A reader writes: That was a very heartfelt letter from the former client of Talbot House and he definitely has hit the nail on the head. I work in health care and have seen just what he speaks of. It is a testament to Fr Abbass and the staff and programs at Talbot House, and needs to be acknowledged. We tend to put numbers and policy ahead of compassion, care, and genuine concern for the client. I am so impressed with this letter and how this person has turned his life around; to hear him express exactly the "way it is," and...

24 April, 2012

A recovering addict who asked not to be identified has sent Contrarian a 1,200-word analysis of the dispute that shut down Talbot house, the recovery center he credits with saving his life after many rounds of government-run therapy failed him. His account is noteworthy, not only as a moving testimony from inside Talbot House, but also because it suggests the real reason for the provincial government's hostility to the recovery centre. The unspoken issue, which the Department of Community Services report failed even to mention, is the refusal of Fr. Paul Abbass and his predecessors to support methadone treatment. The drug is a mainstay...

24 April, 2012

Julie Lyons of Halifax marked the first anniversary of her life-saving heart transplant this week, just in time for Monday's kickoff of National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week. Two years ago, Julie's congenital heart disease grew so severe she needed a Left Ventricular Assist Device, a mechanical pump implanted in her heart, and powered by a 10-pound pack of batteries that had to be changed every four hours. Last April, the pump became infected. Overnight, Julie shot to the top of the national heart transplant list. She had only days to live. Today, Julie has resumed her passion for gardening, she skated...

21 April, 2012

The board of directors of Talbot House, the much admired addiction recovery center shut down this winter after the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services raised vague and, as we now know, false allegations of sexual misconduct against its executive director, today issued two news releases that add up to a sweeping condemnation of the department's behaviour. How the Dexter government reacts will be a major test of its integrity. Will it circle the wagons? Or will it implement real reforms? Please read the releases for yourself here and here. [Note: I have removed contact information for the board chair.] On the Cape...

15 April, 2012

A German friend who has lived in Cape Breton for the last two years took a short swim Easter Sunday afternoon at Dingwall Beach, on northern Cape Breton's Atlantic coast. Water temperature: 3 degrees.  ...

08 April, 2012

[caption id="attachment_9552" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Too damned many."][/caption] In response to my note about the 40-something Norwegian who had never seen a snow day until he came to Nova Scotia, Contrarian reader Joyce Rankin of Mabou Westmount blames consolidation of schools and secularization of society for the proliferation of snow days. Her response sparked a lively email debate. I remember we never used to have snow days either. But then again, we were close enough to school that we could walk. The questions to ask, for a proper comparison, would be how far children in Norway travel to school, and how far people drive to...

12 March, 2012

Contrarian reader Silas Barss Donham [Disclosure: Gee, that name seems familiar] can put up with most of the steps required to heat his Orangedale house with wood: the cutting, hauling, splitting (or paying someone to), the stacking outside to dry, tossing into the basement, re-stacking inside, carrying upstairs to the fireplace, and the constant sweeping of ashes, bark, and furch. But he grows weary of making "the daily, just-so crumple of old newspaper to light the fire." Not being a daily newspaper reader, I have to go from store to store to collect enough expired papers (avoiding the new Globe and Mail...

11 March, 2012

Our friend and fellow contrarian Christine Comeau, a writer who makes movies in Nova Scotia and Quebec, seems an unlikely marathon candidate: The project is a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.  ...

23 February, 2012

Salon's Glenn Greenwald points out that last week's flood of Steve Jobs hagiographies mostly tiptoed around one inconvenient facet of the Great Man: he took LSD. He not only took it, he regarded having taken it as one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. Greenwald: Unlike many people who have enjoyed success, Jobs is not saying that he was able to succeed despite his illegal drug use; he’s saying his success is in part — in substantial part — because of those illegal drugs (he added that Bill Gates would “be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once”). An excellent...

09 October, 2011

And what kind? David McCandless of Information is Beautiful has the graphic details. (Which turn out to be complicated, especially for pale-faced contrarians.) Supporting data here....

12 July, 2011
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