Flagging energy
I find this title and most of the article extremely offensive as a white person ("New garbage regulations called for dealing with white trash," News + Opinion story posted at thecoast.ca by Jacob Boon, July 29). I assume you are not white based on the fact you wrote this article. It's unacceptable as a professional in journalism for you to take one thing that some people think is racist—the rebel flag—then turn around with an article calling rednecks "white trash." That's hypocritical on a good day, racist any other day. It's unbelievable that we are being bombarded with people saying take the rebel flag down, yet you write articles about how bad rednecks are. Very sad. Hope you learn from this. —Justin, Halifax
How is it racist? The majority of white people reject the Confederate flag as a symbol of hatred, bigotry and intimidation. It's not a symbol of "white people," and condemning it is NOT EVEN REMOTELY similar to insulting all white people. The Confederate flag only gained traction as a symbol to be flown during the Civil Rights movement, because white people knew it was a flag that flew to fight slavery so it was an attempt to intimidate black people when they tried going to a white whatever-building. —posted by Walter Nelson at thecoast.ca
It would be difficult to find a Confederate flag in NS that is from someone who has a historical tie to the southern states. It's much more likely to be a dumb loser who watched a couple episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard. And being a dumb loser, the chances of that person being a racist is quite high. Put it in a museum, along with the SS flag, so we can learn why these things come to pass, and learn why we don't need them back. —posted by golocal
We've turned ourselves into a society of whiny pussies. Everyone is offended by everything, and no one can say anything about anything. You can't go around banning shit every time someone gets offended: That's not the way adults solve problems, that's how we punish children. In life, there are things that will offend you, make you laugh, make you cry, make you feel better about yourself and knock you down. Being offended by some dumb fuck that doesn't like you because of the colour of your skin, your religion, your language, culture, etc is just ridiculous—you should feel embarrassed for them.
Everyone needs to grow a thicker skin and at least acknowledge that most of racism that is present here will die with the old people, who are clinging to their old hatred like grim death. Stop with the bitterness and resentment from both sides, it does nothing but personify the negative and slow the real, tangible progress that has been made over the years. Let's be the generation that doesn't give a sweet shit about what stupid rednecks think about, well...anything really. —posted by STEPHEN HARPER IS THE MOTHERFUCKING DEVIL
Water wanderer
Lezlie Lowe's cover story from last week, "Halifax's drinking problem," is a great article! One of the most egregious examples I've seen was during my time at Queens University, where they blocked the water fountains with bottled water vending machines. I unplugged them whenever I went by. —posted by hipp5
If you had gone into Alderney Gate Library, you would have seen our brand-new fountain (with bottle filler), on the second floor. Our last one was getting old, and lots of people come in just to use it. —posted by Kakera
Was in Portland, Oregon recently, and I was struck by the great number of street-side drinking fountains (not to mention Portland's top-notch transit system, urban farm animal policy, food truck licensing and friendly, smart population). —posted by Helen McFadyen
I recall in the late '90s, every golf course in the province did away with water jugs and plumbed-in fountains on the courses. Something to do with contamination fears and liability. Don't know if that has changed, but I wonder if that has anything to do with the lack of public fountains around the city. Most public fountains are very unsanitary. —posted by RedRocketV8
