Unger brings debut novel to book club

Letters, Sept. 2

I read Maggie Macintosh’s story with frustration at our city’s continued lack of action on pedestrian safety. I was particularly angered by the fact the “WSD board was unsuccessful last year in making an appeal to city council to permanently reduce speeds around its elementary school buildings.”

Love of the rink blossomed differently for mother-daughter figure skaters

It’s said that home is where the heart is, and for Dana and Marrin McKee that has always been the rink.

The mother-daughter duo of figure skating coaches always find comfort lacing up in chilly arenas.

Dana McKee’s origin story was very similar to her daughter’s, having a strong motherly push onto the ice. Much like learning to swim or drive a car, Dana’s mother believed that skating was an important life skill that needed to be honed.

Growing up in Morris, McKee spent the majority of her youth in the CanSkate program — a developmental learn-to-skate stage teaching the basics of standing upright.

Renewed spirit and life: Indigenous treatment centre expands with $21-M revamp

Don Robinson knows first-hand that many people don’t get sober by themselves.

In late June 1984, Robinson downed his last drink. His recovery began at Pritchard House in Winnipeg’s North End, a 22-bed treatment facility run by the Native Addictions Council of Manitoba.

“I didn’t get sober by myself,” said Robinson, a member of Bunibonibee Cree Nation who now works in grief and trauma counselling and traditional knowledge as an elder at Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.

More than four decades later, Robinson was back at the council on Monday, crowded into a room at its newly renovated treatment centre at 160 Salter St. — a place he once turned to for help and where he helps others now.

Docudrama reveals lives of harem’s wilful women

A stable of admiring women centred on a domineering patriarch, a secretive world of sexual oppression — the connotations of the word “harem” are not especially positive or progressive.

But there are famous examples of women who navigated this coercive hierarchy not merely to survive but ultimately to command vast influence, some rising from slavery.

The Sultan’s Women — a docudrama written, produced and directed by Emmy- and Peabody-winning, Morden-born filmmaker David Rabinovitch which has recently become available on Tubi, among other platforms — depicts this world in the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire, whose collapse also ended the institution.

Told with a Game of Thrones-like relish for elite intrigues, the film opens in the 1870s, with liberal-minded sultan Murad V and his sprawling harem. Ultimately placed under “house arrest” for nearly three decades in Çırağan Palace in what was then called Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), Murad’s harem had women stronger in will, if not formal position, than the unstable, deposed sultan.

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

BRANDON — The Manitoba Labour Board has ordered the Western Star All Suites Hotel to pay nearly $138,000 in unpaid wages and administrative fees after it dismissed the appeals involving three foreign workers employed by the company.

In a decision dated Aug. 25, the board ordered 6692452 Manitoba Ltd. (doing business as Western Star All Suites Hotel), 1638185 Alberta Ltd. and company director P.X. to pay a total of $137,915.79 to the Employment Standards Branch for wages owed to foreign workers S.J., J.B. and G.R.

The decision was edited to protect the personal information of the employees, who worked at a hotel, reportedly in Melita, at different times and also lived there during their employment.

The board stated the employees were owed wages after hearing evidence about long working hours, irregular payments, inadequate employment records and working conditions.

Chefs gather in St. Boniface to see whose version of jollof is best

Chef Alex Bockarie is bringing an age-old African culinary battle to Winnipeg.

On Saturday, five local chefs hailing from Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria will go head-to-head to determine who makes the best jollof — a rice dish simmered in a savoury tomato-based stew.

“Jollof rice originated from Senegal but it has spread throughout West Africa and every country has its own method of cooking it,” Bockarie says. “It’s a long-standing fight; even among the communities here in Winnipeg, everybody’s always saying that Sierra Leone’s (jollof) is the best, Ghana’s is the best, Nigeria’s is the best.

“It’s a friendly competition; friendly, but very serious too.”