Archive for June, 2018

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 29, 2018 at 9:35 am

On the waterfront “$150M development for Sydney waterfront moves one step closer,” the CBC assured us on Wednesday, after local developer Martin Chernin was granted exclusive rights by the CBRM Council to develop said waterfront into something resembling the Shangri-La-Dee-Da version of it generated in 2014 by the magical computersRead More

Premier Stephen McNeil announces planned changes to CBRM healthcare system. Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion, Sydney, 25 June 2018. (Photo by Charlie Morrison)

About That Healthcare Redevelopment Plan…

June 27, 2018 at 12:42 pm

Okay, don’t kill me, but I’m not sure this healthcare plan for Cape Breton is all bad. [Ducks under desk. Waits for boos to subside.] I may be a little jaded about the loss of physical buildings, given that the hospital I was born in, the elementary school I attendedRead More

Anthony Housefather, Bill C-404

Surrogacy: A Conversation Whose Time Has Come

June 27, 2018 at 12:36 pm

‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,’ is a line from Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem, “An Essay on Criticism,” although I first heard it as a line in a Johnny Mercer song recorded by Frank Sinatra. Perhaps I risk identifying myself as a fool by discussing a topic likeRead More

How the Spectator Will Spend Its Summer

How the Spectator Will Spend Its Summer

June 27, 2018 at 12:34 pm

Last summer, I dutifully produced a regular edition of the Spectator every Wednesday throughout July and August which many of you…didn’t read. Don’t worry! I don’t blame you! It was summer. The eight weeks a year we KNOW we can leave the house without a ski jacket (knock wood). TheRead More

Where’s Cecil?

Where’s Cecil?

June 27, 2018 at 12:32 pm

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...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 22, 2018 at 11:16 am

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 More

Izumi Nakamitsu

Sean Howard Speaks with the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

June 20, 2018 at 12:12 pm

In a speech at the University of Geneva on May 24, UN Secretary-General (SG) António Guterres launched a new ‘Agenda for Disarmament’ – Securing Our Common Future – designed to revitalize and refocus efforts to achieve the core objective the UN Charter to “save succeeding generations from the scourge ofRead More

Source: Campaign 2000

Sydney-Victoria: Leading the Province in Child Poverty

June 20, 2018 at 12:10 pm

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 More

A Father’s Day Gift to the Donkin Mine

A Father’s Day Gift to the Donkin Mine

June 20, 2018 at 12:08 pm

Is there no editor at the Cape Breton Post? Has the Saltwire Network, which owns the paper, instituted some sort of buggy, beta, artificial intelligence app to vet its stories? How else to explain a front-page Father’s Day feature that began like this: Just in time for Father’s Day, five setsRead More

In the Next Generation episode "Darmok," Picard became stranded on a planet with a Tamarian captain named Dathon, whose species only spoke in metaphors, and attempted to learn his language. "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" was the crux of their communication. (Source: CBS)

The Ethicist: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

June 20, 2018 at 12:06 pm

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...