Estragon: I can’t go on like this. Vladimir: That’s what you think. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot   Part II: Four Ways to Change the Local World   Proposal #1: A CBRM Citizens’ Assembly on COVID-19 & Post-Pandemic Recovery “Watershed periods in history,” Mikhail Gorbachev declared in 1992, “mayRead More

Cape Breton University President and Vice-Chancellor David Dingwall has written to his “fellow Cape Bretoners” AGAIN. What are we? His pen-pals? This time it’s a two-page advertisement (once again in the Saturday edition of the Cape Breton Post, not the cheapest medium) telling us why CBU should get a MedicalRead More

CBU President and Vice-Chancellor David Dingwall has issued ANOTHER open letter “to the Cape Breton Community,” this one occupying three full (expensive) pages in last Saturday’s Cape Breton Post, and it is another absolute dud of a PR exercise. It states: I want to assure you that I, as PresidentRead More

On December 17, a fire broke out in the Ashby neighborhood of Sydney in a Park Street duplex that was home to eight people, all international students at Cape Breton University (CBU). One of the eight, identified by the CBC as 33-year-old business analytics student Rajesh Kumar Gollapudi, died inRead More

On December 23, amidst all the busyness leading up to Christmas Day, I was privileged to hear an outstanding interview broadcast on the national radio network of the CBC. The program was the public affairs daily The Current and the guest was the president of the Cape Breton Medical StaffRead More

I needed three electronic devices and one notebook to follow last night’s CBRM council proceedings from home. I tuned into the livestream on my phone and cast it to my television, but the image was flickering so badly I was afraid it might trigger a light-induced seizure, so I openedRead More

Cape Breton University may need a new president but does it have to be David “Entitled to my Entitlements” Ding-wall? I thought he was good for a Senate pew. Instead of president, hire Ding-wall as a fundraiser and re-open the search for a leader. In spite of his history ofRead More

Mayor Clarke I have been critical of CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke’s high-handed style of governing, his penchant for secrecy and his preference for springing deals on council at the last minute, forcing them to digest reams of information and vote on important motions without adequate time for deliberation. I haveRead More

It just isn’t funny anymore Dr StrangeJob is angry! Every level of government—federal, provincial and municipal—is currently under scrutiny for questionable spending of taxpayer dollars: the recent federal staff relocation reimbursements, the latest provincial MLA frivolous self-promotional kitsch, the Guysborough County expense scandal and the ombudsman’s Richmond County expense claimRead More