Political junkies in Nova Scotia tend to keep an eye on elections in adjacent provinces, but not so much in adjacent US states. The Atlantic's James Fallows points to an interesting race for governor of Maine, where independent candidate (and Fallows friend) Eliot Cutler seemed to be coming on strong last week, rising in the polls and winning an avalanche of major newspaper endorsements. As Fallows points out, victory for an independent is not so far-fetched in the Pine Tree State, where two of the last five governors won election as independents. Viewed from a region devoid of political leadership, Cutler...

28 October, 2010

The dating site OK Cupid dips into its database of 3.2 million users to compare gays and straights, debunking a few myths along the way. A few highlights: Gays and straights have the same number of sex partners: six, on average; the same for men, women, gays, and straights.* Gays do not pursue sex with straights. (Only 0.6% of OKC's gay male users have ever searched for straight matches; only 0.1% of its lesbians users have ever done so; only 0.13% of straight users's profile visitors are gay.) Straight people sometimes have gay sex, straight women for more so than straight men. (One in four...

28 October, 2010

Transparency International rates Canada the sixth least corrupt nation in the world in a report featuring an interactive map and several interactive graphs. Founded by a former World Bank official, the NGO relies on business surveys of transparency in business process, rather than political corruption, for its guideposts....

27 October, 2010

Haligonian Warren Reed objects to the thoughtlessly patronizing word choices many journalists apply to wheelchair-users and those who discriminate them. In an email to two Chronicle-Herald reporters who recently wrote about separate cases of discrimination by Metro Transit and the Nova Scotia Justice Department against wheelchair users, he complained about three sentences in their stories: "The driver even called his supervisor, who confirmed that wheelchair-bound passengers are not allowed on [Bus No.] 60." "However, Sunday morning the driver said that he could get in a lot of trouble for letting wheelchair-bound passengers onto non-wheelchair routes." "Amy Paradis, 16, is quadriplegic and...

25 October, 2010

The cutline reads: The documentary was filmed over three years. Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall. Which propelled University of Pennsylvania sociologist Jeff Weintraub to ask: Were Merle & Kris & Robert ever actually married? What the caption writer neglected, of course, was the serial comma, the one that comes (or is omitted) after "crackle" in "snap, crackle, and pop." When left out of a sentence, this tiny mark sometimes seeks revenge by sneaking up on a unwary writer and landing a devastating blow. In a similar, but more famous example, perhaps apocryphal, a book dedication implied a...

24 October, 2010

Contrarian reader Denis Falvey demurs: Heroism is not the same thing as sainthood; it doesn't mean doing the impossible, it means doing that which is in the finest nature of being human. Sully demonstrated the determination, willingness, and ability to apply his considerable skill and training under extreme pressure, with courage, grace, and hope, engendering these qualities in those around him, to succeed where others would probably have failed He behaved as we would all wish to - in the finest character of humanity, and with no apparent thought for headlines. That's not luck....

20 October, 2010

Patrick Smith, pilot-columnist at Salon, chides the media for cheapening the currency of heroism in the US Airways Hudson River ditching: Moneyquote: This is tough for the networks to work with, I know, but Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger and his first officer, for all their guts and talent, weren't heroes so much as the luckiest pilots in the world. If fate decrees that your engines are to become choked with geese with no chance of reaching an airport, by all means let it happen in daylight, in reasonably good weather, overhead a smoothly flowing river alongside a major city. Change even one of...

19 October, 2010

Where do refugees come from? Where do they go? Which countries produce the most refugees? Which countries take the most in? Christian Behrens, a German designer who studied at Concordia, answers those questions visually with a series of interactive infographics that grew out of a Potsdam University of Applied Sciences class project on mapping global tendencies. Based on the annual Refugee Report of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the graphic lets us look at refugee flows from several different perspectives. Which country took in the most refugees in 2008? The US? Nope. Canada? Not even close. Pakistan tops the list, at...

18 October, 2010

Elliot Row, Saint John, New Brunswick. Photo by Gillian Barfoot....

18 October, 2010
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