I’ve been covering council meetings for a few years now, from my time in various communities in Ontario to those in Central and Northern Nova Scotia, but I’ve never seen anything like what happened at Colchester County council Thursday night.

Before I get into that, there’s a bit of background information that needs to be discussed. A survey was sent out to municipalities across the province to gain a bit of insight into our local leaders. Colchester County council, as a group, decided they would not respond, citing a number of different issues from privacy concerns to questions that they felt had nothing to do with being a municipal councillor. This, of course, was brought to light when some of the results of the survey were released last weekend. It should also be noted the survey was part of the Chronicle Herald’s series called “How We Are Governed” and was ...

I’ll start this off with a question: when did we become such wimps? The storm that could have been a storm Friday morning, but became the storm that hit later Friday after school had been cancelled, which could still become a storm that hit Friday night and overnight has everyone overreacting and generally just freaking out.

In fact, the past two times snow was in the forecast for this province, I’ve heard newscasts going over the top about a “snow event”, a “blast of winter weather”,  a “weather bomb” or, better still, an “incoming storm of doom and pestilence and snow and such!” (Alright, I made that last one up).

Then I check the forecast and see how much snow and such we’re expected to receive and I can hardly believe it. A whopping 5-10cm, maybe as much as 15cm in the worst hit areas! Call in the military! Hide ...

The minor leagues have long been known as a place where the weirdest and wackiest promotions are cooked up to grab headlines and, hopefully, put more butts in the seats at games. Minor league baseball in the U.S. usually has the silliest ones, from "Gluttony Night" in Reading, Pennsylvania (free concessions up to the 7th inning) to "The World's Largest Tighty-Whitey Race and World's Fastest Fat Man Contest" in West Virginia (self-explanatory).

In minor hockey, it usually boils down to a special jersey night. Countless teams wear pink jerseys in support of breast cancer awareness and then there's the werid ones like Michael Jackson tribute jerseys in Bakersfield shortly after his death where the players even wore one white glove.

But we're in the holiday season now and my favourite promotion has started. I'm talking about teddy bear tosses at hockey games. Fans can bring their own teddy bear to ...

The Toronto Blue Jays are blue again!

After a few months of speculation, the team officially unveiled its new logo and jerseys for the 2012 season and as a life-long Blue Jays fan, I can’t be happier about what they’ve done. The powder blue is gone for a darker blue and everything has been rebranded extremely well.

Let’s start with the logo. Simply put, it brings back a lot about the classic logo that was used from the team’s inception in 1977 until 1996 but has been tweaked. I’ve been yelling (or whining, as my father puts it) for the classic logo for years, ever since B.J. Birdy started wrapping his head around a giant, red T. I’m pretty sure I could still draw that original logo with my eyes closed. Anyway, here’s the comparison between the original and the new look:

I have mixed feelings about the split lettering ...

In this day and age of trying to offend absolutely no one and political correctness gone wrong, it should come as no surprise that Halloween is the latest target of idiocy.

Two elementary schools in Calgary have banned scary Halloween costumes that come with masks, weapons and “gruesome” makeup. All right, I get it. You don’t want to scary little kids with those kinds of outfits. Wait, that’s not the issue here? Of course not!

A spokesman for the school board in question says they’re trying to take into account “all the diverse cultures that we have”. Say what now? Halloween isn’t like, say, Christmas. While “Happy Holidays” has taken over in recent years, it’s inclusive and still allows each culture to celebrate as they see fit. Halloween is not a holiday, and doesn’t exactly get religious folks all riled up at that particular time of year like Easter, Christmas ...