Prince George Citizen June 29, 2019

DISTANT DOCTORS

Big challenges for northern kids needing specialized

Colin SLARK Special to The Citizen

Kristy and Wes Fuller are sitting in a clinic in Prince George They’re with their son Karver.

A nurse comes in to administer Karver his latest scheduled vaccination. The nurse takes a look at Karver’s file and turns to look at the Fullers.

“Are you guys the double-whammy family?” she asks.

The Fullers never thought their son’s story would become gossip but a nurse they’d never met before has apparently heard all about the most difficult month of their lives.

“Didn’t you guys find out that your son needed open-heart surgery and had Down syndrome in, like, the same day?”

The nurse isn’t far off track.

On Dec. 8, 2016, Kristy and Wes found out that their then-11-month-old boy had Down syndrome. On Dec. 12, they found out that Karver needed open-heart surgery. On Dec. 14, Karver spent six-and-a-half hours getting a congenital heart defect repaired.

Since Prince George lacks specialized pediatric care, the Fullers had to drive their son nine hours to receive treatment in British Columbia’s only pediatric hospital: Vancouver’s B.C. Children’s Hospital. Like all parents in B.C. that don’t live in Metro Vancouver, they had to take time off from work and pay for lodging, transportation and many other costs, while not receiving income.

Kristy and Wes spent more than $10,000 to be with Karver during his time in hospital.

This is the reality for parents of criticallyill children in Northern B.C.

Karver’s story

Kristy is a gregarious alpha mom who runs a massage therapy business out of their house. Wes is a quiet, reserved helicopter mechanic who is frequently away for weeks at a time for work, sometimes working on other continents. They needed help to get pregnant. Kristy’s ovaries were fine, but her Fallopian tubes were twisted and unhealthy. The Fullers travelled to Calgary to receive an in-vitro fertilization treatment. As part of the treatment, the viable embryos received genetic testing for various conditions. However, Karver’s Down syndrome was not detected by the clinic.

sounding,” Kristy recalled.

In late November 2016, Kristy took a sick Karver to a walk-in clinic. The doctor looked at him and said, “Well, you know, kids with Down syndrome tend to get sick more often.”

He always sounded pug-like. He always had really loud breathing, kind of wet sounding.

This is because Karver has a rare form called Mosaic Down syndrome, where not every cell has the extra 21st chromosome that causes the condition. The sampled material simply may not have contained Down syndrome markers.

Pre-natal ultrasounds back in Prince George also missed signs of Down syndrome, including Karver’s heart. Children with Down syndrome are more prone to congenital heart defects. Karver’s went undetected until he was 11 months old.

Karver was a sickly child. His parents covered his carrier to prevent him from catching any illnesses. Kristy took him to the swimming pool, but his skin turned blue unless he was in the hot tub.

“He always sounded pug-like. He always had really loud breathing, kind of wet

This was news to Kristy. This was the first time she or Wes had considered that Karver might have the condition, but it made a certain sense. There were times where at the right angle she thought she recognized something in Karver’s face, but she couldn’t quite place it. This might have been because Mosaic Down syndrome doesn’t always present itself quite as obviously in a person’s facial features.

— Kristy Fuller

On Dec. 8, 2016, a pediatrician confirmed to the parents that Karver has Down syndrome. Kristy recalls that at that doctor’s appointment, the pediatrician listened to Karver’s heart and tried to suppress a look of concern.

The Fullers were asked to take Karver for an electrocardiogram (ECG) at a laboratory in the same medical building before they left. Wes remembered taking the test results back up to the doctor’s office and the doctor snatched the paper right out of his hands.

At 5 p.m. that night, the family received a phone call from the pediatrician. He asked if they could make an appointment at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver on Monday. The Fullers weren’t given specifics, so they assumed that the doctors at the hospital just wanted to make sure that Karver would be well enough to fly to Mexico on a

care

two-week post-Christmas vacation they’d booked.

Not realizing the severity of the situation, they packed lightly and thought they’d be away from home only briefly. Kristy put her massage therapy business on hold and Wes took leave from his mechanic work.

The first obstacle came on the trip south. The winter weather was so rough that it took them 14-and-a-half hours to make what is usually a nine-hour trip. The Fraser Canyon was so bad that officials closed the highway just as the family made it out of the south end.

They were able to stay at Ronald McDonald House and Easter Seals House for parts of their stay in Vancouver. Both organizations provide subsidized housing in Vancouver for families of children coming from out of the Lower Mainland area to receive medical treatment.

However, while they were staying at Ronald McDonald House, Wes had to rent a hotel room elsewhere because he had a cold, and the institution doesn’t allow guests with communicable illnesses.

The next day, the Fullers went to B.C. Children’s Hospital and found out just how bad Karver’s situation was. Karver had a complete atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD). Normally a heart has four chambers. Karver’s heart hadn’t developed properly and only had two chambers.

Two days later, Karver went in for surgery. The surgeons had to essentially redesign his heart. Complicating things was that Karver was much older than most children that get surgery for AVSD because the defect was discovered so late. Doctors told his parents the surgery would take four hours. It took six-and-a-half hours. — see COSTS ADD UP, page 2

Karver Fuller, 3, rides a bike at the Child Development Centre.

Local Costs add up quickly for northern families

— from page 1

While Karver was in surgery, Kristy occupied herself by going to a Service Canada outlet and applying for Employment Insurance Family Caregiver benefits so that the family could receive some income while they were off work. Their initial application was denied until the surgeon that performed Karver’s surgery intervened and wrote a letter on Kristy’s behalf. They were approved afterwards.

Kristy said that the first time they tried to remove Karver from the bypass machine after the surgery, “it was like a sprinkler. The patches went and it just, like... blood went everywhere.” Doctors had to redo the patches on Karver’s heart.

Medical staff told the Fullers that Karver would only need to spend 24 hours in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). That was on Dec. 14. Karver was moved out of the PICU 11 days later – on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, Karver’s stay was extended because he contracted Human Metapneumovirus and needed treatment for that. He was in the hospital for 10 more days after leaving the PICU.

What the Fullers had thought would be a quick trip ended up lasting more than three weeks.

The costs

Costs add up quickly when travelling out of town to get medical treatment for a sick child.

The Fullers had to travel around 800 km to get to B.C. Children’s Hospital. The distances only go up for residents of more remote northern communities.

There are some services available to help people without vehicles travel for medical appointments, but the situation has been complicated by Greyhound ending services in Western Canada in 2018. The provincial government has created a new service called BC Bus North to replace some of Greyhound’s routes, but it only connects communities in Northern B.C.

Northern Health, runs a bus service called NH Connections from Prince George to Vancouver three times a week in both directions. One-way trips cost between $20 and $40 depending on where you board the bus. Upon request, NH Connections will give out letters confirming medical care in the Vancouver area for hotels that offer medical rates.

The B.C. Ministry of Health maintains a list of hotels in various communities that offer medical rates.

A Canadian charity called Hope Air helps some patients afford air travel for medical care. Families that demonstrate financial need and can provide proof of an out-oftown health care appointment can apply to the charity for assistance. If accepted, Hope Air will pay for round-trip tickets on a commercial airline for a patient and an escort if the patient is 18 or younger. How-

ever, Hope Air does not pay extra fees for such things as checked luggage or in-flight meals.

Otherwise, a one-way ticket from Prince George to Vancouver can cost around $500 per person before fees and taxes, if booked on short notice. If patients have the luxury of booking months in advance, tickets can still cost hundreds of dollars before fees and taxes.

The provincial government does run a Travel Assistance Program (TAP B.C.).

Patients receiving non-emergency specialist services at the closest location outside of their home community and patients receiving specialist care are eligible for benefits under this program, so long as they have a referral and their travel expenses are not covered by third-party insurance. An escort is allowed for patients who are either 18 years old or younger or incapable of travelling alone. Claims for assistance, however, cannot be filed retroactively for TAP B.C. Housing is expensive too. NH Connections maintains a list of hotels with medical rates. A Sandman Hotel in Vancouver charges $129 for a room with two doubles from May to September and $89 the rest of the year. On Expedia.ca, booking the same kind of room at that hotel costs $169 a night

without the medical rate.

Lucky families who get a room at Ronald McDonald House only have to pay $12 a night and the facility is on the grounds of B.C. Children’s Hospital. Ronald McDonald House has 73 rooms of different sizes with private bathrooms and access to communal kitchens and dining areas, as well as entertainment facilities.

To apply to stay at Ronald McDonald House, families must prove that they have a medical appointment at B.C. Children’s Hospital and have travelled farther than 50 km to receive medical care. There is usually a waitlist to get in.

“Our priority system is essentially the sickest children from the farthest away,” says Shannon Kidd, vice-president of external relations for Ronald McDonald House of B.C. and Yukon. Kidd says if families cannot afford the $12 a day fee, the facility does not pressure them to pay.

A similar facility is Easter Seals House. They’re located a few blocks away from B.C. Children’s Hospital and have 49 suites with access to laundry facilities, lounges and in-suite kitchenettes. Easter Seals House charges $40 a night for a single guest and $25 a night for a second guest.

Residents of B.C. can apply for the provincial government’s B.C. Family Resi-

France fries in record heat wave

Angela CHARLTON

The Associated Press

PARIS — Schools are dousing kids with water and nursing homes are equipping the elderly with hydration sensors as France and other nations battle a recordsetting heat wave baking much of Europe.

Several people have died around the continent in incidents that authorities are linking to the exceptional weather. A major wildfire raged Friday in Spain, sparked when a pile of chicken dung spontaneously combusted in the heat.

Several countries have reported record temperatures this week, and France hit its all-time heat record Friday: 45.1 C in the small southern town of Villevieille, according to French media.

The French national weather service activated its highest-level heat danger alert for the first time, putting four regions around Marseille and Montpellier in the

south of the country under special watch Friday.

Those schools that stayed open worked to keep kids cool. Teachers at the Victor Hugo Primary School in Colombes near Paris abandoned suffocating class-

rooms and are keeping children outside all day, spraying them with water and organizing quiet activities in the shade.

“I make them go in the playground with books, in the shade, they must stay seated,” said

dence Program, which is run by the charity Variety.

Families that have a child receiving medical care at B.C. Children’s Hospital or the Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children and live outside Metro Vancouver (excluding Bowen Island and other island communities) are eligible to have accommodation costs paid directly to the facility they’re staying at for up to 30 days per medical visit. This program does not cover transportation costs, meals or other personal expenses. Variety also offers assistance to parents and caregivers away from their home community to seek medical attention for a child through their Variety Cares Fund.

The Fullers were lucky in that they had a friend offer to pay for their hotel stay when they weren’t able to be at Ronald McDonald House. Some of their friends in Prince George also ran a fundraiser to help them cover the cost of being away from home. The EI Family Caregiver Benefit grants up to 55 per cent of a parent’s average weekly insurable earnings (to a maximum of $562 a week) if accepted. The parent needs to have accumulated 600 hours of insurable employment in the 52 weeks preceding the claim or since the beginning of the last claim, whichever is shorter.

— see ‘WE SEE KIDS, page 3

teacher Valerie Prevost. “We tell them to dampen their caps, to drink regularly.”

About 4,000 schools closed because they couldn’t ensure safe conditions, and local authorities cancelled many end-of-schoolyear carnivals.

Some criticized the government for going overboard, but Prime Minister Edouard Philippe defended the efforts after 15,000 people died in a heat wave in 2003 that woke France up to the risks.

“This heat wave is exceptional by its intensity and its earliness,” he told reporters.

“Measures have been taken for the most vulnerable people,” he said.

“But given the intensity of the heat wave, it’s the entire population who must be careful today... both for oneself and for loved ones and neighbours.”

Italy put 16 cities under alerts for high temperatures, and civil security services distributed wa-

ter to tourists visiting famed sites around Rome under a scorching sun.

Heat was blamed for the deaths of two people in Spain, private news agency Europa Press reported Friday.

An 80-year-old man collapsed and died in the street in Valladolid, in northwest Spain, the agency said, and a 17-year-old boy died in the southern city of Cordoba after diving into a swimming pool and losing consciousness.

Four people have drowned so far in France this week, and a 12-year-old girl drowned in a river near Manchester, England. France’s health minister and British police warned people to swim only in authorized areas.

More than 600 firefighters and six water-dropping aircraft were battling the worst fire in two decades in the Catalonia region Friday, as Spain is forecast to endure the peak of its heat wave, with temperatures expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Karver Fuller, 3, with mom Kristy and his four-and-a-half-month old sister Farryn at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. The Citizen weather map will return on Tuesday

AP PHOTO

People enjoy the Mediterranean Sea on Friday at a beach in Marseille, France. France is experiencing a record heat wave.

‘We see kids that live hours and hours from a pediatrician’

— from page 2

While the provincial government offers these programs to help parents who have travelled to Vancouver to get their kids health care, nobody told the Fullers.

Kristy and Wes were able to apply for the B.C. Family Residency Program but only after they were made aware of its existence when a staff member at Easter Seals House asked them if they had signed up.

The care

University Hospital of Northern British Columbia in Prince George is the largest hospital in Northern B.C. With specialized services including a cancer clinic and a teaching partnership with UNBC, patients from around the region come to Prince George for care when their local facilities can’t handle their needs.

However, UHNBC does not have a large pediatric department. In Northern B.C., there are six pediatricians in Prince George, three in Terrace, one in Prince Rupert, and one in Fort St. John. While UHNBC can handle generalized care and some emergency situations, anything else needs to be handled at B.C. Children’s Hospital.

“Anything that requires a specialized pediatrician like cardiology, gastroenterology, you name it, immunology, rheumatology, it’s all in Vancouver,” says Dr. Kirsten Miller, the medical lead for Northern Health’s Child and Youth Health Program.

“It would be hard to answer (the question) of what services kids go to Vancouver for. It might be easier to say what services they don’t go for.”

According to Miller, geography is the biggest challenge in providing pediatric health care in Northern B.C.

“We see kids that live hours and hours from a pediatrician,” she says. “I just got a phone call about a kid that’s having trouble breathing in Takla, which is by land going to take five or six hours to get here.” Some families in northeastern B.C. choose to take their children to Grande Prairie or Edmonton in Alberta for non-urgent medical appointments because the distances

involved make those locations easier to access. A patient in Fort Nelson would only need to drive 11 hours to Edmonton versus 18-and-a-half hours to Vancouver.

Miller says a couple of things would make her job easier as a pediatrician in the north. One would be a provincial-based approach to pediatric care that includes telemedicine appointments for hard-to-reach communities. Another would be the improvement of transportation services for critically ill children.

“I had two children come in this (February) long weekend from smaller communities in our region and they both had to come by land ambulance in the black of night, on icy roads, with basic ambulance crews that in my opinion probably couldn’t have managed any complications that would’ve arisen on the way,” Miller says.

“There needs to be more money for flying kids with a specialized infant transport team than there currently is.”

away from home, taking ferries or flights, and hundreds if not thousands of dollars in expenses.

Next up for Karver

After his heart surgery, Karver has thrived. While his speech lags behind children without Down syndrome, he gives confident one-word answers to questions.

The speech therapist at Prince George’s Child Development Centre is only able to see Karver once a month or less, so Kristy supplements his learning with a computer program that helps him learn new words. Karver loves to play. He has a wooden train track built in his play area at home. He surrounds it with plastic skyscrapers topped with Lego figures.

I had two children come in... from smaller communities in our region and they both had to come by land ambulance in the black of night, on icy roads, with basic ambulance crews that in my opinion probably couldn’t have managed any complications that would’ve arisen on the way.

— Dr. Kirsten Miller

While the bulk of patients treated at B.C. Children’s Hospital are from the Metro Vancouver area, patients from other regions of B.C. make up a substantial amount of their caseload. In the 2016/17 fiscal year, 458 cases treated at B.C. Children’s Hospital were patients from Northern B.C. and 279 of those cases were patients from Prince George.

In 2017/18, 386 cases were from Northern B.C., with 237 of those being from Prince George.

Other regions in B.C. are closer to Metro Vancouver and they make up thousands of other cases every year. Care at B.C. Children’s Hospital still means driving hours

When Wes is home from work, Karver plays outside with him and the family dogs. One of the dogs’ names, Memphis, is one of Karver’s favourite words.

Initially, the family had a hard time finding Karver a daycare that would allow him to have a staff member dedicated to helping him. In the beginning, they hired a nanny to take care of Karver while Kristy was working. Now Karver has gotten into a facility that allows him to have a personal aide and he’s loving the chance to socialize with other kids.

Recently, Karver became a big brother. Kristy and Wes welcomed daughter Farryn to the world in early 2019. While Karver is sometimes jealous that his sister is getting lots of attention, he clearly loves her.

Karver shows affection by giving out fist

New banners

Photographers Debbie Malm and Doug Lamb hold up two of the banners that feature their photography that will be hung along Central Street by Derrick Passey, behind. Each photographer had two photographs chosen for the banners. There are 140 banners along central, 24 at CN Centre and another 14 at the aquatic Centre.

bumps and is already trying to teach his infant sister how to do them.

Karver’s medical team has been hesitant to do any more work on his heart for fear that any surgeries might make matters worse. But Karver’s heart has been prone to mitral valve regurgitation, where the heart’s mitral valve doesn’t close tightly enough. This allows blood to travel backwards in the heart, impeding circulation.

The problem has progressed to the point where Karver will need to have another open heart surgery this August. It won’t be as complex as the surgery that redhaped his heart but it will require Kristy and Wes to take more time off work. However, family friends have recently put on a fundraiser to help the family with the costs of being away from home.

Karver is expected to only be in hospital five days but will need to stay in the Vancouver area for monitoring for another week. Kristy always knew that Karver would need more work done but had hoped for more time between procedures.

“We really thought we had years before they were going to do a surgery, not a couple of months,” Kristy said.

While the thought of another open heart surgery is scary, Kristy and Wes know that they’ve survived worse.

Both parents have tattoos of the ECG of Karver’s heart after he went through his first surgery to remind themselves of what they’ve overcome.

Kristy and Wes have seen Karver’s potential in the years since his first health crisis and are doing everything they can to keep their son on that path.

— Colin Slark is a graduate of Duchess Park Secondary School. He got the journalism bug after spending two weeks jobshadowing in the Citizen newsroom in 2012. He went on to UNBC, where he edited the Over The Edge student newspaper while completing his bachelor’s degree in English and history. He recently finished his master’s degree in journalism at King’s College in Halifax and this story was a project towards completing his degree. Colin is currently a staff reporter at the Brandon Sun newspaper.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Karver Fuller, 3, at the Child Development Centre. Karver’s medical issues has meant his family has had to travel multiple times to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Population clock shows demographic changes in real time

Adam BURNS

The Canadian Press

A Quebecer moves to the Northwest Territories, a family in Newfoundland and Labrador welcomes a new arrival, another in British Columbia mourns a loss, an immigrant settles somewhere in Ontario.

Within the span of just a few minutes, an online tool from Statistics Canada offers an evocative snapshot of the country’s ever-shifting population through a series of statistically modelled demographic events.

The so-called “population clock” – which went live shortly after Canada Day last year – uses StatCan data to present a real-time visualization of the country’s major demographic trends, including births, deaths, immigration and emigration.

Watching it is somewhat akin to playing a real-life, nationwide version of the city-building video game SimCity: coloured bars representing births, deaths and various migrations slowly fill up or deplete, leading to animations on a map showing each occurrence playing out across the country.

It’s not quite true to life, of course - the federal government doesn’t claim to be tracking every individual in the country in real-time – but one of the page’s main designers says it’s pretty close.

Patrick Charbonneau, a senior analyst with StatCan’s demography division, says the model is based on the agency’s latest population estimates, which are updated every three months.

“The counts that are shown in the population clock are strictly for visualization purposes, to give Canadians a sense of how fast the population is changing. It’s more of a learning tool than a decision-making tool,” said Charbonneau.

“But those numbers are still obtained through really robust methodology nevertheless.”

Charbonneau said the agency launched the clock in an effort to increase “statistical literacy” in the general population – particularly among young Canadians – and to give people a sense of how the population is changing.

“I think it’s something that everyone should be able to know – how fast the population is changing... What is the rhythm? What is the pace?” said Charbonneau.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Vancouver demands fossil fuel companies pay their fair share

VANCOUVER (CP) — Vancouver city council has voted in favour of a motion that demands global fossil fuel companies pay their share of costs arising from climate change. The motion, which passed 7-4, points to a B.C. government report that projects the City of Vancouver will have to spend $1 billion this century to mitigate rising sea levels.

The motion says the city will send letters to 20 of the world’s largest oil, gas and coal companies with its demand. The city also says it will ask the B.C. and Canadian

He said the clock has proven popular in its first year, becoming one of the most-visited pages on StatCan’s website.

He said he’s also heard accounts from teachers who have shown it in their classrooms to introduce students to population studies.

Howard Ramos, a professor of sociology at Dalhousie University, said it’s important for Canadians to maintain a life-long interest in the demographic trends that continue to shape the country.

“I think that a lot of Canadians would

governments to enact laws to confirm the responsibility of fossil fuel companies to pay their share of costs.

Vancouver says it is the 24th community in British Columbia to pass such a motion since 2017. The city says those municipal governments represent about one-third of all B.C. residents.

Court upholds federal carbon tax law

TORONTO (CP) — Ontario’s top court has ruled the federal government’s carbon charge is constitutionally sound.

In a split decision, the five-judge panel rejected a challenge from Premier Doug Ford’s government to the validity of the carbonpricing law.

Ottawa maintains it had to act to deal with the urgent threat of climate change as an issue of

national concern.

even be surprised by the overall population

– we’re now at 37 and a half million people.

I think a lot of people’s notion of how big we are or how populated we are is often frozen by what they got in high school social studies,” he said.

“This is a great way for us to get to know who we are,” he said.

“It would offer a lot of insight on the importance of immigration in Canada. I think that certainly you see that in the bigger cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. But in the rest of the country, this tool really shows the impact and the importance of immigration to maintaining our population, not to mention growing it.” Ramos urged Canadians to check out the tool for themselves, and if they find it interesting, to “dig into” the vast amount of data available on Statistics Canada’s website.

The federal government said its approach – imposing a levy on gasoline and fossil fuels – respected provincial jurisdiction. Ontario and three other provinces argued the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau overstepped its authority in imposing the charge. Last month in a split decision, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal sided with Ottawa in a similar challenge.

SNC-Lavalin opts for corruption trial before judge alone

MONTREAL (CP) — Lawyers representing SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. have opted for trial by judge alone in a corruption case that has loomed over the Montrealbased engineering giant.

“If you live only in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, you might not know what it’s like to live in the Yukon, or in Cape Breton, or in the Prairies. And these kinds of tools allow us to begin to see what those places look like, and begin to imagine them.”

The company was ordered to stand trial last May.

The Montreal-based firm is accused of paying $47.7 million in bribes to public officials in Libya between 2001 and 2011. SNCLavalin, its construction division and a subsidiary also face one charge each of fraud and corruption for allegedly defrauding various Libyan organizations of $129.8 million. Being found guilty could have grave consequences for SNC-Lavalin because it could find itself blacklisted and shut out of lucrative federal contracts for a period of 10 years as well as undermining its international business opportunities.

Shortly after learning that it would be ordered to stand trial, SNC-Lavalin said it intended to vigorously challenge the charges and plead not guilty.

The case will return to court on Sept. 20.

B.C. seeks injunction against Alberta

law to restrict oil flow

CALGARY (CP) — British Columbia’s request for an injunction against Alberta’s so-called turnoff-the-taps law is to be heard in a Calgary courtroom today. The legislation allows Alberta to crimp energy shipments to B.C. if it stands in the way of a major pipeline expansion to the west coast. B.C. filed a statement of claim in Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench last month calling the law unconstitutional. The legislation was passed by Alberta’s former NDP government as a way to put pressure on the B.C. to drop its fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The new United Conservative government in Alberta proclaimed it into force shortly after being sworn in.

A young new Canadian holds a flag as she takes part in a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 17. Within the span of just a few minutes, an online tool from Statistics Canada offers an evocative snapshot of Canada’s ever-shifting population through a series of demographic models.

With glowing hearts

Is Canada a country divided?

Premiers claim equalization is unfair to their provinces.

British Columbia and Alberta fight about pipelines.

English-Canadian critics denounce Quebec’s treatment of minorities and its passage of a law that bans public servants from wearing religious symbols.

Tensions within our country seem to be running high.

And these are simply the most recent examples of our national conflicts. Since Confederation, premiers and pundits have claimed provincial mistreatment. Our history is rife with inter-provincial tension.

The political strife creates an impression of disunity. Canadians, it might seem, cannot agree on anything. But do Canadian citizens in different regions really have fundamental value differences?

The answer is both yes and no. Canadians’ attitudes towards policy issues are rarely the result of living in one region rather than another, a 2017 study found.

There are some notable regional issues, to be sure. Economic interests matter to policy and are reflected in the fact that some Alberta and Saskatchewan residents see pipelines and carbon taxes in a different light than do residents of other provinces.

Cultural preservation matters and fears of cultural heritage erosion may contribute to Québecois attitudes on religious freedom of expression.

Yet these regional factors have modest effects. In the 2017 study, professors Éric Montpetit, Erick Lachapelle and Simon Kiss found that Canadians’ policy positions reflect a number of different underlying sets of values. Each set of values is found in every region of Canada. There are some variations in value distributions, but regional differences in values, and thus on issues, are modest. Geography matters less than rhetoric suggests.

If Canadians from one region to the next are more similar than different, why do we seem so divided?

Part of the problem is the way that we talk about public attitudes. Commentators often slip into language that conflates “majority opinion” with “provincial opinion.” When majority public support (or opposition) is implied to reflect the entirety of provincial opinion, it is easy to lose sight of the range of attitudes present within a province.

For example, some Quebeckers oppose the restriction of religious symbols – just as some residents of other provinces support the same restrictions. Indeed, the study showed that across 18 policy issues – including oil pipelines and religious symbols –there is a similar diversity of opinion within provinces and regions. Policy positions that are popularly associated with a single province actually have support from residents in other provinces too. Canada contains multitudes, to be sure – but so do the provinces.

On top of this, popular debates typically

present highly polarized positions. More reasoned positions are ignored in favour of conflictual language.

Such sharply presented policy positions are easily interpreted on a personal level. When an Albertan hears a Quebec politician’s hardline opposition to oil pipeline construction, she may assume that no one in Quebec cares about her family’s economic fortunes.

When an English Canadian critics argues that Quebec’s religious symbol policies are intolerant, a francophone Quebecker may interpret this as a statement that he himself is intolerant.

Such language contributes to feelings of disrespect across the country. Those feelings aren’t new within Canadian politics. What is new is how social media and fake news exacerbate knee-jerk simplification and demonization.

None of this is helped by the fact that the media and provincial politicians stand to gain from regional divisions.

Playing up regional tensions is a rational strategy that pays off. Media stories about regional friction generate needed attention for a media industry competing for audiences. Provincial politicians benefit from fueling regional indignation. Premiers and individuals seeking the premiership can make significant political gains by “standing up” for their province, as academic Jared Wesley argued with respect to the 2019 Alberta election.

Overall, then, the differences between provinces are exaggerated in public discourse. Political rhetoric invokes feelings of disrespect and politicians and the media gain by playing up these sentiments. It is no wonder that intergovernmental tensions are a permanent feature of Canadian politics. But so what? Does it even matter?

We don’t think so. Sure, provincial conflict often feels uncomfortable. But the reality is that according to various measures, Canada is functioning just fine. Compared to other OECD countries, Canada does relatively well with respect to its economy and several environmental sustainability indicators.

Unlike many other countries, and without denying the difficulties, Canada has had some success protecting cultural and linguistic diversity. Despite decades of bickering and handwringing, Canada continues on. National tensions, in and of themselves, are not leading us to poor policy outcomes. If provincial tensions turn into true separatism, then we have a clear problem. But without that, regional divisions are simply the natural byproduct of a pluralist society within a federal system.

— Loleen Berdahl is a professor and head of the department of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan and Éric Montpetit is a professor of public policy at the Université de Montréal. This article first appeared in The Conversation.

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Canadian pride varies by region

With Canada Day approaching, I felt it was a good time to revisit a survey I had originally conducted in 2008. Back then, Canadian respondents were offered a list of 12 institutions and features that can elicit feelings of pride, and were asked if each one of them made them proud.

A lot has happened since then, including the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and a change in the country’s federal government. The results of the 2019 survey conducted by Research Co. outline a powerful connection between Canadians and specific aspects of life in the country, as well as a noticeable gloominess about the justice system.

There are only three institutions and features that elicit pride from at least four in five Canadians: the flag (93 per cent), the armed forces (89 per cent) and the economy (80 per cent).

There is no surprise on the first

two findings, but pride in national finances increasing by 18 points in 11 years is certainly eye-catching.

Men (90 per cent), residents aged 55 and over (86 per cent) and Ontarians (also 86 per cent) are more likely to say the Canadian economy makes them proud.

There are differences along political lines, with federal Liberal supporters in 2015 feeling better (94 per cent) than Conservatives (85 per cent) and New Democrats (71 per cent).

Three other institutions and features make at least seven in 10 Canadians proud: the health care system (77 per cent), hockey (72 per cent) and the state of democracy in Canada (70 per cent). It is here where we start to witness some variance.

Canadians aged 18 to 34 are less

likely to feel pride over the state of democracy in Canada than their older counterparts. Also, significantly fewer Quebecers are proud of the health care system (58 per cent) than residents of other regions are.

More than half of Canadians express pride in multiculturalism (66 per cent), Indigenous culture (56 per cent) and bilingualism (55 per cent). As expected, Liberal voters in 2015 seem extremely supportive of two historical policies championed by the current governing party (80 per cent for multiculturalism and 66 per cent for bilingualism). British Columbians are prouder of multiculturalism (73 per cent) and Indigenous culture (63 per cent) than are all other Canadians. If Quebec shows a bit of disdain for the health care system, it is the rest of Canada that does not share the love of Quebecers for bilingualism. Across the province, 64 per cent of Quebecers are proud of bilingualism – nine points above the national average.

The final three institutions and

features on the list make fewer than half of Canadians proud: the monarchy (47 per cent), Parliament (45 per cent) and the Canadian justice system (40 per cent).

Quebec brings down the national numbers on the monarchy, with a paltry pride rating of 22 per cent. Every other province is at least 20 points higher. Still, only 36 per cent of Canadians felt pride about the monarchy in 2008. This represents an 11-point gain in just over a decade. And what a decade it has been, with royal visits, weddings and children for Princes William and Harry. However, our surveys have shown the reticence of Canadians to embrace Prince Charles as a future head of state, and his significantly lower favourability rating when compared to Queen Elizabeth. The pride trend has been positive for the monarchy, but it may change depending on how Prince Charles performs.

On Parliament, the numbers are also better than in 2008, when only 32 per cent of Canadians were proud of the national

Shawn

legislature. Unsurprisingly, Liberal voters feel proudest right now (59 per cent), while Conservatives and New Democrats are more subdued (37 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively).

In a decade that saw pride grow for most features and institutions, the Canadian justice system is embarrassingly stagnant (42 per cent in 2008, 40 per cent in 2019). Western Canadians are particularly pessimistic. Only 33 per cent of those on the Prairies are proud of the justice system. In British Columbia, the proportion falls to a Canada-wide low of 27 per cent.

For British Columbians, the decade has seen a rise in the perception of criminal activity, as well as expected prosecutions bogged down in the courts.

High-profile trials have ended in deadlocked juries and a heavily anticipated money laundering case was stayed last year. These are some of the setbacks that have British Columbians, more than Canadians in any other region, feeling let down by the justice system.

Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park in

When is a cross not religious?

Steven Waldman

Special To The Washington Post

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that a large cross erected as a memorial to the dead may continue to stand on public land in Maryland because it has many secular purposes.

In other words, the real verdict on the Peace Cross case is: be careful what you wish for.

This was a Pyrrhic victory, because the case follows a long, sad tradition in church-state cases: pretending that religious symbols aren’t primarily religious to keep them from being bounced by the court.

The court’s 7-2 ruling reversed a lower court that said the cross was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote that while “the cross is undoubtedly a Christian symbol,” it also had many powerful secular purposes, including “historical landmark” and a “place for the community to gather and honour all veterans.”

In his oral argument before the Supreme Court, Neal Katyal, representing the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, had declared, “not a single word of religious content appears anywhere” on the monument, and therefore it could be deemed a secular symbol.

That’s right, a giant cross – symbolizing the crucifixion of Jesus –is a secular symbol.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. To pass judicial scrutiny, advocates of having religious symbols or texts in public spaces have long attempted to argue that these monuments or books have mostly secular purposes.

In the second half of the 19th century, when Catholics resisted Protestant efforts to have the King James Bible taught in public schools, Protestants responded by arguing that the Bible was literature, not religion. Stanley Matthews, an attorney representing Protestants in a major court case in Cincinnati, suggested that the Bible passages be taught “not as the words that fell from the second person in the God-head... but as a beautiful specimen of English composition.”

For instance, to preserve blue laws that banned work on the Sabbath, Christians for many years argued that the statutes were intended to encourage public order and social cohesion, not to enforce a religiously ordained day of rest.

In 1956, the state of Pennsylvania tried the same thing in defending

the Bible reading and Lord’s Prayer recitation in a Philadelphia case.

“We’re teaching morality without religion,” the attorney for the school district said, according to the book Ellery’s Protest.

In 1983, the court said in Marsh v. Chambers that a prayer before the legislature was fine because it was an acknowledgment of the religiosity of the community. That’s right: a prayer wasn’t a religious expression.

In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), the court said the creche that the city fathers of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, had displayed downtown since 1943 (along with a Santa Claus house, a Christmas tree and a Seasons Greetings banner) had only “remote” and “indirect” religious content because it “merely happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some... religions.”

It was really, they said, a history presentation.

“The creche in the display depicts the historical origins of this traditional event long recognized as a national Holiday.”

The Supreme Court later separately concluded that a menorah was not a religious symbol because it was juxtaposed with Christmas trees. Just by being near

the Christmas trees, which long ago lost their spiritual pizzazz, menorahs got secularized, too. Another judge suggested that a menorah could be transformed from a religious symbol to a secular symbol if Christmas lights were strung on a nearby tree.

In Oklahoma, the legislature in 2015 allowed local governments to display the Ten Commandments as an important historical document, not a religious one.

Time and time again, those arguing for more religion in the public square have said the symbols – or books or crosses – had little religious meaning. It’s as if judges and advocates enter into a mutual pact of self-delusion to preserve these religious symbols. Creches aren’t religious, and neither is the Bible, and neither is the cross.

Even the Supreme Court’s Peace Cross ruling dabbled with such reasoning.

“Even if the original purpose of a monument was infused with religion,” the community was now preserving it “for the sake of their historical significance or their place in the common cultural heritage.”

In other words, the passage of time has sufficiently de-Christian-

ized the cross and made it acceptable.

This approach has two problems.

First, it invites religious leaders to deceive themselves and the public. To claim that a creche – a depiction of the birth of the saviour – is not a religious scene is disingenuous. To get the courts to agree to having the Ten Commandments posted in two counties in Kentucky, the state argued that the tablets weren’t religious; they were symbols of “the foundations of American law and government.”

The approach of cutely sneaking in religion through the secular back door strips symbols of their spiritual meaning. At the same time that religious leaders want Americans to revere their sacred texts more seriously, they cheerfully inform judges that these writings should not be taken too seriously.

What’s the point of getting people to read the Bible if you have to declare, in effect, that it’s not a revelation from God?

Does Christianity really benefit from the argument that the cross has nothing to do with Christ’s sacrifice?

It seems to me that secularism,

not religious freedom, is advanced by the notion that religious symbols are fine as long as we pretend they’re not religious.

Believers could lose more than they gain from this gambit. This approach has been embraced because there’s a broad consensus that society would be worse off if courts aggressively purged religious symbols. But it would be better if we came up with a pluralistic compact that allowed religious symbolism and its meaning but did not favor a particular religion.

Under such an approach, the Peace Cross in Bladensburg could be allowed – along with other religious tributes – as a manifestation of our respect and tolerance for religious expression. We could celebrate religious diversity without requiring the de-spiritualization of faith. Such an approach would end the practice of mutual self-deception that has driven efforts to create defensible secular rationalizations for religious symbols.

— Steven Waldman is the author of Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom

A theological perspective on climate change

As we know, the current popular opinion concerning our natural environment is that the earth’s atmosphere is warming. This effect is seen as the primary cause of unusual weather patterns such as flooding, disastrous windstorms and drier conditions leading to forest fires. Furthermore, it is commonly held that this trend is the result of carbon emissions resulting from human activity, especially by the use of fossil fuels for energy.

It seems the world is now convinced that a united effort by all nations to counter this trend is not only possible but undeniably necessary. Based on the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is

CLERGY COMMENT

ED DREWLO SECOND WIND MINISTRIES

now a strong political movement to unite the world in order to save the planet.

But I’ve discovered that there is a long list of scientists who keenly challenge this commonly held notion of climate change.

In the first place, they question the accuracy of the findings of the IPCC.

Secondly, they argue that any changes in weather patterns that do occur are simply the result of natural processes, not unlike climate variations that have existed

on Earth for centuries.

They accuse the IPCC of being alarmists who are motivated more by political ideas than true science.

From a biblically theological perspective, one can’t help but be more inclined to agree with this minority view of what’s actually occurring in the world and how it’s affecting our environment.

The biblical view begins with the idea that God is the one who created the world (Genesis 1,2) and continues to sustain it year after year and season by season.

After the flood of Noah’s time (circa 2500 BCE), God said to Noah that as long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not cease.

The overriding declaration of

the Bible consistently assigns responsibility for weather patterns in our world to the creator and sustainer of our universe.

After all, for example, he was the one who caused various plagues to descend upon the land of Egypt in the time of Moses (Exodus 7-11) or made the sun and moon to stand still for a full day in reply to Joshua’s prayer (Joshua 10:1214). And he is the one, in Jesus, who calmed the stormy Galilean Sea in answer to the alarm of his disciples (Mark 4:39-41). Even in my own experience, I must confess, I have often seen weather patterns change in response to prayer.

At the same time, biblically speaking, we humans have a responsibility to use Earth’s resources as good stewards or

managers of God’s gifts. When God created men and women, he said, fill the Earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). In other words, all the world’s resources, including its minerals and precious metals, should be seen as good gifts from God which he intends for our blessing.

Our problem is that we tend to leave God out of the picture, thinking that we ourselves are the creators of our world and the managers of everything that happens in it, including the weather. And in the process, we are also often selfish in the use of the earth’s resources. When it comes to climate change, perhaps it would be better to take the long view, which a biblically theological perspective is able to substantially provide.

WASHINGTON POST PHOTO

The Peace Cross, the focus of an intense court case regarding its upkeep and placement on public land, stands at a busy intersection in Bladensburg, Md.

Everest now a mountain of trash

The Associated Press

KATHMANDU, Nepal — After every party it’s time to clean up and Mount Everest is no different. The record number of climbers crowding the world’s highest mountain this season has left a government cleanup crew grappling with how to clear away everything from abandoned tents to human waste that threatens drinking water.

Budget expedition companies charge as little as $30,000 per climber, cutting costs including waste removal. Everest has so much garbage – depleted oxygen cylinders, food packaging, rope – that climbers use the trash as a kind of signpost.

But this year’s haul from an estimated 700 climbers, guides and porters on the mountain has been a shock to the ethnic Sherpas who worked on the government’s cleanup drive this spring.

Moreover, the tents are littering South Col, or Camp 4, which, at 8,000 metres (26,240 feet) is the highest campsite on Everest, just below the summit. The high winds at that elevation have scattered the tents and trash everywhere.

“The altitude, oxygen levels, dangerously icy and slippery slopes, and bad weather of South Col make it very difficult to bring such big things as tents down,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa, who led an independent cleanup last month and has been a leading figure in the campaign to clean Mount Everest for the past 12 years.

Exhausted climbers struggling to breathe and battling nausea leave heavy tents behind rather than attempt to carry them down. Sherpa said the logos on the ice-embedded tents that identify the expedition companies were deliberately ripped out so the culprits could evade detection.

“It took us an hour to dig out just one tent out of the frozen ice and bring it down,” said Sherpa. His expeditions have alone brought down some 20,000 kg of garbage since 2008.

Sherpa estimated 30 tents had been left on South Col, and as much as 5,000 kg of trash. Bringing it down is a herculean task when any misstep at such altitudes

could be fatal. It is impossible to know exactly how much litter is spread across Everest because it only becomes visible when the snow melts. At Camp 2, two levels higher than Base Camp, the campaigners believe that around 8,000 kg of human excrement were left during this year’s climbing season alone.

Some climbers do not use makeshift toilets, instead digging a hole

in the snow, letting the waste fall into small crevasses. However, rising temperatures have thinned the glacier, leaving fewer and smaller crevasses. The overflowing waste then spills downhill toward Base Camp and even communities below the mountain.

People living at the Base Camp use melted snow for drinking water that climbers’ toilets threaten to contaminate.

“During our expedition to Camp 2, eight of our 10 Sherpas got stomach illness from bad water at Camp 2,” said John All, a professor of environmental science at Western Washington University who visited Everest on a research expedition. For the Nepalese who regard the mountain as Sagarmatha, or Mother of the World, littering amounts to desecration. Climber Nima Doma, who returned

recently from a successful ascent, gets angry thinking that the sacred mountain is being turned into a garbage dump.

“Everest is our god and it was very sad to see our god so dirty. How can people just toss their trash on such a sacred place?” she said.

The trash is creating danger for future climbers and spurring calls for action now.

“When the snow melts the garbage surfaces. And when there is high wind, tents are blown and torn and the contents are scattered all over the mountain, which makes it even more dangerous for climbers already navigating a slippery, steep slope in snow and high winds,” said Ang Tshering, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. Ang Dorjee, who heads the independent Everest Pollution Control Committee, has demanded that the Nepal government – whose general oversight of Everest has come under scrutiny this year as climbers died waiting in line to ascend – institute some rules.

“The problem is there are no regulations on how to dispose of the human waste. Some climbers use biodegradable bags that have enzymes which decompose human waste but most of them don’t,” he said.

The bags are expensive and have to be imported from the United States.

“The biggest problem and concern now on Everest is human waste. Hundreds of people are there for weeks who go to open toilets,” Tshering said.

Melting conditions at Camp 2 create a odour that is sickening to climbers and the waste will eventually contaminate water sources below and become a health hazard, he said.

Tshering and other mountaineers say the government should mandate the use of biodegradable bags. It would spare Dorjee and his team the unpleasant task of collecting the waste and carrying it down the dangerous slopes.

The government is working on a plan to scan and tag climbers’ equipment and gear.

All climbers would have to deposit $4,000 before their ascent and might not get the money back if they return without their items.

AP PHOTO BY NIRANJAN SHRESTHA

Members of garbage retrieval expedition pile up empty oxygen cylinders collected from Mount Everest in Namche Bajar, Solukhumbu district, Nepal on May 27. The record number of climbers on Mount Everest this season has left a cleanup crew grappling with how to clear away everything from abandoned tents to human waste that threatens drinking water.

AP PHOTO BY DAWA STEVEN SHERPA FOR ASIAN TREKKING

This photo taken on May 21st shows Camp Four, the highest camp on Mount Everest littered with abandoned tents. The record number of climbers on Mount Everest this season has left a cleanup crew grappling with how to clear away everything from abandoned tents to human waste that threatens drinking water.

Rain threatens Citizen Open

Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca

Apparently the weather gods are not tennis fans.

The parched forests need the rain but organizers of this weekend’s Citizen Open tennis tournament are hoping the wet forecast Environment Canada has issued for the next few days will not come to fruition on the outdoor courts at Prince George Tennis Club.

Showers are expected tonight and there’s a 70 per cent chance of rain Saturday and 60 per cent on Sunday.

That could wreak havoc on schedule-makers for the threeday tournament, which was set to begin Friday at 6 p.m.

“The forecast is not looking good,” said PGTC treasurer Rick Devore. “If we do play Saturday, we’ll play all day and we’ll play late in the day.”

Thirty players are entered in the tournament and they’ll compete for singles and doubles titles in advanced and intermediate categories.

PGTC teaching pro Cory Fleck and tournament director Jim Condon are the two favourites to meet in the advanced singles final on Sunday. Fleck defeated Condon in straight sets in the singles final three weeks ago at the Spring Fling tournament.

The numbers for tennis picked up when it was decided to move the club pickleball tournament to July 5-7 to accommodate some

of the pickleballers who will be vacationing at their lakeside cabins this weekend. That frees up committed pickleball players like

Phil Redding, a former contender for the city tennis title, to pick up his tennis racquet for a bash at the ball. Redding had hip replacement

surgery last year.

“Phil Redding is going to play doubles with Cory,” said Devore.” “It should be a good tournament.”

St. Louis Blue bound for Prince George

Citizen staff

The Prince George Spruce Kings have signed a veteran of the St. Louis Blues. Not the Stanley Cup-champion Blues. At 18, Henry Wagner is still a bit young to be playing in the NHL. But the five-foot-nine, 150-pound native of St. Louis, Mo., is on the verge of a U.S. college hockey career and already has a scholarship lined up to play as a forward at Yale University beginning in 2020. This coming season, Wagner is intent on playing in Prince George with the Spruce Kings. He’s among a handful of new recruits the the defending B.C. Hockey League-

champions have signed for the new season and he had several BCHL teams after his services. Last season, in 37 games combined with the St. Louis Blues under-18 team of the Tier 1 Elite Hockey League and his St. Louis University high school team, Wagner scored 28 goals and totaled 51 points. The Kings also announced they’ve signed two 2002-born products of the Burnaby Winter Club midget prep team. Forward Brett Pfoh, a Port Moody native who stands five-foot-nine and weighs 155 pounds, collected 19 goals and 27 points in 34 games in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League for Burnaby. Carter Cochrane, a six-foot, 165-pounder from Victoria, scored 10 goals

and had 26 points with the BWC prep team. They will join former centre Fin Williams, a 2003-born former teammate who moved up to the Spruce Kings during the Coastal Conference playoff series with Victoria. Also coming to the Spruce Kings this season are 2001-born forward Mack Stewart and 2001-born defenceman Cole Leal. Stewart played last season in the Alberta Midget Hockey League for the Calgary Royals, finishing with 13 goals and 31 points in 31 games. The six-foot, 170-pound Stewart is a dual citizen born in Villach, Austria. Leal, a five-foot-11, 170-pound Belleville, Ont., native, scored 13 goals and had 17 assists for 30 points in 82 games combined

with Northwood School in Lake Placid, NY. The Kings have added to the roster two other 2002-born players with B.C. Major Midget Hockey League experience to the roster – forward Jake McLean and defenceman Colton Cameron. McLean, a six-foot, 170-pound native of North Vancouver, scored 19 times and had 29 assists in 40 games last season with the Vancouver North West Hawks. He also played one game for the Kings as an affiliated player. The six-foot-one, 170-pound Cameron, a native of Surrey, picked up five goals and 15 assists in 28 BCHMML games for the Valley West Giants of the B.C. Major Midget League.

Connolly joins big NHL free agents list

The Associated Press

The goodbye came quickly if respectfully for Anaheim Ducks veteran Corey Perry.

After a knee injury limited the 34-year-old forward to 31 games, general manager Bob Murray last week bought out the final two years of Perry’s contract and sent the franchise cornerstone unexpectedly into free agency.

“This is one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in my 44 years in the NHL,” Murray said. “Corey gave everything to this franchise for 14 years, never giving an inch to his competitors.”

Now, one of those competitors will get to see what Perry has left. Big money will flow to forward Artemi Panarin, centre Matt Duchene and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on July 1 as the top three free agents available, though Perry and other seasoned veterans are worth watching when the market opens.

Joining Perry as a one-organization player potentially changing teams is San Jose captain Joe Pavelski, who had 38 goals and 64 points in 75 games last season. The Sharks are in a salary-cap squeeze and also might have to say goodbye to forward Joonas Donskoi, but general manager

Doug Wilson wasn’t giving up on bringing Pavelski back after signing defenceman Erik Karlsson to a $92 million contract. Pavelski, 34, is drawing interest around the NHL and could follow the lead of former Sharks forward Patrick Marleau, who opted two years ago to depart in free agency and signed in Toronto. The cap will almost certainly keep the

Maple Leafs from retaining Jake Gardiner after the defenceman spent his entire eight-year career with them.

Perry had been a fixture in Anaheim during the entire salary cap era that began in 2005. The 2011 Hart Trophy winner has spoken to several teams since the interview period opened Sunday.

Other free agents to watch:

Brett Connolly

The sixth overall pick in 2010 struggled to find his place in the NHL until three years with Washington allowed him to establish himself. Connolly scored six goals on the Capitals’ 2018 Stanley Cup run and followed that up by setting career highs with 22 goals, 24 assists and 46 points.

“I think we brought stability to his game,” Capitals GM Brian MacLellan said.

“He just found stability, found a place where he could play. There wasn’t a lot of pressure on him to score because he had guys in front of him. I think it was just a good fit team-wise and for him, and he took advantage of it.”

Washington’s salary-cap crunch is likely to send Connolly into the market, where he could get a big payday and a bigger role with another team.

Anders Lee

Could the New York Islanders lose their captain in back-to-back offseasons? It’s possible Anders Lee follows John Tavares out the door following another 50-point year. One difference this time: the Islanders are coming off a trip to

the second round of the playoffs, clearly have something cooking with coach Barry Trotz and are heading in the right direction. Forwards Brock Nelson and Jordan Eberle already re-signed, but keep an eye on Vezina Trophy finalist goaltender Robin Lehner’s decision.

Bob and Bread

Panarin signed up with Bobrovsky’s agent during the season, and there is reason to believe they are a package deal. The Florida Panthers hosted the Columbus forward and goalie this week and are seen as the favourites to sign them, especially after Roberto Luongo retired.

Young’ins

A handful of intriguing players under age 27 were not tendered qualifying offers as restricted free agents and are now free to sign with any team. That list includes 24-year-old forward Ryan Hartman, who has been traded three times in 18 months, 25-year-old defenceman Derrick Pouliot and underachieving 2013 first-round picks Kirby Reichel and Curtis Lazar.

Cory Fleck reaches to make the forehand return during the A-singles final of the 2018 Citizen Open tennis tournament last July.

CONNOLLY

The Buck stops here

For the biggest games in sports, Joe Buck gets the call

Ben STRAUSS

The Washington Post

Longtime Fox announcer Joe Buck has called World Series, Super Bowls and All-Star games for more than two decades, but this weekend he will add something new to his résumé: a European assignment.

Buck is headed to London to call today’s game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox at London Stadium.

In advance of Buck’s trip across the Atlantic, he talked to The Washington Post about the new career milestone, how analytics have changed the way he broadcasts baseball and his five favorite calls.

Q: This is your first time calling a European event. How notable a moment is that in your career?

A: I’m clearly not an international man of mystery (laughs). Every time our crew has been in London for football, I’ve been doing the baseball playoffs so I have missed all that fun.

I’m a huge fan of Europe in general, and it does feels like (a notable career moment). I was always jealous of these guys like (NBC announcer Mike) Tirico who would always seem to be reading from a map and give you a good lay of the land of where he was, like, for a British Open. And obviously the Olympics. I sat back here at my house from the Midwest wondering what that was like. I think it’s cool, and I think it’s good for baseball.

Q: Speaking of baseball, what do you make of the analytics versus aesthetics debate going on in the game today?

A: It’s hard for me, because the last thing I want to be, as a guy who just turned 50 and who was doing World Series games at 27, is to come off or feel like a get-offmy-lawn, complaining baseball fan.

But it’s different, it’s different than the game I grew up around. It doesn’t mean it’s worse; it’s just not what I’m used to seeing. Growing up in St Louis and having seen the (Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog’s teams) of the ‘80s, that’s the kind of game I grew up on. Get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in. Now a guy is in scoring position when he steps into the batter’s box.

Q: Is today’s style of play less enjoyable from the fan’s perspective?

A: I don’t know, I don’t want to crush the game on that stuff. I’m just gonna go with it’s different. For a broadcaster, a lot of the nuance is gone. The strategy is what I always loved, it’s what (former broadcaster) Tim McCarver and I always talked about. And I think it’s phased a lot of guys out of the game. Guys who these days are managing some of these teams –(Milwaukee Brewers manager) Craig Counsell or (Los Angeles Dodgers manager) Dave Roberts, some of the slappy hitters who can make contact and either move a guy, find a hole and drive him in, or steal a big base in the case of Dave Roberts. Stolen bases are pretty much irrelevant these days, and even hitting and running isn’t as prevalent.

We had a long conversation when we were last in Chicago and we talked to (Cubs manager) Joe Maddon about this. And he said he feels like the next turn will be back toward that type of game, because we’ve exhausted all we can out

of wait around for the home run ball and either strikeout or walk. He said he’d like to see a lineup of three and four hitters who can just pound the ball with power and then one, two, five, six, seven, eight hitters who can get on and can run.

Q: Does the change in the game affect how you call it?

A: I’ve had to readjust and (my partner) John Smoltz has had to readjust. All of us over the age of 35 have had to. When you’re sitting in the booth and you look down and you see a left-handed pull hitter up and the entire left side of the infield is wide open, I have to fight the urge to say, ‘The left side of the infield is open and they could drop a bunt down or slap at it and go the opposite way.’ I mean (St. Louis Cardinal) Matt Carpenter bunted for a double the other day. So you could say that... 15 times a game... If logic says you need base runners and you’re down by multiple runs in the eighth or ninth inning, then I think it’s a valid point, but how many times can you make it? It’s like shut up, move on already!

Q: Is there an off-the-wall sport you’d like the chance to broadcast once?

A: I’d be willing to do anything once. I did live bass fishing on TV. I’ve done horse jumping...

so clearly I’m not very picky... I kind of feel like curling combines this weird vision of people sliding down a lane and it looks like it combines bowling and every bar game I’ve ever played. But I still don’t understand what the hell it is.

Q: You’ve been doing this job at the highest level for a long time now. Are there any young announcers out there you think of as possibly the next generation of national guys who will do what you do?

A: We have at Fox, Joe Davis. He’s with the Dodgers and he was the guy who took over for Vin Scully and succeeded... But it’s hard for young guys, with the social media world ready to smack the personality out of you, to have fun. And back in the day when I was stepping out of the midline and trying to be light and comical I had Phil Mushnick hammering me from the New York Post. Now these guys have everybody with a phone.

You go on there and read all that stuff, the natural move is to be as down-the-middle and as boring as possible. So if I were talking to a group of young broadcasters, I would say don’t even put Twitter on your phone.

Q: You get asked all the time about taking criticism in your job,

but from the outside it seems like you’ve gotten to the point where there is more appreciation of you –or at least more than there used to be. Do you feel that way?

A: I do feel like I went into the corner with my hands up and defended myself as best I could. But I don’t do anything different. I feel like I’ve done baseball for so long, since I was 27... and I was the new guy. I wasn’t ‘their’ guy. I’m not really anybody’s guy. I’m Fox’s guy. When you’ve done it long enough – I’ve done something like 21 World Series – just about every fan base has turned off the TV when their team lost and I was screaming and yelling for the other side. But I think some of the things I’ve done - going on (Howard) Stern a couple of times, doing ‘Pardon My Take’ and messing around with those guys and showing my personality – has been good for me. And writing the book and being honest about who I am, having fun at my own expense, is big. When you don’t get a rise out of somebody, I think the mob moves on to somebody else.

Q: What are your top five favourite calls of your career?

A: Off the top of my head, I would still have the (Mark) McGwire home run in ‘98 for number 62 on there, despite us all being a little wiser these days. I will say

my first World Series, YankeesBraves in ‘96. That was (Derek) Jeter’s rookie year and when they won it all I had never really prepared myself for a nationally televised, World Series-clinching call – ‘The Yankees are champions of baseball’ – and it came out and I didn’t mess it up. Probably the (St. Louis Cardinal) David Freese home run in 2011 (to win Game 6 of the World Series and force Game 7), which was just a rip-off call of my dad’s call from 20 years earlier, but it fit and it was a St. Louis kid that hit it for the Cardinals.

I’ll put the (New York Giants receiver) Plaxico Burress touchdown in Super Bowl (XLII) against the Patriots with the game going back and forth and being as great as it was and they knocked off the perfect Patriots.

And I think my last one was my most thrilling, which was (Minnesota Vikings receiver) Stefon Diggs’s walk-off touchdown against the Saints two years ago in the postseason. Everyone expected if he made that catch, he’d hop out of bounds, but instead he didn’t and he turned around and ran it in for the winning touchdown. We felt the stadium erupt and had one of those definitive moments in football. Usually that stuff happens in baseball.

AP FILE PHOTO

Joe Buck, left, talks to Troy Aikman before an NFL football game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 11, 2018, in East Rutherford, N.J.

Yankees, Red Sox in London for MLB European debut

BLUM The Associated Press

Ronald

LONDON — An array of retired All-Stars and Hall of Famers conducted a youth clinic. Workers put final touches on new clubhouses, batting cages and bullpens.

No ducks on the pond quite yet – not so soon after flying across it. Having landing in London, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox relaxed, saw a few sights and tried to give Major League Baseball some buzz ahead of the first regular season games in Europe this weekend.

“More important than the two games is what continues to happen here in England after we’re gone,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday at the clinic in north London’s Finchley Park, not far from Tottenham. “It’s programs like this that provide kids with playing opportunities that are so crucial to the growth of our game.”

Mariano Rivera, Reggie Jackson, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte, Hideki Matsui, Carlos Beltran, Nick Swisher and Aaron Boone worked with players ages 8-15 and then joined Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner to present a truck of baseball equipment to the London Mets youth club. There was a cloudless sky and the temperature was in the mid-20s on a day when London had no resemblance to its Big Smoke nickname.

“I like the way that it’s different to other sports,” eight-year-old Milo Mandolini said.

“I like batting, I find that quite fun.”

In a land dominated by Premier League football – soccer to novices back in the States – baseball wants to make inroads. Olympic Stadium, home of the West Ham soccer club, has been reconfigured for baseball, an artificial turf surface imported and foul poles installed. Red cards have been replaced by lineup cards, rituals on display for young fans to emulate.

“There’s no doubt this country’s about soccer,” Beltran said. “There’s some kids here that they hope and wish one day to become ballplayers.”

Fans will be asked to sing Sweet Caroline, just as they do at Fenway Park. A hawker was brought over to train British vendors the skills selling hot dogs and beer. Delaware North is even promoting 2,000-calorie-plus delicacies of Americana priced at 19-24 £ ($24-$30), one involving two-foot hot dogs, the other tw0 feet of corn chips, and both with jalapenos.

On a less weighty matter, a variation of the Washington Nationals’ Racing Presidents will take place between innings – but featuring Winston Churchill, King Henry VIII, the Loch Ness Monster and late Queen

The Canadian Press

WIMBLEDON, England — Felix AugerAliassime will face Vasek Pospisil in an allCanadian first-round match at Wimbledon.

In Friday’s draw, the No. 19-seeded Auger-Aliassime of Montreal was placed against a Vancouver player set to compete for the first time since October after undergoing back surgery.

The 18-year-old Auger-Aliassime, who has rocketed up the rankings this year, is looking for his first career Grand Slam win in his second main-draw appearance. It’s his first Grand Slam of the year after failing to qualify for the Australian Open and missing the French Open because of injury. Pospisil, 29, is ranked 188th in the world, but has a protected ranking of 73rd – allowing him to make his return at Wimbledon. Auger-Aliassime won his only match against Pospisil last year at a hard-court event in Indian Wells, Calif.

Top-ranked Canadian Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., the No. 15 seed, faces world No. 94 Prajnesh Gunneswaran of India in the first round. Raonic, a Wimbledon finalist in 2016, never has squared off with Gunneswaran. No. 29 seed Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., meets world No. 74

vocalist Freddie Mercury.

And The Freeze is coming – not the typical British weather but instead the Atlanta Braves between-innings sprinter.

Major League Baseball is billing this as “Old rivalry. New ground.” Many of the regular fans are making the 5,000-kilometre or so journey.

Red Sox season ticket holders purchased an average of 5,831 seats per game and Yankees buyers 4,752 during the presale, ready to mind the gap and take the Jubilee or Central line to the Queen Elizabeth Park rather than the No. 4 to the Bronx or the Green line to Kenmore Square.

Still, the majority of fans will be local.

The baseball will vastly outdraw the Cricket World Cup, which includes Australia vs. New Zealand on Saturday at Lords and England vs India on Sunday at Edgbaston in Birmingham.

“We certainly hope to pick up some fans while we’re over there,” said Ron Bumgar-

Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania in the first round. The struggling Shapovalov, who has won just two of his past 10 matches, is 1-0 against Berankis lifetime, beating him last year at Indian Wells. Brayden Schnur of Pickering, Ont., could get into the main draw as a lucky loser if a player drops out before play begins Monday.

ner, Boston’s executive vice-president of ticketing, events and concerts.

Both teams are taking advantage of British ties. Boston is hosting clients and sponsors of European champion Liverpool, which like the baseball team is owned by Fenway Sports Group. The Yankees learned about the youth baseball organization from Premier League champion Manchester City, the baseball team’s partner in Major League Soccer’s New York City team.

“You’re making this game grow,” Steinbrenner said at the clinic. “You’re getting people interested that maybe thought they wouldn’t be interested in baseball,”

Boone and Red Sox manager Alex Cora had never been to London before – the only European city Boone had visited was Barcelona, Spain. Players are creatures of routine, but Cora had no patience for gripes.

“Someone mentioned it’s a long trip, I said: ‘How about this one? You can be in Double-A right now on a bus ride, bad ho-

On the women’s side, Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., is the lone Canadian. The world No. 79, a Wimbledon finalist in 2014, faces world No. 59 Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia.

In women’s doubles, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu of China are seeded fourth. They face Ons Jabeur of Tunisia and Fanny Stollar of Hungary in the

tels and bad meals,”’ he recalled. “Let’s put everything in perspective. It’s not that bad.”

Managers call the trip a distraction from the season’s monotony. Boone and Cora planned to visit Buckingham Palace before batting practice Friday to watch the changing of the guard.

Both teams were due Friday night at the Tower of London – for a party, not imprisonment, though in the days of George Steinbrenner that latter likely would have been threatened for consecutive defeats.

Each player on the trip gets an extra $60,000, according to baseball’s labour contract. That more than covers the ticket cost of The Making of Harry Potter, the Yankees’ most-mentioned activity choice.

Before he was sent to Triple-A in a roster crunch, Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier said some teammates envisioned a possible lengthier excursion: Paris.

“I know it’s only about a three-hour train ride,” he said.

first round. In men’s doubles, Pospisil and Matthew Ebden of Australia meet Dusan Lajovic and Filip Krajinovic of Serbia in the first round. Within the first minute of the draw ceremony, there arrived a bit of information many were wondering about: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were indeed set up for a potential semifinal meeting, with Novak Djokovic possibly awaiting that showdown’s winner in the final.

Toward the end of the proceedings came the most fascinating first-round matchup of all: 39-year-old Venus Williams, a five-time champion at the All England Club, against 15-year-old American Coco Gauff, the youngest player to qualify at the All England Club in the half-century Open era. In between, there were plenty of other things to keep an eye out for once the grass-court Grand Slam tournament begins, including the placement of Venus’ younger sister, Serena, in what shapes up as by far the toughest quarter of the women’s field. She might need to beat defending champion Angelique Kerber in the fourth round, then No. 1 Ash Barty in the quarterfinals. Gauff grew up idolizing the Williams sisters, who have both been ranked No. 1 and own a combined 30 Grand Slam singles titles.

Kardashian West’s new ‘Kimono’ shapewear sparks outrage in Japan

Simon DENYER, Jennifer HASSAN

The Washington Post

TOKYO — Kim Kardashian

West’s latest product is not yet available to buy, but the backlash is already here.

A day after a new line of slimming undergarments called Kimono Solutionwear was announced, some Japanese people expressed their displeasure with the reality star’s use of the word kimono to sell her latest product.

They accused her of appropriating an item – and an idea – central to Japanese culture in an attempt at cute wordplay and consumerism.

Kardashian West announced the project Tuesday on Twitter, saying it was coming soon. The product, which does not resemble a kimono, is shapewear for women in nine different shades and an array of sizes that is intended to help women feel more confident.

“Finally I can share with you guys this project that I have been developing for the last year. I’ve been passionate about this for 15 years. Kimono is my take on shapewear and solutions for women that actually work,”

she wrote. In Japan, the word kimono, which means “thing to wear on the shoulders” is a central part of national culture. It is a gown that is tied with a sash and has been worn by men and women alike for generations.

On social media, angry users accused the reality star of disrespecting Japanese culture and stealing the name of their traditional dress.

“This is blasphemy against Japanese culture. Can’t someone from kimono-related organizations protest? This is terrible,” tweeted Masahito Sato, an editor and writer.

Many used the hashtag #KimOhNo to express their disgust and disappointment.

“Kim, I’m sure your shapewear’s nice, but please don’t take the name of a beautiful, traditional Japanese wardrobe and use it for your undies,” one user wrote.

Kardashian West calls her new brand “a solution focused approach to shape enhancing underwear.”

According to the BBC, she trademarked the Kimono brand last year in the United States and has also filed trademarks for Kimono Body, Kimono Intimates and Kimono World.

What if we didn’t meet the Beatles?

Ann HORNADAY

The Washington Post

The whimsical what-if comedy Yesterday poses the intriguing question: had the Beatles never existed, would the world be a worse place to live?

Related: if you were a struggling singer-songwriter and you were the only person on the planet who knew those classic Beatles’ songs, would you fob them off as your own, ensuring fame, fortune and your place in the pop-cultural firmament?

The British actor Himesh Patel plays a musician in that precise ethical dilemma in Yesterday, wherein a brief worldwide blackout results in no one remembering who the Beatles were.

Jack, Patel’s character, realizes something’s amiss when a reference to When I’m Sixty-Four sails over the head of his effervescently supportive manager Ellie (a curlyhaired, chronically ebullient Lily James). Later, when he strums out a quietly mesmerizing version of the film’s title song, his friends compliment him on writing a terrific tune, with the caveat that “it’s not Coldplay.”

Such are the running gags that keep Yesterday aloft within a gently amusing speculative bubble, as Jack – who works at a warehouse store in the picturesque seaside town of Lowestoft – becomes an overnight sensation.

When he tries to play Let It Be to his kind but distracted parents, they fail to recognize its greatness; it’s only when Ed Sheeran drops

by – in one of the film’s funniest scenes – that Jack (along with John, Paul, George and Ringo) begins to get his due.

“You’re Mozart, man,” Sheeran tells his new protege at one point, “and I’m definitely Salieri.” For the first hour of its too-long running time, Yesterday keeps the balloon in the air, sending Jack on a giddy trip to stardom with the help of the real-life Sheeran and a hilariously insensitive L.A. manager played by Kate McKinnon, in all her cockeyed deadpan glory. Written by Richard Curtis – best known for the treacly holiday romcom Love, Actually – Yesterday evinces the screenwriter’s love-itor-loathe-it sentimentality, which here starts out modestly enough until finding full florid expression in an over-sweet third act. Patel, who spends most of the movie scowling and looking anxious, has a simple, pure voice that perfectly captures the mix of naivete and virtuosity that beguiled the Beatles’ fans in the first place. Eventually – perhaps inevitably – Yesterday overplays its hand, with Curtis seemingly at a loss for how to resolve a story that, after its initial premise has been mined for maximum humour and poignancy, has very few places to go. (Curtis’ solution is a maudlin, creepily literalistic scene suggesting that there are some cataclysmic losses it will always be too soon to revisit.)

Although director Danny Boyle does his best to inject visual interest by way of canted camera angles and snazzy on-screen graphics, even the brightest visual design can’t overcome cliched chases through train stations and an improbably romantic moment beamed from the stage of a packed Wembley Stadium.

Of course, the entirety of Yesterday is improbable, so suspending disbelief is required from the jump, when it’s clear that the self-absorbed Jack is grouchily unaware of Ellie’s obvious unrequited love.

That might be the biggest stretch of all in Yesterday, which at its least convincing inspires more than a few eye rolls, but at its best invites the audience, along with the characters on screen, to hear some of the finest songs ever written for the very first time. — Two-and-a-half stars out of four

Himesh Patel plays Jack, a singer who gets a career boost from Ed Sheeran (playing himself) in Yesterday. Jack is the only person in the world who remembers the Beatles music.

Top of the charts in outer space

The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of the Voyager Golden

Even though the 200th anniversary celebration of American independence was spectacular, nostalgia isn’t a mood we often ascribe to the 1970s.

Watergate happened and the ramifications are still felt today.

Inflation raged, gasoline lines became common, cars were crummy, and the clothing was god-awful. Worse, we seemed to be failing at fighting the Cold War.

In other words, a lost decade.

But the ’70s had their moments.

One, recounted well by British journalist Jonathan Scott, involved the effort to leave some semblance of our earthly presence aboard the Voyager spacecraft, which are still going – and going, and going – 42 years after their launch.

They may still be going a billion or more years from now, which was not lost on those who proposed and then pushed for what is now known as the Voyager Golden Record.

First, though, there had to be a precedent.

And lo and behold, the precedent was aboard the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that NASA had launched in the early ’70s: the Pioneer plaques.

One of the people involved in producing the plaques – which generated a mini-scandal of sorts because the human figures were nude – was Carl Sagan, a scientist at Cornell University.

“Sagan was already a well-known astronomer, with a growing public profile, but he was not yet the household name he would become,” Scott writes.

Nevertheless, he did know John Casani of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who had encouraged for the coming Voyager mission an effort similar to the Pioneer plaques.

As he urged: “Send a message!”

And what a message it was.

Once put together, the Golden Record consisted of music; greetings in several languages, including from then-United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim (since discredited for his Nazi service in the Second World War), President Jimmy Carter and selected members of Congress; along with sounds and images of life on Earth.

Simple?

Think again.

Scott’s book is a testimony to the amount of work that Sagan, who died in 1996, and his team put into the Golden Record, which was not vinyl but metal (copper), plated with gold.

And while this is about the production of the record and not the Voyager mission itself, Scott does well mastering the technical details, often with a touch of humour.

“The ‘hydrogen line’ is the electromagnetic radiation spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of neutral hydrogen atoms. I don’t really know what that means either,” the author admits on one of those occasions when he needs to dive into science-speak.

The Pioneer and Voyager probes may turn out to be one of NASA’s greatest moments, yet we tend to view the period when they went up as something of a wasteland for the space agency: the lunar mission had ended, and the space shuttle was years away. Still, there was an opportunity to be had for a grand tour. And NASA took it.

That a plaque was aboard the Pioneers and a record was aboard both of the Voyagers are often seen as amusements.

“Even today, if you tell a person about the Voyager record – someone who’s not heard of it before – it excites head-scratching, furrowed brows and skepticism,” Scott notes.

Further, the fact that Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode is riding off to eternity was not lost on the talented writers in the early days of Saturday Night Live. Appearing on the show in 1978, comedian Steve Martin announced that a message had come from aliens, begging: “Send more Chuck Berry.”

The Beatles didn’t make the cut.

Neither did Elvis, Jefferson Starship or the Rolling Stones. What did was Berry, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and an obscure musician named Blind Willie Johnson, along with other forms of music from around the world.

A skeptic would say what’s the point?

And indeed, Scott notes that the intended audience, extraterrestrials, might never come upon the Golden Record.

“The Voyagers aren’t ever going to land anywhere,” he writes.

“Assuming they don’t get hit by anything, they will drift in a vast orbit around the Milky Way. They’ll be forever in deep space.”

Which leaves us to believe that this may have been what the team that envisioned and created the Golden Record intended all along.

Kind of puts the 1970s in a different light, doesn’t it?

James HILL Special To The Washington Post

Record

PHOTO BY BLOOMSBURY SIGMA

This is the cover of The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of the Voyager Golden Record

Very Nice great vacation read

Rumaan ALAM Special To The Washington Post

It’s gospel in the publishing business that readers want light, enjoyable fare this time of year, and Very Nice, Marcy Dermansky’s fourth novel, fits the bill.

With a story of sex and intrigue set amid rich people in a beautiful house with a picturesque swimming pool, it is, indeed, a good book to pack for your vacation.

But maybe it’s more than that.

Set in roughly the present moment, the story focuses on Rachel, an undergraduate, who goes home to Connecticut for summer vacation.

Her father has left her mother, Becca, a schoolteacher who has also just suffered the loss of her faithful dog, which might be the greater tragedy.

Rachel has recently had a dalliance with her creative writing professor, Zahid, and by a strange turn of events he, too, ends up at the Connecticut home, where he falls under the spell not of his student but her mother.

It’s to the author’s credit that this mother-daughter love triangle is considerably less icky than it sounds.

Zahid is in crisis, struggling to write his new book, and finds himself drawn to Becca – and her wealth.

“This was the kind of woman I needed in my life,” he tells us.

“A beautiful woman with a big, beautiful house... A woman who had been let down by another man. She would not have unrealistic expectations.”

Yes, she’s rich, but this woman of a certain age is also an object of sexual desire.

“Becca seemed to understand me. She was eighteen years older than I was, and this felt right to me. Our bodies felt right. She had a terrific body.”

The plot is nominally about whether Zahid and Becca will become lovers and how this will affect Rachel. But Very Nice contains many storylines and a whole cast of characters, almost like a stage farce: people race in and out of doors, nearly colliding and never quite realizing the part they play in the larger story.

Each chapter has a different narrator: Becca, Rachel and Zahid, as well as Becca’s estranged husband, Jonathan, and Khloe, a lesbian business school grad who works for him.

Each chapter moves the central story forward but is also a digression.

We hear about Khloe’s romantic life, Zahid’s job hunt and the saga of one especially dysfunctional family in town.

Some of these sidesteps feel a little laboured –Khloe’s storyline is the least interesting – but the brisk pacing and economical style are seductive and keep the reader’s attention.

As the pages go by, the novel begins to feel unreal.

This is not a complaint.

Novels are unreal by definition.

The pool is almost a character, the way New York is in an Edith Wharton story.

“The pool looked better than it ever had,” Dermansky describes.

“The water sparkled, rays of light rippling across the sparkling blue water. We swam for half an hour.”

What will happen at this house in Connecticut, and the attendant themes of family, sex and marriage, are conveyed in a distant, affectless way.

This isn’t minimalism, not really; the narrative has the sound and feel of anecdote, or maybe more appropriately, fairy tale.

Not in the sense that there’s anything magical happening but insofar as there’s a moral to the stories.

I think the author means to delight us with a love triangle, then redirect our attention to the various subplots and digressions that allow her to ruminate on identity, art, violence and our current politics.

“The girls had wanted a woman president,” Becca tells us of her students.

“I educated the pink-cheeked boys who said they were happy about Trump. I had to set them straight, as carefully as possible, to avoid confrontations with parents.”

The author is direct but mindful not to let moments like this overwhelm.

She’s asking big questions but at the same time giving us the kind of book we’re told we want during the summer.

While not profound, necessarily, this is a more serious book than it might seem at first glance.

It’s like she’s served us a cupcake that turns out to be nutritious.

I won’t spoil the book’s conclusion, not because I dislike spoilers but because I’m in awe of it.

Dermansky manages to resolve what ultimately becomes a pretty crazy plot, while keeping the novel’s aims opaque. It’s only on the final page that those become somewhat clearer.

And yet, Very Nice is not a text that reveals itself at the last minute as metafiction or parable, in the lazy manner of those “it was all just a dream” stories.

It’s not a trick, with the reader as its patsy, and though very funny, it’s not a joke at the reader’s expense. OK, one spoiler: the last word of the book is “laugh.”

I bet you will.

— Rumaan Alam is the author of Rich and Pretty and That Kind of Mother.

This is the cover of the book Very Nice.

How to fight spies in your browser

Geoffrey A. FOWLER

The Washington Post

Is your web browser spying on you? My recent column about the stark privacy differences between Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox generated a lot of conversation – and questions from readers about what you can do to avoid surveillance while you surf.

The main lesson: If Google is a data vampire, Chrome is its fangs. For most people, not using a browser made by an advertising company is the simplest way to protect your data from thousands of tracking firms, including Google itself.

I recommend switching to the nonprofit Firefox, which has privacy-focused default settings that automatically block tracking cookies from ad and data companies, including Google itself. Apple’s Safari and Brave (which has an ad blocker built in) are also fine choices.

But I understand some people just can’t quit Chrome. Barbara Karpel of Lauderhill, Fla., writes that her dental office uses software that asks for the Google browser. “When we submit a claim online, we are told that the insurance company’s platform only accepts Chrome,” she says.

Some people have invested in Chromebook laptops built around Google’s browser – or just think Chrome is faster than the alternatives.

There are ways to defang Chrome, if you don’t just use the default settings. Making Chrome better respect privacy requires messing around under the hood and installing privacy software, or extensions, into the browser.

Here’s what I recommend to fight the advertising surveillance machine. Bonus: Some of these steps will also make websites load faster. Privacy for the win!

• Don’t count on Incognito mode to protect your privacy. Or a VPN. First, a warning: the “private” browsing mode in Chrome probably doesn’t do what you think it does. Incognito is the privacy equivalent of using an umbrella in a hurricane. It keeps information from being saved on your computer’s search and browsing history, which is only useful if you want to hide your activity from other people who share your browser. It does not stop websites, search engines and internet service providers from tracking what you do.

“Does using a VPN solve the privacy issues you spoke about on Google Chrome?” asks reader Dan Harmon.

Unfortunately, no.

A VPN, or virtual private network, can obscure what you do online from your internet service provider, including your work,

school or someone spying locally on your network. But if you’re logged into Google or Facebook, a VPN won’t stop the tech giants and their partners from tracking your searches and other things you do in Chrome.

• Tell Google to collect less personal information.

A great place to start is by telling Google itself to stop some of the tracking of your online activity that it associates with your Google account. I suggest checking two spots.

Log in to Google’s advertising settings (adssettings.google.com), and make sure “ad personalization” is set to “off.” Doing this will make Google stop targeting ads to you on sites such as YouTube, though it alone won’t stop Google from collecting data about you.

Then head over to your Activity controls (myaccount.google.com/ activitycontrols) and turn off – or set to “pause,” in Google’s strange lingo – your “Web & App Activity.”

This tells Google not to record your searches, ads you click on, apps you use and other data about how you use its services. The downside, as Google will remind you, is that some of its services might not work as well. While you’re in this menu, go ahead and also pause “Location History” as well as “Voice and Audio Activity.”

• Make sure you’re not using

Chrome Sync. In your Chrome browser, tap the circular icon in the top right corner to make sure you’re not signed in with your Google account and using the Sync function. This would allow Chrome to pass your browsing history to Google. (The data would be private if you also set a passphrase in Chrome, but most people haven’t done that.)

While you’re at it, tell Chrome not to automatically log in the browser to your Google account whenever you sign in to Gmail. To do that, tap the three dots in the upper right corner of Chrome to find your way to Settings. There, search “Gmail,” and you’ll find a setting for “Allow Chrome signin.” Set that to “off.”

There is one Chrome setting that privacy advocates disagree on: sending a “Do Not Track” request with your browsing traffic. Once upon a time, this was a good idea – but the industry hasn’t taken action on it, and now some data companies actually use it as one more way to track people. The argument for turning it on: You’re telling sites you specifically do not consent to them tracking you.

• Add a privacy extension. You can download software to add to Chrome that works behind the scenes to automatically block tracking cookies and other snooping techniques used by an armada

BCE boss retiring

The Canadian Press

BCE Inc. announced Friday that chief executive George Cope will retire at the start of next year after nearly 12 years in the top job.

The telecommunications and media company said chief operating officer Mirko Bibic will takeover as chief executive of BCE and Bell Canada on Jan. 5, 2020.

Cope, 57, joined Bell from Telus as chief operating officer in January 2006, becoming president and CEO of BCE in July 2008. Under his leadership, Bell grew its wireless business and executed strategic investments and acquisitions valued at more than $15 billion.

“In his tenure as our CEO, George Cope has re-energized Bell as an agile competi-

tor and the industry’s growth leader,” BCE

chairman Gordon Nixon said in a statement.

“He has led the restructuring initiatives and made the critical investments in Bell’s team, networks and customer service infrastructure required to build a bold competitor across every segment of communications.”

Cope said the time is right for Bibic, 51, to take the company to “the next level.”

“He has been front and centre in the successful execution of Bell’s broadband leadership strategy from its beginning.” said Cope.

As COO, Bibic has been responsible for Bell Mobility, Bell Business Markets, and Bell Residential and Small Business. He previously served as executive vice-president of corporate development and as Bell’s chief legal and regulatory officer.

of ad and data companies. These free programs work as extensions (also known as plug-ins) for the desktop version of Chrome.

I have long used Privacy Badger, which works with minimal hassle and is backed by a nonprofit that is squarely on our side, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Other good choices include DuckDuckGo and Disconnect, as well as Ghostery and uBlock, which block both trackers and ads.

Blocking trackers is more of an art than a science, so don’t be afraid to try a few of them to see which work best on the sites you use most often.

In addition to protecting your privacy, the extensions could help sites load faster because they scrape tracking code out of pages.

• Protect Chromebooks, too.

“I downloaded Firefox,” writes Eva Hashemi from Boca Raton, Fla. “Then my son reminded me that his new laptop is a Chromebook. Yikes! Any advice on this? It’s too late to return it.”

All hope is not lost. If your Chromebook isn’t locked down (say, by school administrators) and you can still add extensions, you could install the privacy software I recommended above.

Or another idea: if the version of Chrome OS you’re using supports the installation of Android apps, then you could also install the

Android version of Firefox via the Google Play store.

• Don’t use Google for searches. Asks John Peterson from Atlanta: “If I use DuckDuckGo as my default, is my privacy maintained when using my Mac installed with Chrome?”

Using a privacy-first search engine such as DuckDuckGo won’t stop websites you visit from tracking you.

But changing your search engine to DuckDuckGo will definitely send less of your data to Google. Our searches are perhaps the most valuable personal information we share with Google – they convey not only what’s on our minds, but also what we’re looking to buy. Chrome lets you switch your default search engine away from Google. Go to Settings, and then search for “search engine” and change the address bar setting.

DuckDuckGo is among the most well-known in the niche world of Google search alternatives. It promises not to track your searches or build a profile of you. It makes money through advertising around the context of what you search, rather than by tracking you. Is it as good as Google? No. But it keeps getting better – and now claims over 41 million searches per day, up from 12 million in 2016. Clearly, interest in privacy is on the rise.

The Chrome logo is displayed at a Google even in New York in 2013.

CP FILE PHOTO

George Cope, president and CEO of BCE Inc., addresses shareholders at the company’s 2016 annual meeting in Montreal.

At Home

How do paint companies choose colour names?

Elizabeth MAYHEW

Special to The Washington Post

Several years ago, I painted a bathroom in my house a rich, smoky blue.

Everyone who sees it asks for the colour name. When I answer, Benjamin Moore’s Gentleman’s Gray, the questioner inevitably looks perplexed and assumes I have conflated two colours, because there is nothing gray about the shade. Even on Benjamin Moore’s website, the colour is described as a “blackened blue” that “leans toward classic navy.”

Why did the company choose a somewhat misleading name?

The name, though not entirely descriptive of the colour, does conjure the image of a man impeccably dressed in a tailored three-piece suit – an image that aptly matches the richness of the hue. Hannah Yeo, Benjamin Moore’s colour and design expert, said names play an important role when people are making color selections.

“While colour descriptions such as ‘light blue’ are helpful to narrow down colours and are quite straightforward, we also look for names that evoke positive associations, experiences and are inspiring,” Yeo said.

Sue Wadden, director of colour marketing for Sherwin-Williams, said that in some cases a colour name can be a tiebreaker.

“In the past, all a name needed to do was describe a colour – for example, bright pink. Today, however, we want consumers to connect with colours. So instead, that color might be called ‘Vivacious.’”

Charlotte Cosby, head of creative at Farrow & Ball, said inspiration for their colour names comes from all over. Cosby travels extensively for work, so she gets lots of name (and colour) ideas from the places she visits, but just as important is the inspiration she finds in the landscape and dialect of England’s Dorset County, where the company is based. Farrow & Ball’s naming process is organic, Cosby said.

“Even when we are not working on new colors, if we encounter a great name, it gets filed away for when we are.”

Sometimes, she said, the colour comes before the name and sometimes the name comes before the colour. An example of the latter is Farrow & Ball’s Mizzle. “Mizzle,” Cosby explains, “is the word we use in Dorset to describe the weather when it is both misty and drizzling.” Stored on a someday list, the

name was eventually matched and attached to a hazy shade of gray green.

Although many of Farrow & Ball’s colour names pay homage to the past, Cosby said, “we always opt for names that we hope will delight and intrigue the people who pick up our colour cards.”

In fact, Cosby said, the names become a huge part of the identity of the colour and often help with a colour’s popularity.

“Elephant’s Breath is always a favorite among our fans. It’s a gorgeous gray with a magenta undertone, very beautiful in its own right, but its unusual name definitely helps its popularity.”

California-based paint company

Behr frequently turns to its landscape to name colors, said Erika Woelfel, Behr’s vice president of colour and creative services.

“Colours like Surfboard Yellow and Beachside Drive reference a sunny, oceanside culture, while Vintner is a nod to the lush Napa Valley wine region,” Woelfer said.

However, Woelfer and her team try to keep their paint names as universal as possible so they appeal to a wide audience; Behr paints are available at Home Depot.

“We put a lot of research into our paint colour names, knowing they often sway consumers toward one shade or another,” Woelfer

said. “We choose names based on the imagery and mood each colour evokes, with the goal of making the colour selection process easier and more personal for our customers.”

Behr colours fall into four categories: visual names tied to colour (Red Pepper, Bluebird), geographic names (Aruba Green, Rocky Mountain Sky), emotional names (Charismatic, LOL Yellow) and action-oriented experiential names (Explorer Blue, Biking Trail). Like many of the larger brands, Behr does a good bit of research and has a team that chooses the names.

Nicole Gibbons,

who founded

the direct-to-consumer online paint company Clare in 2017, said her company’s naming process is rigorous and thoughtful, seeking to invoke the feeling of the colour, in a fun and relevant way. Clare takes naming cues from pop culture; names such as Matcha Latte and Avocado Toast are timely references to trendy menu items but also immediately evocative of their green hues.

Clare recently launched a campaign that invited its fan base to choose its newest colour, with more than 2,000 people weighing in. The winning color: an icy, pale blue that conjures images of icicles and crisp winter days, aptly named Frozen. (The name’s connection to a certain Disney film probably didn’t hurt.)

Another newcomer to the paint industry is six-month-old Backdrop. Founded by Natalie and Caleb Ebel, the collection has 50 paint colours with names that are as hip and cool as the company’s signature paint cans. Natalie Ebel admits to being inspired by the makeup industry.

“If you think of nail polish, I would always remember the name of the polish I would put on my nails, but I would never know what white was on my wall.” Essie, the venerable nail polish brand, is famous for its clever and sometimes cheeky color names. Like Essie, Backdrop seeks to find names that are memorable and emotionally resonate with its customers.

Natalie said Backdrop’s first colour – and one of its most popular – was called Surf Camp. It set the tone for the other colour names. The name evokes deep ocean waters; the hue is a deep blue with green undertones. (It’s actually pretty similar to Benjamin Moore’s Gentleman’s Gray.) The brand has gone one step further to reinforce their customers’ emotional connection to their colours by creating color-inspired music playlists on Spotify.

“The playlists really represent the colours and what they might sound like, so it’s a way to interact with the colour and our brand even before you are ready to paint.”

And like Clare, Backdrop relies on its community: one year before launching, Natalie had narrowed down the palette to 75 colours, which she then shared with a group of 100 (a combination of friends, family and work associates from across the country) via Instagram. That group weighed in, voted and ultimately helped refine the brand’s 51 colours and their names, from After Hours to Westside Local.

Backdrop has 51 paint colors, chosen with the help of 100 friends, family and work associates from across the country.

CLARE HANDOUT PHOTO VIA THE WASHINGTON POST

Paint company Clare recently invited fans to choose its new color. The winner was Frozen, an icy, pale blue that conjures images of icicles and crisp winter days.

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