In response to the fuss over Halifax sewage sludge, Contrarian reader S.P. points out that the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, District Sewerage Commission has been selling processed sludge under the brand name Milorganite for more than eight decades. The name, a contraction of Milwaukee organic nitrogen, was the winner of a 1925 naming contest in National Fertilizer Magazine. A corporate history on the commission's website explains that product grew out of a pollution control program. Early in the last century, the city formed the commission to clean up organic matter flowing into Milwaukee's waterways. The commission opened a laboratory to study a British chemist's scheme for...

18 August, 2010

The blobfish, highlighted in a New York Times slide show on ugly animals, is "practically all face — a pale, gelatinous deep-sea creature whose large-lipped, sad-sack expression seems to be melting toward the floor." An accompanying article explores the underpinnings of our aesthetic recoil: [C]omparative consideration of what we find freakish or unsettling in other species offers a fresh perspective on how we extract large amounts of visual information from a millisecond’s glance, and then spin, atomize and anthropomorphize that assessment into a revealing saga of ourselves. Wildlife biologists are far from immune to prejudice against the unbeautiful. [R]researchers found 1,855 papers about...

10 August, 2010

The new Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market doesn't impress Contrarian reader Michael Graham: I really hope there is a tremendous amount of work to be done, because it is an insanely cramped space with two sets of narrow doors. There weren't thousands of people at once — no mob, just a very small space with no room to move. Three people effectively block all movement along an aisle — no wider than at a grocery store. Relatively speaking, the brewery market is incredibly easy to move through. What makes this space attractive? Glass, concrete, and gridlock? It's just a small warehouse with natural...

08 August, 2010

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to eat local: A huge throng of regulars, plus tire-kickers, overwhelmed the Halifax Seaport Farmers' Market's opening day this morning, forcing shoppers to wrestle with traffic tie-ups, inadequate parking, and impossibly long coffee lineups. It is a gorgeous space, however, and congestion will likely ease once construction is complete and the market starts opening throughout the week. Lead designer Keith Tufts, of the Halifax architectural firm Lydon Lynch, describes the building's advanced environmental features in this video. One sour note: US imposed, Homeland Security regulations prevent the market from opening the huge water-facing doors on...

07 August, 2010

Halifax filmmaker Andrea Dorfman brings Halifax poet Tanya Davis's words to the screen. Produced by Walter Forsyth. Watch for the Hitchcockian cameo by Dorfman....

30 July, 2010

At the Valley Motel, somewhere east of Manistique, on Michigan's Northern Peninsula, the peripatetic Jane Kansas talked Dave, the proprietor, into a cut rate of $30 for this beauty. Later, Dave and his twin daughters showed up with a dinner of steak, real fries, shrimp, rice, cheese, and olives. "We thought on your walk you might not get many home cooked meals," Dave explained. Before bedtime, the girls returned with a banana and a doughnut for dessert. To the people Jane encounters on her epic walk across the American Midwest, she must seem the oddest of strangers: a short, sunburned woman in late middle age,...

27 July, 2010

I have fallen behind posting reader submissions on the Conservatives' inexplicable attack on the census. Here's a start on the backlog, beginning (in the interests of equal time) with an email in which Ottawa PR guy Tim Powers, whom I slanged as a Harper sock-puppet, turns a cordial cheek: Read your blog about today's Current. I must say I don't think I have never been called a sock-puppet before. A friendly bit of Cape Breton ribbing is good for the soul. Liked the Dewey headline. I always enjoyed your wit when I was a student in Halifax. Keep stirring the pot! My slightly sheepish...

27 July, 2010

California strawberries on sale at the North Sydney Sobey's, July 23. No fruit anywhere surpasses a ripe, Nova Scotia strawberry, yet in twice weekly tours of the supermarket produce section during the height of Nova Scotia strawberry season, I have not seen a single basket of local berries. I've seen them at the Farmer's Daughter in Whycocomagh. I've seen them at the roadside stand by the Esso station in Bras d'Or. But not once in Sobey's or Atlantic Superstore. C'mon, food giants: Is this really the best you can do? [Update] Shauna Jones of Angry Sheep Designs writes from Whitehorse to say, "Those...

23 July, 2010
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