Kimber’s Nova Scotia September 2, 2007 And they didn’t use a shredder either Disgusted residents of MacBeath Road near Scotsburn were sifting through the rubble from an illegal dumpsite last week when they hit the motherlode. Amid the chunks of sheet rock, broken glass, food waste and toxic construction materials that had been dumped by […]
When plausible denial becomes impossible Back in my long-lost Dalhousie University days, there was this big galoomphy guy named David MacKinnon who used to hang around the student newspaper office. MacKinnon wore unlaced army work boots, sported a perpetual blond bedhead and peppered his inevitably coarse conversation with references to “revolution” and “the pigs.” During […]
Kimber’s Nova Scotia August 26, 2007 Forest for the trees Thanks to a new by-the-books building inspector, two small saw mills in Falmouth, Hants County, have had to turn away two or three contracts a week this summer and lay off six workers. Richard Neily says he and his wife have already “lost this milling […]
Province doesn’t get rural health care crisis In my other life on these pages, I write a weekly Sunday column called Kimber’s Nova Scotia, which is my slightly skewed take on all the news that’s fit to comment on from around the province. As part of my research, I spend a lot of time reading […]
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 […]
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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