We are surprised that even a ticket can get us back to Mexico,” said the 41-year-old Ramos, who with her husband and three children left Ciudad Juarez because of drug violence and death threats in 2008 and entered the U.S. on tourist visas that have since expired. “We wouldn’t have anywhere to

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He said that includes multiple appeals offered to those facing deportation. Kelly said the U.S. approach will involve “close coordination” with Mexico’s government. “There will be no use of military forces in immigration,” Kelly said. “There will be no mass deportations.”

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Trump, aides not eye to eye

California floods

B E S T S ERV I C E · BEST SELEC T ION · BE S T PRICING · FAM ILY OWNE D LEASING

return.”

An undocumented Guatemalan migrant mother and her son have called an Austin, Texas, church home for more than a year. Hilda Ramirez says they were fleeing the danger of their country and were caught by immigration authorities as they illegally crossed the border at Texas in 2014. After they were released from a holding facility, a pastor allowed them to live on church grounds.

The unease among immigrants has been building but intensified in recent weeks with ever-clearer signs that the Trump administration would jettison the Obama-era policy of focusing mostly on deporting those who had committed serious crimes.

The administration announced Tuesday that any immigrant in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offence, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an enforcement priority.

That could include people arrested for shoplifting or other minor offences, or those who simply crossed the border illegally.

immigration

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Gloria Najar said it felt like an evacuate and had to resort to “apocalypse” when she returned going door-to-door in the midhome after being evacuated in a dle of the night to order many flood that sent waist-high water people to leave. Some people into homes and streets in San said they got their first notice Jose, California. by seeing firefighters in boats Still, as she sorted through in the neighbourhood.

The city began alerting resiher water-logged possession Thursday, she said she counts dents about flooding on Tuesherself among the lucky. day via social and mainstream The 57-year-old — one of media and sending emergency thousands of people ordered alerts to those who had signed to evacuate Tuesday — lost al- up for it, a city spokesman said. most everything in her garage Officials sent firefighters but her secondlate Tuesday to floor condominevacuate about ium was dry.

400 people from About twoa low-lying resiThe water is not dential area. thirds of the 14,000 evacuCity officials safe. There is ated residents said they did were being al- contamination in not believe the this water. lowed to return waters would home after Coyspread to other Mayor Sam Liccardo ote Creek overneighbourhoods flowed its banks then began and did not expand the evacuato recede. tion orders.

People who went home were Flood warnings were in place warned to be careful about hy- until Saturday because watergiene and handling food that ways were overtaxed. may have come into contact Councilman Tam Nguyen with flood water. asked landlords to provide three “The water is not safe,” Mayor months of free rent to victims of Sam Liccardo said. the floods in his working-class Liccardo acknowledged Wed- Latino and Asian district where nesday that the city failed to 350 homes were flooded. properly notify residents to THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 19

World

World leaders meet to discuss Syria GLOBAL AFFAIRS

So-called ceasefire is violated on daily basis Syria’s opposing sides met faceto-face for the first time in UN mediation in three years on Thursday, with the UN envoy citing a historic chance to end

a conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead and displaced millions.

“The Syrian people all want an end to this conflict and you all know it,” Staffan de Mistura said in a cavernous UN assembly hall, addressing the warring sides.

He took note of the presence of diplomats from the International Syria Support Group, which unites regional and world powers and is led by the United States and Russia. But Washing-

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tered the Ghazlani military base south of the city, as well as the airport.

Iraqi helicopters circled above Mosul firing down onto the city’s southwestern edge.

Coalition and Iraqi airstrikes that hit targets inside Mosul sent plumes of white smoke into the air on the horizon.

“We’ve broken the first line,” said Iraqi special forces Lt. Yaser Mohsen, whose troops captured the key village of Tell al-Rayan, where Daesh snipers had been slowing the government offensive.

They then moved to the edge of Mosul’s western Mamun neighbourhood, where they were working to surround it before punching into the city.

UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. MARTIAL TREZZINI/KEYSTONE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

eb lF ’ti

Closely supported by the U.S.led international coalition, Iraqi forces secured a series of cautious advances on Thursday, pushing into a sprawling military base outside of Mosul and onto the grounds of the city’s airport, where they took control of the runway.

The three-pronged attack began just after sunrise, with three convoys of Iraqi forces snaking north across Nineveh’s hilly desert on Mosul’s southern approach. Iraq’s special forces joined federal police and rapid response units in the push — part of a major assault that started earlier this week to drive Daesh from the western half of Iraq’s secondlargest city.

By afternoon they had en-

the al-Qaida branch in Syria, have been excluded from the Geneva talks.

A cease-fire deal crafted

by Russia, whose blistering air power has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces regain key territory, and by Turkey, which supports the Westernbacked rebels, has provided the backdrop to the Geneva talks.

But that truce is being violated on a daily basis.

y nl O

Iraq retakes Mosul airport from Daesh

ton has been in political flux and de Mistura has said there’s uncertainty about the Syria strategy of the new Trump administration.

Earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin — arguably the most potent international power broker in Syria’s conflict — voiced hope for the success of a political settlement and said it would help defeat the “terrorist malaise.’’

UN-designated terrorist groups Islamic State and Fatah al-Sham,

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Business

survey

Canadians put less in tax-free savings A new survey suggests Canadians contributed less to their tax-free savings accounts last year, mostly because they didn’t have enough money to invest.

The Bank of Montreal’s annual TFSA survey found respondents contributed an average of $4,592 into their accounts last year — $939 less than the

year before.

Forty-three per cent indicated that drop was due to a lack of funds, while 36 per cent said they required the cash for other expenses. Respondents estimated they would contribute even less this year, estimating an average of $4,325. the canadian press

Pot firm making changes Canada’s largest publicly traded marijuana company says it has made “numerous process and personnel changes” at its newly acquired Mettrum Health operations that will prevent a repeat of last year’s product recall.

Prior to the friendly

takeover, Mettrum announced a product recall in November after Health Canada discovered the company had used a pesticide with an undisclosed ingredient that’s not approved for use in Canada for use on medical cannabis. the canadian press

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau answers a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The federal budget watchdog says nearly $3 billion in planned funding for projects has been administratively frozen for this fiscal year.

Billions to go unspent Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS

NAME CHANGE NOTICE I, Vaibhav Mishra son of Anjani Nandan Mishra, holder of Indian Passport No G4385020, issued at Bhopal on 7-Sep-2007, permanent resident of B-3/18 Shivala, Varanasi, UP, India, 221001 and presently residing at 305-10405 Saskatchewan Dr. NW, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6E4R9 do hereby change my name from Vaibhav Mishra to Shiva Mishra, with immediate effect.

federal budget

Watchdog says approved funds frozen for fiscal year The federal budget watchdog says nearly $3 billion in planned government spending authorized by Parliament will go unspent this fiscal year.

A large portion of that total — almost a third — is tied to the government’s infrastructure program, said an analysis released Thursday by the parliamentary budget office.

The Trudeau government has faced criticism over the slow movement of billions in new infrastructure spending that it

promised in last year’s budget.

The budget office’s report identified large amounts of authorized spending for this year that were “administratively frozen” in government estimates, the largest of which was $829 million allotted to Infrastructure Canada.

The analysis also found that $366 million in spending this year had been frozen for National Defence, $192 million for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and $100 million for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

These sums can no longer be spent by federal organizations in 2016-17.

In most cases, some or all of that approved funding will be re-requested by the department the following year, said Mostafa Askari, assistant parliamentary

The Treasury Board identifies amounts they don’t want the departments to spend. Mostafa Askari budget officer. It can be reprofiled in the future, he added.

“The Treasury Board identifies amounts that they don’t want the departments to spend or they’re sure that they’re not going to spend,” Askari said.

“A big chunk of it is because of infrastructure. ... Obviously, they haven’t been able to get all the money out and get all the infrastructure programs running.”

On infrastructure, the budget watchdog released a report this month that said departments had only identified $4.6 billion worth of projects out of the $13.6 billion in infrastructure

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money announced in last year’s budget. That total was slated to be spent through March 2018.

The budget watchdog warned of “a significant gap” in meeting that target.

Questions have also been raised on how spending delays could weaken Ottawa’s economic growth projection for 2016-17.

In response, Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi said Ottawa was confident cities and provinces would complete projects by the end of next March, with the exception of a few whose funding flows in 2019 and beyond. THE CANADIAN PRESS

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•LOCAL NEWS • VIEWS •LIFE • SPORTS >>>

SCIENCE

Your essential science news

Major Mickey 20 live mice arrived at the International Space Station this week to test how wounds heal in zero gravity

DECODED by Sarah-Joyce Battersby and Andrés Plana

FINDINGS Your week in science

BACKUP PLANET

Scientists have announced seven Earth-sized planets are orbiting a dim, sun-like star a mere 40 lightyears away from us. Among the cluster of newly-found celestial bodies in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system, at least three could theoretically support life as we know it. So should we start packing our bags?

Goldilocks zone

Gas-us

Not so fast

Even with a spacecraft that moves at the speed of light (and such a craft does not exist) it would take almost forty years to get there.

The Hubble Space Telescope is already on the hunt for oxygen, ozone and methane — gases that are byproducts of life — coming from the planets.

This is the nickname for the distance from a star that makes a planet not too hot, not too cold to contain liquid water — considered a key ingredient for life.

The Eagle takes flight The Apollo 11 command module is going on a road trip. The capsule took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in 1969, but has mostly stayed put at the Smithsonian in D.C. since its historic journey. The tour will hit four U.S. cities ahead of the 50th anniversary of the lunar mission.

Stuck on you Juno, NASA’s Jupiter orbiter, is taking four times longer than expected to circle the gas giant. Some valves on the craft are sticky, upping the 14-day journey to 53 days, and boosting the billion-dollar bill.

SOUND SMART

Old soul

Young dwarf stars shoot off X-rays and ultraviolet light — potential threats to life.

But this star might be past its tantrum phase.

DEFINITION The barycentre is the centre of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other.

Moving up

Some of the planets in TRAPPIST-1 are a touch bigger than Earth, giving about 10 per cent more room — enough space for that extra bedroom.

USE IT IN A SENTENCE If I keep eating so much, the moon and the Earth are going to get a new barycentre.

PHILOSOPHER CAT

by Jason Logan

4 THINGS ABOUT THE SEARCH FOR LIVABLE PLANETS

Exclusive club

Astronomers have discovered almost 3,600 planets outside our solar system. Around four dozen are in the habitable zone, and of those only 18 are Earth-sized.

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, PRINT

Sandy MacLeod

Your essential daily news

& EDITOR Cathrin Bradbury

VICE PRESIDENT

Fresh eyes

To help explore these planets and the rest of space, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch in October 2018, with instruments from the Canadian Space Agency.

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, REGIONAL SALES

Steve Shrout

YIMBYs

Earth isn’t the only planet in our solar system that could theoretically support life. Mars and Venus are also in the Goldilocks zone, but no alien friends have said hi — yet.

MANAGING EDITOR, EDMONTON

Tim Querengesser

Not alone, again

In 2014, NASA announced the discovery of Kepler186f, an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. But it’s 500 light-years away from Earth, so maybe not so convenient.

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weekend movies

Your essential daily news

music

television

digital

Peele trades in laughs for fear In Focus

Comedies, horrors similar in ways, says debut director Richard Crouse

For Metro Canada Jordan Peele learned how to scare people by making them laugh.

As characters like Funkenstein’s Monster on the popular sketch show Key & Peele he investigated popular culture, ethnic stereotypes and race relations through a satirical lens.

Get Out, his directorial debut, however, contains few laughs. By design. It’s a horror film about college students Rose and Chris, played by Allison Williams and Daniel Kaluuya. Things are getting serious and it’s time to meet the parents. “Do they know I’m black?” he asks. She assures him race is a non-issue as they head to her leafy up-state hometown to meet parents Missy and Dean (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford). After a few days Chris feels uneasy, a sensation compounded by an alarming call from his best friend. “I’ve been doing my research and a whole lot of brothers have gone missing in that suburb,” he says.

Chris wonders if his hosts are

racist and deadly or just racist.

“It’s a horror movie from an African American’s perspective,” Peele told Forbes.com.

While working on the script Peele sought advice from Sean of the Dead director Edgar Wright and other genre filmmakers but says ultimately his career in comedy was the best training to make a horror film.

Making people laugh, he declares, and scaring the pants off them share a similar skill set.

Both are all about pacing, reveals and both must feel like they take place in reality he says.

His love of horror dates back to watching A Nightmare on Elm Street as a teen. It was the first movie that really terrified him.

Since then, he says the first sight of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs really frightened him.

“You come down the hallway, and he’s just waiting for you,” he told the New York Times.

“It’s the protagonist in motion and something waiting for him, patiently and calmly. Those are so chilling to me.”

Get Out isn’t a typical horror film, however. Peele refers to it

as a “social thriller,” a movie that veers away from the Nightmare on Elm Street thrills that made such an impression on him as a teen. Instead the main villain is something more insidious than even the slash-happy Freddy Kruger; it’s racial tension. He says the story is personal but is quick to add it speedily veers off from anything strictly autobiographical. Instead it is an exploration of racism in all its forms he hopes will ultimately be relatable for his audience no matter who they are.

He compares Chris’s anxiety to Sidney Poitier’s classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. In that film parents, played by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, have their attitudes challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé. He says the uncomfortable situation of meeting in-laws for the first time is universal. “The layer of race that enriches and complicates that tension (in the film) becomes relatable,” he told GQ. “It’s made to be an inclusive movie. If you don’t go through the movie with the main character, I haven’t done my job right.”

movie ratings by Richard Crouse Get Out A United Kingdom The Girl with All the Gifts I Am Not Your Negro Dying Laughing

how rating works see it worthwhile up to you skip it

Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, with girlfriend Rose, played by Allison Williams, are the protagonists in Get Out, “a horror movie from an African American’s perspective.” Contributed

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26 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

Movies

Peeling back a new layer on race interview

Jordan Peele is hoping that his horror debut is transformative Sean Plummer

For Metro Canada He may be half of comedy duo Key & Peele, but Jordan Peele just made a horror movie.

Get Out, about a young black man meeting his white girlfriend’s parents, is the biracial Peele’s directorial debut, and, yes, it punches every hot button about race you can imagine.

Did your biracial background inform Get Out? My being mixed, more than anything it offers me a perspective that a lot of people don’t have, and it was a perspective that was very helpful for Keegan [Michael Key] and I when writing Key & Peele.

The reality of being biracial is that in some ways you get to identify as black, in some ways people identify as white. In other ways you don’t get to identify as either. So it’s a perspective that really came in handy with Key & Peele, and I basically applied that aspect to horror. I think it’s just something that has informed my point of view.”

In the trailer, our hero Chris is warned about coming home “all bougie” (bourgeois) after visiting his girlfriend’s parents.

This film actually addresses many social fears and realities about race. One of them is the fairly common fear — I know I have as an African-American — that I’ll

First-time director Jordan Peele calls the performance of Get Out lead actor, Daniel Kaluuya (inset), a ‘tour de force’. contributed

be perceived as a traitor in some way (by fellow AfricanAmericans). That’s just one of the many, very real things this movie deals with or addresses.

How did you come to cast Daniel Kaluuya as Chris?

I had seen Daniel in Black Mirror and Sicario, and he’s just a very special actor. He’s extremely present, he is extremely likeable, and he came in and he absolutely crushed the audition. But

he’s a tour-de-force actor and a total lead.

How important do you feel it is for black audiences to see black heroes up on the movie screen?

It’s enormously important.

The point for me is not to make a movie that is for one segment of the population. Get Out is supposed to work for everybody.

Jordan Peele

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Do you think about how white audiences are going to react?

I give it a lot of thought. The

You have said your goal for this next part of your career is to write and direct horror movies. Is that still the case?

That is the case. I have several ideas [and] scripts that I’m working on. And, yeah, I hope to be part of a movement. I’m committed to horror-thriller.

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that are black.

But (it’s) also (important) for everyone else to go sit in a movie and identify with a protagonist that’s black, see through the eyes of somebody who’s viewing race in this way — in the way, for instance, that I view race. I think that it can be transformative.

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And I think that’s another piece of the conversation that’s been missing is that we haven’t had enough black protagonists, especially in genre films. And it’s extremely important for black people to see protagonists

whole point for me is not to make a movie that is for one segment of the population.

Get Out is supposed to work for everybody. And we’ve done a couple of screenings so far and there’s really no difference to how white people view the movie and how black people view the movie. When people hear the premise, they may think there’s a little bit more of a divide.

But that’s the beauty of story — if the story works, it doesn’t matter who you are.

You’re sitting down in the theatre for that 90 minutes or two hours and you’ll see the world through the eyes of the protagonist. If Get Out does what it is designed to do, it’ll actually be a communal experience and conversation starter.

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Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 27

Movies

Race, through James Baldwin’s eyes analysis

I Am Not Your Negro explores race in America One might regard filmmaker Raoul Peck’s documentary as a case of unfinished business.

Back in 1979, acclaimed author James Baldwin wrote to his literary agent about a plan to write a book linking the lives of three towering figures of the 1960s civil rights movement: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. All three were assassinated, and as noted by Baldwin, never lived to see the age of 40.

Baldwin’s manuscript never got past 30 pages, so Peck, with the full co-operation of the late writer’s estate, uses his perspective as a filmmaker to reimagine and broaden the scope of the project.

The result — hard-hitting and insightful — is a reminder that the more things

MOVIES Peck’s film is ‘revelatory’ Aisha Karefa-Smart, Baldwin’s niece, says Peck’s film, which includes excerpts from the FBI’s extensive file on Baldwin, was revelatory.

“It made me understand my family more in terms of the hushed tones that people spoke in and the unspoken fears that permeated the household.”

At festival screenings, she has watched the film help resurrect her uncle.

Baldwin is widely taught in universities.

The Library of America has published his essays, and stories with introductions from Toni Morrison.

The James Baldwin Re-

change, the more they stay the same.

Using Baldwin’s own words (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) and a range of archival interviews in which we see the man himself, Peck links

view was begun in 2015.

When Chris Rock spoke at a Harlem church on Martin Luther King Day last year, he read My Dungeon Shook, Baldwin’s letter to his nephew.

What many respond to in Baldwin is his searing directness, his willingness to confront the deepseated ills of America and to reposition questions of race.

“The country’s image of the Negro, which hasn’t very much to do with the Negro, has never failed to reflect with a kind of frightening accuracy the state of mind of the country,” he wrote in Nobody Knows My Name. the associated press

the black community’s past struggles for equality to the present day.

We’re reminded of the historic civil rights protests throughout the U.S. South in the 1950s and 1960s and

the raw hatred and ugliness they exposed. That’s juxtaposed with the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer, which reignited the rage of the black community.

There are also photos to remind us of other recent examples of the ongoing violence faced by AfricanAmericans, especially young people like Trayvon Martin, who died in 2012 at the hands of a self-appointed vigilante who was later acquitted of murder by a jury in Florida.

We also learn a good deal about the life of Baldwin himself, a fascinating figure who fled to Europe in 1948 only to return to take up a burden that his race had placed upon him. The FBI took note in 1966, labelling Baldwin both a homosexual and a “dangerous individual.”

Throughout the film, we hear Baldwin’s own eloquent and sorrowful analysis of the race issue that America continues to grapple with. It’s a painful reminder of why groups like Black Lives Matter still matter.

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28 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

Oscars

Barish thanks his lucky Oscar break interview

Collaborations with DuVernay alter course of producer’s path Joe Callaghan

Metro Canada

These are sweet times for Howard Barish. More than three decades after turning away from his family’s iconic ice cream empire to pursue his storytelling dreams, Barish will hear his name read out at the 89th Academy Awards Sunday night.

Hearing it read out a second time as winner would be the cherry on top. But the Canadian producer — nominated for best documentary alongside director Ava DuVernay for 13TH, their searing exploration of race and incarceration in the U.S. — is not getting greedy.

It’s not in his nature.

“I don’t know if I’d say I’m nervous as much as I’m excited,” Barish tells Metro. “I’ve been in the industry a long time and got to do a lot of interesting work but it’s just really, really nice to make it to this level. Not many people get to this point.”

Barish’s journey has been a meandering one. The 57-yearold describes it as “a very, very lucky life with a lot of hard work” thrown in. He wasn’t yet in his teens when his family took Dickie Dee’s, their ice

Canadian producer Howard Barish credits director and friend Ava DuVernay as his inspiration in setting up a film fund for first-time directors. contributed/getty images

cream vending business with its trademark tricycles, from Winnipeg to Toronto in 1971.

It was there where his filmmaking fires were lit.

“My dad had a Super 8 camera that I fell in love

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with,” he says. “I grew up in Thornhill, and Thornhill Secondary School was associated with the local cable access company and they opened up the studios to students in the neighbourhood to produce a television show.

“We had a show called Friday Night Live…this is years before Saturday Night Live, years before MTV. And we had four hours of live airtime to fill where we spun records, had the drama

club put on shows, did talkshows, did call-in stuff…did whatever the heck we could.”

Pastime became passion in York University’s film program and after graduation Barish put in 20-hour days sweeping floors and driving vans to get his foot in the door. He would cut his teeth as an assistant director

at CBC shows before making the move to the U.S. after winning a spot in the green card lottery. Lucky life, remember.

The most significant stroke of luck, however, may have come eight years ago when a publicist with stories she desperately wanted to tell moved into an office in the same building as Barish’s Kandoo Films in L.A. DuVernay is nothing short of a filmmaking revelation.

She first got behind the lens in 2008, yet 13TH’s nomination is her second in the space of three years after Selma’s best picture nod in 2014. “(Kandoo) was a TV and film marketing and advertising (firm),” Barish explains. “Once Ava realized that there was this sandbox of toys in the building, it didn’t take her long to come down and say ‘hey I wrote a script that I want to direct, do you want to help me produce it’? My initial reaction was ‘no, I don’t even know you’.

But it didn’t take long to realize that she’s an incredibly intelligent, articulate woman and first and foremost incredibly passionate.”

Success was swift. The first of their seven collaborations was 2010’s I Will Follow before Middle of Nowhere wowed

Sundance in 2012.

“It had a profound effect on me as I watched this new filmmaker really come to light and explode,” says Barish. “I started to change the projection of my own career, completely.

My business when I met Ava (was) network promos and image campaigns. I have changed that focus and Kandoo Films has now gone out and created a film fund that is going to back emerging filmmakers, give new voices an opportunity to tell stories where ordinarily they might not have got that shot.”

It’s unlikely any story will be as important as the one told so toweringly in 13TH. In deeply unsettling times, the Netflix collaboration has struck a major chord. While it was fully three years in the making, 13TH was released in October as Donald Trump’s ascent to authoritarian power gathered pace on the back of a corrosive, divisive outlook.

13TH’s greatest achievement is how it encapsulates the breadth of America’s history of exploitation and incarceration and rams home the present-day implications with clean precision.

“The statistics to me were horrifying,” Barish says of the prison figures presented throughout. “As I (became) a spokesperson in my little circle for this, people were looking at me like ‘that can’t be true, that can’t be true’. That was when I was thinking ‘Oh my god, there’s information here that we’re going to be sharing that is going to find an audience’.

“These voices should have come to light a long, long time ago.”

CANADIANS IN AWARDS HUNT Gosling at head of queue of invasion across border Howard Barish will be far from alone on Sunday night as an impressive swell of Canadian nominees flood into the Dolby Theatre.

The 89th Academy Awards feature a host of contenders from north of the border.

Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is in the running for eight Oscars including best picture and best director with a host its Canadian crew nominated in design and sound categories.

Montreal production designer Patrice Vermette is among them. It’s his second nomination after a nod for best art direction on 2009’s The Young Victoria.

Vermette, who’s worked with Villeneuve on many of his films, helped come up

with the moody look of the entire movie. That included the pebble-shaped spaceships.

“The spaceship, we decided to do something out of this world because we wanted to do something very alien-looking, very different from what had been done before, to surprise,” said Vermette.

Ryan Gosling (pictured) and La La Land outpaced Arrival with a record-equalling 14 nominations, the Ontario leading man among the favourites to scoop the best actor award.

Canada’s animation revolution is laid bare in the best animated short category where three of the five nominees — Montreal’s Theodore Ushev for Blind Vaysha, Vancouver animator Robert Valley for Pear

Cider and Cigarettes and Alan Barillaro of Chippawa, Ont., for Piper. — have strong Canadian ties.

“Good talent can thrive anywhere and I’m not surprised at all to see this,” Barish says of his fellow nominees from north of the border. “I got involved in the Canadian film industry a long time ago when the Americans were first coming up and for me they provided a great training ground.

“I think with the way technology has evolved, it’s a global industry now so I don’t think it matters where you are now, talent rises to the top.”” joe callaghan/metro

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 29

Oscars

No end to Monae’s hidden talents

interview

Movie rookie is one of biggest surprises of Oscar season The journey from pop star to serious thespian is littered with casualties. For every Mark Wahlberg or Justin Timberlake, there are big-name hitmakers whose movie careers stalled with dubious and disappointing results.

Which is just one reason why Janelle Monae’s magical movie ride is so noteworthy. The Grammy-nominated performer made her acting debut last year with two films — and both are nominated for best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

She first wowed critics in her small but pivotal role in Moonlight as Teresa, the nurturing girlfriend of a drug dealer who befriends an introverted, impoverished boy who senses he is different.

But her biggest breakout would come with Hidden Figures, portraying one of three pioneering black women at NASA whose contributions to the space race were critical, but overlooked by

history. As engineer Mary Jackson, Monae shows a depth and range that wowed critics and proved she could hold her own along a star-studded cast.

Though Monae may be one of the biggest surprises of the Oscar season, the 31-year-old sees her acting ascension as part of her natural progression as an artist (she studied acting for years).

“I always did both, and I consider myself not just an actor or a musician or singer, but an artist-storyteller, and my hope is to continue to tell untold, unique universal stories in unforgettable ways,” said Monae.

Monae’s career so far has certainly been unforgettable. Her albums — a captivating mix of funk, psychedelic soul, R&B and pop — have been critically lauded, and her electric stage presence recalls James Brown or Prince, who was a close friend and mentor. She’s a CoverGirl spokeswoman and a fashion muse known for her eclectic style: On this day, her hair was dotted with eye ornaments.

Space permeated Monae’s artistic world long before Hidden Figures — her alter ego was a futuristic android Cindi Mayweather, and on her last album, she paid tribute to Sally Ride, the

Janelle Monae’s first two films are both nominated for a best picture Oscar. the associated press

first American woman to travel in space. She even dreamed of being an astronaut.

“I’ve been obsessed with space and sci-fi . I was obsessed and still am with Mae Jemison,” she said of the first black woman in space. And yet Monae was unaware of the story of Jackson or the other central characters in

Hidden Figures.

Jackson was one of the black female “human computers” working for NASA in the segregated South; while the main character, Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) was responsible for the mathematical formula that launched John Glenn into orbit, Jackson peti-

tioned and won her case to study engineering at an all-white school to further her career at NASA. “I thought it was a fictitious story,” she said. “Once I found out that these women in fact did exist, and they did contribute to the space race and were an integral part of helping us win the space race, I wanted to

make sure that no other young boy or girl or American, human being, went through life without knowing these phenomenal, brilliant-minded women.”

Monae was cast as Jackson after the Oscar-nominated Henson and Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer (up for another Oscar for her portrayal of Dorothy Vaughan) were on board.

“We auditioned everyone, and we were having a hard time finding someone who had the fire of Mary Jackson,” said director Theodore Melfi. “Then in walks Janelle and I think she was burning up inside herself. She’s such an activist and such a passionate and strong woman.”

Monae’s advocacy also spills outside her art. She was one of the performers at the Women’s March in Washington a month ago, and has been outspoken in her support of gay rights, Black Lives Matter and other causes.

Her next project could be her own script: Monae envisions science fiction movies where black people play the leads, and stories about other hidden figures in African-American history.

“I feel empowered to continue writing and telling the stories that I feel we so desperately need,” she said. the associated press

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30 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

Movies

Oscars so black but it still needs work movies

Oscars noms spotlighted best movies, not race After two years of intense public scrutiny over the academy’s all-white acting nominations, the 2017 Oscar nominees are as diverse a group as the organization has ever seen, thanks to films like Moonlight, Fences, Hidden Figures and Loving.

It’s been cause for celebration, but also for reflection and heightened scrutiny of areas where there is still work to be done. And there are some in the industry who wonder whether the rich diversity of this year’s Oscars is a blip, a sign of progress, or some complicated combination of the two. Then there’s the matter of who will ultimately win on Sunday night.

The landmark nominations are undeniable, especially in the acting categories. It’s the first time ever that each has at least one black nominee.

Denzel Washington (Fences) is up for best actor, Mahershala

Ali (Moonlight) for best supporting actor, Ruth Negga (Loving) is a best actress contender, and, in another first, the best supporting actress category includes three black nominees (Naomie Harris, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer).

There were strides made behind the camera as well. Bradford Young became the first African American to be nominated for cinematography for Arrival. Moonlight editor Joi McMillon is the first black female nominee in that category.

There are also four black directors whose documentaries were nominated, three of which are about race.

It might lead one to think that #OscarsSoWhite is a thing of the past ­— eradicated through public outcries and an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences membership shake-up in which 683 new faces were invited to join with an emphasis on diversity.

In reality, however, the nominations are the result of a messy confluence of factors that don’t lend themselves to a simple narrative — ­ not to mention the fact that diversity doesn’t end with black and white.

“One year does not make up for over 80 years of a lack of representation of black people in the film industry,” Reign said.

She never intended #OscarsSoWhite to just be about black nominees, either, or even race. Instead, it was meant to shine a light on all underrepresented communities in films.

And while much has been made of the breadth of the academy’s efforts, David Poland, editor of MovieCityNews.com, has estimated that in the end, there were fewer than 50 new black members and just over 30 new female members inducted. (The academy does release specific information about membership.) He and others have questioned the idea that this year’s nominations are a result of those changes.

“The diversity of the nominees is 100 per cent a function of the films that were released this year,” Poland said. “It is wonderful that these films were recognized this season . but not because they were ‘of colour,’ but because they are excellent movies ... It is, in reality, insulting to the films that are about or made by people of colour that they will get in or have gotten in based on the issue of race.”

April Reign originally coined #OscarsSoWhite. GETTY images

Conflating the protest with the accolades is a double edged sword for many, especially those involved in the films.

It’s one thing to recognize correlation. It’s another to assume causation.

“I’m hoping it’s not a trend,” Viola Davis said. “I’m hoping it’s not something based on a hashtag. It is something based on the natural fabric of what America is and what America now wants to see.”

Also, as nominated “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins points out, many of the films responsible for the diversity this year were in the works before OscarsSoWhite.

“Most of these films started a few years ago - four years ago, five years ago - not as a response to what happened last year, but as a response to the lack of these voices,” Jenkins said.

“I have no doubt that next year we’ll be here this time of year and it’ll be the same thing ... we’re not going away.”

To be fair, Reign, too, doesn’t believe that anyone was nominated because of a hashtag, or that any of the films were made in response. Ultimately what the hashtag did, like all effective protest movements, is raise awareness and consciousness around representation and, possibly, the films.

But the Oscars litmus test is a shallow one for some. Oscar nominations (and even wins) are simply a last stage reflection of the industry at large and what films actually get made and put into the marketplace.

It’s telling that most of the best picture nominees started as independent films.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Entertainment

Hurt Bae exes talk viral fame online

Six-minute vid dissects her hurt and his cheating ways What does a truly nasty breakup get you? Internet fame, for some, or is it more like notoriety?

It’s a little bit of both for Kourtney Jorge and Leonard Long III, 23-year-old exes who sat for an on-camera interview in a video that went viral after the Conde Nast Entertainment site The Scene dropped it on Valentine’s Day. The edited six minutes and 30 seconds of their hour-and-a-half standoff had the two dissecting HIS cheating ways and HER tearful willingness to hang on and wait, patiently, for an apology that eventually comes.

The stone-faced Long, currently keeping a low profile, has been trashed on social media as the devil himself in the aftermath.

Jorge had her Instagram account

hacked and a bogus fundraiser started on her behalf via a fake Twitter account, along with thousands of messages, mostly in support.

“We never thought it would get so big. It’s really shocking to both of us and kind of overwhelming,” Jorge said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “I think the video gave me a lot of closure with our relationship.

I’ve moved on.”

Lauren Lumsden, digital director of The Scene, said Wednesday it all started last year, when the site put out a casting call for former couples wounded by cheating as the first in an original series titled Broken. To put it succinctly, Lumsden summed up the phenom: “It’s been insane.”

On camera, a soft-spoken Jorge asks him why he cheated: “What did you do?” To which Long responds: “I had sex with other girls. I did everything.”

Ultimately, Jorge, an aspiring model and actress with a day job as an office assistant, concludes she was “stupid,” young and inexperienced (Long was her first

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Long, on the other hand, explained his behaviour this way in the video: “It had more to do with me just not being able to commit because at the time I really didn’t want to. ... You did everything that you needed to do to be a good girlfriend and I was lucky to have someone like you.

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Movies

Fresh zombies are giving humanity plenty to chew on

In The Girl With All the Gifts, Gemma Arterton plays a teacher who tries ot nurture child zombie Sennia Nanua; the pair hit it off during filming (inset). CONTRIBUTED

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There are as many kinds of cinematic zombies as there are zombie movies. From George A. Romero’s lumbering brain eaters and the fast-moving fleshbags of 28 Days Later to the undead hordes of World War Z and The Crazies’ sentient creepers, the only thing that binds them is an voracious urge to eat their living counterparts and, these days, an almost unrivalled popularity with horror fans.

It seems when the world is in turmoil people turn to zombies as an outlet for their apocalyptic anxieties. A new British film, The Girl With All the Gifts, borrows from Romero, 28 Days Later and even from The Walking Dead and yet its mix of social commentary, zippy zombies and exploding skulls doesn’t feel like a re-tread.

“The zombie metaphor is humanity eating itself,” says star Gemma Arterton. “This film extends that because it gives zombies, or hungries as we call them, intelligence, empathy, love and the ability to fend for themselves in a more developed way.

“This film is poignant now, coming out now post Brexit. It feels quite relevant.”

Arterton plays Helen Justineau, teacher of a group of children infected by a zombifying disease but still capable of advanced thought. In the search for a cure these kids are studied at a remote English army base.

Helen has bonded with one remarkable child, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), a youngster as lethal as the others but possessed of superior intelligence and charm.

When the base is overrun by “hungries” Helen, Melanie and two others escape but not before the child shows her true colours.

“I did something bad,” she says. “I ate bits of the soldiers.”

With the help of the world-weary Sgt. Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) they make their way to London.

“If you talk to Mike Carey who wrote the book and the screenplay,” says Arterton, who broke out as an MI6 field agent in 2008’s Bond hit Quantum of Solace, “you’ll find he’s not only a great raconteur but he really knows what’s going on with science and politics and he mixes the two together. It is such interesting conversation. He’s obviously a big geek but in a really factual way.”

A case in point, Arterton says, is the virus that lies at the centre of the film.

“The disease, the fungal infection is actually something that exists. There is a colony of ants in South America that have Ophiocordyceps unilateralis,” she explains, diving into the science. “It’s a fungal infection that infects them from the inside and then they sprout and turn into a different type of ant. Then those ants will eat the other ants to survive.

“These things happen in nature. Nature is such a strong force. I love that in this film you can see nature taking back the planet.

“We actually used some shots from Chornobyl as the London skyline because Chornobyl is this abandoned city that is completely overgrown now. We might die, but nature will be fine.”

Helmed by Scottish director Colm McCarthy in his first feature-length production, The Girl with All the Gifts asks difficult questions about the price of survival, capping off the story with chilling words that may — or may not — alleviate lingering zombie phobia.

“It’s not all over,” says Melanie, “it’s just not yours anymore.”

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 33

Oscars

Who’ll be best of the very best?

It’s supposed to be easy this year: La La Land dances away with gold. That’s what the oddsmakers say. But, as ever, nothing can be taken for granted on Oscars night. Here are our picks for who will/should win. PETER HOWELL/TORSTAR

best picture

best DIREctor

Will: La La Land or Moonlight Could: Hidden Figures Should: Moonlight Why: The safe money is supposedly on La La Land to win, but I consider this category too close to call. Moonlight’s unique coming-of-age story has so much resonance to modern times, I’m thinking — hoping — that the Academy will go for it. And Hidden Figures just might surprise everybody, much like Spotlight did last year.

Will: Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) or Damien Chazelle, (La La Land) Could: Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) Should: Barry Jenkins Why: If voters go La La Land for best picture, then I think they’ll choose Jenkins for best director, which would significantly make him the first African-American director to win this honour. And if they choose Moonlight for Best Picture, then Chazelle for Best Director.

best actress

best ACTOR

Will: Emma Stone (La La Land) Could: Natalie Portman (Jackie) or Isabelle Huppert (Elle) Should: Natalie Portman Why: Front-runner Stone is all set to be the belle of the Oscars with her enchanting performance. But the inner fortitude Portman displayed as the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy impressed me more. Huppert is long overdue for an Oscar and a win is possible and deserved. Ruth Negga (Loving) and Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins) would also be worthy winners.

Will: Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) Could: Denzel Washington (Fences) Should: Casey Affleck Why: Affleck and Washington each play tortured souls in their respective roles of defeated family men. Affleck’s performance was bone deep and truly memorable; Washington’s was solid yet showy.

But Denzel is a two-time Oscar champ and he won at SAG this year, so this may be a Casey at the Bat story — and you know what happened to that other Casey.

best supporting actress

best supporting actor

Will: Viola Davis (Fences) Could: Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea) Should: Naomie Harris (Moonlight) Why: This is the easiest Oscar to call and the toughest to endorse. Davis will win for her tremendous performance, although it’s arguably category fraud: she really should be up for best actress. Williams defines strong support with her brief Manchester scenes, including one showstopper that breaks all hearts. But Harris exceeds all stereotypes with her moving portrayal.

Will: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) Could: Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water) Should: Mahershala Ali Why: AAli has been the obvious hoice here ever since he first wowed audiences at TIFF and other fall festivals with his deeply affecting and stereotype-busting portrayal of a fatherly drug dealer in Moonlight. It will be a huge upset if he loses — but if he does, the prize would likely go to Jeff Bridges for his wily lawman character of Hell or High Water.

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‘Please try to park the politics outside’ Jen St. Denis

Metro | Vancouver Maybe we’d just like the Oscars to be a little shorter.

As Canadians prepare to tune in to the cultural stalwart that manages to bore and entertain in equal measures, a new poll shows that just over half of us would like award recipients to resist the temptation to make political statements.

The online survey conducted by Angus Reid Institute shows that while 61 per cent of Canadians think it’s OK for celebrities and athletes to publicly express their political views, 55 per cent said they oppose using awards show for that purpose.

“There is support for people in the public eye using their activism … on social media or in the protest movement,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute.

“But when it comes to the moment, whether it’s picking up an award that’s related to the arts or entertainment

Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech took direct aim at Donald Trump.

Associated press file

community, or moments when all eyes are on athletes at big games, clearly there is a distinction in the minds of our respondents that say in that moment make it about that moment.”

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Your essential daily news

Fans crowdfunding $1.25M for lighting bolt sculpture to commorate David Bowie in London

Met offers exercise amid art performance

MetLiveArts hosting classes three years in the making New York City’s cavernous Metropolitan Museum of Art has been holding lively morning workout sessions this winter amid its prized masterpieces.

The 45-minute Museum Workout sends people in exercise attire chugging through 35 galleries, past paintings, sculptures, armour and other treasures, before the venerable Fifth Avenue institution opens to the public.

On a recent morning, an overnight snowstorm didn’t deter the 15 people who’d signed up for the session.

It started with a warmup: calf stretches in the museum’s grand limestone entrance and an easy jog out to the Bee Gees’ hit Stayin’ Alive. Then came the speedy trek through the galleries and up the preserved ornate staircase of the 19th century Chicago stock exchange.

There were squats in front of John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X, balancing on one leg before Henry VIII’s rigid armour, a yoga pose before a bronze nude of the Roman hunting goddess Diana, and jumping jacks inbetween, all to a soundtrack of disco and Motown hits.

Why bother travelling to a Manhattan museum — some did, from Pennsylvania, Kentucky and even California — just to exercise?

“This offers you amazing mo-

An exercise group lies in a yoga post at the feet of a bronze statue of Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt. the associated press

ments,” said participant Oliver Ryan, who runs a New York corporate wellness company. “We did our first stretch, and there in the vast gallery was Perseus holding the head of Medusa.

What hit me was this was the TV of ancient times, a frozen moment from a story everyone knew.”

The Met commissioned the innovative Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company for the project.

It was choreographed by the two women leading the workout — Monica Bill Barnes herself and her dance partner, Anna Bass — along with Robert Saenz de Viteri, the company’s creative producing director.

Bass said the team worked “obsessively” calculating how to keep a safe distance from the artworks. That means no wild swinging of arms or legs, and exercising a minimum of three feet or so from any treasure.

Leading scantily clad, pumped up bodies around the artworks “really runs against the culture

of being in a museum, being quiet and being still and walking slowly,” said Barnes.

“We’re in the business of making strange things,” she added with a wry smile, “bringing dance where it doesn’t belong.”

De Viteri helped guide the workout session in a vintage tuxedo and sneakers, holding a

laptop attached to a speaker that channeled music and recorded narration by artist and author Maira Kalman, who selected the art and gallery route.

“Something very physical happens to me when I’m in a museum. I get this rush of excitement, this kind of tingle of mad, passionate arousal,” Kalman’s recorded voice said as the group did side-stretches in front of a stern-looking bust of Benjamin Franklin.

The workout ends with everyone lying on their back, eyes closed, on the floor of the Met’s luminous American wing. This yoga pose, called savasana, is meant to release tension from mind and body while absorbing the benefits of the dynamic exercises. Rising over the human stillness is Augustus SaintGaudens’ ancient goddess — the resplendent, gilded Diana, about to release her arrow.

The first sessions, from Jan. 19 through Feb. 12, were sold out months ago. The interest was so intense that more were added, through March 9, and they’re also sold out. Participants, both men and women, have ranged in age from 13 to 85.

Museum officials say there are no immediate plans for a future staging of what is essentially a “performance piece” that took three years to create, with each participant movement matching music and visuals moment by moment.

The Museum Workout was commissioned by the museum’s MetLiveArts performance series and partly funded by the Jerome Robbins Foundation and One World Fund. the associated press

travel notes zoo celebrates birth of calf, residents fret over reality series and fashion wows at exhibit Zoo welcomes calf

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore has announced the first birth of a giraffe at the zoo in more than 20 years.

The female reticulated giraffe was born Feb. 6 to 4-year-old Juma and 11-year-old Caesar. After her first veterinary exam, officials say the calf is healthy.

She’s 6-feet 1-inch tall and weighs about 125 pounds.

The giraffe house will remain closed while Juma and the calf bond. the associated press

Jersey Shore redux

Calf shown with mother giraffe Juma. the associated press

Residents of the New Jersey shore town stung by MTV’s Jersey Shore are wary about plans for a new reality show.

The planned show is tentatively titled I Love Summer, and would follow roommates who work on the beach during the day and at The Bamboo Bar in Seaside Heights at night.

Borough administrator Christopher Vaz says the town won’t support a series that depicts Seaside Heights negatively. the associated press

What is wearable?

Reisdents worry about new Jersey Shore series. handout

Art and fashion collide at the U.S. premiere of WOW - World of Wearable Art show at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

WOW features looks you’d expect to see on Lady Gaga There’s a flamingo pink frock made of Fiberglas, a onepiece wooden replica of Notre Dame Cathedral and 30 other wild and whimsical outfits.

WOW — World of Wearable Art opens Saturday and runs through June 11. the associated press

Inkling by Gillian Saunders at WOW. the associated press

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 35

Tarantulas, scorpions greet visitors victoria

IF YOU GO

Creepy crawlies are the main attraction at B.C. bug zoo Hairy-legged tarantulas and pointy-tailed scorpions send chills of fear through most people, but at the Victoria Bug Zoo they are as friendly as newborn kittens and will rest in the palm of your hand.

The downtown mini zoo offers visitors an up-close-andpersonal view of live tropical bugs from around the world.

It also shatters long-held fears about deadly spider bites and stings as glow-in-the-dark scorpions and tarantulas the size of tennis balls are available to calmly interact with visitors.

“It felt OK,” said Sally Millis of Brisbane, Australia, after she held a Chilean rose hair tarantula. “But I wouldn’t be holding it anywhere else.”

The bug zoo has about 50 species of insects, including giant walking sticks, robot-like praying mantises and Canada’s largest ant colony, where the ever-

Information for visitors The Victoria Bug Zoo is located at 631 Courtney St. and is open seven days a week. Admission is $12 for adults, $8 children, students and seniors. Children under age four are free.

For more information, visitvictoriabugzoo.ca.

busy creatures travel through a series of interconnected seethrough plastic pipes.

Tour guides are on hand to introduce visitors to the world of bugs and provide safe spider, cockroach and beetle handling experiences for the more adventurous. But it’s adults only when it comes to handling some of the more exotic and fragile spiders.

Biologist Jaymie Chudiak said she has become known as the zoo’s bug whisperer for her skills in assessing the personalities and friendliness of every bug or spider that visitors will

Head biologist Jaymie Chudiak holds a Dead Leaf Mantis at the Victoria Bug Zoo in Victoria, B.C. Right: A visitor looks over deceased species of butterflies and spiders. the canadian press

meet. “I vet them for gentleness and ease of handling,” she said.

Chudiak said most of the spiders are calm and easily adapt to human interactions, but some are cranky.

She said Hazel, a large Mexican red knee tarantula, is “little moody at times.”

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“She gets super excited,” said Chudiak. “I’ve actually played tug-of-war with her. She’ll grab onto the feeding tongs and not let go.”

Hazel appeared to be in a particularly testy mood on a recent visit, standing almost upright in a fighting pose for

several minutes.

Chudiak said the spiders bite and are venomous, but even though their bites will hurt, they don’t possess enough venom to kill or serious hurt a person.

The bug zoo, open since 1997, had about 50,000 visitors last

year. School field trips are a major source of customers, but the zoo is also always full on school holidays.

Jordan Krushen, general manager of the facility, said adults are also fascinated by the bugs, spiders and insects at the zoo.

He said the zoo hosted an after-hours Valentine’s Day event aimed at bug lovers.

The age 19-plus gathering, “Sex on Six Legs,” explored the mating habits of many different arthropods, he said.

Guides were on hand to discuss the sex habits of bugs, including nuptial gifts and traumatic insemination, Krushen said.

THE CANADIAN PRESS

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36 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 dutch painting

Exhibition at the Louvre paints Vermeer as a borrower His luminous strokes produced masterpieces like Girl with a Pearl Earring.

But Vermeer, the unique jewel in Dutch painting’s crown, copied ideas from his contemporaries like every other artist, argues a new major exhibit at the Louvre Museum in Paris that opened Wednesday.

Five years in the making, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting presents a third of the Dutch Golden Age master’s complete opus to the public. It is the biggest such collection of the old master’s work in Europe in almost two decades.

It shows that, however revolutionary some elements of his paintings were, Vermeer also heavily borrowed from his rivals.

“In a way, Vermeer is not very original because he picks ideas from different contemporaries.

His themes are very classical — music-making, lacemaking — that’s been done before,” curator Blaise Ducos said on Tuesday during a preview of the show.

Ducos said the genius of Vermeer, who died at 43 and produced just 36 paintings, can be seen in how he transformed rehashed themes and techniques.

“He has a distinct, specific psychology. I think there is a mood in Vermeer that you do not find in other paintings,” Ducos said.

Vermeer’s 12 oil paintings in the show, including The Milkmaid on loan from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, are hung side-

by-side with 58 similar works by his 17th-century rivals such as Gerrit Dou and Garard ter Borch.

The exhibit also aims to dispel the widely-held belief that Vermeer was sedentary and seldom left the Dutch town of Delft.

“The show here presents another story ... all the refined paintings here prove that he must have been in touch directly with other paintings and other painters, so both in studios and collectors’ mansions,” said Ducos. “He must have travelled inside the Netherlands.”

The exhibit runs to May 22 at the Louvre and will travel to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in the fall. the associated press

A visitor takes a picture of the painting The Milkmaid by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer at the exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting at the Louvre museum. getty images

TRAVEL BRIEFS Digital graffiti used to deter vandalism in Florence Florence’s famed Duomo is cleaning up its act, removing centuries of graffiti from the cathedral dome interior and letting visitors leave their mark digitally instead.

A pilot project launched last year in the Giotto-designed bell tower to allow visitors to use a touchscreen to leave a digital message rather than deface the 14th-century structure.

To date some 18,000 digital messages have been left.

The project was such a success that cathedral administration said it was extending the project to Brunelleschi’s dome that dominates the Tuscan city. the associated press

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The 168 MLB players eligible for arbitration averaged a 113 per cent raise with Wil Myers landing the biggest pay increase ($523,900-$13.8 million)

Manitoba leaning on Englot’s experience

cfl

Trailblazing pivot Custis dies at 88 All Bernie Custis wanted was the chance to be a pro quarterback, but to Damon Allen he will always be a football pioneer.

Custis, pro football’s first black quarterback who blazed the trail for future CFL stars like Allen, Warren Moon and Chuck Ealey, died Thursday. He was 88.

Custis made pro football history Aug. 29, 1951, when he became a starter with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. It came after he was denied the opportunity to play the position with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.

“During Bernie’s time, they could actually lock the door and keep you from actually participating,” Allen said. “I got the chance to walk through a hallway (because) they couldn’t lock the door, the door was already open because of Bernie.

Curling

Veteran skips team to No. 1 playoff seed Michelle Englot was recruited precisely for this situation.

Short on previous playoff experience at the Canadian women’s curling championship, Manitoba will lean on a woman who has been there, done that.

The Manitobans claimed the top playoff seed beating Ontario’s Rachel Homan 9-5 on Thursday night in St. Catharines, Ont. Both 10-1 to conclude their preliminary rounds, Englot and Homan meet again Friday night in a playoff game.

“We’re playing them again.

Fun times,” Englot said.

The winner goes directly to Sunday’s final, while the loser must win Saturday’s semifinal to gain a rematch.

Defending champion Chelsea Carey, 8-2, gained a playoff spot with a game remaining against Alberta.

Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville, 7-3, needs a win over Kerry Galusha of Northwest Territories on Friday morning to get into the final four. A loss drops her into a tiebreaker with Quebec’s Eve Belisle (7-4).

The winner of Saturday afternoon’s playoff between Carey and the team to be determined advances to the semifinal.

Manitoba third Kate Cameron, 25, is making her Hearts debut in St. Catharines. Front end Leslie Wilson, 37, and Raunora Westcott, 40, played in it for Cathy Overton-Clapham in 2011 and Jill Thurston in 2010.

The closest Wilson and Westcott came to playoffs was losing

“When you look at it that way, you have to give that kind of respect and honour to the pioneers before you.”

Ealey, who Bernie Custis arrived in Torstar News Hamilton in Service file 1972 after being bypassed by the NFL despite a brilliant tenure at Toledo, echoed Allen’s sentiments.

“Bernie was a total gentleman, very respectful and humble,” Ealey said. “He never used it as a framework to say, ‘I was the first black quarterback to come to Canada,’ or anything like that.

“It was more, ‘We’re all here, great, we got the opportunity.’”

THE CANADIAN PRESS

IN BRIEF

Skip Michelle Englot and her Manitoba rink went 10-1 in the round robin, which included a 9-5 victory over Ontario’s Rachel Homan on Thursday night. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

a tiebreaker in 2010. ber — did that in the preliminEnglot, 53, skipped Saskatch- ary round. ewan to the playoffs twice in “She’s patient, she’s calm,” seven appearances. She finished Cameron said. “If I miss a third in both shot, she’s ‘no 1988 and 1989. worries Kate.’

“Back in ’88 There’s no anand ’89, we ger.

She can really “I’m more of didn’t really realize how big this guide my team to a fiery player is,” Englot said. stay calm in those than she is, so “Now, we know for each other high-pressure how big this is, we bring out the situations. but yet, in the best in that way. same breath we She can really Kate Cameron need to stay the guide my team course, stay relaxed and stay to stay calm in those high-presfocused.” sure situations.”

The Regina resident — CurlEnglot knows from experiing Canada allows each team to ence how difficult it is to win have one out-of-province mem- your province and get to the

Canadian championship. She’s revelled in her new team’s performance both in Manitoba playdowns and in St. Catharines.

“This has been a really fantastic fairy-tale year,” the skip said. “This year has been more exciting for me just because I know the team is super-talented and we have the opportunity to be at the top.

“We know if we play well we can definitely compete with any team in the world, so we’re looking forward to the playoffs.”

Manitoba dominated Ontario in the round-robin finale for both teams, scoring four in the first end and stealing singles in the fourth and fifth to open up a 7-2 lead. The Canadian Press

Islanders put damper on Habs coach’s 1,000th game Rookie Anthony Beauvillier scored in the first period and Thomas Greiss made 24 saves as the New York Islanders spoiled Montreal coach Claude Julien’s 1,000th NHL game with a 3-0 victory over the Canadiens on Thursday night. The Canadian Press

Foxes fire manager Ranieri Claudio Ranieri was fired as the manager of Leicester on Thursday, nine months after guiding the club to the most improbable title triumph in Premier League history.

Leicester is a point above the relegation zone after 25 games of a woeful title defence. The Associated Press

Peterson’s relationship with Vikings on the rocks Time is running out for Adrian Peterson and the Vikings to work out a way for the venerable running back to stay in Minnesota.

With the increasing likelihood of a split after 10 seasons together, the two sides have not spoken yet about a path to a future if there’s even a mutual desire for it.

Oakley takes in Knicks game in Cleveland Charles Oakley watched his former team in his hometown Thursday night.

The Cleveland native sat next to Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert as the Knicks played the defending NBA champions.

The former power forward attended his first Knicks game since being arrested at Madison Square Garden earlier this month.

the associated press

The Associated Press

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38 Weekend, February 24-26, 2017

Basketball, soccer provide escape for Syrian children Refugees

let their children play outside in the crowded alleys of Beirut’s poorer neighbourhoods, where most of the refugees live.

The month-long Hoops program provides a safe environment where the children can Every Sunday, the gymnasium blow off steam, as well as learn along Beirut’s airport highway self-confidence and teamwork. echoes with the shouting and “They come back home laughter of dozens of Syrian and they’re too tired to fight,” children enjoying a rare escape smiles Fatima Tayjan, a refugee from a grim and confined life from the Syrian city of Aleppo in exile. who has enrolled three of her The Sport 4 Development four children in the program. program, run When her by the UN chilfamily of six redren’s agency, turns home to aims to bring their crowded Children won’t 12,000 chiltwo-bedroom dren, mostly necessarily express apartment, the Syrian refugees, themselves unless children have “released all to blacktops you give them an their energy and turf pitches this year to outlet, and sports and they are to talk teach the basics are an excellent ready of soccer and to each other,” medium to do so. she said. basketball, and to ease the pain M a r a m Maher Nakib, al-Malwa, a of war and disHoops Lebanon placement.

17-year-old paid “We try to get them out of volunteer who came up in the their stressful environments program, recalls her own feeland the frights that they’ve ings of isolation when she and lived through,” said Maher Na- her family fled from Aleppo to kib, 40, the technical director Lebanon five years ago. “It was of Hoops Lebanon, the sports a new country, even a new acassociation behind the project. cent,” she said.

Of the one million Syrian But now she is irrepressible, refugees the UN says are liv- rising on the balls of her feet ing in Lebanon, more than half when she speaks and helping are under 18 years old. Syr- coaches reach through to chilians here face legal and other dren in the group activities. forms of discrimination, and She is one of a handful of the many parents are hesitant to children pulled aside for a six-

Sports help ease pain of displacement

ABOVE: Syrian refugee girls play basketball in Beirut, Lebanon.

LEFT: Syrian refugee boys scream during a soccer training session.

Hussein Malla/The Associated Press

month mentorship on leadership and coaching.

“You grow, you experience victories, setbacks, you learn to fight for yourself, and you become more confident,” she said.

Staffers are trained to identify struggling children, those who lash out and those who retreat into their shells. Psycholo-

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gists meet with parents weekly to discuss healthy relationships and domestic violence.

The group sessions often bring to light domestic disputes, learning disabilities or experiences of sexual violence.

The children are then referred to specialized non-governmental organizations for further support.

On a recent Sunday, the children lined up to dribble through cones, shoot layups and learn cheers and stretches.

“You see a lot of cases of shyness or stubbornness, and you immediately see them change when they’re here,” al-Malwa said. “I feel like I’m responsible, like I’m in charge of a group.” The Associated Press

IN BRIEF Islanders spoil Julien’s 1,000 game with Habs Rookie Anthony Beauvillier scored in the first period and Thomas Greiss made 24 saves as the New York Islanders spoiled Montreal coach Claude Julien’s 1,000th NHL game with a 3-0 victory over the Canadiens on Thursday.

Anders Lee also scored and John Tavares added an empty-net goal for the Islanders (29-21-10), who won a third straight game and are 12-4-2 since Doug Weight replaced Jack Capuano as coach. Greiss’ shutout was his third of the season. The Canadian Press Raps trade for help on wing The Toronto Raptors have acquired guard/forward P.J. Tucker from the Phoenix Suns for forward Jared Sullinger and two secondround draft picks.

The deal gives Toronto depth at the wing position that was depleted when Terrence Ross was sent to Orlando last week in the trade that brought power forward Serge Ibaka to the Raptors. The Canadian Press Rookies Gribble, Wesley share Honda Classic lead Cody Gribble and Wesley Bryan returned to PGA National on Thursday under far different circumstances.

They are rookies on the PGA Tour, not trying to get through the grind of Web. com Tour qualifying. And they both shot 6-under 64 to share the early lead at the Honda Classic. the associated press

Weekend, February 24-26, 2017 39

YESTERDAY’S ANSWERS on page 37 make it tonight

Crossword Canada Across and Down

Creamy Broccoli and Cheese Soup photo: Maya Visnyei

Ceri Marsh & Laura Keogh

For Metro Canada A generous serving of cheddar gives this vegetarian soup a satisfying creaminess.

Ready in 35 minutes Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 25 minutes Serves 4 Ingredients • 4 cups broccoli florets and stem (cut off tough ends) chopped fairly small • 1 onion chopped • 2 cups chopped, peeled potato • 2 cloves garlic minced • 1 glug olive oil • 4 cups stock (vegetable or chicken, low sodium) • 1 1/2 cups milk • 1 cup grated cheddar • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

• salt and pepper to taste Directions 1. Sauté onion and garlic in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy-bottomed pot for about 5 minutes until soft.

2. Add vegetables and stock and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

3. In small batches, ladle the broth and vegetables into your blender and purée.

Pour each batch into a bowl as you go. Pour the puree back into your pot.

4. Over medium heat add milk and cheese and stir until the cheese melts. Add salt and pepper to taste.

for more meal ideas, VISIT sweetpotatochronicles.com

Across 1. Analyze 6. Sit-ups targets 9. Prepare mentally 14. ‘-Z’ Camaro models 15. Six: Italian 16. Writer Charles’ bookish surname 17. Oscars 2017! Canadian nominee in the ‘Short Film (Animated)’ category, “__ __ and Cigarettes” (2016) 19. Comic strip, Li’l __ 20. “...__ __ tete, Alouette...”

21. Movie __ 22. Dietary letters 23. Certain conifer: 2 wds.

25. Oscars 2017!

Shine on the red carpet: 3 wds.

29. Appears, like an online ad: 2 wds.

31. Tick __...

32. Gov. agents 35. Three: Italian 36. Obi accessory 37. Oscars 2017! In SciFi flick “Arrival” (2016), Amy Adams’ character, a linguistics professor, translates it: 2 wds.

41. Lines giver 42. Standard stat.

43. Genetic messengers, commonly 44. Twice’s half 45. Conforming, __ the line 48. Oscars 2017! Do this to experience the show from home: 2 wds.

50. Regina-born actor Leslie 55. Mattel product

56. Oscars 2017! __., Feb. 26th 57. Virginia willow 58. Oscars 2017! Be part of the movie’s cast: 2 wds.

61. Oscars 2017! Gala party catered by Wolfgang Puck, __ Ball 63. Ring up

64. Yalie 65. Hair dye brand 66. Like lemons 67. Albanian currency 68. Genuflect

Down 1. Oscars 2017! Canadian filmmaker Alan Barillaro’s nominated work in the category at #17-Across 2. Mountain ridge 3. Writer Mr. Dahl 4. Combat 5. Keyboard key

It’s all in The Stars Your daily horoscope by Francis Drake Aries March 21 - April 20 This is a marvelous day to schmooze with others. Enjoy the company of friends, and in particular, enjoy the company of groups.

People are warmhearted today.

Taurus April 21 - May 21 You look good to others today.

In part, people see that you are ready to show your affection for others, and they like this. (Of course they do — everyone wants to be loved and appreciated.)

Gemini May 22 - June 21 Travel for pleasure will appeal to you today. This also is a good day to mingle with people from different backgrounds and other cultures.

Cancer June 22 - July 23 It will be easy to take part in discussions about inheritances and shared property today, because people are in a good mood. In addition, they feel cooperative and generous. (That’s all you need.)

Leo July 24 - Aug. 23 Relations with others are very positive today. Entertain at home.

Don’t hesitate to let others know how much you care for them.

Virgo Aug. 24 - Sept. 23 This is a good day at work because coworkers are supportive. You also might see ways to make your workspace look and feel more attractive.

by Kelly Ann Buchanan

Libra Sept. 24 - Oct. 23 This is a great day for a date or any kind of social outing. Enjoy sports events and playful activities with children. Whatever interactions you have today will be warm and rewarding.

Capricorn Dec. 22 - Jan. 20 You can boost your income today, because this is a financially favorable day. If shopping, you will want to buy beautiful things for yourself and loved ones.

Scorpio Oct. 24 - Nov. 22 Entertain at home today. Invite the gang over for good food and drink!

Discussions with female family members will be positive and warm.

Aquarius Jan. 21 - Feb. 19 This is a positive, feel-good day because the Moon is in your sign, dancing nicely with Venus.

Enjoy schmoozing with others.

Sagittarius Nov. 23 - Dec. 21 All your communications with others today will be upbeat and affectionate. This is a strong day for writers and salespeople, as well as those of you who teach or act.

Pisces Feb. 20 - March 20 Work alone or behind the scenes today, because you feel content and happy with the world. You want to take some time just for you, and why not? Find a comfy place and enjoy your favorite drink.

6. Comparably downwardly-dug: 2 wd.

7. Red veggie 8. Formally fine fellow 9. Oscars 2017! Red carpet designer name 10. Oscars 2017! Ryan Gosling’s Oscar-nominated role in “La La

Land” (2016) 11. PBS chef Martin 12. Alphabetic trio 13. HRH part 18. Money Object link: 2 wds.

22. Fasten anew 24. __ dixit (Unproven claim) 25. Singe 26. Friendly Islands 27. Land units 28. Old Hollywood studio 30. Oscars 2017!

Host Jimmy Kimmel’s platform 32. Flora’s friend?

33. Vote in 34. Oscars 2017! Category in which Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is nominated for “Arrival” (2016) 38. Dapper 39. Ukraine city, to Russians 40. Encourage 41. Moo-er 46. Northwest Territories town 47. Three squared 49. Tea sweetener 51. __ closet 52. Stock 53. Spooky 54. Rhinal 56. Exclusive 58. Fitting 59. Steeped beverage 60. Big load, States-style 61. Congeal 62. 1960s Pres. sibling

Conceptis Sudoku by Dave Green Every row, column and box contains 1-9