Arts & Culture

CBRM Council: Other Stuff

CBRM Council: Other Stuff

August 23, 2023 at 3:39 pm

Having gone on at length about an item that was dropped from the agenda of last night’s CBRM council meeting, I will now review some of the items that actually were discussed—but I warn you, that dropped item will haunt my coverage like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.   Wetlands/BiosphereRead...

Let’s Talk About Trees

Let’s Talk About Trees

August 23, 2023 at 3:38 pm

Summer, for me, has always meant time spent in the woods. I would like to say I was the type of child who paid attention to the trees and the lichen and the moss and the mushrooms, who learned their names and their lifecycles and could distinguish white spruce fromRead...

This and That

This and That

August 9, 2023 at 9:40 am

The Third Way I’ve had to print a correction with regard to a June item I wrote about The Third, a new weekly listings paper I had somehow understood to be a production of the CBRM. The Third, it turns out, is a free, local, 16-page print weekly, published andRead More

Top: Detail from Ted Zuber painting "Freeze;" Bottom: US soldiers take part in live-fire training, Korea, April 2023

Deep Freeze: Ending Korea’s Armistice Agony

July 12, 2023 at 11:49 am

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” James Joyce, The Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man   On June 25, in the dazed wake of the aborted rebellion by a mercenary army, the Wagner Group, against Russia’s military and political leadership, the BBC’s MoscowRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 30, 2023 at 10:30 am

Local elites I heard Alexander Sammon of Slate magazine interviewed about this May 2023 piece he did on the annual convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) or, as he put it, of “unsung Republican heavyweights.” Sammon was a guest on This Machine Kills, one of the podcasts inRead...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 23, 2023 at 10:48 am

Ayn Rand Revisited I went through a brief period in high school when I thought Ayn Rand was someone you had to read to be considered well read (I blame a Sydney Academy debater who used to quote her regularly) and since being considered well-read was pretty much my life’sRead...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 16, 2023 at 10:36 am

TV News I decided to write something about Eastlink dropping 34 channels owned by Corus Entertainment because, although I do not have cable TV myself, I know someone who does—and who probably watches HGTV and Food Network, both slated to go as of June 27, more than anything other thanRead...

Net Worth: John Risley’s Clams

Net Worth: John Risley’s Clams

June 14, 2023 at 12:33 pm

I was unfamiliar, until very recently, with the work of Mahone Bay-based “journalist and author” Quentin Casey, who seems to specialize in a type of “journalism” (I call it “Capitalist Hagiography”) that gives me hives. Casey writes fawning portraits of rich businessmen (they all seem to be men) under headlinesRead...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 9, 2023 at 11:14 am

Vienna Ikea Big box stores are designed for cars. I was going to say “for people with cars” but more and more I’m coming to the conclusion that our world is designed more for the vehicles themselves (and the companies that produce them, and the companies that provide their fuel)Read...

Citizens, United?

Citizens, United?

June 6, 2023 at 11:02 am

I think there must be something in the air this week. First, the Spectator‘s Sean Howard, in Part I of what will be a two-part series, discussed ways to “change our local world” with a focus on exercises in “direct, participatory, deliberative citizen engagement” like Citizens’ Assemblies. Then CBU professorRead More