Yesterday I published two maps showing impressive efforts by nations large and small to establish massive marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. A third map revealed Canada's contrastingly anemic effort. Because this is not my field, I added this caution: This is a complicated topic. It’s possible the comparisons above, in terms of the level and type of protection, do not present a fair picture. I don’t have the knowledge or background to evaluate that. But plenty of people in Halifax do, and I’d love to hear from them. Hear from them I did. Chris Miller of Halifax, National Conservation Biologist with the Canadian...

18 July, 2014

Back in April, when most of the ground was still deep in snow, and migrating birds had to concentrate their foraging on the few open patches, an enormous swarm of dark-eyed juncos stormed through Boularderie Island. Driving between Kempt Head and Ross Ferry, I estimate I saw more than 1,000 in separate flocks of 20-50. A similar nature spectacular unfolded this week along harbours and inlets where northern gannets gathered in great numbers to feed on schooling mackerel, and perhaps the smaller fish the mackerel themselves were chasing. Marty MacDougall captured the spectacle and posted it to YouTube:     Because gannets spend most of their lives...

16 July, 2014

National Geographic just posted a story on evolving plans to place large parts of the Pacific Ocean into protected marine reserves. Writer Monica Medina stresses the importance of size in establishing these protected zones. When it comes to getting the greatest benefit out of no-take marine reserves, according to leading scientists, the bigger, the better.  Large ocean reserves allow for an entire ecosystem to be protected—which is particularly important for species in the Pacific with long migration routes and widely dispersed feeding patterns like the endangered blue whale and the black-footed albatross. I was surprised at the scope of existing and planned protected areas in the...

16 July, 2014

Family physician Danielle Martin, founder of Canadian Doctors for Medicare, offers three straightforward ideas to improve Canadian health care. Martin's Rx: (1) Bring down the cost of the 20  highest impact generic drugs, which are currently priced in Canada far above world levels; (2) Heed provincial medical society cautions about medical interventions of dubious value; and (3) Get serious about fighting poverty, with tax-administered low-income income assistance. Martin, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Family and Community Medicine, and at U. of T.'s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Information, won praise in March for her effective response to hostile questions...

15 July, 2014

Two prominent columnists, one Canadian, one USian, have weighed in bravely on the moral depravity of prostitution. In Canada, it was the Globe and Mail's Peggy Wente: Many sassy young progressive commentators (including women) assume that prostitution is like marijuana – that the moral issues are as outdated as hoop skirts, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an uptight reactionary old prude. After all, women should have a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, and what happens between two consenting adults is nobody else’s business. Prostitutes are no different from piano teachers, so get over it! They...

11 July, 2014

Have you noticed the befuddlement of North America's sports broadcasting establishment over the huge audiences tuning in to the World Cup? It began with CBC honchos scratching their heads over the vast outpouring of interest in...

07 July, 2014

A beautiful five-minute film about putter Cliff Denton, who puts together scissors at Ernest Wright & Sons of Sheffield, England, one of the last remaining hand manufacturer of scissors. The Putter was produced and directed by Shaun Bloodworth. H/T: Conor Friedersdorf...

05 July, 2014

A Contrarian reader responds to this, uh, lengthy post: Dear Contrarian, I can't help commenting on the beauty of "overly prolix": both redundant and triply ironic all at once. Redundant because...

05 July, 2014

The New Yorker celebrated July 4th by republishing a piece E.B. White wrote for the Notes and Comment section of the magazine's July 3, 1943, edition. White was responding to a letter from the Writers’ War Board  asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.” It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling...

05 July, 2014

Three newsworthy parables on the vicissitudes of writing: The missing period Canadian political scientists are fond of contrasting the United States of America's affinity for individualism with Canada's tolerance of collective virtues. But now comes an obscure (soon to be less so) professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, suggesting the whole rugged individualism thing might be the result of a typo. The  New York Times reports that Danielle Allen has discovered what she believes to be a misplaced punctuation mark in the official transcript of the Declaration of Independence, right in the critical passage that begins, "We hold these truths to be self-evident...

03 July, 2014
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