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 […]
Editorial
Posted inNews + Opinion
NDP’s VLT flip-flop
Astonishing fact number one: Last year, gamblers in Nova Scotia pumped more than $708 million into Video Lottery Terminals, the equivalent of nearly $2 million a day. That info comes from the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation’s annual report released last week. It shows that in the 2008/2009 financial year which ended in March, VLT betting […]
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Health report fails to analyze root causes
If Freddie Mercury were alive, I’d ask his opinion of the Nova Scotia government’s 51-page report on suicide that was finally released last week. The Queen singer, who died of AIDS in 1991, might thrust out his hairy chest, give me his trademark, buck-toothed smile, and belt out “Don’t Try Suicide”: “So you think it’s […]
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The V-E Day sailor party
Halifax’s wildest-ever sailors’ celebration began at 5pm on May 7, 1945, when Admiral Leonard Murray unleashed 9,000 war-weary, ready-to-party sailors on a city that didn’t want them. City fathers had made that abundantly clear. The head of the provincial liquor commission closed all its outlets until further notice in order to keep—or so he thought— […]
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Bogs and frogs lose as suburbia expands
In HRM’s vanishing wildlands, excavators rumble relentlessly across scarred landscapes. The destruction of natural habitat in and around HRM’s sprawling suburbs is so routine it’s rarely even newsworthy. Yet once in a blue moon, a determined citizen can make a big difference. On the weekend of June 6, Sackville resident Marilyn Challis spotted one of […]
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Expecting privacy in public places
Michael Jackson’s passing last week at the tender age of 50 shocked me right down to my shoes. “It’s getting deadlier and deadlier for celebrities like us,” I was overheard to remark. The King of Pop’s demise was likely brought on by the stress of rehearsing for 50 concerts starting this summer in London. In […]
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Immigration lessons from spirit of the St Louis
It’s been called the “Voyage of the Damned”—907 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution set sail in 1939 from Hamburg, Germany for Havana, Cuba on the ocean liner St. Louis. One of them was four-year-old Lisa Avedon, who told her story in Halifax last week at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the voyage. “The […]
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NDP government: Real change for a change?
Originally published at The Halifax Media Co-op, a project of the Dominion News Co-operative. Republished with consent. Darrell Dexter seemed to be enjoying himself Thursday as he addressed his newly expanded NDP caucus. “This frivolity has got to stop,” the smiling premier-designate told caucus members who only moments before had been laughing, shaking hands and […]
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Objector accounts pay for peace
American war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan were testifying before the Congressional Progressive Caucus last month when Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, wondered how the US military dehumanizes the “enemy,” making it easier for soldiers to kill. Kristofer Goldsmith, a former US Army sergeant who fought in Iraq, replied that in basic training, recruits […]
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NDP majority: What to do now?
The dream is dead. Long live the dream. For more than 30 years, Nova Scotia New Democrats have enjoyed the ultimately unsatisfying luxury of pointing to smug, don’t-blame-me-I-voted-NDP stickers tattooed on their foreheads while the province lurched from one profligate Tory farce to the next corrupt Liberal tragedy and then back again. And again. And […]
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Expert: Halifax sewage plant decision violates freedom of information laws
[Editor’s note: Darce Fardy was Nova Scotia’s privacy review officer from 1995 to 2006, overseeing the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy office. After retiring from that position, Fardy founded the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, an organization that advocates for greater access to government information.] I know of no bigger […]
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Premier Rodney MacDonald’s demise
Is it too soon to say, “So long, Rodney?” The final outcome is still far from a done deal, of course. Forget those public opinion polls predicting an NDP victory in next month’s elections. Those numbers reflect mostly province-wide aggregates of voting intentions; real-life elections in Nova Scotia are usually won and lost in the […]