The New York Times this morning published a correction of a story it ran 161 years ago, on January 20, 1853: The Times does take its responsibility for factual accuracy seriously. This whimsical correction of two, 161-year-old spelling errors was one of nine corrections it published today. Five years ago, at the urging of Contrarian and Provincial Court Judge Anne Derrick, the Times corrected its obituary of Donald Marshall Jr. The original version of the Times obit had incorrectly described the circumstances surrounding the killing of Sandy Seale, the 16-year-old boy whom Marshall was falsely convicted of murdering. For all they criticize...

04 March, 2014

From a September 9 Facebook post by David Rodenhiser, marquee columnist for the Halifax Daily News until its demise in 2008, now toiling for Nova Scotia Power's communications group. In the Obituaries section of the Chronicle-Herald there are notices for no fewer than six veterans of the Second World War: Joseph “Bunny” McLaughlin, army, who brought home a war bride in 1946 Jaleel “John” Laba, army, who later owned and operated Laba’s Discount on Gottingen Street for many years Stanley Cairns, merchant mariner George Haliburton, army Adele Healy, RCAF secretary Walter Shaw, army, wounded in Germany in 1945 There’s also an obituary for Cecile d’Entremont, who passed away...

11 September, 2013

Here's the view this morning from the second storey of the Nova Scotia Power building on Lower Water Street. Photo: David Rodenhiser. Click image for full sized version. Of course, you can't see the NS Power building from this photograph, but I will take this opportunity to note that it is the most under-appreciated architectural marvel in Nova Scotia—a magnificent structure with many interesting features that combine to make it an exceptionally beautiful and functional workplace. The ground floor of the defunct coal-fired generating station is accessible to the public from the boardwalk side. If you are in the neighbourhood during business hours, you really should...

03 July, 2013

An anonymous cartoonist strikes a blow for virtuous punctuation: When will newspaper style guides wake up to its obvious superiority? H/T Lee Amme Gillan via David Rodenhiser. This has been cropping up on the net since mid-September. If anyone can devine the artist's identity, I'll update....

06 October, 2011

[Updated below] Our friends at AllNovaScotia (subscription required) appear to have been punk'd by [restaurateur] singing investor Denis Ryan and Halifax folksinger-comedian Tony Quinn in a YouTube spoof of a profane Irish expat turning the air blue-green with outrage over the Emerald Isle's financial travails. The NSFW clip identifies Quinn as a reporter for "the Financial News," which morphs to "the Financial Times" in the AllNS piece. As alert Contrarian reader DR points out, however, the clip does not turn up on any site calling itself  'Financial News,' and the reporter definitely doesn’t say, 'Financial Times.' Also, the 'reporter' looks and sounds remarkably like...

10 December, 2010

Pinto Pony Productions, a small Toronto video production house specializing in non-invasive filming techniques, took to the streets of Toronto this weekend and shot the best roundup of demonstrator-vs.-police violence I could find on YouTube. The protesters did not impress the filmmakers. The Harper Government made a serious miscalculation with its absurd expenditure on security for the G8/G20. Halifax did a G8 nine years ago for $27 million, and Pittsburg did a G20 last year for $95 million [see correction below]. Harper spent ten times that amount: $12 million an hour over the three days; three times what security for any international leaders'...

27 June, 2010

9:15 [caption id="attachment_1952" align="alignleft" width="303" caption="Roberta Bondar poses with charmed NSP flacks."][/caption] My old Daily News chum David Rodenhiser, now laboring in NSP communications, asked Bondar if she had any startling revelations in space. Many of them. One is that Buck Rogers was a myth. We romanticize space. It's a very difficult environment. It's very hard. It's hard on the body. But you can't beat the view. 8:40 p.m.: A surprisingly witty keynote speech by Roberta Bondar began with several slides of Hurricane Bill. These days Bondar makes her living as a professional speaker, but this isn't shaping up to be a canned speech. Moneyquote: The...

21 August, 2009