History

Dear Editor: Time Flies

Dear Editor: Time Flies

July 13, 2022 at 11:32 am

Editor’s Note: Joe Noseworthy’s high school graduation photo popped up in his social media feed last month as his own daughter was graduating from high school prompting this delightful reflection on New Waterford in the ’80s.   Thirty years this week since this pic was taken! It amazes me, theRead More

Top (Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert welcomes Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy Vice Adm. Mark Norman for an office call at the Pentagon. (U.S. Navy Photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Julianne F. Metzger/Released)
Bottom: Bottom: MS Asterix naval replenishment ship, post-conversion.

Vice-Admiral Norman/NSS Timeline 2004-2019

June 15, 2022 at 12:32 pm

Editor’s Note: I’ve added new items to the timeline below, but my real update can be found in this new article, for which I’ve written a new introduction. Rather than repeat myself, I thought I’d let the old intro stand because it still serves a purpose: it explains why IRead More

Remembering the ‘Brief But Brutal’ Falklands War

Remembering the ‘Brief But Brutal’ Falklands War

May 4, 2022 at 1:04 pm

In April 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, I was a young man of 16: old enough to fight, kill, and die for a British government I was too young to vote for. Forty years on, the UK voting age is still too high (18) and the Army recruitmentRead More

Protester in Times Square, 26 Feb 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Photo by Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Macho Posturing on the Edge of the Abyss

March 2, 2022 at 10:51 am

The work, my friends, is peace, more than an end of this war – an end to the beginning of all wars, yes, an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples — Draft of undelivered Jefferson Day speech byRead More

The Ocean Ranger 40 Years Later: Politicization of Grief?

The Ocean Ranger 40 Years Later: Politicization of Grief?

February 9, 2022 at 12:06 pm

I was visiting my mother a few years ago, in the seniors’ home where she now lives, in BC. Mom introduced me to a well-dressed lady: “This is my daughter. She’s come from Nova Scotia to visit me.” “Oh!” the lady offered brightly, “my husband used to run oil rigsRead More

CBRM Council: Heritage Minutes

CBRM Council: Heritage Minutes

February 9, 2022 at 12:04 pm

Three CBRM structures were registered as Municipal Heritage properties during last night’s council meeting:   Menelik Hall Planner Karen Neville, in her submission to council, said the value of the hall, located at 88 Laurier Street in Whitney Pier and “constructed between 1935 and 1936 by people of African descentRead More

Ukraine: Spheres, Orbits & Thoughts on Neutrality

Ukraine: Spheres, Orbits & Thoughts on Neutrality

February 2, 2022 at 1:10 pm

  Sometimes it seems we are living in different worlds — Vladimir Putin, 23 December 2021 There is another world, and it is this one — French poet Paul Éluard   The curtain was raised on 2022 with the stage set for not one, not two, but three major regional conflicts,Read More

The Strange Case of Island Employment

The Strange Case of Island Employment

January 5, 2022 at 12:21 pm

As 2021 drew to a close, Island Employment, a third-party provider of employment services funded largely by the provincial Department of Labour and Advanced Education (LAE), was making some rather startling headlines. The organization — which began life in 2000 as the Persons With Disabilities Association of Industrial Cape Breton,Read More

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Costa Rica and the Cost of Living Well

January 5, 2022 at 12:17 pm

In late August The New Yorker featured a fascinating, slightly awestruck examination of “the Costa Rica Model” of “health care that understands its community,” by American surgeon and professor of public health Atul Gawande. Gawande, nominated by President Biden to serve as assistant administrator of the US Aid and DevelopmentRead More

Whatever Happened to North Sydney?

Whatever Happened to North Sydney?

December 8, 2021 at 11:45 am

What happened to Cape Breton Island? In particular, North Sydney? It  used to  be a booming town. Fish plants, steel plant, coalmines, Marine Railway and CN workers in the thousands. Retail businesses all along Commercial Street. Thousands of workers making good money, cashing their checks on a Friday at theRead More