Contrarian reader Joyce Rankin reacts to Contrarian's caution that justice will not be served by presuming a hearsay accusation of sexual assault to be true in every detail. I don't usually print reader responses at this length, but in the interests of fairness I will do so in this case without edits. Please, please, please don't be one of those men who keep doubting that a rape took place. Every woman knows that there are many many rapes that are never reported because the victim knows exactly what kind of a shitstorm she will letting herself in for and decides not...

17 April, 2013

The late Janet Moore, the founder of l'Arche Cape Breton who was profiled here on her death in 2010, was a huge fan of Rita MacNeil. Janet's friend Mary MacDougall arranged for the two to meet at Rita's Tea Room on her 60th birthday, in 2007. Jenn Power, Atlantic Regional Co-ordinator for l'Arche (and my daughter-in-law) described the event on her blog. Those of us who love Janet were more than a little apprehensive as we prepared for the celebration. Janet is getting old, and showing her age. As with so many people with Down Syndrome, dementia is slowly creeping in and stealing...

17 April, 2013

I saw 42 tonight. It's the new movie about Jackie Robinson's breakthrough with the 1946 Montreal Royals, and then with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers as the first black player in modern Major League Baseball. The movie's a bit cheesy, redeemed mainly by the glorious story it recounts, and by a wonderful performance from Harrison Ford as Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey—the man who spearheaded baseball's integration. There are some nice touches, as when Rickey picks Robinson's bio out of a stack of Negro League player reports he's considering. "He's a Methodist," notes Rickey. "I'm a Methodist. God is a Methodist. It should work out well." Growing...

16 April, 2013

When Dan Falvey, teaching assistant and journeyman Halifax bar server, died far too young last June, an exceptional outpouring of grief and affection marked the event. I never saw Dan in a school setting, but he served me many times. He was simply superb at a job that is too often under-appreciated for both difficulty and impact. Writing in the Coast, Tim Bousquet described him as "hands-down the most energetic server imaginable." Dan carried out all the basics with exemplary grace, and he was also wickedly funny. You looked forward to his visits to your table, because his dry, dead-pan humor, coupled with...

14 April, 2013

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

New Brunswick can have its Magnetic Hill, but for my money, when it comes to gravity defiance, nothing beats Uphill Brook at Marshy Hope in Pictou County. Motorists travelling the TransCanada 104 between New Glasgow and Antigonish take note that the next few weeks, when melting snow fills Nova Scotia's streams but foliage has not yet sprouted on our perennial shrubs, mark the best season for observing this physics-defying natural phenomenon. Sir Isaac Newton, the inventor of gravity, went to his grave without offering any explanation for it. From the turn at the bottom of the valley that is Marshy Hope, Uphill Brook...

14 April, 2013

Snap quiz:  What do the following verses have in common? And that's how it went all afternoon, one lizard after another It made me wonder if snow leopards have a taste for joggers as well As is typical, the Pope stayed above the fray and did not comment. Whether such tactics will have a chilling effect remains to be seen. Answer: All four are inadvertent haikus, composed by humans but discovered by machines. The first two come from a Tumblr blog created by New York Times editor Jacob Harris, who adapted some open-source compter code to scan the homepage of the New York Times, looking for snippets of text that conform to the Haiku...

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

What if the cops and prosecutors were right? What if competent RCMP officers carried out a conscientious investigation of allegations that Rehtaeh Parsons was sexually assaulted, and that a pornographic photo of the event had circulated among her acquaintances, before concluding there was no prospect of a conviction in the case? Because we cherish freedom and abhor wrongful convictions, we set a high bar for criminal convictions. Accused persons must always be presumed innocent. To convict them, evidence presented in court must satisfy a judge or jury of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—not a frivolous or fanciful doubt, or one based on prejudice...

11 April, 2013
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