Short Solo
The solo travels of a man from Winnipeg
Category: Uncategorized
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My image of East Africa will always conjure up the spring of 1994. I was studying photography at Winnipeg’s Technical Vocational High School. In contrast, 50,000 Tutsi on the other side of the world had gathered at the Murambi Technical School in Rwanda believing they would be safe from machete wielding Hutu Power extremists. History…
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Dian Fossey (1932-1985) released her field work / autobiography— Gorillas in the Mist – in the summer of 1983. Two years later she’d be murdered in her cabin on Boxing Day of 1985 and buried with her gorillas beneath the volcanos of Rwanda on New Year’s Eve. Farley Mowat wrote a true biography of Fossey…
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Trump’s second-term win was the result of a populist coalition of conservatives wearing MAGA hats who promoted their movement as ‘America First’. That catch-all term casts a wide-net that describes many policies including protectionist tariffs, domestic crackdowns on vulnerable populations (American or not), and a new foreign policy where leaders look inward to domestic issues…
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To say the summer of 1994 had a dramatic impact on my world would be an understatement. I graduated high school and shortly afterwards began a relationship that would lead to marriage and children. In June of 1994, I attended a graduation party that turned into a mass gathering of people around North America glued…
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Visiting the sites where historical events unfolded—even mundane artifacts like an office—make history tangible and relatable. Two of my memorable office visits include the preserved offices of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, Palestine and Oskar Schindler in Krakow, Poland. While both of those were personal and meaningful, they pale in comparison to the most impactful office…
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Prime Minister Carney’s recent speech is being rightly hailed across much of the Western world as the kind of honesty required if we are to collectively confront the reality of American empire. It lands close to a story I’ve just finished working on and will share soon. The speech forces the truth that many Canadians…
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I recently discovered that Kwedi Mzingisi Zilindile Mkhaliphi (Kwedi) of Bazian, South Africa passed away at the age of 90. Embarrassingly, this knowledge came to me long after he’d passed in May of 2024. The Revolutionary Kwedi’s personal compass became political in his late teens. He was first arrested in 1952 for participating in the…
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The rise of Donald Trump is often explained as an accident of history, a fluke powered by anger, social media, or foreign interference. But that story leaves out a far more uncomfortable truth: Trump’s ascent was enabled by deliberate, documented political strategy inside the American establishment. This is not speculation. It is written plainly in…
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Motihari — a small Indian city — is where Gandhi launched his first Satyagraha, and it’s also the birthplace of George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair), whose father served in the British Opium Department. The town that ignited non-violent resistance against the British empire also produced a writer who grew up directly benefiting from colonialism,…
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My dad had the hardest work ethic I’ve ever seen. On many nights he’d work overtime at Canada Post from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. sorting mail, then head straight to Northwood Community Centre to volunteer his morning hours flooding the ice. I’ve been working in some form or another for about thirty-five years, and…
Short Solo 