On Wednesday I noted a typographical error that caused a local journal some embarrassment, only to acknowledge I was no one to talk, given the rising frequency of self- and auto-correct-induced typos that fill my keyboarding day. (See: Report a Tpyo button, above.) Naturally, other journalists quickly jumped into the fray. Dan Bedell, the most meticulous copy editor I ever encountered, toiled for many years at the Canadian Press Bureau in Halifax. [caption id="attachment_13142" align="alignright" width="160"] Bedell[/caption] I hope the Chronicle Herald crew takes the award in stride and draws comfort from knowing it serves to remind all wordsmiths there should never be...

21 December, 2013

Premier Darrell Dexter shot a few baskets Monday afternoon during a courtesy call at the former Holy Angels High School, which New Dawn Enterprises is turning into a center for cultural organizations and entrepreneurship. Pictured in the doorway is Blair Oake, recently retired manager of City Printers, who will manage the facility. Seated in the stands, wearing a blue shirt,  is New Dawn president (and defeated mayoral candidate) Rankin MacSween. Dexter squeezed in a series of meet-and-greets en route to the NDP's Cape Breton-The Lakes nominating convention in Eskasoni, where Mi'kmaq John Frank Toney was acclaimed. Toney's nomination, tacitly endorsed by Eskasoni Chief...

09 July, 2013

Grad student, cultural activist, and entrepreneur Mike Targett writes: I appreciate a lot of Jay Macneil's general complaint. I've made similar ones about decision-makers not trying hard enough to make this place more livable, and even actively trying to make it less livable. I can even be pretty cynical about council at times. Maybe that cynicism is what made me think twice about this vote, since Morgan the populist voted with Kim Deveaux the radical. Curious. Did Morgan vote for what he knew would be the popular sentiment ("All he wanted to do was dance!") despite testimony from the Chief of Police...

09 December, 2011

Contrarian reader RM thinks our post crossed the line: [T]his commentary was in poor taste. Yes, this veteran has every right to comment, but I think it is more important to respect the views of the the family of the fallen soldier. Let us make our comments without seeming to criticize the wishes of the family. Thanks to the many readers who pointed out that our link to CBC-Cape Breton reporter Bobby Nock's interview was broken, and thanks to website wizard Mike Targett for fixing it while Contrarian was helplessly sans Internet over the far Northern Atlantic....

02 July, 2010

Contrarian has some highbrow friends, including Mike Targett, who weighs into the begrudgery debate quoting Wittgenstein:  "The meaning of a word is its use in the language." That is the classic formulation of descriptivism, the reigning philosophy among lexicographers. The trouble with descriptivism is that it leads to definitions like this one, from Merriam-Webster: "biweekly: 1. occurring twice a week; 2. occurring every two weeks." It's true, people use biweekly to mean both things, but sometimes you need a prescriptive dictionary to tell you what a word really means. I'm with Lindsay Brown on that score....

23 May, 2010

Contrarian will be at the Inverary Inn's Thistledown Pub in Baddeck this evening to lead a discussion about blogging sponsored by the Cabot Trail Writers' Festival, the group that organized this event last fall. In addition to an annual fall festival, the group plans a series of satellite events, of which tonight's discussion is the first. I'll be talking about the writerly (journalistic, aesthetic, ethical) aspects of blogging; Mike Targett will be on hand to backstop me on those issues, and to add his technical smarts to the discussion. The pub serves supper from 5:30 to 8; The fireside blogging discussion,...

06 March, 2010

I've criticized the NDP's carbon subsidy (here, here, and here,), but I understand the value of keeping campaign promises, even dumb ones. In my contrary view, public cynicism about politicians is so deep, it threatens to destroy the minimal level of public trust democracy needs to survive. This may be why the Tories and the Parliamentary Press Gallery have been so successful at drumming up absurd faux-outrage at the prospect of a fall election. So even as two of the Dexter government's promises (keeping all rural emergency rooms open and using tax rebates to encourage electricity consumption) make me shudder, I...

29 September, 2009