NEWS
1. Children’s bodies found
“Searchers have found the bodies of two children who went missing after the vehicle they were in was swept away by flood waters on Saturday,” reports Suzanne Rent:
At a press conference in Windsor on Tuesday, Nova Scotia RCMP confirmed the body of one of the children was found Tuesday morning in Brooklyn, just outside of Windsor. The body of the other child was found on Monday. The search continues for a youth who went missing after the vehicle they were in was caught in flood waters. The body of the 52-year-old man who was in that vehicle was recovered on Monday.
Special thanks to Suzanne Rent for dropping everything and running to Windsor on no advance notice yesterday in order to report on this.
We can recover from all the other losses in the floods. Roads and bridges can be rebuilt, houses dried out and de-mildewed, crops replanted. But the loss of children is its own kind of terrible, and irrecoverable.
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2. Cop alleges chief harassed him
“A Halifax Regional Police sergeant claims Chief Dan Kinsella has ‘subjected him to targeted intimidation, harassment and discrimination,'” reports Zane Woodford:
Sgt. Regan Fong was the first Asian Canadian to make sergeant at Halifax Regional Police, according to a 2021 tweet from the department. In a Facebook video in 2018, he encouraged people to join HRP.
But in 2022, Fong complained to the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners about the chief. Fong further accused Kinsella of being “deceitful” in an interview as part of the board’s investigation. And Fong has asked a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice to take a second look at the board’s decision to dismiss his complaint.
Nasha Nijhawan, Fong’s lawyer, filed for judicial review on July 18. There’s a hearing scheduled for Sept. 19.
Attached to the filing is correspondence from Coun. Becky Kent, chair of the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners, which is responsible for investigating complaints against the chief. In an email and letter to Fong, in which she routinely misspells his first name, Kent outlines his complaint and the board’s investigation, conducted by lawyer Michael Brooker.
Thanks to Kent’s letter, Woodford is able to report on the substance of Fong’s allegations, which if true show some petty bullshit is going on at the HRPD.
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3. Quilts
“An artist and Black historian says he hopes an exhibit of African Nova Scotian quilts inspires a new generation to take up ‘a dying craft in the Black community,'” reports Matthew Byard:
David Woods is the curator of the exhibit titled The Secret Codes, which is currently on display at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax. The exhibit features works from over two dozen predominately African Nova Scotian painters and quilters.
While the exhibit runs until Aug. 6, the gallery will host other events on Emancipation Day on Aug. 1. Those events will include a curator’s talk, a guided tour with Heather Cromwell of the Vale Quilters Association whose work is featured in the exhibit, and a “family quilts gathering” where people are invited to bring in their quilts to share stories about them.
“We tend to talk about our culture in very specific ways, but here we have art, craft being created by women of our community,” Woods said in an interview. “None of them profess to be any great artist, but yet they have a show that, it’s the biggest [art] show in Halifax this summer, in terms of attendance and buzz, and it’s going across the country.”
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VIEWS
1. Masks
“Last week’s announcement that the Nova Scotia Health Authority and IWK Health Centre were lifting the masking requirement in most areas of their facilities came as a grave disappointment to those who have been working to reduce the ongoing risks of airborne pathogens, including SARS CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, in public spaces,” writes Jan Brown:
It’s hard to understand what prompted the change, given that doing away with mask requirements in other jurisdictions has led to much more disease transmission in healthcare facilities but, on closer examination, it seems yet another example of failed leadership on the part of our political and health care leaders.
The memo issued to NSHA staff states that the new directive “aligns with Public Health guidance,” and that the “safety of [NSHA’s] patients and people remains [its] priority”.
I have questions.
What Public Health guidance? On its website, Nova Scotia Public Health has this to say about protecting people at higher risk:
Some people, like those who are older or immunocompromised, are at higher risk of severe disease. If you’re around vulnerable people (or if you’re at higher risk) you should maintain healthy habits like gathering safely, wearing a mask and COVID-19 rapid testing. [Emphasis added.]
The last time I checked, there were lots of older, immunocompromised and otherwise vulnerable people in hospitals. How exactly does dropping universal masking requirements in hospitals align with Public Health’s guidelines for protecting them?
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2. X
This is really too dumb to comment on, except to note the obvious stylistic echoes of Nazi imagery and to make the not-really-such-a-joke that Twitter is now one-third on its way to becoming fully a porn site.
Personally, I’m thinking of rebranding as zzzzzzz.
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Government
City
Today
Public Drop-in Sessions – Case 23307 (Wednesday, 2pm, 7pm, BMO Centre, Bedford) — proposals for a “comprehensive mixed-use subdivision”
Heritage Advisory Committee (Wednesday, 3pm, online) — agenda
Tomorrow
Transportation Standing Committee (Thursday, 1pm, online) — agenda
Province
No meetings
On campus
Dalhousie
Today
No events
Tomorrow
Bridges 2023 Conference on Math and Art public lecture (Thursday, 8pm, Richard Murray Design Building) — Craig Kaplan from the University of Waterloo will talk about “The hat, the turtle and the spectre;” more info here
Raddall Reading: Wonder World (Thursday, 7pm, Glitter Bean Café) — KR Byggdin talks with Cooper Lee Bombardier
In the harbour
Halifax
06:00: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, arrives at Pier 41 from St. John’s
10:30: Atlantic Sea, ro-ro container, arrives at Fairview Cove from Norfolk, Virginia
13:00: Jag Rishi, bulker, arrives at outer harbour to pic up pilot, then continues on to Sheet Harbour
13:00: GPO Sapphire, heavy lifter, moves from Woodside to anchorage
15:30: Oceanex Sanderling moves to Autoport
16:30: Atlantic Sea sails for Liverpool, England
17:00: One Stork, container ship (145,251 tonnes), arrives at Pier 41 from Colombo, Sri Lanka
18:00: Pijlgracht, cargo ship, sails from Pier 9 for sea
Cape Breton
04:00: SFL Trinity, oil tanker, arrives at EverWind from New York
08:30: Zaandam, cruise ship with up to 1,718 passengers, arrives at Sydney Marine Terminal from Halifax, on an seven-day roundtrip cruise out of Boston (itinerary)
09:15: Pacific, oil tanker, arrives at Port Hawkesbury anchorage from Greater Plutonio offshore terminal, Angola
09:15: Mary A, superyacht owned by Thomas O’Malley (not the alley cat in The Aristocats, but rather the oil industry billionaire), arrives at St. Peter’s from Halifax, then through the canal to Baddeck
10:30: Silver Shalis, yacht owned by billionaire Larry Silverstein, the developer of the World Trade Center in New York, sails from Baddeck for Sydney
13:00: Silver Shalis arrives at Sydney
15:30: Algoma Valour, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry for sea
15:30: Algoma Value, bulker, arrives at Canso anchorage from Norfolk, Virginia
17:30: Zaandam sails for Bar Harbor
17:30: Algoma Integrity, bulker, arrives at Aulds Cove quarry from Cape Canaveral, Florida
Footnotes
When I write an extensive, weighty, and important article, my mind pretty much goes all-in as I process lots of details and work out how they relate to each other and what’s the best way to tell the story. This involves involuntarily waking up contemplative in the middle of the night, often with new strategies. That’s a good thing.
But sometimes it can be a little too consuming, and that’s the case right now. I was in bed by 10pm last night, but woke up at 1:30am and never really fell asleep again as my mind raced. At 5am I re-set the alarm for 6:45am, and maybe there was something like sleep in there, I’m not sure.
Which is to say, except for what I’m working on, I’m not worth shit right now on the rest of everything. I’ll get back to you as fully Tim in a few days.
That’s the old X logo, the new one is the same, except BOLD.
To me, an x, regardless of size and font styling, always means error. I guess that works for Twitter, because letting Elon Musk take it over and change it so drastically is, IMHO, a grave error.
That is a great take, you made me laugh – thanks!