Society

All I Want for Christmas: Serious Action on Poverty

All I Want for Christmas: Serious Action on Poverty

December 19, 2018 at 12:04 pm

The signs of Christmas are everywhere and I’m not referring to the lights, the decorations or the concerts. No, actually, I’m thinking more along the lines of the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle Campaign, the CBC’s Light Up A Life Campaign for Feed Nova Scotia, the Christmas Daddies Telethon — thoseRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

December 19, 2018 at 12:00 pm

Editor’s Note: It’s that time of year when the Spectator turns off the computer for a bit to focus on decking halls, trimming trees and eating all the best chocolates in the Quality Street tin. To facilitate this, we’re including Fast & Curious with the regular edition of the paperRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

December 14, 2018 at 10:50 am

The Spectator, Tree!Umphant I found Albert Barbusci! He’s in Kissimmee, Florida where “the Lemieux and Barbusci families” own and operate the Tree Trek Adventure Park! Okay, he may not actually be there right now (although why not be in Florida in December?) but he could be. When I stepped backRead More

Creditors’ Committee Will Do ‘Whatever They Can’ to Help ServiCom Workers

Creditors’ Committee Will Do ‘Whatever They Can’ to Help ServiCom Workers

December 12, 2018 at 2:51 pm

Jeff Sklarz is the New Haven, Connecticut-based attorney representing the unsecured creditors’ committee in the JNET Communications (parent company of ServiCom) bankruptcy case. I talked to him on Monday about the JNET bankruptcy and I’m combining what he told me with some information I dug up myself to help youRead More

Rev. David Jefferson. (Source: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n9pbHJ_Kck)

Meet ServiCom’s Founder: Rev. Dr. David Jefferson Sr., Esq.

December 12, 2018 at 2:47 pm

The Reverend Dr. David Jefferson Sr., Esquire is the founder, chairman, chief executive officer and president of JNET Communications LLC, which he established in 2003 and which  “includes among its family of companies” Vitel Communications, ServiCom and ServiCom Canada — all of which are now listed as “debtors” in courtRead More

Gated community, SaskatooParihav at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]v

The Ethicist: Five Reasons to Tax the Rich (#3)

December 12, 2018 at 2:45 pm

The Spectator’s Ethicist, Rachel Haliburton, provides convincing — and sometimes counter-intuitive — arguments as to why making the rich pay their fair share of taxes benefits us all.(Read Reason #1 and Reason #2)   As faithful readers of the Ethicist column in the Cape Breton Spectator will know, for theRead More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

December 7, 2018 at 11:20 am

ServiCom There is absolutely no humor to be found in the announcement that 600 Cape Bretoners have lost their jobs  three weeks before Christmas with the closure of the ServiCom call center. Even Mayor Cecil Clarke’s mixing of metaphors (he’s hoping the potential sale of the local ServiCom branch willRead More

Patriotism v. Nationalism? Macron Draws Wrong Battle Lines

Patriotism v. Nationalism? Macron Draws Wrong Battle Lines

December 5, 2018 at 12:34 pm

On November 22, US President Donald Trump, asked who should be held accountable for the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, pinned the blame on an unlikely suspect: “Maybe the world should be held accountable. Because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very viciousRead More

Talkin’ Bout Remuneration Part IV

Talkin’ Bout Remuneration Part IV

December 5, 2018 at 12:32 pm

Editor’s Note: Mayor Cecil Clarke’s contention that discussing council remuneration in camera (and treating elected officials as “personnel”) is a longstanding CBRM practice sent me scuttling to the “CBRM Mayor and Council” clippings file at the McConnell library, to research some of the remuneration (and related) issues council has dealt withRead More

Letter to the Editor: Mother Canada No ‘Rough Beast’

Letter to the Editor: Mother Canada No ‘Rough Beast’

December 5, 2018 at 12:30 pm

In a recent article, Mary Campbell raises some concerns regarding the Never Forgotten National Memorial (NFNM). To describe Mother Canada (which is, by permission of the Allward family, modeled after Walter Seymour Allward’s Mother Bereft at Vimy, France) as “some rough beast” is inappropriate — would she apply the sameRead More