Tagged: Halifax
Nova Scotia giraffes
Some Nova Scotia submissions to the website OneMillionGiraffes.com, where Stavanger, Norway, resident Ola Helland is using crowdsourcing to try and win a bet that he can assemble one million images of giraffes in a year. He is currently at 800,000. 
Left to right, top to bottom, first two images by Taylor, age 15, Halifax; then Peter Merideth, 24, Antigonish; Taylor again; Alina, 17, Halifax; next two by Dalbtron3000, 29, Antigonish; Joshua, 31, Sydney; and the last two images by Lydia, 18, Halifax.
What’s up with this, Pete? – updated
A diesel-powered Pete’s Frootique truck idles unattended on Doyle Street in Halifax Saturday morning, needlessly spilling volatile organic compounds into the crisp spring air.
Update: Contrarian reader Colin May points out: Parked on the wrong side of the street, in a no parking zone, too close to a stop sign. Three strikes and you’re…
The real CBRM stands up
At long last, someone on the Cape Breton Regional Municipal Council has delivered a stinging rebuke to Mayor John Morgan’s portrayal of Cape Bretoners as helpless victims of Halifax.
Council is scrambling to meet a March 31 deadline for producing a sustainability plan, without which it stands to lose $7 million per year in federal gas tax rebates for four years. It has to scramble because senior governments rightly rejected an earlier grandiose plan proposing virtual provincehood for CBRM, with Comintern-like powers for its “legislature.”
That nutty document, cobbled together with mayoral encouragement by CBRM’s Gyro Gearloose development director, was submitted to the provincial government without council discussion or approval. Submitted, and rejected, putting $28 million at risk for the revenue-strapped municipality.
Speaking at the start of hastily convened public consultations in support of a new, rational sustainability plan, Councilor Ray Paruch detailed Council’s rejection of the Mayor’s blame-everything-on-Halifax approach. [Audio from CBC-Cape Breton's Mainstreet program.]
Moneyquote:
Fifteen councilors in the CBRM said no to that document… They said no to the idea that our region should become a province in virtually all but name. Council rejected a separate legislature. Council rejected taking over the school board. Council rejected taking over the health board. Council rejected the idea of taking over the board of directors of Cape Breton University…
How arrogant and bold are we to even contemplate doing these things? Who do we think we are?
Saying this took courage. Mayor Morgan is famously popular in CBRM, having won re-election by 80 percent. But the unequivocal rejection of his absurd lawsuit by three courts has eroded his support. More and more residents are questioning his caricature of Cape Bretoners as pathetic supplicants.
The Cape Bretoners I know and admire are self-reliant and resourceful. High time someone gave them a voice.
What’s the difference between a “no queers” sign and a set of steps?
Haligonian Warren Reed has a sobering take on our discussion about potential “cures” for people with Down syndrome:
I am still stuck on the Down Syndrome thread. As Canadians with disabilities will tell you, Canada has a medical model of disability. The approach is, “let’s fix what’s wrong with you,” rather than, “let’s fix what’s wrong with us.” Hence the inaccessible buses, devilish sidewalks, and antediluvian building codes. The result is a hidden and large group of people who are disenfranchised, undervalued, ignored, and sometimes abused. See the shocking account in Monday’s Chronicle-Herald.
One of my big defeats was an unsuccessful complaint against poor building codes I made to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission in 2006. I thought it was pretty compelling, but the HRC are evidently a bunch of cowards who declined to get involved in improving lives.
I’m not disappointed anymore—just angry. Can you explain the difference between a “No Queers” sign and a set of steps confronting a wheelchair user? Chances are your local MLA maintains an inaccessible constituency office. A government that can’t include it’s most vulnerable citizens loses its moral authority.
This kind of systematic discrimination creates a climate where disabled people are second-class. Is it a surprise that they’re abused by those who should be protecting them? For people in wheelchairs and people with Down Syndrome Canada is a disappointing, dangerous place.
CBC Radio iPhone app finds the Maritimes
The CBC Radio iPhone app has finally been updated, and now includes live streams from Halifax (and Fredericton and Saint John, but not Sydney or Charlottetown), and from at least one location in every Canadian time zone.
The app allows on-demand access to many good CBC Radio shows, but alas, only to “highlights” of Ideas, whose producers have for some reason been glacially slow to grasp the importance of the Internet’s time-shifting potential for this program.
Hat tip: Scott Gillard.
CBC Radio’s iPhone app finds Nova Scotia (pretty soon)
CBC is awaiting approval from Apple for an update to the terrific CBC Radio iPhone app. The updated version, which should appear on iTunes soon, will include live streams of CBC stations Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Fredericton, Grand Falls, Moncton, Ottawa, Regina, Saint John, St John’s, Thunder Bay, Windsor, and Winnipeg. (Can Sydney be far behind?)
The original app (free download here) did not include any streams from the Mountain, Central, or Newfoundland time zones, and only Goose Bay in the Atlantic zone. Stations in the missing locations streamed in Windows Media format, which the app could not handle. As stations switch to MP3 streaming, they can be added to the app via updates like the one that’s pending.
In areas with marginal radio reception, but good WiFi or cell signals, the app beats the hell out of radio. You can time-shift effortlessly to catch an interview you missed, and you can hear many CBC programs on demand. You can do this on your computer as well, though less easily, but not in a car or out walking.
What could the Cogswell Interchange be?
Before and after Seoul, South Korea, removed an ugly 1970s-era highway
The Infrastructurist website offers four examples of the transformative possibilities when a city decides to remove a monstrous piece of highway infrastructure, like, say, the Cogswell Interchange, and replace it with something useful, beautiful, and urban life-affirming.
