Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada "Of Interest To Me" Mar.30 -- Apr.05, 2003
Email: mike -at- mikecampbell dot net
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News Resources
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
Saturday, April 19, 2003
In 1967, the late Hugh MacLennan published his wonderful book, The Colours of Canada. MacLennan, a Nova Scotian, was one of Canada's true men of letters, a great novelist and one of my Canada's (and my) most beloved writers. [Look for one the next time you're in a used bookstore; it's one of my favourite books, and I have given more than a few as gifts.]
The Colours of Canada is a great 'coffee-table' type book that marked Canada's centenary, and combined great photography from all across the land with MacLennan's brilliant writing. In it, MacLennan wrote
Canada's geographical vastness is deceptive. At the moment little more than 4% of the whole country is under cultivation; it has been estimated that only 7% can ever be. If the present trend continues, this will become a country where, apart from the Prairies, the population will be congregated in a number of densely populated areas suitable for trade and industry; in short a culture of cities like a colossal ancient Greece, with nature picturesque and largely unspoiled just outside them, a country as different as could be imagined from the United States with its rich parklands and thousands of small market towns.
That's kind of how I think of Canada now ~ a string of Greek city-states straddling the American border. Yeah, I know there are a lot of people who live outside the cities, but we have become a much more urbanized society over the last 35 years. MacLennan was prescient here.
I think it's hard to feel Canadian sometimes. I'm not talking about the ever-present what-it-means-to-be-Canadian, we're-just-not-American angst that's been written about a million times over the last forty years. I'm talking about the distance, and the cultural differences that you find all over Canada that go along with that distance. I've been from coast to coast, from Vancouver to St. John's; I think the only provinces I haven't visited are Manitoba and Saskatchewan. No Territories yet. I've spent time in Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and here in Nova Scotia. But, it's still hard to feel connected sometimes.
For me, and I think for a lot of Canadians, one thing that helps in feeling connected is the brilliant CBC Radio program, The Vinyl Cafe, hosted by Stuart McLean. Each week, on Sunday at noon (for us, anyway), we hear Stuart's wonderful storytelling; stories that he's written himself. As well, he has a corps of extremely talented musicians that play with him (are the stories in between the songs, or are the songs in between the stories?), and he often nabs some local talent, as well. Among other stories and essays that Stuart presents, the main stories involve a Toronto record store, The Vinyl Cafe, and the lives of its proprietor, Dave, his wife Morley, and their kids Sam and Stephanie. They are, in fact, one of Canada's most beloved fictional families. The stories are quirky, funny, heart-warming and wonderful. Stuart's a real talent, seems like a great guy, and has done a great job reviving the art of storytelling in Canada.
Since 1998, Stuart has taken The Vinyl Cafe on the road all across Canada and has performed before over 50,000 Canadians in more than 50 cities and towns.
Lori and I and some friends had the pleasure of seeing The Vinyl Cafe show at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax on Thursday evening. It was brilliant; one of the finest evenings of entertainment of my entire life. As my buddy Mike says, he's pretty stingy with his Standing Ovations, but none of us had any hesitation rising to our feet when that show was over.
The talent of everyone involved, Stuart as host, Lisa Lindo (vocals), Chris Whitely (guitar, trumpet and vocals), John Sheard (piano), and Dennis Pendrith (standup bass), made it all seem easy, but this was a very professional show. Sure, there were a few flubs -- Stuart began by talking about Halifax as a harbour city 'full of old people' (he meant to say 'old buildings and friendly people'), caught himself, had a laugh with the audience, and ran backstage and came out to start over again. It made the show that much more enjoyable.
Oh well, enough gushing. If you're Canadian and you want to feel a little more connected, or if you just want to hear some great stories and music, tune into Stuart McLean at The Vinyl Cafe.
11:23pm ADT
ABC News reports that U.S. and Israeli armies field-tested a chemical laser on the battlefield that successfully knocked out 100mm rockets and artillery shells. The lasers could be mounted on hybrid-electric Humvees to ensure mobility on the battlefield.
Using special "beam director" software, a laser can lock onto an in-flight missile and heat the explosives inside their metal shell, causing them to detonate before they reach their target.
This is a 25-watt laser system. A 100-watt system is expected to be available by 2010.
<yawn!> Call me when the phaser testing begins. 8-)
(via Charles Johnson) 9:20am ADT
Went for a drive to Victoria Park in Truro, yesterday. It's about an hour from my place. A really nice park there -- you walk along the stream at the bottom on this very narrow gorge, and then follow paths and walkways in a climb of several hundred feet up to near the top of the water flow. Beautiful spot.
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Joe Howe Falls Victoria Park, Truro, NS Part of a large system of waterfalls and paths/walkways in this lovely park. April 18'03 Mike Campbell photo |
Listened to this
my out of style is coming back
I'm bored but I'm excited
-- Matthew Good Band
8:50am ADT
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Nova Scotia NDP MLA Bill Estabrooks is complaining that too many Americans are buying up Nova Scotia property, particularly coastline property. He wants the province to tighten up land ownership restrictions.
There are a few Germans, I think, too, Bill.
Bill Estabrooks, the NDP member for Timberlea-Prospect, says non-residents own more than one million acres of Nova Scotia. Prices have skyrocketed in recent years, making the land unaffordable for many people in the province.
"This government has its head in the sand," he said in the legislature Tuesday, brandishing a copy of a recent New York Times article with the headline Bargains Across the Border.
"It's time to take your head out of the sand before we don't even own the beach."
A cap on property ownership? How much? How can we possibly arrive at a percentage of property that must be owned by Nova Scotians.
Sure, non-residents might own more than one million acres of Nova Scotia, but this means that Nova Scotians have sold more than one million acres of property. Nova Scotians, who owned the property to begin with, have reaped the benefit of the sale of that property. Whoever they were, they had the right to decide if they would sell their land, and the right to decide to whom they would sell it.
Is Mr. Estabrooks suggesting that we limit land sales to other Nova Scotians? This would drastically reduce property prices, and possibly limit sales. The Province of Nova Scotia also taxes this property, as well as the transfer itself. Capping land ownership isn't the answer.
9:55pm ADT
Glenn Reynolds links to this article from Malaysiakini on the war: Iraq was a war on terrorism.
The fact that Syria is the next target of criticism after Iraq proves what most objective academics have said that the war in Iraq was a follow-up of Afghanistan, and in reality an ideological war against terrorism.
The fact is the war is against terrorist symphatisers - people who even harbour thoughts of condoning Sept 11, 2001. The fact is that the US has so far been only tolerant of actions in other countries and against its embassies abroad.
It’s not about oil, it’s not against Muslims. It’s about making states live up to their promise about not tolerating random violent acts no matter what their grievances are.
Obviously not a Mahathir mouthpiece, but encouraging stuff coming out of one part of the Muslim world.
9:38pm ADT
It's great that North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks with the United States and China. CNN reports. I guess this must be seen as a setback by the Dems et al, who feel so strongly that bilateral talks between the U.S. and N.K. was the only way to reach an agreeable solution. China is finally playing a constructive role.
While likely directing his words at Syria, Colin Powell has helped to ease tensions with other totalitarian states through his statement yesterday.
"Iraq was a unique case, where it wasn't just a matter of a dictator being there," Powell said at a news conference with foreign reporters. "There is no war plan to go and attack someone else, either for the purpose of overthrowing their leadership or for the purpose of imposing democratic values."
Steven den Beste comments on the North Korean situation.
8:40pm ADT
Monday, April 14, 2003
Quebec's 5.5 million voters (or, at least, a good portion of them) went to the polls today. The pre-election polling seemed to be right -- as of 9:43pm EDT, the picture looks like this:
72 seats Liberals
49 Parti Quebecois
4 Action Democratique
Interestingly enough, Liberal leader Jean Charest (former Mulroney cabinet minister) is in a very close race in Sherbrooke. The last report has him up by 27 votes, but he trailed in the previous report.
Damian Penny made a pretty good prediction earlier today (79-43-3).
Last time, the Liberals won the majority vote, but lost to the PQ in terms of the number of seats. Tonight, the Liberals have actually slightly lost popular vote, with the PQ losing about 7% of the popular vote to the Action Democratique. This time, it is the ADQ that sees the votes but no seats.
So, the separatists are out of power, as Damian says, for now. The big question is how this will effect federal politics. Will Quebeckers feel that they must send the separatist Bloc Quebecois party back to Ottawa the next time around, just to keep their grasp on the rest of the country as firm as possible? Or, will the separatist vote completely fall away, which will likely lead to more support in Quebec for the federal Liberals? Was tonight's Liberal victory in Quebec nothing more than a "throw the bums out" treatment of the PQ government by the voters. By the time of the next federal election, Paul Martin will be Prime Minister; he is at least more popular in Quebec than Jean Chretien.
As always, it will be interesting.
10:50pm ADT
The Guardian reports that the Bush administration has "vetoed" military action against Syria following the war against Iraq.
Funny, I heard on CBC Newsworld this evening that such action was "likely".
The White House has privately ruled out suggestions that the US should go to war against Syria following its military success in Iraq, and has blocked preliminary planning for such a campaign in the Pentagon, the Guardian learned yesterday. [...]
The Bush administration is nevertheless determined to use its military ascendancy in the region to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Damascus and resolve what Washington sees as longstanding problems, including the threat to Israel posed by Damascus-backed Islamic extremists, Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Syria's chemical weapons.
I personally didn't see the U.S. and Britain attacking Syria, in the near-term anyway. However, Syria's actions in the coming months and years will decide how it gets treated.
... the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, who warned that Britain had had concerns for some time about Syria's desire to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Hoon referred to a government paper, presented to parliament in February last year, which raised questions about Syria's weapons programme. The document said that Syria was one of five countries attempting to "obtain inventories of longer-range ballistic missiles". The other countries included North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
If Assad and the Syrian Baathists want to hold power, they will have to do some serious thinking on what kind of friends they'll be keeping. They've learned a tremendous lesson over the past three weeks, although I wonder if all this "they've learned their lesson" talk might just be diminishing the lesson's effectiveness ~ we don't need to use force against Syria, so the Syrians act as though they know that force will not be used. At any rate, Colin Powell has done what he can today to reinforce the lessons of Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, speaking to reporters after his own meeting with the Kuwaiti foreign minister earlier in the day, said the United States will examine possible diplomatic or economic measures against Syria.
"With respect to Syria, of course we will examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature as we move forward," Powell said.
"In light of this new environment they [Syria] should review their actions and their behavior, not only with respect to who gets haven in Syria and weapons of mass destruction but especially the support of terrorist activity," Powell added.
10:35pm ADT
We all remember the big story of the summer of 2001 was a string of shark attacks along the eastern seaboard of the United States. And, we know now that this was largely a media-hyped story, in terms of the number of attacks. Well, how were the sharks this year?
The International Shark Attack File reports that 2002 saw 60 unprovoked shark attacks on humans worldwide, down from 72 in 2001 and 85 in 2000. However, the overall trend reflects an increase, looking at attacks in the 90s and so far since the beginning of this decade [whatever the hell it's called].
The summer of 2001 was dubbed "The Summer of the Shark" by one newsmagazine and shark attack was intensely covered by the press until September 11. The prevailing perception was that 2001 was a banner year for shark attacks. The year 2002 attack totals, both nationally and internationally, were lower than those in 2001 and 2000, continuing a three year trend of decline in shark-human interactions and underscoring the scientific view that the events of mid-2001 were largely overstated. More importantly, the number of serious attacks in 2001 and 2002, as measured by fatality rate, was about one-third of that over the last decade. [...]
Three fatalities occurred in 2002, down from five in 2001 and 13 in 2000. The 5% fatality rate was significantly lower than the 1990's decade average of 13%. The three fatalities occurred in Australia (2) and Brazil (1).
Of course, we're all giving the sharks more opportunity:
The number of shark-human interactions occurring in a given year is directly correlated to the amount of time humans spent in the sea. As the world population continues its upsurge and interest in aquatic recreation concurrently rises, we realistically should expect increases in the number of shark attacks and other aquatic recreation-related injuries.
Shark populations worldwide have been declining, so attacks may even be increasing at a higher rate if it weren't for that. There also exists now better mechanisms for recording and tracking shark attacks, which contribute to the higher reported figures.
10:10pm ADT