Kimber’s Nova Scotia August 19, 2007 Wither Westville It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Not only did Westville’s acting chief administrative officer suggest the town dissolve itself and join Pictou County but he also took a shot at town councillors in the bargain. “Unfortunately, the current town council seems to be more intent […]
The Peter principle at work By Stephen Kimbe r Was Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to pluck Peter MacKay from the rock of Foreign Affairs and plop him into the hard place of Defence good for Peter MacKay’s career? Is it good for the country? It’s far easier to answer the latter than the former. […]
Kimber’s Nova Scotia August 12, 2007 Sowing the seeds King’s County Council voted 9–2 Tuesday to reject controversial land use amendments so a local developer could transform 47 acres of prime farmland into 200 new residential housing units. While that puts an end to Fury Farms’ plan to develop property adjacent to the Berwick Heights […]
Blacked-out bits raise questions “’Satiable curiosity,” as Kipling called it, is one of the peculiar traits of the journalist. I have spent more hours than I can count — or should admit to — trying to decipher the usually meaningless upside-down writing on the desks of people I am interviewing. Or listening in on banal […]
Kimber’s Nova Scotia August 5, 2007 And you think telemarketers are annoying A Bridgewater man, who claims he’s gotten hundreds of unwanted confidential medical reports and referrals on his home fax machine over the past five years, took his concerns public last week. The man, who asked not to be identified, told the Bridgewater Bulletin […]
Police learn nothing from standoff The Halifax Regional Police learned nothing from 2004’s costly three-day Shirley Street standoff — because there was nothing for them to learn. They did everything right. That, at least, is the pre-determined conclusion of the department’s self-serving, butt-covering, two-years-in-the-making, 16-page internal review of “Incident Number 04-21470.” That is the blandly […]
Kimber’s Nova Scotia July 29, 2007On your mark, get set, munch The Hants Journal is reporting this week that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency lab failed to properly identify a sample collected near Halifax in 1990 as the dangerous-to-our-forest-industry brown longhorn spruce beetle. That gave the critter an eight-year head-start on its ongoing devastating munching […]
Another legacy of Africville I had called Tom McInnis, Nova Scotia’s deputy premier during the last days of the Buchanan era, to ask him a question. In December 1991, McInnis had announced — to great fanfare and applause — that the province would rebuild Seaview United Baptist Church on the site of the former Africville. […]
Kimber’s Nova Scotia July 22, 2007 Quarry queries open ‘black hole’ Nobody, it seems, is happy with progress on a proposal to develop a quarry near North Mountain in the Annapolis Valley. Granville Centre residents wrote a letter to Bruce Spicer, whose Bridgetown construction company is behind the project. While he did reply to their […]
On almost feeling sorry for Conrad I did try — for almost a second — to resist the temptation to gleefully pile on. But how to follow all those happy headline writers? “CON-rad Black…” “Lord Greed…” “Lord Fraud…” Or one-up all those many other former ink stained wretches — all once also in the employ […]
STEPHEN KIMBER, a Professor of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax and co-founder of its MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program, is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster. He is the author of two novels and eight non-fiction books. Buy his books
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