John Malcom doubtless didn't enjoy having to respond to a scathing Auditor General's report on his last week as CEO of the Cape Breton District Health Authority. Doing so, however, gave him one last chance to demonstrate the exemplary leadership he displayed in 15 years as head of the authority. Jacques Lapointe released a harsh report on operational shortcomings at the district and provincial levels that contributed to two outbreaks of C. difficile bacteria—infections that caused five deaths. "As CEO, the biggest mistake is my mistake," Malcom told reporters Wednesday, in response to the report. "I under-resourced the infection control department. So I...

31 May, 2012

A couple of day-after comments about Darrell Dexter's cabinet shuffle seem worth passing on: First, a longtime New Democrat writes that, "Having to take Maureen out of Health to backfill Finance indicates a lack of bench strength." Précisément. Second, a friend notes that, as a former paramedic, incoming Health Minister Dave Wilson should put paid to Nursing Union president Janet Hazelton's campaign to featherbed the new Collaborative Emergency Centres. Hazelton has complained the staffing model of one nurse and one advanced care paramedic, with telephone backup from an emergency room specialist physician, is insufficient to meet, ahem, professional standards. Nothing less than two union nurses will do,...

31 May, 2012

Wednesday's smoothly orchestrated cabinet shuffle could not hide the central fact of the event: It is a big loss for the Dexter Government. Graham Steele has been the strongest member of Darrell Dexter's cabinet, turning in a sterling job at Finance while displaying a rare knack for speaking plainly, persuasively, and with conviction. Bill Estabrooks's departure likewise represents a big loss. He was the cabinet minister with the commonest touch, a popular, unpretentious man who did solid work putting systems in place for rational decision-making about road work. The province's roadbuilding oligopoly was apoplectic over Estabrooks's decision to set up a civil service...

30 May, 2012

Early in 1229, Johannes Myronas, a monk working in Jerusalem, wrote a prayer book. He constructed the book on parchment he recycled from several documents, including a manuscript by the Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC). Myronas erased Archimedes' words, separated the pages of his manuscript, cut the pages in half, turned them sideways, shuffled them, and transcribed his own prayers onto them. In the years since, the prayer book was drizzled with wax and repaired with various types of glue. Some its pages were covered again with forged paintings. In this way, a unique work by one of humankind's seminal...

29 May, 2012

What exactly is this message, displayed on the London Underground? Is it a come-on from a tonier paper--The Times, perhaps? A pitch to get off dead-tree communications altogether, and follow The Guardian online? No, as the fine print makes clear, it's a plea from the Mayor of London and Transport for London to avoid subway clutter by disposing of your reading matter in an appropriate recycling receptacle: Newspapers left on the Tube can jam doors and cause delays to your journey. Take your newspaper with you or put it in the bin to to be recycled.  ...

29 May, 2012

The good news about the healthful effects of a certain delicious, refreshing, invigorating hot beverage just keeps piling up. (Previous instalments here and here.) Researchers with the US National Institute of Health examined the association between coffee drinking and mortality among 400,000 men and women in a Diet and Health Study they conducted in association with the American Association of Retired People. Participants with pre-existing cancer, heart disease, and stroke were excluded. RESULTS During 5,148,760 person-years of follow-up between 1995 and 2008, a total of 33,731 men and 18,784 women died. In age-adjusted models, the risk of death was increased among coffee drinkers. However, coffee drinkers were also...

18 May, 2012

Dave Carroll has a publicist. I'm going to say that again. Son of Maxwell Dave Carroll, the Nova Scotia folksinger who needed only $150 and some creative friends to turn a beef with a US airline into a mortifying (to the airline) viral video that drew nearly 12 million pageviews, now has his own publicist. Eliza Levy is a pleasant sounding young "assistant to the publicity team" at Media Connect, a division of Finn Partners of New York. She's handling PR for Carroll's newly published book, United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media, and his...

18 May, 2012

Headline: CBRM to seek control of Laurentian Energy's greenfield site Headline: CBRM warns harbour site suitor Let me see if I have this straight: The Cape Breton Regional Municipality, which is $102.9 million in debt, and which constantly complains that it can't afford to provide basic services, is going to borrow $6 million to buy 400 acres of harbour-front land, or a lesser amount to buy a controlling interest in the company that is selling the land, all to block — yes, block! — a proposed industrial development, so it can "save" the land for a fantasy container pier that will never, ever happen. CBRM can afford to...

17 May, 2012

Mike Penney, a teacher at Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School in Worcester, Massachusetts, invited his students to record their thoughts on the ups and downs of the school year, while secretly sneaking fellow teachers into the the video frame for some stealth disco. Then he set the footage to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."   H/T SP vis Gawker...

16 May, 2012
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