On Wednesday, the Department of Community Services made good on Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse's vindictive plan to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to replace the residential addiction treatment services so ably provided by the Talbot House Recovery Centre for the last half century. Those services came screeching to a halt last February, after a biased and incompetent "organizational review" by the department's  director of family and youth services, Marika Lathem, lent temporary credence to what turned out to be false charges of sexual misconduct against the home's executive director. Peterson-Rafuse and her officials are variously quoted as saying the Talbot House Society is welcome to...

02 August, 2012

Former you-name-it Norman Spector (@nspector4) points out a glaring omission in my partial list of pundits who inveighed against BC Premier Christy Clark's demand for a share of profits from the Northern Gateway pipeline, while mostly ignoring Quebec's brazen extortion of Newfoundland hydro exports. Stephen Maher, late of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and now typing for the Postmedia chain, had a terrific column on the dispute last weekend, one that places the Quebec-Newfoundland precedent front-and-center. The nub: History suggests...

02 August, 2012

It would be an exaggeration to say the right wing voices who dominate Canadian media commentary have risen in unison to condemn BC's pitch for a share of Northern Gateway pipeline spoils, but the clamor has certainly been one-sided. BC Premier Christy Clark's "attitude," wrote Kelly McParland, "is disastrous for Canada." John Ibbitson called Clark's demands "dangerous," and urged Prime Minister Harper to step in. Rex Murphy bemoaned the premiers' declining "intellectual and emotional connection to the national understanding." Andrew Coyne called it "extortion." Rob Russo told CBC Radio the fabric of the nation was at stake. A Globe and Mail...

31 July, 2012

When Maggie turned the Big 1-0 this week, her dad made a dolphin piñata for her birthday party. [Direct video link]...

31 July, 2012

Chickenburger, the iconic Halifax restaurant chain, recently opened a new outlet in a renovated building on Queen St., just off Spring Garden Road. Despite the requirements of the NS Building Code Act, the renovations did not include wheelchair access. No one who uses a wheelchair can eat at Chickenburger. No one who uses a wheelchair can work at Chickenburger. How can this happen in 2012? How can a community-spirited businessman like Mickey MacDonald thumb his nose at potential customers and employees who use wheelchairs? More importantly, how did the city allow this to happen? HRM is one of the most over-regulated cities in...

31 July, 2012

A bald eagle surveyed the shoreline of St. Patrick's Channel from a red oak tree in the Waycobah First Nation at 2 p.m. Monday. Photo: Joshua Barss Donham...

30 July, 2012

In just nine days, NASA will attempt to place its Martian Science Laboratory on Mars. It's an operation so fraught with extreme technological challenges, the space agency calls it seven mintes of terror. By the time radio signals reach Earth and alert scientists that Curiosity Rover's perilous descent has begun, it will actually have been over for seven minutes, and rover will be dead or alive on the surface of the red planet. H/T: Alexis Madrigal...

27 July, 2012

Spoken word artist and social advocate Ardath Whynacht won't be taking part in the public consultations  MT&L and Myrgan Inc. are conducting to smooth the way for Joe Ramia's controversy-plagued Nova Centre in downtown Halifax. Her post at the Halifax Media Co-op website didn't mince words: To engage a single demographic in an orchestrated PR stunt, letting them believe that Joe Ramia and his development cronies will actually entertain the idea of having an after-school drop in centre in their luxury hotel is a crime against democracy. It is a lie. Consultation without a commitment to listen to the citizens is a PR...

26 July, 2012

When I was a teenager, my parents were friends with Malcolm Hobbs, publisher of what was then a weekly newspaper in Orleans, Massachusetts. The Cape Codder was a respectable example of what might be called the golden age of community weeklies. From time to time, it ran detailed articles — "profiles" — of local worthies, a habit that one day generated a warning letter from a lawyer for The New Yorker magazine. The term, "Profile," he asserted, was a trademark of the great journal, who legendary founding editor, Harold Ross, first applied it to detailed articles about individuals sometime in the...

26 July, 2012

PlaceMakingHFX is a pilot project of the Halifax Regional Municipality, co-sponsored by the 4Cs Foundation. Time lapse video by E Gordon. Music by Galen Conroy, aka DJ Nagwoode....

25 July, 2012
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