![Clockwise from upper left: Basil (Photo by Cchatfield [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]; Thyme (Photo by Jeffery Martin [CC0; Parsley (Photo by PARDC - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18344246); Chives (Photo bygrassrootsgroundswell (chives) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]); Winter Savory (Photo by David J. Stang [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)],); All via Wikimedia Commons](https://capebretonspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gardening_collage-520x475.png)
![Photo by Bogdan. [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://capebretonspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cannabis_square-520x475.png)
I don’t know if it’s really necessary to “disclose” that I attended journalism school with reporter and author Janice Landry but I am going to do so (and yes, I am well aware that there is a fine line between “disclosing” something and “boasting about it;” I promise to walkRead More
I have undertaken to erect in the Town of Sydney a building intended for a Convent Boarding School for the county of Cape Breton. The need of such an institution is an acknowledged one. On several occasions during the last fifteen years I have been urged by persons from variousRead...
As I write this column, I am struggling to make ethical sense of current events. How can politicians like Donald Trump shamelessly tell lie after lie, and still have a significant number of people willing to support them? How can men who make or act in sensitive and enlightened filmsRead...
“No leasing land to China even for one day” I heard this story on Democracy Now as I was drifting off to sleep the other night and woke up the next morning thinking I’d dreamt it, but I looked it up and it was real. Here’s the Voice of AmericaRead More
I‘ve been writing regularly about poverty, especially child poverty and especially in the CBRM, for over a year now — looking at the possibility of a guaranteed annual income (GAI), the grim local statistics and creative solutions to problems like hunger and homelessness that might work here, among other aspectsRead More
Last month. I wrote about taxation, and observed that determining what levels of taxation are fair – and deciding who should pay the most taxes and who should pay the least – will always be substantially ethical decisions, and can never be solely economic or practical ones. While voices onRead...
We’re baaaa…aaaaaaack How was your summer? Mine was fantastic. It was full of swimming and reading and barbecue and blackberries and crossword puzzles and G&Ts and cribbage and reunions with long-lost friends and rock-skipping sessions with visiting nephews and one glorious, heartfelt, bonfire sing-a-long to Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded MeRead More
For-profit prisons This has to be the most unfortunate story pairing of the month — the journalistic equivalent of steak and white wine. Or Dr. Pepper. Or motor oil. First, on 11 October, the Chronicle Herald‘s John DeMont (whose writing I frequently enjoy) wrote a puff-piece about Geoffrey Rubin, theRead...
Four businessmen, a doctor and a physiotherapist walk into a bar… Just kidding! Actually, they walk into a small community in Cape Breton and buy up a number of recreational properties that, together, have been on the receiving end of hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money. Under theRead More
I‘ve been writing regularly about poverty, especially child poverty and especially in the CBRM, for over a year now — looking at the possibility of a guaranteed annual income (GAI), the grim local statistics and creative solutions to problems like hunger and homelessness that might work here, among other aspectsRead More
Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?,” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. AsRead More
What to do this week You might need a garden shovel or something similar in the next month or so, who knows, but generally, this is the time of year you should be cleaning, organizing and storing your garden tools for winter. It is a good idea to put yourRead More
But seriously, where’s Cecil? Did it strike anyone else odd that the mayor wasn’t at that flood prevention press conference on Monday? Sydney-Whitney Pier MLA (and Energy Minister) Derek Mombourquette and Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking both thought $2.5 million in additional federal disaster funding was worth coming to town andRead More
Susan Leblanc, the NDP MLA for Dartmouth North, has introduced a bill that would see the provincial government guarantee personal, short-term, “micro-loans” for amounts up to $2,000 from credit unions. I spoke to Leblanc briefly, by phone, on Friday and she told me the guarantee would be similar to theRead More
When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Charles Sorley (1895-1915) On Friday, September 21 – United Nations International Day of Peace – Cape BretonRead More
On September 23, the town of Windsor in Nova Scotia commemorated the 100th anniversary of the training of the Jewish Legion, a battalion of the British army that fought to liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In 1918, a young Jewish man named David Ben-Gurion wasRead More
Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?,” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. AsRead More
What to do this week It is garlic-planting time again. In this part of the world, it is a good idea to plant your garlic before the end of October. It needs a bit of time for the roots to get established before the freeze-thaw cycles. One never knows howRead More
Spin Class I like following the CBC’s Jean Laroche on Twitter precisely for moments like these, where he captures something about the way our political system works that you don’t get to see unless you happen to hang out in the halls of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly: ThisRead More
