Today’s Morning File is written by Lewis Rendell. I’m one of Tim Bousquet’s CFA henchmen and his consultant on millenial culture.
News
Views
Noticed
Government
On campus
In the harbour
Footnotes
News
1. RCMP charge sexual assault complainant with mischief, find claims “unfounded”
As Ian Fairclough reports for Local Xpress, the RCMP have charged a Sherbrooke woman with mischief, believing her (terrifying) report of a random sexual assault on Friday night to be untruthful.
The 24-year-old woman will appear in court on October 26.
2. Trade your guns for bus tickets
If you have an illegal firearm but would rather have that weird sinus cold people sometimes get from riding public transit, I’ve got the best news you’ll hear all day. Halifax council is considering a gun buyback program with bus tickets as the incentive, reports Zane Woodford for Metro.
Today, council will begin to debate the gun amnesty program that would hand over 50 Halifax Transit tickets and no disciplinary actions to folks dropping off firearms and ammunition. A 2009 program called Pixels for Pistols was a sweeter deal, handing over cameras to citizens voluntarily disarming themselves. Firearms trading may actually be cheaper than buying a monthly transit pass, though, so I’ll see y’all on the bus.
3. These llamas aren’t messing around
I think that any news story that begins with “inside the fluffy body of a llama beats the heart of a warrior” is worth sharing. As David Burke reports for the CBC, farmer Bob Ottenbrite uses aggressive guard llamas to protect his sheep from coyotes, and probably has his sheep ridiculed by their peers.
4. Toilet enthusiast enjoys Nova Scotian latrines just fine, thank you
Presented without comment, from the CBC.
Views
1. Michael Lightstone: Buzz off with your buzzwords
Michael Lightstone has had just about enough of your shit, everyone. In an opinion piece for Local Xpress, Lightstone shakes his fist at the sky, rallies against ten cliches.
In no particular order, here are 10 examples of words and hackneyed phrases to exclude from your reports prior to deadline:
• “Going forward.” A favourite saying of politicians, bureaucrats, business operators and sports executives. Former Halifax mayor Peter Kelly used these two words repeatedly during every council session he attended. He was mayor for 12 years.
• “Reached out.” That means contacted. Enough said.
• “On the ground.” As in: “CBC has a reporter on the ground in storm-ravaged New Orleans.” In other words, reporter Jane Smith is in New Orleans.
• “Affluent.” Rich. Wealthy. Stinkin’ rich. You make the call.
• “Iconic.” Man, I hate this overused word. It’s in news reports for everything from run-of-the-mill buildings to pop singers. The pyramids in Egypt are iconic. Justin Bieber is not.
• “Closure.” A terrible term used by police, victims’ relatives and others who’ve responded to an unexpected death. Although cops, health-care workers, school officials and politicians may mean well, their reliance on closure when speaking of loss, grief and emotional pain is cringe-worthy. Reporters should avoid the word like the plague.
• “World-class.” Tim Bousquet, the no-nonsense Halifax journalist and publisher of the Halifax Examiner news site, has launched a jihad against this godawful phrase. Thank you, Mr. Bousquet.
• “Legendary.” In the same class as the saying above. So many people and things are legendary these days, it’s hard to keep track of all this world-class stuff without a program.
• “Each and every.” Please. Pick one, not both.
• “Awesome.” I don’t know where to begin. How about a definition? The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says something that is “very impressive or very difficult, and perhaps rather frightening,” is awesome. Or, more informally, awesome can refer to something that is “very good” or “enjoyable.”
If I’d had more coffee/foresight this morning, I’d have tried to slip all of them into this Morning File. (Which would’ve been your last – Ed.)
2. Not-so-cranky letter of the day
This letter is a week old, but it’s pretty good. A Port Hawkesbury man doesn’t like the Tragically Hip but believes something special took place during their farewell. But before he tells readers how special it was, he really, REALLY has to tell how readers just how much he doesn’t like the band.
“First, a confession: I’m not a fan of The Tragically Hip.
And another confession: I wasn’t ever a fan of The Tragically Hip, and I won’t pretend that I’m suddenly a fan of The Tragically Hip. I found a couple of their early songs – “Blow At High Dough” and “Little Bones” – catchy, but they didn’t implant themselves into my psyche during their ‘90s heyday or at any point afterwards.
So, with that out of the way, my next confession shouldn’t surprise you: I wasn’t among the 11.7 million people estimated to have tuned in to CBC’s live broadcast of the Hip’s final concert on August 18. (Cathy and I caught “New Orleans Is Sinking,” which opened the band’s first encore, and decided that experiencing one song we’d heard before would suffice.)
Given the nationalistic fervor that erupted across Canada in the hours leading up to, and following, “that night in Kingston,” I imagine there are already a few of you who are arranging for my deportation papers after reading the last few paragraphs.
Relax, folks. Music, like any other art form, is all subjective. You have your favourites and I have mine. It doesn’t make us any more or less Canadian.”
Noticed
District 8 candidates play nice
In celebration of both Labour Day and the magic of friendship, the declared District 8 candidates for the upcoming municipal election got together to officially nominate one another for the seat on city council. D’awww.
Happy Labour Day! In the spirit of camaraderie, today, declared D8 candidates met to sign as each other’s nominators pic.twitter.com/LZuQzjv1LM
— Brenden Sommerhalder (@BSommerhalder) September 5, 2016
Government
City
Halifax Regional Council (10am, City Hall) — the biggest issue today is the Blue Mountain – Birch Cove Lakes wilderness park. Tim will liveblog the meeting via the Examiner’s Twitter account, @HfxExaminer.
Province
No meetings scheduled.
On campus
Dalhousie
Better Nights, Better Days (ongoing throughout the year) — Penny Corkum and her partners across Canada will start delivering an evidence-based online intervention program for parents who have children that experience sleep issues. Visit www.betternightsbetterdays.ca for information on participating.
In the harbour
Tuesday
6am: Cosco Prince Rupert, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Port Klang, Malaysia
6:30am: AIDAluna, cruise ship, arrives at Pier 22 from St. John’s with up to 2,500 passengers
10:30am: Yantian Express, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Cagliari, Italy
11am: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, arrives at Pier 41 from St. John’s
4pm: NYK Meteor, container ship, arrives at Fairview Cove from Rotterdam
4:30pm: Cosco Prince Rupert, container ship, sails from Pier 42 for New York
4:30pm: Undine, car carrier, moves from Autoport to Pier 31
5:45pm: AIDAluna, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for Bar Harbor
6pm: Atlantic Huron, bulker, arrives at National Gypsum from Sept-Iles, Quebec
6pm: Harmony Leader, car carrier, arrives at Autoport from Bremerhaven, Germany
6pm: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Pier 41 to Pier 36
8:30pm: Undine, car carrier, sails from Autoport for New York
Wednesday
0:30am: Yantian Express, container ship, sails from Fairview Cove for New York
6:45am: Grandeur of the Seas, cruise ship, arrives at Pier 22 from Saint John, with up to 2,446 passengers
9am: Atlantic Huron, bulker, sails from National Gypsum for sea
5pm: Grandeur of the Seas, cruise ship, sails from Pier 22 for Baltimore
Footnotes
Tim is back from vacation.
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One should only get away with using “Legendary” if one’s name is Barney.
Or the Horseshoe Tavern
Regarding gun amnesty: I guess that gives new meaning to the word ‘busted!’
I vote for the now overused nugget – Be Bold!
Oh abhorrent marketers what have you wrought…..
I would also add “invest”, in the government sense. Government always says it invests rather than spends, and some reporters even put that terminology into their stories. “The province invested $25,000 in new two-holed outhouses for Mosquito Pond Provincial Park today.”
this could be the only legit use of the term. investment means you expect to get shit back for your money.
To add to that excellent list of editorial no-no s. Here’s another.
“growing the economy” implies that business folks, govt. etc. are like farmers and the economy’s like turnips! It is not, an economy grows as a result of investment, marketing, research, etc.
It is a result not process and governments especially can do little to ‘grow’ anything except debt!
iain T.
“World-class” always reminds me of the 80s-90s craze for monorails. “We can’t be world-class without a monorail!” Even Detroit got one, that (in those days) snaked its way among the ruins.
“Reached out” came from HR happy talk, I think.
“Avoid like the plague” is a cliche I avoid like the plague.
Metro’s coverage of item 1 was in my opinion bothersome.
Whenever Metro reports on a sexual assault occurring or a sexual assault arrest, it’s always a small item in a sidebar buried a few pages in.
This morning, the news that the RCMP was charging a woman with mischief — for what they allege was a false report — was page two news with a huge headline that screamed at you.
Re. Michael Lightstone’s list of hackneyed neo-cliches: If there’s anything worse than the phrase “going forward”, then it’s got to be “on a going-forward basis.” Oooooo yuck!
Concerning the equally creepy word “legendary,” I remember a sign at a building site in Toronto a few years ago announcing “Legendary Town Homes.” But not a single one of them had even been built!