Hey you! You with the wreath on the door! You, there, with the 30-inch faded plastic candle on the balcony! Your intentions might once have been good, but now, instead of spreading cheer, you’re killing us all. You’re putting the “Christ! Enough already!” back in Christmas. Get your damn holiday decorations down. Is it a […]
Lezlie Lowe
Rodney MacDonald’s scrummy politics
Scrums—those huddles of microphone-thrusting reporters that you see on the news every night knotted like a rat-king around politicians or other high-profile news-makers—are all about control. When Rodney MacDonald’s gang of election-prepping Tories decided January 29 to shift weekly cabinet scrums from a hallway into the legislature’s shiny new media room—where they stuck the premier […]
Halifax’s hidden racism
It’s almost impossible to see signs of racism in Halifax. Not because they aren’t there—because they’re hidden in plain sight all around us. Sure, we can convince ourselves everything’s just tickety-boo. We’re a cosmopolitan city with a healthy respect for Charter rights, aren’t we? Lynch mobs, last I checked, don’t roam the streets. So on […]
Cold comfort
Forget Gaza. Forget HIV. Forget global warming and the recession, too. It’s January. And that makes it time for the Western world to pipe up about what we really see as the greatest challenge of our time—the common cold. Or, more precisely: When are you bastard researchers going to find a cure for this mo-fo? […]
Post-apocalyptic utopia
In 2008 we learned from studies that putting boiled water in plastic bottles speeds up the release of bisphenol A, that Canada is the world’s fourth largest source of spam and that Tasers might not be as safe as we think. My pitch for our most important study of the year? It’s the one that […]
Why Christmas?
I wonder as I wander: how does one qualify a love for Christmas? When you’re not religious, I mean. And when you hate the season’s plastic excesses to your angry little core. For people like that—like me—Christmas makes no sense. When Jesus ain’t the reason for your season and having to go to the mall […]
Rat city
They’re here…scurrying around Halifax, with their own network of tunnels, their own social hierarchy, their own inquisitive natures, 75 per block. And construction disrupts their homes, disturbs their little rat cities. So here they come into our city,
Sanctuary amidst hundreds of candles
Apparently in Anglican circles the phrase “take me up to the choir loft” has a meaning other than its literal one. So says Halifax bass clarinetist Jeff Reilly, who, though he doesn’t identify himself as a Christian, has a habit of hanging around in churches. Reilly plays with cellist Christoph Both and pipe organist Peter […]
Pants: on fire
Lie detector tests reveal more about the organization giving the test than the person being tested.
Retro-lescence
I’m looking for a revolution here, people. Help me out, will ya? Here’s the hook: The end is supposedly nigh for my first-generation iPod Shuffle. A couple of months ago, I plugged its serial number and info about my (mis)use patterns into the iPod Death Clock (imechanic.com–but don’t go looking for it; the site’s been […]
City Hall’s flat tire
Haligonians re-elected Mayor Peter Kelly with a 16-large margin over contender Sheila Fougere Saturday. And 100,000 bike tires went flat. See, Halifax may have opted for the status quo (actually, Halifax, perhaps, didn’t; the suburban and rural portions of the municipality did), but there’s something significant that will change around council. We can bid farewell […]
The brawl for city hall
INT. MAYOR’S OFFICE — MORNING. Peter Kelly—51, slim, comb-marked brown hair, grey suit, red sparkly tie—flicks on the kettle. Then he walks like a sommelier out of his office kitchen, a box of green tea in each upturned palm, approaching the reporter there to interview him. REPORTER (pointing) Oh, this one, please. Halifax’s two-term mayor […]

