“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” James Joyce, The Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man   On June 25, in the dazed wake of the aborted rebellion by a mercenary army, the Wagner Group, against Russia’s military and political leadership, the BBC’s MoscowRead More

It’s been almost seven weeks since I managed a fall that pretty much put me out of commission while leaving me (obviously) to live another day, albeit weighed down by a huge, black, velcro-strapped boot on my broken ankle. What was meant to be a week-long trip to Quebec City—withRead More

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some weekly advice that is as relevant now as when it first appeared on 10 July 2019.   What to do this week The heavy work of planting should all be done by now. Until it’s time to plant coverRead More

Local elites I heard Alexander Sammon of Slate magazine interviewed about this May 2023 piece he did on the annual convention of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) or, as he put it, of “unsung Republican heavyweights.” Sammon was a guest on This Machine Kills, one of the podcasts inRead...

Tuesday’s budget deliberations by CBRM council actually followed a regular council meeting that began at 9:30 yesterday morning, but I’m going to deal with the budget first because somebody has to deal with the CBRM budget in a timely manner and it certainly hasn’t been CBRM council. Councilors, who votedRead More

Swarmio Media Holdings Inc sought creditor protection in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last week. The Court agreed to some of its initial requests (it stayed proceedings until July 1, appointed a monitor, agreed to a debtor-in-possession or DIP loan) and scheduled a “comeback” hearing for June 30, atRead More

How it began   The photo shows then-opposition leader Tim Houston striding purposefully toward the Supreme Court of NS where, according to his accompanying tweet, he: …filed an appeal…to fight for answers. The Liberals have been hiding information from Nova Scotians for too long. While this lawsuit focuses on theRead More

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some weekly advice that is as relevant now as when it was first written. This column last appeared on 30 June 2021.   What to do this week Now that the cold, rainy weather seems done with (for the momentRead More

Ayn Rand Revisited I went through a brief period in high school when I thought Ayn Rand was someone you had to read to be considered well read (I blame a Sydney Academy debater who used to quote her regularly) and since being considered well-read was pretty much my life’sRead...

An investigation by Nova Scotia Auditor General Kim Adair has revealed “gross mismanagement” of public funds in excess of $1 million by Island Employment Association (IEA), the now-defunct Cape Breton third-party employment services provider whose chief funder was the Department of Labour and Advanced Education (LAE), now Labour, Skills &Read More