I was thinking back to the 1950s when television arrived in Cape Breton and how many of us made our way up to Charlotte Street to stand looking into the window of a store that displayed a small set, itself displaying what we came to know as a test pattern.Read More

Bait and Switch? How it started: Excitement is building for what’s expected to be a multi-million dollar development along the Cabot Trail by a private firm with European connections. Just two days after the sale of a beleaguered Ingonish ski hill, the facility’s new owners are hosting a public meeting.Read More

Just say no The local CBC is running a multi-part series on “street drugs” and if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect it was being sponsored by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, because the stance it takes on drugs — they’re bad and people who do them die — seemsRead More

Owl’s Head Thank you Michael Gorman of CBC Halifax for this story about Owl’s Head, the provincial park whose pending protected status was removed by the former Liberal government to open the way for its sale to a golf course developer. Gorman FOIPOPed documents that show that in late 2019Read More

Nothing ventured… This week, I have a question for you: Women in this province have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. You want to help them. Do you: A) invest $5 million in an early-stage venture capital fund focused on women-led startups; B) tear $5 million into tiny shreds andRead More

Stealing time Rubina Ahmed-Haq and I had an argument that devolved into shouting and foot-stamping on Monday morning, although the shouting and foot-stamping were all on my side and she has yet to realize we had a disagreement. Ahmed-Haq is the CBC radio workplace columnist who, according to her website,Read More

Cruise News Monday was World Oceans Day and if you put your ear to a seashell,  you could hear a chorus of voices across the globe calling on the cruise industry to clean up its act. Environmental activists living in “port communities” marked the occasion with a virtual “Rally toRead...

Daily briefing Today’s briefing began with both Premier Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang sending condolences to the those affected by today’s live-shooter incident in Portapique, NS, and I can’t believe I just had to write that sentence, but here we are. Dr. Strang then announced five deaths related toRead More

Editor’s Note: This started out as an article about Don Cherry getting fired and turned into an exploration of the militarization of professional sports. You can read Part II here.   It hadn’t occurred to me to write about Don Cherry’s firing — I tend to avoid issues that areRead More

Thin Blue Island Researching this week’s stories on the Cape Breton Regional Police Service (CBRPS) I ran across a (lengthy) profile of the service which included this amazing paragraph: Although only a small Island, Cape Breton’s beauty, hospitality and culture has made it one of the top vacation destinations worldwide.Read More