The Sunday Magazine

The Sunday Edition — June 17, 2018

Listen to the full episode.
(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images, © IWM [WWC H22-19], Kier Kureishi)

On this week's episode:

Michael's essay: The rapid pace of today's news coverage is making us feel helpless and depressed
"The mind has trouble absorbing so much news thrown at us at such incredible speed. Breaking news should be renamed break-neck news."

Sleeping with a very cranky elephant — The history of Canada - U.S. tensions
U.S. President Donald Trump's attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are without precedent. Historian Margaret MacMillan looks back over the highs and lows of our at-times rocky relationship with our closest neighbour.

My son's Facebook history might help me understand why he died. But Facebook won't let me see it. 
Tara McGuire's son died of an opioid overdose in 2015. His Facebook account has been "memorialized," and Facebook refuses to allow her to access it.

New opera tells little-known story of heroic Canadian nurses killed in WWI atrocity
On June 1918, 14 Canadian nursing sisters were killed when their hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle, was torpedoed. A new Canadian opera commemorates these 14 brave women, who comforted the wounded and the dying in the midst of unimaginable horror and suffering. Alisa Siegel's documentary brings us the story of the nurses, and the creation of the opera Llandovery Castle, which will premiere on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship.

Novelist Hanif Kureishi says Britain's middle class is more racist than ever
It used to be that sex and passion were Kureishi's dominant concerns. Now, he's preoccupied by race. The author of My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and a new novel, The Nothing, is Michael Enright's guest.

Dr. Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia's journey from Zimbabwe to Newfoundland to the Canadian Senate
Twillingate is a small, rocky island joined by a causeway to the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It's not where you'd think an East Indian Muslim from Zimbabwe would choose to build his life. But then again, being the only brown person in a Newfoundland outport is not what you might think it's like, either. Heather Barrett's documentary My Own Private Twillingate first aired in 2009; Dr. Ravalia has just been appointed as an independent Senator.

Your reaction to: our documentary about people with a passion for pens.

Music this week by: Irving Berlin, Little Miss Higgins, Maurice Ravel, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Cat Stevens, the Heilig Manoeuvre, the Beatles and Oliver Jones.