Poker Face I haven’t enjoyed a TV series as much as I enjoyed Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face in a very long time. It’s not a “Golden Age of TV”-style show like Deadwood or The Sopranos or Mad Men (all of which I also enjoyed very much), it’s a throwback toRead...
Congratulations to the Cape Breton Fiddlers’ Association as they celebrate 50 years of great music! I’m no fiddler, but have been listening to and enjoying the music since I was a child. My grandfather, Michael Campbell, and his better-known brother John Francis (both from Iona, don’t you know) were fiddlers.Read More
Student housing The “collective enterprise” UTILE (L’Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant) was established in 2013 “with the objective of developing a social economy student housing model specific to Quebec inspired by best practices in non-profit student housing around the world.” In 2016, working with the the ChantierRead More
Fun with Numbers I was writing today’s date moments ago and realized that my enthusiasm for the occult ran away with me on Wednesday, when I included a note at the top of the newsletter pondering the numerological significance of 22.02.2022, which I had recorded as the day’s date. TheRead More
I spent so much time researching rail safety and green hydrogen this week that I have time to touch just briefly on two other issues that have piqued my interest of late. One is an observation about the newly refurbished section of Charlotte Street in Sydney, but first, I mustRead More
Art imitating life In my research for this week’s article on the East Palestine train derailment, I ran across a piece on rail safety post-Lac Mégantic (a good piece, worth reading) that begins like this: An unmanned, half-mile-long train carrying tank cars full of highly flammable petroleum products barrels outRead More
Author’s Note: Back in 2004, I was writing for The Cape Bretoner and one of my first interviews was with Shauna Doolan, who passed away a few days ago, leaving behind a tremendous contribution to the Cape Breton music scene. I am grateful to be able to have parts ofRead More
Editor’s Note: When I realized I would be publishing this year on the 41st anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, I decided to reprint this piece from 2022—the preface to Susan Dodd’s 2012 book, The Ocean Ranger: remaking the promise of oil, with permission from Fernwood Books. Read More
Worker Ownership I’ve recently discovered that “Lefty feminist economist” Angella MacEwen, a Broadbent Institute Fellow and senior economist with CUPE National, has a substack (Social Economics) on which she promises to do her best to: … put economic analysis into plain language, and and add feminist working class context toRead More
I was debating just launching into my CBRM council coverage a week late without explanation but decided that would be the coward’s way out so instead, I will confess that I missed the memo about the January 31 meeting. In my defence, the last Tuesday in January is not theRead More
