The revolution will be adorable

Winnipeg Fringe Festival: 2026 show reviews

Not sure what to see at this year's Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival? All of the Free Press’s reviews will be published here.  Find a show and click to read its review.

Animal rescue worker reportedly killed in dog attack

Police are investigating after a woman died on the Sandy Bay First Nation, reportedly after being attacked by dogs.

The woman was identified by family as 37-year-old Amanda Nobiss.

“It’s just disbelief,” said Sherri Nobiss, her mother, in a phone call. Her family is devastated by the loss. “You just want to know what has happened.”

She said Amanda was a dedicated animal advocate who was volunteering with K9 Advocacy Manitoba in the community at the time. Amanda, who was from Winnipeg, is pictured with a dog in almost all of her photos on social media.

Ethics isn’t about big scandals it’s about little decisions made each day

I’m determined to enjoy summer, but even while trying to unplug, I can’t help noticing just how often workplace ethics are making headlines. For instance, Bell Canada made headlines after terminating employees who allegedly manipulated office attendance records by swiping into the building and immediately leaving.

Ethical failures don’t always involve millions of dollars or make international headlines. Sometimes, they look like an employee manipulating attendance records, exaggerating an expense claim or taking credit for someone else’s work. The dollar value may be small, but the damage to trust can be enormous.

As an HR consultant, I spend a surprising amount of time talking about ethics. Not because organizations are filled with bad people, but because good people sometimes make poor decisions when they are stressed, feel misplaced entitlement or are convinced “everyone else does it.”

That’s one of the biggest dangers. Once questionable behaviour becomes common, it starts to feel normal.

The revolution will be adorable

The Pinky Show, an anonymous artists' collective that deploys adorable cartoon cats to advance radical left ideas, is staging a campus occupation this month. The group's multimedia exhibition at the University of Winnipeg's Gallery 1C03 uses its academic setting to question the institutionalized values of higher education. And while the relationship between artists and patrons has always been tricky, The Pinky Show isn't biting the hand that feeds it. It's just nipping a bit with those darling little kitty teeth.

The group's "human representatives" work in Honolulu, but the cats -- including Pinky and pals Mimi, Kim and Bunny -- admit only to "an undisclosed desert location, somewhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas." Since 2005, the cats have talked about "interrogating the logic of capitalism" and "dismantling class-affiliated hegemony," dressing up this undeniably didactic content with a fun, friendly anime style. With its comic tone and catchy animal characters, The Pinky Show recalls the Guerrilla Girls, a group of masked and anonymous feminist artists in 1980s New York. But Pinky and her friends are even cuddlier: think Noam Chomsky by way of Hello Kitty.

The Gallery 1C03 show is made up of overlapping mixed-media components. Near the entrance, a video projected onto a chaste twin bed depicts Pinky and a thought bubble in a dialectical conversation about academe. Is university a force for social and intellectual transformation or does it actually perpetuate the structures of power and privilege? Next, a series of banners with sweet, simple graphics try to keep the (supposedly) free-thinking liberal arts student from falling into the trap of the clock-watching, mortgage-carrying drone.

Another station features desks and a monitor playing a collection of Pinky videos (also available at www.PinkyShow.org). In one animated short, Kim Cat offers a giggly, soft-spoken take on the gallery system. "Actually at first I thought there must be some kind of law against having poor people on the museum's board of trustees," she explains in her breathless, faux-naïve way. "But then later I found out that actually there isn't any law like this. That's just the way they like to do it."

‘Historic day’: two-year demolition of Arlington Bridge begins

The first pieces of the Arlington Bridge, a long-deteriorating Winnipeg landmark, were removed Thursday morning, nearly 115 years after it was built.

Soccer game days treated as religious events by some

The World Cup concludes Sunday with the final match to determine the winner. It’s not a religious event, but it has religion-like elements. This includes things like pilgrimages to matches, shared songs and rituals, “saints” like Messi and Ronaldo and, for many, a deep devotion to a team.

Religion has been evident during games, too. Some players from the Christian tradition crossed themselves after scoring goals. After Germany’s win over Curaçao, players from both teams stood together on the field in a prayer circle after the final whistle. Some Muslim players performed sujood, the Islamic act of bowing down in submission and gratitude to God, after scoring, while others did dua, raising their hands in grateful prayer.

Outside of the World Cup, football has even been used as a way to explain faith. Pope Francis, an avid football fan, did that in his homilies and speeches. Football, he said, can teach Christian virtues such as community, cooperation and teamwork over individualism.

Pope Leo XIV feels the same way. “Soccer reminds us of something we must not forget,” he said before the World Cup kicked off. “Life is not a race to show off on our own, but a path we learn to walk together. Anyone who does not know how to pass the ball, even if they have talent, has not yet understood the game. Anyone who does not know how to live with and for others has not yet understood life.”