Why, oh YWCA?
To the editor, Regarding the closure of the YWCA Women’s housing program I was going to try and take the high road with this, but I’m just too damned pissed off to be the bigger person. YWCA Board of Directors, Community of Social Services and those commercial bastards that are tearing down the YWCA and…
Sod still off
Dear Coast, All summer long the eyes and ears of residents and visitors to Point Pleasant Park have suffered as a long deep trench has been dug all the way around the Park on Franklyn Street and then down the hill to the new sewage pumping station on the North West Arm. I suppose it’s…
CBC solidarity
Dear Mr. Wark, Congratulations on your fine editorial regarding the CBC lockout (“Tough lock” August 18). This is a real Canadian tragedy. In that same issue, Lezlie Lowe’s “Time machine” article also affected me; and “On the line” by Stephanie Domet, with her very personal reaction on the lockout’s change to her life, saddened me.…
Firking A
We’re generally not that interested in wire stories, those often blandly written nuggets of fluff available to newspapers the world over. But an interesting one drifted across our desk yesterday. It appears “fuck,” in all its multi-purpose glory, has been added to the 40th edition of The Canadian Press Caps and Spelling, a guide for…
Street sense
Earlier this summer, the mayor and 20 city councillors voted in favour of a motion asking the provincial government to enact something called the Safe Streets Act, similar to legislation currently in effect in BC and Ontario. Upon seeing the moniker Safe Streets, you might reasonably assume this is legislation cracking down on street crimes…
Wide awake in New York
Following a short break from a European tour promoting their second album, there is lots of news to report out of the Wintersleep camp. The group will be supporting k-os’ three date campus frosh week jaunt across Atlantic Canada, skipping Nova Scotia for the annual CMJ Music Marathon in New York City. The three-day event…
Idea moves west
Idea of East recording studio closed its doors on September 1 after 10 years in business at 3250 Barrington.“It’s been a fabulous place to do work,” says owner Laurence Currie. “But after 10 years the building is being turned into condos, and there’s not a lot you can do about progress I guess, if you…
Free Form’s function
“Hold on, let me give a quick hurray — we just found out we’re not lost,” says Ryan Wylie, turning away from his cell phone to cheer on his fellow passengers. Navigation woes are inevitable as the co-founder of the Free Form Film Festival travels across North America in a convoy of three vehicles—two vans…
Fall fodder
Autumn in Nova Scotia is a pretty spectacular season—not only do we have the most brilliant and breathtaking foliage fall colours, but it’s harvest time, a time when our fields give up the crunchiest apples, the sweetest squash and, of course, the best dried out cornstalks to use for your front door Halloween decorations. And…
The passion of Pelagie
When Pelagie, the latest production from Two Planks and a Passion Theatre, opens in Halifax this week, it will be une affaire bilangue. The show, based on 1979’s Pelagie: La Charrette by author Antonine Maillet (consider her an Acadian Margaret Atwood, if not in terms of subject matter then at least in terms of importance…
Insecure
Week four. Many of us didn’t believe it would last this long. Others think it’ll go on for a while yet. So much time to think on the line. Lately, I’ve been thinking about security. I’ve been on contracts of varying lengths at CBC for three years. My current contract is for 12 months; it’s…
Four score
On a cloudless September morning four years ago, hijackers commandeered two passenger jets and flew them into a showcase of American capitalism. The 110-storey twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Center collapsed in less than two hours. The American writer, Lewis Mumford once described those towers as dinosaurs, examples of “the purposeless giantism and technological…
Pot shots
Listing his occupation as Marijuana Seed Vendor on his tax returns, Canadian anti-marijuana prohibition activist, Marc Emery, has paid over $575,000 to Revenue Canada since 1999, with Revenue Canada never once raising the issue of whether the money was the proceeds of a crime. In 2003, Health Canada advised medicinal marijuana patients that seeds for…
Ship shape
Spout “money makes a great servant but a demanding master” to Canada’s top-ranked male 470 class sailboat racers and check out the knowing nods from Stef Locas and Oliver Bone. With an eye on the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Nova Scotia-based duo have begun a full-time pursuit of a spot on Canada’s Olympic Team.…
Cutting crew
It’s Saturday night at Stage Nine. Sharp Like Knives are set to play their CD release show. The place is packed, almost too packed for skinny, mop-haired and bespectacled frontman Paul Hammond. “This is almost overwhelming,” Hammond says, looking around at the nearly shoulder-to-shoulder audience threatening to swallow him up. “I didn’t think there’d be…
Count on Crowe
Ani Difranco started her independent record label, Righteous Babe Records, after moving to New York and realizing the record industry wasn’t interested in embracing what she had to offer. Now with a staff of eight, and offices on two continents, the label has become more of a philosophy than a means to an end. Providing…
Murderball
The assumptions of fear and pity that keep people from documentaries about the disabled are shattered in the opening minutes of Murderball. Quadriplegic rugby players are introduced against the sledgehammer-to-the-face ferocity of Ministry’s “Thieves.” Rage sidesteps maudlin outsider perspective, readying viewers to accept the subjects as human. At its most basic, Murderball is an Inspirational…
Salad days
Fast food outlets are pretty slick. They provide our multitasking, overworked, commuting car-bound asses with cheap, fast, tasty food like burgers and fries. Then we get fat from eating the greasy food, but they come to our rescue again with choices labelled “Healthy” or “Lean and Green.” We truly have become a fast food culture,…
