I have more reader mail on the furore around Rehtaeh Parsons' death and the factors that led to it. Once again, a few preliminary points. Rehtaeh's family and friends are going through an unimaginably horrible experience, one they have handled with grace and courage. The one point that united everyone in this case is sympathy for their ordeal. It bears repeating that, if you or anyone you know are having suicidal thoughts, please call the toll-free Kid’s Help Line at 1-800-668-6868 or the toll-free Suicide Prevention Line at 1-888-429-8167. Also please check out this website, and this list of warning signs. In a post on April 11, I raised...

14 April, 2013

"I’ve never considered myself a moron before," writes a hapless dishwasher owner in Portland Hills,  Dartmouth, "but my blind faith in Sears proves I should have my mittens tied together with a string, and I should only eat with spoons, as I could easily lose an eye if I tried a fork." The unnamed customer is so distraught over fruitless attempts to get the venerable appliance giant to furnish a working dish washer, he's offering to sell it for the price of the sushi takeout he and his wife ordered Friday night: $57.50. But after 4,300 hits to his viral-bound washer-for-sale...

14 April, 2013

Not surprisingly, yesterday's Contrarian post on the furore over Rehtaeh Parsons' death has produced a lot of email, pro and con. Much of the angry reaction appeared on Twitter, where Contrarian tweets as @kempthead. Before sampling the reader response, two important preliminaries: What Rehtaeh's family has been through this week is about as awful as human experience gets. They have been loyal in support of their daughter, and courageous in their rejection of vigilante action against those accused of abusing her. Whatever one's views on the issues I raised, compassion for this family ought to be universal. As I said yesterday,  if you or...

12 April, 2013

"To love someone," wrote Jean Vanier, "is to show them their beauty, their worth, and their importance." That can be a tall order, but a few Halifax members of the Asperger's Syndrome Parents' Empowerment Network give it a good shot in this short video, produced by Halifax filmmakers John Hillis, Michael MacDonald, Caley MacLennan, Kimberlee McTaggert, Andrew Starzomski, and Amy Spurway: H/T: Valerie Patterson...

03 April, 2013

In an email cri de coeur last week, musician Robert Speirs lambasted Halifax TV newscasters for publishing the names of five men allegedly lured into motel meetings with a police officer they believed to be a a 16-year-old girl. Bill Turpin, former editor of the late lamented Halifax Daily News, makes the case for printing names of people accused of crimes, even bogus crimes concocted to entrap them. I understand Mr. Speirs’ distress over the plight of the men identified as the accused in the on-line child luring case last week and his sense that the media are persecuting them. But publicity...

06 March, 2013

Late last week, Halifax musician Robert Speirs fired off an angry email to three broadcast networks: Why did you divulge the names of the men accused of luring? What if they are innocent? Why do you want to try them by media and subject them to public humiliation, [and] so ruin their lives? Why do you display such unjustified hatred to people you do not know? Again, what if they are innocent? Your insistence on revealing the identities of the accused inspires any thinking person to wonder who are the true perverts. Shame on you! Speirs, who signed the note, "Disgusted," was referring to a sting...

03 March, 2013

Almost exactly a year after precipitous--and as it turned out, groundless--complaints by the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services forced the closure of Cape Breton's only residential addiction recovery centre, Talbot House will get its funding back this week. Health and Wellness Minister David Wilson will deliver the news in Cape Breton Friday, a weekday traditionally chosen for announcements governments would prefer to inter quietly. Wilson became the minister responsible for recovery centres last September, when Premier Darrell Dexter, fed up with the continual barrage of negative stories about DCS mistreatment of Talbot, stripped that department of the file and handed...

04 February, 2013

Right-wing blogger and Maclean's columnist Colby Cosh professes consternation at his discovery that running a hunger strike from a makeshift teepee in the middle of the Ottawa River involves actual out-of-pocket expenses, for which supporters of the striker might solicit actual contributions. Pressing his dudgeon pedal to the metal, Cosh waxes indignant at Chief Theresa Spence for "distort[ing] the perceived integrity" of "the most morally serious activity a protester can undertake." Oh, the humanity! Cosh concludes his thinly veiled ad hominem attack by speculating that Spence's "demands aren’t in earnest and the whole thing is no more than a publicity ploy." Well thank goodness for...

29 December, 2012

As you have no doubt heard, police busted a house at Southside Boularderie Island yesterday, just a few miles down the road from Contrarian HQ. They found an eyebrow-raising array of firearms, along with cocaine, ecstasy, steroids, and my personal favorite, pot. An RCMP news release cataloged the seized items in a handy bulleted list. The release also included this statement from Inspector John Ryan: Yesterday's seizure reinforces the clear link between drugs and violence. Wrong. Yesterday's seizure reinforces the clear link between prohibition and violence. Eliminate the prohibition on drugs, and you'll eliminate the artificial prices that enrich and encourage gun-toting thugs. Overnight. Al Capone taught our grandparents this...

20 December, 2012
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