Pistol-packing pedaller
To the editor, With reference to Martin Tomlinson and Matthew MacDonald, who both recently wrote to The Coast about their experiences with motorists knocking down cyclists: these letters came after The Coast featured the letter from the “Anonymous Asshole” on Aug 2, who threatened cyclists riding in the middle of the road by saying that…
Seat ups and downs
To Lezlie Lowe, Thank you, Lezlie, for your “Pissing contest” article (October 4). I love it when someone or something shifts a paradigm and you did for me with this discussion of sex and the crapper seat. Post-piss, as I reach to lower the seat, that little voice in my head has frequently said, “I’m…
Sore about censorship
To the editor, Re: Bruce Wark’s editorial “High school confidential”, September 27: Thank you so much for writing this article. I have been dealing with this censorship stuff forever. I’m 18 and in Citadel High School and there’s even more censorship than before. I absolutely hate it and now they have blocked YouTube, which many…
Yes, in our backyard
To the editor, Hats off to Rod, of the Bloomfield Community Centre, and his entire volunteer crew for the incredibly wonderful and unexpectedly huge local block party that they put on for the adjoining residents of Almon and Bilby in Halifax’s north end recently. Spriggs Lane, an eyesore of a road (if it can be…
More Coast congratulations
To the editor, Great article on the Commonwealth Games. How can Fred MacGillivray stand behind the wining and dining of 71 nations? You certainly don’t have to wine and dine your own country, hopefully, and dining Nigeria and Scotland I would think would be fruitless for votes. This is the same man that, in Jersey,…
Coast Congratulations
To the editor, Re: “Game Over,” October 4: Wow! Congratulations Tim Bousquet and congratulations, Coast. Your report on the Commonwealth Games is certainly one of the most important, useful and insightful documents on local politics in recent memory. What a project! It’s great work. Your investigation here will survive for many years as a marker…
Sidewalk Cafes
Halifax has pretty miserable winters– cold, rainy and windy. But, no matter: City planners are looking to widen the sidewalks on Argyle Street so that the temporary structures that jut out onto the street wouldn’t have to go in and come down every year. Add that to proposed bylaw changes and the downtown patios may…
Sociable Ears for Friday
It’s Alexander Keith’s birthday, a celebration literally born in Halifax even though annoying beer drinkers across the country are threatening to turn it into a national event. From a Winnipeg news site called winnipegFIRST.ca: Born in Halkirk, Scotland, Keith was already an established brew master by the time he came overseas and settled in Nova…
In memory
Last week I started getting excited about my new posting as arts editor, and especially about Dope Show (if not anxious about taking over from my good friend, the dopest of dope, Tara Thorne) and its possibilities as a place to celebrate achievements, spread good news and a wee bit of political venting—it’s about the…
Classified information
Free shows are like a little present from a newborn angel, and this Friday, October 5, the aforementioned angel has given us all a special surprise in the form of Alexander Keith’s Birthday. It’s for ages 19 and over (because of the beer thing), and begins at 4pm. Take the afternoon off work and head…
Mill’s makeover, makeover
Spring Garden area shoppers may have noticed that the huge wooden panels that covered the Mills Brothers storefront for most of the summer have finally been taken down. So, what was going on behind them? The store’s been undergoing massive renovations. Mills now has a brand-new front entrance and windows—and that fancy new door’s just…
And now, a word from Massachusetts
And now, a word from Massachusetts For Boston, the tipping point came at 10pm on August 26. An argument on Boston’s historic public Common turned violent, two teenagers were shot, and a bullet shattered a window in State House offices—one floor below where the Governor works. Bostonians were already concerned that their Common had become…
Drop the name game
To the editor, With reference to the discussion about changing the name of HRM to Halifax: No matter what you officially call the amalgamated region, people from Dartmouth will still call home Dartmouth, people from Bedford will still say they’re from Bedford, and certainly folks in Middle Musquodoboit will not be saying they are from…
Bison on bicycles
To the editor, I am writing to remind the woman who knocked me off my bicycle with her car while turning into a driveway on September 18, on Quinpool Road, of a minor detail. While I appreciate that you paused before you drove into the sunset, the minor detail would be to contact the police.…
Off the menu
To the editor, With reference to the article “Industrial revolution,” September 27, by Carsten Knox, of all the things I consumed during the recent Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television luncheon, my words were not on the menu. For the record, and after speaking to others who were in attendance, my words were as follows:…
Meet a Kita
Hamachi Kita is the latest foodie destination to move into the Hydrostone Market.
Natural history
Local troubadour Jon McKiel is being pulled in every direction. While he ponders the great nature versus nurture debate, he finds himself home in Halifax for a few weeks—he holds postal codes both in town and in Calgary—with little free time on his hands. On the brink of releasing The Nature of Things, a 10-track…
The Kingdom
The Kingdom begins with a somewhat thrilling opening credit sequence in which names, dates and events leap across the screen, giving us a history lesson on the United States’ involvement with Saudi Arabia, from oil to September 11—its final statement is that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. A movie that portrays the ironies…
Grand slam
On the small porch outside of Steve-O-Reno’son Brunswick Street, Andrew Abraham recites his tongue-twister of a poem, St. Bullshit College. Two minutes in, he pauses. “See, if I choke like that at the slam I’m fucked,” he says, before continuing with his poem. The slam—a competition for spoken word artists—is one highlight of the Canadian…
In name only
The Jane Austen Book Club has one of those titles that just goes for it. It’s the kind of handle that makes a studio’s marketing department sigh with resignation because there’s no selling this thing beyond its target audience. And from the discerning filmgoer’s perspective, there’s no need to read a synopsis to get the…
Commonwealth Games Investigation part one: Halifax 2014 big plans
Seven months after Halifax’s Commonwealth Games bid collapsed, there still hasn’t been full disclosure of the records of the Halifax 2014 Bid Society, the non-governmental organization put together to pursue the Commonwealth Games. Neither has there been public discussion of the decision-making process that led to the demise of Halifax’s bid. So how are we…
The more you know
Who could replace living legend Darce Fardy? That’s the question I put to Fardy last year, not long after he’d retired from his job as the province’s highest authority on freedom of information and protection of privacy laws. A longtime CBC journalist—he’d started as an office assistant in St. John’s and risen to become the…
Frequent flying
While detailed financial documents still haven’t yet been made public, I have been able to piece together the broad outline of the Halifax 2014 Bid Society’s international travel, and details of some of the trips, through documents obtained from the provincial government. In March 2006, a group of 11 Halifax 2014 board members and staff…
Rating approval
Commonwealth Games supporters repeatedly cited public opinion polls that showed the public was solidly behind the Games effort. Those polls, however, asked incomplete questions and were conducted by a polling firm that has a business relationship with a design company that won nearly half a million dollars in Games-related contracts. Corporate Research Associates is a…
Shifting gears
The tentative agreement that kept Metro Transit buses rolling and ferries chugging this week has been sent to HRM council and to membership of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 508 for ratification. Details of the five-year contract will not be made public until the agreement is ratified by both sides. During negotiations that ran…
SAVAGE LOVE
Q More than a few times, you have implied that if one’s partner is unwilling to satisfy, the deprived person has a right to seek it elsewhere. My sex life with my wife, despite my best efforts, is infrequent and uninspired. I recently met a married woman who has had a nonexistent sex life for…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Make a new treaty with your evil twin, Pisces, says Rob Brezsny.
Pissing contest
And you thought the PeaceMaker was Jesus. Apparently it’s quite a bit more scatological than the saviour. Or, well, urological, anyway. The PeaceMaker is a gizmo released this summer; by its proper name, it’s the PeaceMaker Toilet Seat Lifter. It’s a toilet-seat-attached foot-lever (just like the kind you see at the base of a trash…
