Does printing a how-to guide which promotes dressing up for Halloween as a local criminal create a culture of acceptance of criminal behavior (“City dress codes,” October 29)? I dunno. Maybe someone at The Coast could call the Vancouver Sun, which often glamourizes gang activity, and ask them. I thought that The Coast was more […]
Opinion
Posted inNews + Opinion
New Sobeys development an atrocity
I had my first glimpse of the new Sobeys development planned for north end Halifax in a recent newspaper feature. At first I thought it might have been inspired by Soviet East German architecture, but then I thought perhaps it might have been a project of a kindergarten class. Whatever the source of the inspiration, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Tories hijack Halifax’s recession
If anyone doubts that Conservatives are politicizing the spending of economic stimulus money, they need only look at how stimulus money is flowing through HRM. Halifax council held a rushed meeting the afternoon of April 28 to come up with ways to spend $87.75 million in stimulus money. Mayor Peter Kelly, who is a member […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Anti antigens: the H1N1 refusers
Rachael Smith-Bakhache won’t be dragging around her kids for H1N1 shots this week. And not anytime after that, either. “It’s my choice,” says the 38-year-old mother of two. “And I don’t think I have to stand up and tell you why it’s my choice.” But she will, if you ask. And explaining why her family […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Whatever Happened to School Flu Shot Clinics?
The Second Wave is upon us and so is a newly diagnosed condition – “H1N1 psychosis,” an overwhelming fear of catching the flu. First diagnosed last week at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, it seems to be spreading everywhere. Long line-ups at community clinics, the vaccine supply shortage, and recent shifts in our H1N1 response strategy […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
New name for Halifax Library
I picked up the paper this afternoon and the first thing I saw was your survey: “What should we name the new Halifax library?” (October 22). The answer came to me immediately, that it should be named The Muriel Duckworth Library in honour of the remarkable citizen, educator and activist who died in August at […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Canada Postal Service no longer a government service
Recently I received a small parcel from Idaho. Postal cost: $5.99US ($6.25CDN). I asked the postal clerk how much it was to mail it back. She weighed it and said, “$11.40—over 75 percent more, but,” she added, “it’s going out of the country so you don’t have to pay GST. If it were going to […]
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
Dry ice’s spooky airs
It’s like Tom Fleet doesn’t know what he’s got in his hot little hands. Or maybe it’s that dry ice—the must-have of heavy-metal roadies and scary-movie set decorators—is just so been-there-done-that for Fleet that he simply can’t share the enthusiasm we everyday Halloween-lovin’ schmucks feel about the stuff. “Yeah, I sometimes use it at Halloween,” […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Glad to have public lectures posted
Thanks for posting upcoming public lectures in your Events section. It’s great to live in a university town and have the opportunity to attend lectures given by interesting, knowledgable and sometimes brilliant people.—J. Shotwell, Halifax
Posted inNews + Opinion
John Brennan’s private obsession
John Brennan has a solution for saving Nova Scotia’s wilderness: privatize it. Brennan is the mind behind what he’s calling the Avalon Private Wilderness Reserve, a 550-acre development on the backlands above Portuguese Cove. The development is a rectangular chunk of land that stretches about five kilometres westward, roughly halfway towards Williamswood on the Old […]
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 […]