Joshua Ostroff

Hollywood has been harangued for years for its lack of ideas -- particularly its recycling of old TV shows to make new movies. That high-culture High Street called Broadway was supposed to be above that and, uh, only recycle old theatre.

But somehow it became a bastion...

A version of this blog was originally published by The Grid.

Dr. Seuss was banned from a B.C. school. Yes, that Dr. Seuss. A famous line from one of the beloved children's author's books -- Yertle the Turtle's "I know up on top you are seeing great...

This post was originally published by The Grid.

Celebrity-parent news usually revolves around 'baby bumps,' ridiculous names, or the Brangelina Bunch, but a few weeks ago it took an even odder turn. Alicia Silverstone, star of Clueless and Aerosmith videos, went viral after posting a video to...

Now that the NDP convention has wrapped, the Liberal leadership race is set to catch fire. But even after Canada’s two opposition parties have leaders, Liberal scion Justin Trudeau doesn’t see them coming together the way the right united last decade.

“You have two parties...

Justin Trudeau may have a famous last name, but much like Hillary Clinton he’s quickly making his first name the one that matters.

The MP's name recognition received a huge boost last December when Trudeau mirrored his father Pierre’s infamous “fuddle-duddle“ incident by referring to...

During the Bush Era, "West Wing" President Jed Bartlet offered left-wingers a refuge from reality—much as Fox News does for conservatives today.

But Martin Sheen, who turned his late-career turn as Bartlet into his signature role, had already been a liberal icon for decades before the show, thanks to...

"The first Sunday in March, 1965, we marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama for the right to vote. That movement to change America came because young people came alive," recalled Jesse Jackson in a speech last week at Free the Children's We Day youth rally...

This post was originally published in The Grid

Remember that Seinfeld episode where George Constanza learns to leave on a high note? "Showmanship, George," Jerry told him adroitly. "When you hit that high note, you say goodnight and walk off."

Senator Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who led the overwhelmed UN peacekeepers during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, made a promise the night he left Kigali.

“I promised never to let the Rwandan Genocide die because I knew the Rwandans didn't have much power internationally and certainly didn't...

If there were two things that defined 2011, they were the Arab Spring uprisings that threw the Middle East into turmoil and the Occupy Wall Street protests in North America and Europe. But Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire, the former U.N. general lionized for leading the besieged peacekeepers during the Rwandan...

People have looked up to Magic Johnson for most of his life, and not just because he’s 6’9.” Though an NBA superstar — he won three MVP awards and five championships with the LA Lakers — it’s the last two decades that have made Johnson a role model.
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Mia Farrow may have made her name as a fashion model and award-winning actress, but she left that life behind long ago, eschewing celebrity comforts to travel the world's trouble spots as a children's rights activist. Since having her eyes opened by the Rwandan genocide, Farrow has been everywhere from...

Cultural grinches may still consider gaming a children's pastime, but the actual average gamer age now hovers around 37 and keeps increasing as the Atari and Nintendo generations get older without getting rid of their consoles.

So now that we've gone over the best games for kids and...

Teenagers want to do, well, everything, but they can't -- 'cause they're still teens. They do, however, have a ton of time on their hands. That's why video games make the perfect gift for the teen on your list, running the gamut from racing and rhythm to treasure-hunting and colossus-slaying...

Letters to Santa are no longer filled with requests for Red Ryder BB Guns but for first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which, of course, are no more age appropriate. But don’t fret, plenty of other video games are. So put down that mature-rated war game and...

Senator Romeo Dallaire is not one to keep his opinions to himself, not after the world ignored the former UN Commander in Rwanda's warnings of impending genocide in 1994. After a bloody November in Syria that saw 950 protestors killed — bringing the death toll of the eight-month uprising to...

Paul Martin, the former prime minister and guest speaker at Wednesday’s We Day youth rally in Winnipeg, has been busy building his non-profit Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative to fight what he calls the federal government’s “absolute discrimination” against Aboriginal students.

Though the focus...

An unexpected voice is joining the chorus of support for the Occupy movement — former prime minister Paul Martin.

Martin says protesters have sparked a global debate that may help save the free market system.

“This idea that [the Occupy protestors] don’t have clear goals, I don’t think anybody buys...

The NYPD, 1,000-strong and in military formation, cleared out Zuccotti Park overnight, effectively ending Occupy Wall Street, the two-month-old protest movement which had caught fire across the world. And this morning Occupy Toronto got its own visit from the municipal authorities as officers marched into St. James Park with eviction...

Sarah Palin, like Paris Hilton before her, has been road-tripping around America, seeing the sights, mingling with the masses and saying amusingly ignorant things to the cameras.

Just because those lenses were attached to "news" cameras didn't make Palin's bus tour any less of a reality-TV show --...