Last month, University of Massachusetts scientists working with laboratory cell cultures said they had succeeded in suppressing the extra chromosome associated with Down syndrome, a technique they predicted could lead to treatments targeted at the symptoms of the condition. Halifax resident Renee Forrestall, whose 22-year-old daughter Marie Webb has Down Syndrome, condemned the research as akin to cultural genocide. We've got a genetically similar community, visible minority who are being targeted and terminated globally. People think, "Well, this is the way it is and these people just shouldn't be." A friend who knows I have identical twin grandchildren with Down Syndrome sought my...

02 August, 2013

Contrarian reader Michael Colborne points out that NDP leader Tom Mulcair's boycott of CBC Radio's English service, if that's what it was, ended tonight with an interview on As It Happens. He sounds like a guy who can take on Harper successfully. To do that, he'd be wise to avoid peevish boycotts in future (and that's advice from someone who'd love to see him succeed)....

27 March, 2012

I'm glad Thomas Mulcair won the leadership of the NDP Saturday. He has the best shot at retaining at least some of the party's beachhead in Quebec. He's said to be tough and politically shrewd, both of which he'll need to be when dealing with the wily Stephen Harper. He clearly plans to edge the party toward the centre, ala Darrell Dexter and other successful NDP premiers, and that's a good tactic when facing a government of right wing ideologues. But I'm not without a few qualms, including Mulcair's reputation for carrying grudges, and his occasional bone-headed statements on foreign policy,...

27 March, 2012

Professors of journalism or public relations would do well to save a copy of today's episode of CBC Radio's "The House" for a classic example of how a politician can use talking points to hornswoggle an overly deferential interviewer. At about 14 minutes into the program, Evan Solomon asks International Trade Minister Ed Fast an obvious question about the recent spate of US protectionist measures aimed at Canada: Why are you being caught off guard by these sudden protectionist measures coming out of the US? Fast responded with a set of talking points so scripted, you can almost hear him rhyming off the bullets: We’re focused...

29 October, 2011

A report last week in the prestigious scientific journal Nature revealed that the hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic was the largest ever recorded—comparable for the first time to the man-induced hole that appears every year in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. But when reporters asked Canadian scientist  David Tarasick, who was involved in the study, to explain its findings, Environment Canada refused to let him speak. [caption id="attachment_8689" align="alignright" width="150" caption="David Tarasick, muzzled by Environment Canada"][/caption] Environment Canada scientist David Tarasick, whose team played a key role in the report published Sunday in the journal Nature, is not being...

08 October, 2011

A reader writes: I understand you dislike CBC.  Well that is fine for you, but for those of us who don't want to listen to the local shows made up of canned music and dubious prattle, the CBC treats their listeners as intelligent human beings. Just don't listen if you dislike the station. Point taken. I feel odd defending myself against the proposition that I dislike the CBC, but given recent posts (here and here), I suppose it's an understandable assumption. As an immigrant who came to Canada after my schooling had ended, I learned most of what...

03 April, 2010

Pop anthropologist Wade Davis, the first of whose CBC Radio Massey lectures¹ just ended in the Atlantic time zone, obviously has a lot of knowledge to impart about the Earth's diverse human cultures. So why did her  waste a good half of the opening talk shooting racist fish in a 19th Century barrel? Davis's point was that the errant 19th Century "science" of physical anthropology dripped with colonial arrogance, but the thinly disguised subtext seemed to be Davis's own moral superiority to these imperial prigs. The effect was both distasteful and boring, like listening a 21st Century astrophysicist satirize the Ptolemaic...

02 November, 2009

A very sad update: The woman attacked by two coywolves succumbed to her injuries overnight. Deepest sympathy to her family and friends for their unimaginable loss. - - - The shocking news that a 19-year-old Toronto-area woman was attacked and "very, very seriously" injured by a pair of coyotes in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park this afternoon will undoubtedly focus attention on recent reports that Eastern Coyotes are in fact a hybrid of coyotes and wolves, or coywolves. We offer heartfelt hopes for a speedy and complete recovery for the unidentified woman, who was hiking on the popular and well used Skyline...

27 October, 2009

The CBC Radio iPhone app has finally been updated, and now includes live streams from Halifax (and Fredericton and Saint John, but not Sydney or Charlottetown), and from at least one location in every Canadian time zone. The app allows on-demand access to many good CBC Radio shows, but alas, only to "highlights" of Ideas, whose producers have for some reason been glacially slow to grasp the importance of the Internet's time-shifting potential for this program. Hat tip: Scott Gillard....

09 October, 2009

CBC is awaiting approval from Apple for an update to the terrific CBC Radio iPhone app. The updated version, which should appear on  iTunes soon, will include live streams of CBC stations Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Fredericton, Grand Falls, Moncton, Ottawa, Regina, Saint John, St John's, Thunder Bay, Windsor, and Winnipeg. (Can Sydney be far behind?) The original app (free download here) did not include any streams from the Mountain, Central, or Newfoundland time zones, and only Goose Bay in the Atlantic zone. Stations in the missing locations streamed in Windows Media format, which the app could not handle. As stations switch...

29 September, 2009
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