Halifax Politics dot ca

I love reading Twitcoast on twitter. Tim Bousquet, the Coast news editor, manages to infuse his 140 character per post updates with a well balanced mix of wry observation and essential factual information.

My personal favorite example is reporting how Councilors vote. Our fine municipality does not record how councilors vote, making it rather hard to hold them to task. Tim told us all that Councillors Lund, Rankin, Outhit, Harvey, Johns, Hum, Uteck, Wile, Hendsbee, Dalrymple voted for Tax so called Reform, and I knew it literally moments after the vote occurred.

Most amazing is how some Councilors clearly don’t get the technology at all. I just about spewed coffee all over my keyboard the other morning a few weeks ago when South End/North West Arm Councilor Sue Uteck said words to the effect that some reporters don’t have time to follow the issues because they are too busy tweeting.
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Today I would say the Halifax III on the way to Woodside was rocking back and forth, port to starboard, from level to 10% up on the starboard side.

Rock rock. Rock rock. Rockrock.
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Kate and Anna played HPX in 2005 or 06. It was the day after the CBC strike had ended, and it was really hard to get the word out to the Kate and Anna audience without CBC. I had been told by other, older promoters that Kate and Anna were really hard to work with, with one memorable show in particular where they were they refused to go on stage at the Cohn for hours like princesses.

So here we are going into a money losing half full show, and I am really worried they were going to be pissed. Kate and Anna roll in an Kate is clearly the outgoing one. She asks the right probing questions, is concerned about sales, concerned about marketing. I tell her we gave tickets to local CBC staff today and pay her the balance of the guarantee at 2pm, to keep her sweet.

She says “oh, great, thanks, this is going to be so much fun tonight” and then starts laughing at my evident shock as I relax and realize she is not going to bite my head off.

Later on we talked again about HPX, talk about music, talk about her kids, asked what HPX was (I said “the kind of festival you, your sister, your ex, your daughter and your son would all be able to play at). We then talk about the reputation they had here, and she said that the reason they wouldn’t go on back in the day is because that promoter had not paid them before they were supposed to go on, and that promoter did not get them a rider, and that promoter put them in a crappy hotel. They had been going through a bad patch with shows and were tense about getting what they were supposed to back then.

She patted me on the arm and said I didn’t have to worry, said “you did good” with a smile, and went back to hang with the band and drink more wine.

She was a totally classy lady and a super entertainer, it was an honor to work with her and I am sad I only got to talk to her that one day.

Don Mills kills me. Don is a pollster, so you would think that he would live by facts and figures. Two days ago he was speaking on CBC Mainstreet (Halifax edition) and his thesis was that Halifax lagged far behind every other city of size in Canada in growth in the 2000s because we didn’t approve new buildings fast enough.

His primary example was what we like to call Twisty Towers or Twisted Sisters, the United Gulf development proposed for the old Texpark property between Hollis and Granville.
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Short note today. So yesterday I tempted fate. Talking about how transit worked for me has resulted in my daughter being sick today. This means I have made the early ferry (8:52) because I dumped Emma at my moms first thing and ran to the bus, 15 mins earlier than usual. The kick is I have to re-arrange my classes and run back to Halifax at 1:30 so Mom can get to a Doctors appointment, so my first $25.00 cab ride happens today. Woot, as the kids say. Or is that w00t?

Anyway, I read the transit proposal from the consultants. Yes I read 178 pages for fun, though I will admit I skimmed parts (like descriptions of where the routes currently go).
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