We live, do we not, in an age of chronic partisan dysfunction in Washington, a chasm unbridged even by the coronavirus crisis? But on one issue both sides can reach with ease ‘across the aisle’: the Pentagon budget. On July 21 and 23, the House of Representatives and Senate adoptedRead More

Once more to the polls! I have yet to decide how to cover this fall’s municipal elections in the CBRM. Back in 2016 — the year I launched the Spectator  — I chose to focus on the women running for office in part because I am one person and couldRead More

The New Yorker’s ‘Talk of the Town’ recently reported how, in the depths of the Big Apple’s COVID-19 lockdown, musician David Mansfield discovered a rusted hatch in his overgrown backyard. Prizing it open, he descended a ladder to a nuclear fall-out shelter, a claustrophobic capsule – or “David Bowie tinRead More

“It was an awesome spectacle; anyone who has ever seen an atomic explosion will never forget it. And all in compete silence; the bang came minutes later, quite loud though I had plugged my ears, and followed by a long rumble like heavy traffic very far away. I can stillRead More

There has been almost too much to process from days of watching the Black Lives Matter marches spreading, not only across the United States, but to so many countries around the world, including Canada. But even as protesters call out police racism and brutality, like that displayed in the killingRead...

Hello friends of the Spectator! My neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, USA is called Capitol Hill, and the golden dome of its namesake sits imperiously three blocks from my lovely 1918 building, with three stories of balconies overlooking Pennsylvania Street, next to the home of Molly Brown, Denver’s notable from theRead More

“The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve…” Shakespeare, The Tempest   “That’s a dark thinking that I have a hard time understanding…” Marshall Billingslea, President Donald J. Trump’s Special Envoy for Arms Control   On May 15,Read More

Growing up, I had a good friend whose father, a barber, not only cut hair, but helped people who were having problems growing it. I don’t recall when I became aware of the business he ran out of his home because there were no signs posted on the house, andRead More

Daily briefing Today’s briefing began with both Premier Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang offering condolences to the family of the Northwood resident who died of COVID-19 over the weekend. The death brought the province’s total to 60 — 53 of which have been at Northwood. Strang announced no newRead More

“The unease and fear are appropriate and can be useful, all the more so as the self is liberated from convoluted efforts at falsification and denial.” — Robert Jay Lifton, The Climate Swerve   On February 8, as COVID-19 fast-approached a slow-moving British government, BBC World News aired a discussionRead More