“Have you got your lanyard, sir?” inquired a security official in the lobby of the Westin hotel Saturday morning. “No, I’m media,” I replied, “and I still haven’t registered for the conference.” The security guy made it clear I wouldn’t be going anywhere without official ID consisting of a plastic card clipped to an orange […]
Bruce Wark
Posted inNews + Opinion
Did Hillier’s “murderers and scumbags” comment encourage Canadian arrests of innocent Afghans?
Rick Hillier, former chief of the Canadian defence staff, dodged questions in Halifax on Saturday about the torture of prisoners handed over by the Canadian military to the Afghan intelligence service. Hillier was asked by The Coast why the Canadian forces followed a cumbersome six-step method of informing the International Red Cross each time a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
May Ocean versus Goliath
A simple car accident has turned into a nine-year court battle between one of Canada’s largest insurance companies and a cash-strapped artist. Economical Mutual says May Ocean’s unorthodox scientific theories about the origin of humans and language prove she is
“delusional.” But Ocean says she’s just trying to get justice.
Posted inNews + Opinion
NDP deliver protected wilderness to seal hunters
Oh, how I wish I could declare Province House a protected wilderness. How else to preserve that rare and forever-endangered flower, political common sense. Now that the NDP juggernaut has swept into office, political common sense may be trampled into extinction. Consider, for example, last week’s verbal gyrations performed by our new environment minister. Sterling […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Foul language
Veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass received a lifetime achievement award last week in New York for her unrelenting coverage of the oppression of Palestinians in Israel’s occupied territories. During her acceptance speech to the International Women’s Media Foundation, Hass confessed that she didn’t really have a lifetime of “achievement,” only a long record of failure. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Obama’s no prize as peacemaker
He’s not known as Barack O’Bomber for nothing. Even as the bellicose US president snagged the Nobel Peace Prize last week, American military forces under his command were pounding Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. More than a million civilians have died and millions more have been forced to flee because of these senseless wars. Yet O’Bomber […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Graham’s crackers
Graham Steele, our new NDP finance minister is one fuck of a fine, funny fellow. I discovered that during the hours I spent last week at Province House poring over advance copies of his budget. Slipped in among the endless columns of tedious numbers, irksome charts and graphs and turgid bureaucratic prose, Steele’s subtle humour […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Dexter’s duplicity
What was a peace-loving lefty like me doing at the Halifax armaments show last week? Why was I was marching with 1,300 weapons makers, military types and government bureaucrats past shiny displays of naval guns, aircraft engines, mortars and tanks? The answer can be summed up in one famous name: Darrell Dexter. I wanted to […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
CBC dumbs down news
These are grim days for Halifax journalists. After The Daily News shut down last year, other media cut their reporting staffs to the bone. Yet, on Monday, August 31, CBC is launching a brand new, expanded 90-minute supper-hour show. Please don’t break out the champagne. Not if you care about local news. As I point […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tribute to Muriel Duckworth
Muriel Duckworth’s death on Saturday, August 22nd, brought a fitting tribute from her friend, the noted scholar and peace activist, Ursula Franklin: “I would like her to be remembered as somebody who demonstrated that it’s possible to change one’s society, to be profoundly critical and still remain a respected member of that society.” Muriel Duckworth […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to listen to citizens
Matt Hebb, the 2009 campaign manager for the Nova Scotia New Democrats, injected some humour into his presentation last weekend at the federal NDP convention in Halifax. His talk was about how the NDP managed to pull off a majority government in the June provincial election. “One of the secrets of winning is to get […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Giving the finger
I laughed out loud during the “finger” scene in Michael Moore’s Sicko. It tells the story of Rick, who accidentally cut off the tops of two fingers with a power saw. Because he’s one of nearly 50 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, the hospital gave Rick a choice: Have his middle finger re-attached […]
