Flashback: Buy into it
'The less we buy Canadian, the less Canadian there is to buy'
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Competing visions
"The threat of a trade war between Canada and the United States has prompted a 'Buy Canadian' movement," begins a CBC News story from last week. Consumers are "looking for ways to support domestic businesses," said The Canadian Press.
When both countries launched "buy at home" campaigns in 1992, it had nothing to do with a trade war, according to CBC's business program Venture. The show contrasted a dystopian American picture of gloomy unemployed workers with boosterish ads in which happy Canadians shop for boots and inline skates.
"The less we buy Canadian, the less Canadian there is to buy," host Robert Scully said in a segment probing where TVs, cars and appliances are made. "The other problem is that global competition for parts and labour makes buying many things very confusing."
A runner's recollections
Jerome Drayton, a runner who set a Canadian marathon record in 1975 and held it until 2018, has died at 80, according to The Canadian Press. The report said Drayton was the first Canadian in 29 years to win the Boston Marathon, in 1977.
As a guest on CBC-TV's 90 Minutes Live a day after his win, Drayton told host Peter Gzowski what peeved him about the race. (Drayton also appeared on the CBC game show Front Page Challenge six weeks later.)
"The Boston Marathon is becoming pretty unwieldy now," he said, describing the start of the race. "Everybody dashes like crazy for the first 100 yards and if you're caught in a pack and you trip or anything, the game's over."
A whole new world
Yet another Marvel movie, Captain America: Brave New World, debuted last weekend. CBC News notes its subtitle was "changed from New World Order to avoid misinterpretation as a 'ripped from the headlines' commentary."
We haven't seen the film, but there's no indication it refers to either The Tempest, in which William Shakespeare used the phrase "brave new world," or the 1932 sci-fi novel of that name.
When its author, Aldous Huxley, was a guest on CBC-TV's Close-Up in 1958, he addressed his book's prescience. He said the self-improvement technique of "sleep-teaching" via recordings had become reality. But even though he'd written about the practice in a "comic way," evidently, being funny wasn't his goal.
"The point is that technology is continuously advancing," he said. "I was talking, for example, yesterday with the man who did much of the basic research work in this subliminal projection.… He said that technology is on the march."
Patriot games
An open letter by five former prime ministers was encouraging Canadians to fly the Maple Leaf on Feb. 15, which is Flag Day, CBC News reported last week. In 1998, the Reform Party wanted MPs to display mini-flags on their desks in the House of Commons, but the Speaker shut that down.
Look sharp
The volunteers at the century-old combination barbershop and pool hall in an Alberta village are looking for someone who can cut hair, CBC News reports. Sharing one's political opinions, which a barber in a 1980 piece from The National did quite passionately, is apparently optional.
Enough white stuff
CBC News compiled the winter weather warnings from across Canada last Wednesday, but the snowfall for one day in Terrace, B.C. in 1999 blows them all away. At 110 centimetres, it only came in as "nearly a one-day Canadian record," Peter Mansbridge said on CBC's The National.
Heart stopper
In an interview on CBC Radio's Edmonton AM, food scientist Wendy Wismer discussed the appeal of a new orange cream flavour of Coca-Cola. "It's the nostalgia," she said. In 1986, CBC's Venture learned about Jolt, a new cola with elevated caffeine and sugar compared to diet sodas.
