Remember when the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary strolled about their daily rounds with no sidearms? It's not that long ago. Until June 14, 1998, the RNC required members on normal duty to keep firearms locked in the trunks of their cruisers, deploying them only with permission from the chief. What a difference 16 years makes. Take a gander at the latest RNC recruitment video, released just this month. Writing in the Newfoundland and Labrador Independent, Jon Parsons decried the paramilitary fantasy evoked by the video: This video, and the recruitment campaign of which it is a part, dangerously speaks to a particular kind of potential recruit. The heroic, militaristic drumbeat, the...

20 October, 2014

My son Joshua, who took this photo of a katydid near Halifax's Frog Pond (part of The Dingle Park in Armdale) on October 12, writes: Notice the pits in this creature's front legs, which are its sound detection organs. They are situated as far apart as possible for females to better determine the direction of the mating call of males. Roald Dahl described this phenomenon is in James and the Giant Peach, when the Old Green Grasshopper tells James of his cousin, whose ears are on her legs. I'm sure there's a political metaphor lurking in this somatic curiosity, but I'll just turn...

17 October, 2014

If you are anywhere near Halifax Friday evening, I hope you will join me to hear a talk by Ian Brown, author of The Boy in the Moon, followed by a panel discussion about the inexplicable power vulnerable people have to teach the rest of us about life. The event is part of a weekend of celebrations of the 50th anniversary of L'Arche, an international federation of more than 130 communities around the world, where men and women with developmental disabilities live and work with people who choose to share their lives. The philosopher and theologian Jean Vanier founded L'Arche in 1964 when he invited two men with developmental disabilities, Raphael...

16 October, 2014

When astrophysicist Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize for co-discovering dark energy—the mysterious factor that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate—his grandmother wanted to see the medal that came with the prize. So he took it with him on his next trip to Fargo, ND, where she lives. The trip was uneventful, "until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the x-ray machine," Schmidt told Scientific American editor Clara Moskowitz. "I could see they were puzzled. It was in my laptop bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the x-rays—it’s completely black...

12 October, 2014

Saturday's edition of Tim Bousquet's Halifax Examiner features a list of sites that aggregate the often witty repartee that permeates many newsrooms: Reporters think about themselves too much, which leads to sometimes funny, sometimes sad, stuff. In no random order [sic], there’s Shit Reporters Say, Overheard in the Newsroom, and the moribund Bureau Chiefs, who were behind the sadly no-longer-funny (what happened?) Fake AP Stylebook. [caption id="attachment_14356" align="alignleft" width="180"] Charlie Stough[/caption] This brought to mind the defunct-but-not-forgotten Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild Bulletin, "BONG Bull" for short, a creation of longtime Dayton Daily News copy editor Charlie Stough, who produced it from the early 1990s until 2007. Although BONG...

12 October, 2014

[caption id="attachment_14344" align="alignright" width="200"] SEO bait: First cat photo ever on Contrarian[/caption] The Nova Scotia government yesterday introduced legislation requiring anyone selling a cat to obtain a Veterinarian's certificate of health. A vet's office in Sydney told me a certificate of health for a healthy cat, "would probably just be the examination fee, which is $65 plus tax" (or $74.75).  Selling a litter of cats will presumably require a litter of certificates, though perhaps there would be a bulk discount. Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell is defends the legislation as a measure to combat animal abuse and abandonment. I know animal protection is as important to Nova Scotians...

10 October, 2014

Last week I marvelled at the sophistication of the music that plays when the Nova Scotia Legislature's video feed pauses for bells summoning members to a vote. The 11 tunes that bided time for the vote on second reading of Bill 1 ranged from modern jazz to classical to some of Nashville's greatest instrumentalists. "Who programs this legislative mix-tape?" I wondered. An email from Neil Ferguson, Chief Clerk of the House of Assembly, supplies the answer: [T]he music is chosen by the Manager of Legislative Television Broadcast and Recording Services, Mr. Jim MacInnes, and his staff at Leg TV. The selections are stored on a computer drive, and are...

07 October, 2014

This clever three-panel from Tracey Moody ("The Moody Atheist") has been making the rounds on Twitter and Facebook: Most Contrarian readers will get the joke, although some commenters on FB and Twitter did not. The usual explanation is that homeopathic "remedies" are so highly diluted in water, they contain only minuscule quantities of the "active" ingredient—thus, payment in the form of a dollar-bill snippet. In fact, homeopathic "remedies" are so highly diluted, they contain absolutely none of the "active" ingredient—not a single molecule. (See: Avogadro's number.) But without a single molecule, the joke wouldn't work, so we're happy to allow Ms. Moody some comedic license....

07 October, 2014

I made a fleeting reference Tuesday to Sydney-Whitney Pier MLA Gordie Gosse's impromptu speech to the legislature imploring fellow lawmakers to listen to the health care workers protesting outside. Gosse contrasted Premier Stephen McNeil's flight from Province House, behind the tinted windows of a US-style, black SUV, with the courage a previous Liberal premier showed, plunging into a crowd of menacing steelworkers and letting them say their piece. Gosse's speech, made more poignant by his difficulty speaking following intense treatment for mouth cancer by some of the very workers protesting outside, is now available on YouTube. Here's the high point:  I remember back in [1998], there was another...

05 October, 2014

When McClelland and Stewart sent Jane Urquhart a copy of her 1986 debut novel, The Whirlpool, the publisher also slipped in Alistair MacLeod’s second collection of short stories, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun. The two books had been released together under M&S’s “Signature Series” imprint. Urquhart, who recounted the story Friday night during her tribute to Alistair at the Cabot Trail Writer’s Festival in St. Ann’s, was not familiar with MacLeod. After a few days savouring her newfound status as published author, she set about reading Birds. Then she read it again. Then she went out and bought MacLeod’s first...

04 October, 2014
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