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
The smiling faces on the sold-out crowd leaving the Highland Arts Theatre (HAT) last Friday night were proof positive they had been part of something truly wonderful. The HAT’s Tribute to The Rotary Show was an energetic and enthusiastic look back at the Rotary productions that were musical staples in SydneyRead More
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
The smiling faces on the sold-out crowd leaving the Highland Arts Theatre (HAT) last Friday night were proof positive they had been part of something truly wonderful. The HAT’s Tribute to The Rotary Show was an energetic and enthusiastic look back at the Rotary productions that were musical staples in SydneyRead More
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...
Fifteen years ago, my first assignment for The Cape Bretoner (a magazine that unfortunately ceased publication in 2006) was a story on homelessness in Cape Breton. I don’t recall if the 2003 winter was as severe as the past few weeks have been, but there were signs of hope andRead More
Makerspace update Remember I told you we were getting a Makerspace? It’s part of something called the Momentum Initiative — a cooperative effort between Innovacorp and a number of other organizations and entities, including New Dawn, Cape Breton Partnership, CBU, Navigate Start-Up House, NSCC, the National Research Council of CanadaRead...
Sydney-Victoria figured in a Canadian Top-10 list this week but it’s nothing to celebrate: we’re one of the 10 federal ridings with the highest levels of child poverty in the country. The list is found in the latest report from Campaign 2000, a Canadian anti-poverty group that takes its nameRead...
The smiling faces on the sold-out crowd leaving the Highland Arts Theatre (HAT) last Friday night were proof positive they had been part of something truly wonderful. The HAT’s Tribute to The Rotary Show was an energetic and enthusiastic look back at the Rotary productions that were musical staples in SydneyRead 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 This is the time of year when you might be starting a new garden bed — maybe your first, maybe an extension of your existing garden — which makes it a good time to talk about cover crops. As with crop rotation, which we discussedRead More
![Police line. (Photo by By Tony Webster [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons)](https://capebretonspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/police_line_crop-200x150.png)
I absolutely detest the lack of compassion the media have during tragic times. On 2 November 2014, my 20-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It was awful for us to repeatedly see my daughter’s overturned car posted and used in story after story. YesterdayRead More
Dining Out I’m tired of listening to my own cranky voice complaining about things, so I’m going to start today by talking about three things that have impressed me lately: specifically, meals I’ve had in three local restaurants. There was a time in my life when I dined out regularlyRead More
Blurred lines I have to start from the end of last night’s general committee meeting because things took an unexpected (and quite fascinating) turn that has knocked everything else out of my head for the moment. If you have been following the Spectator’s “Where’s Cecil?” feature, then you’ll know I’veRead More
The government of Nova Scotia is going to make sure everyone in the province has access to broadband internet. I know what you’re thinking — don’t tell Motorola. They think they solved that problem for us back in 2010, those crazy kids. They even used as a “case study” inRead More
“The road to hell,” the saying goes, is “paved with good intentions.” If a path to peace in Korea, however long and winding, emerges from the currently scheduled June 12 Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un, it will have been paved by the best and worstRead More
There are two sides to a pancake; however, every day there are lots of chats on staffing at CBRM, whether it be in the coffee shops, taverns, living rooms or wherever. Sometimes they start with: “It’s who you know down there.” Or someone mentions a name of someone just hiredRead More
I recently had an experience with my first ever FOIPOP [freedom of information/protection of privacy] request, made in regard to the “Annual Condition Defects Report” which, according to Nova Scotia Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (TIR) documents, is required to be formulated by November 30th of each year by eachRead More
