I spent so much time this week researching trams — past and present — and electricity that I’ve had little time to do much else. So I’m going to cheat and point you to some things other people have written or recorded that I think you might enjoy.   Wrasslin’Read More

Resigning woman Lucia MacIsaac resigned as board chair of the Port of Sydney Development Corporation last week prompting residents all over the CBRM to say, “Who?” MacIsaac has not been exactly high profile in her role but then, neither has the port board. In fact, the only thing I canRead More

I was listening to Intercepted, a podcast from The Intercept news outlet, on Wednesday and heard an interview with Emily Guendelsberger, a Philadelphia-based journalist who has written a book called  On the Clock, What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane. The interviewer, Jeremy Scahill, explainedRead...

My summer 2019 reading followed a truly strange and definitely unexpected path, one with an interesting and educational, if horrifying, twist that saw me become absorbed in the devastation and death of war. It began with a paperback, torn into two pieces and lacking a back cover, hidden away amongRead More

Two aspects of my summers past are relevant to the story I’m about to share: first, as a kid, I used to devour Nancy Drew mysteries (hence the title of this article) and always had a hankering to solve mysteries. Second (and more recently), for what seemed like a veryRead More

More BullSHIP? In a bit of revisionist history that would probably secretly impress the government of the People’s Republic of China, Sydney Harbour Investment Partners (SHIP) CEO Albert Barbusci has erased all mention of the Chinese from his latest Novaporte container terminal press release. I figure the next step willRead More

During the recent CBRM general committee meeting about the current state of the new central library project, the subject of the new library in Truro was raised a number of times. I thought it would be worth looking at how the Town of Truro (population 12,000) managed to do whatRead More

I have been trying to determine how, exactly, we decided to locate the new CBRM central library on the Sydney waterfront and as best I can figure, it happened like this:   Architectural & Facility Planning In June 2011, the Cape Breton Regional Library (CBRL) Board initiated a study toRead More

As of Saturday, the Great Ice Wall of Irish Vale (and the Lesser Ice Wall of Irish Cove) were still attracting visitors (although no one has yet had the sense to start selling hot chocolate and popcorn, a great entrepreneurial opportunity lost in my opinion). I had thought the mediaRead More

Note: In honor of International Women’s Day, I set out to profile Women Unlimited, a women’s group founded in Sydney in the early ’80s. I discovered the group had been formed from the steering committee of a conference held in Sydney around that time and the conference itself was soRead More