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

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

Daily briefing Premier Stephen McNeil opened today’s briefing with a shout out to Richard Martell and Debbie Johnson Powell, the sign-language interpreters who translate the COVID-19 updates. McNeil noted that today is National Interpreter Day as he thanked them for their work. Dr. Robert Strang then announced no new COVID-19-relatedRead 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

Daily briefing Dr. Robert Strang announced 32 new cases of COVID-19, bringing Nova Scotia’s total to 549. Nine patients are in hospital, four of whom are in ICU. Strang was asked if he was encouraged by the low hospitalization numbers and he said he was and that the “many” ofRead More

Sometimes during a pandemic a good place to be is down a rabbit hole — like the one I went down trying to understand how testing for the virus that causes COVID-19 is done and how it’s being handled here in our province. Let’s start with the basics, which youRead More

I have learned that, time-consuming and deeply annoying as verifying the information can sometimes be, making a timeline is an excellent way to understand an event or series of events. In the case of the current coronavirus pandemic, though, events have been unspooling so quickly I needed a timeline justRead More

Week two in self-isolation and it’s not been bad at all. Haven’t run out of the necessities, food and TP specifically, and, thanks to our provider, am grateful not to have to join the masses who seem programmed to get right out there and ignore the warnings they are hearingRead More

Nova Scotia’s long-term care facilities are closed to visitors, casinos are closed, public schools are closed and as of tomorrow restaurants will be restricted to take-out only and “drinking establishments” will also close. Why? To try to stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndromeRead More

The second day of self-isolation seems to be going well so far, although it was at the bequest of worried family members that we decided to go this route. Let’s face it, we haven’t been to any exotic places recently, other than a quick round-trip to Irish Cove about aRead More