My snapshot of the current cruise industry (see part one here) would be sadly wanting if I failed to note that Princess Cruise Lines, fined a record $40 million in 2017 for what the US Department of Justice called “environmental crimes,” has failed to mend its wicked ways. The 2017Read More

It’s time for Confessions of a Bad Reporter. In this week’s episode, I have to confess that I did not attend the Port of Sydney’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on February 23. It was on a Wednesday night, a week before I publish, and I thought I would be ableRead More

I am certainly not a world traveler, more a visitor, but I’ve been lucky enough to see a few great cities in North America and Europe over the years and am grateful for it. I am often intrigued by what a novelist has had to say about a city whereRead More

It was described on national television this week as a “Dramatic rescue on the Cabot Trail.” A little embarrassed, I cringed as CBC National News Network told the story of our March 16 rescue from a remote section of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Was I part of aRead More

Ad nauseum Thanks to Tim Bousquet at the Halifax Examiner for pointing me to this article by David Roth (the one who used to write for Deadspin, not the one who sang “Jump”). It’s called “The infinite scroll” and it is an elegant though depressing exploration of the modern onlineRead More

Marconi Campus I’m not sure when announcing that you’re going to do a feasibility study into the possibility of doing something became as good as actually doing something in this province, but that seems to be where we’re at. The latest example is Premier Stephen McNeil traveling all the wayRead More

Transparency is so rare in Nova Scotia that most people recognize it only by its absence. Our region is home to a number of organizations that rely largely (if not entirely) on public money and yet are not in the least accountable to the public. To me, they’re like bigRead More

Dongcheng, the Eastern City, is a district in the center of Beijing. Its 40 square kilometers are home to nearly 1 million inhabitants and some of the main historical landmarks of the city. Spectator contributor Filip Noubel, who spent 10 years there, recounts a recent return to what he remembersRead More