Yoga Mats Galore! Reading about the MV Zim Kingston shedding over 100 containers into the ocean off the coast of British Columbia put me in mind of the 1941 sinking that inspired Compton MacKenzie’s novel Whiskey Galore!  No, wait, that’s not strictly true — it put me in mind ofRead More

Home Matters So, this happened: .@HomeMattersCB asks @TimHoustonNS if he supports a container pier for CBRM. Premier says he’s willing to see a business case. #nspoli — michael gorman (@MichaelTGorman) October 21, 2021 “@HomeMattersCB” is Sydney-Membertou MLA Derek Mombourquette and I groaned out loud when I read this. Mombourquette’s ownRead More

Backroom deals During Tuesday’s CBRM council meeting, CAO Marie Walsh revealed — very matter-of-factly — that she and regional solicitor Demetri Kachafanas had met with developer Martin Chernin after the expiration of Chernin’s waterfront pre-development contract to discuss a new proposal. She even admitted that she and Kachafanas had presentedRead More

I‘ve been learning about Appalachia (beginning with how to pronounce it) through a variety of means lately and what keeps jumping out at me are the similarities between that region and our own (by which I mean, variously, Cape Breton, the Maritimes and the Atlantic Provinces). These similarities include theRead More

Trainspotter Looking for illustrations for my rail-related articles this week, I ran across something great: a trove of train photos by a photographer named Roger Puta. I didn’t have time to learn anything more about him on Wednesday, I just snaffled up those lovely photos of a CN engine inRead More

Eureka! As you may recall from Wednesday’s edition, CBRM CAO Marie Walsh assured me I’d be receiving, that very day, the “lion’s share” of the 890 documents I’ve been waiting for as a result of the NS Privacy Commissioner’s ruling on my 2015 FOIPOP request. I received nothing on Wednesday.Read More

I Swear I discovered the CBRM was planning an in-person swearing-in ceremony for mayor and council not from CBRM communications but from a reporter for another news outlet I happened to bump into in front of Sobeys on Tuesday night. Honestly, as a form of communication, it’s not ineffective. TheRead More

Cruise News Monday was World Oceans Day and if you put your ear to a seashell,  you could hear a chorus of voices across the globe calling on the cruise industry to clean up its act. Environmental activists living in “port communities” marked the occasion with a virtual “Rally toRead...

Timeline update I have realized that there is a better source for Canadian COVID-19 confirmed case totals than the one I used in compiling my initial COVID-19 timeline (I used the Wayback Machine to consult the page each day when I should have simply consulted the cumulative total tables maintainedRead More

Hello hydro? Did you hear about the new Star Trek series? Star Trek: Atlantica? Here’s a still from the pilot. It shows the commander and crew of the starship Enterprise (now the Regional Enterprise) receiving communications from the Imperator of the Irving Hegemony. Inter-galactic protocols require they turn their backsRead More