CharacterDriven
CharacterDriven focuses on the story behind the people. Whether newsmakers, musicians, activists, innovators, artists, writers or just plain interesting folks, the show allows listeners to go on a journey with guests, whether in studio or on location, that gets into the human aspects of people who live with conviction and purpose.
Farmageddon
CharacterDriven
Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent ac-tion, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.
Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small family-operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems — most often the industrial food chain — policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.
Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasona-bly burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.
Today I interview Kristen Canty, producer and director of Farmageddon from her home in Boston. This is a must-hear show for anyone who cares about freedom and access to fresh food.
Cynthia
CharacterDriven
Cynthia is a recovering addict who has managed to overcomes some of life's most difficult circumstances to where she is now helping others who find themselves in the same position
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Bill Henderson
CharacterDriven
Bill Henderson and Chilliwack are fixtures on the Canadian music scene. I had a chance to talk to Bill from his home on Saltspring Island just before his gig at the Port Theatre in Nanaimo, part of a four city 'mini tour'...or 'dates' as he calls them.
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Michael J. Murphy
CharacterDriven
Could the agenda behind chemtrail/geoengineering programs be more than what geoengineers are admitting? As awareness of these damaging programs increases around the world, theories about them include weather control, population control, morgellons disease, food control, etc. On October 3-7, 2011, scientists from around the world gathered in Orlando, Florida for the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) conference. The lectures at this conference included; “Air Quality Modeling,” “Health Disparities,” “Ambient Air Particle Pollution,” and an area of particular interest to many who are aware of the chemtrail/geoengineering issue, “Aerosols, Clouds and Precipitation.” While geoengineering was not the main focus of the event, some of the lectures provided vital clues as to what some of the true agendas of these damaging programs might be.
As was exposed in the groundbreaking documentary, “What in the World Are They Spraying?” http://www.whatintheworldaretheyspraying.info/, Geoengineer’s models include spraying 10 to 20 million tons of toxic aluminum oxide and other aerosols into our atmosphere for the stated goal of cooling the planet. While geoengineers insist that their models are to cool the planet, studies suggest that adding aerosols into our atmosphere can create a temporary regional cooling at the cost of an overall warming of the planet as the aerosols create a blanket and trap heat http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/apr/HQ_04140_clouds_climate.html , http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091221/full/news.2009.1157.html. These studies contradict the very premise of geoengineering which leads many to ask the question, what are the true reasons for these programs? Geoengineers also insist that these programs are only in the developmental stages however, mounting evidence suggests on-going deployment as we continue to see dramatic changes in our skies, our weather and the amount of aluminum and other aerosols in our atmosphere.
“Aerosols, Clouds and Precipitation Interactions: Anthropogenic and Natural Effects”, was one of the lectures that discussed how aerosols in our atmosphere can affect weather. The lecture covered the role of aerosols in cloud and precipitation formation. The first part of the lecture discussed the brightening of clouds associated with increases in aerosols that serve as cloud condensations nuclei. This appears to be directly related to chemtrail/geoengineering programs because, the lecture discussed how different aerosols will distribute cloud water among smaller droplets and more effectively reflect solar radiation. Also discussed was the fact that increases in atmospheric aerosols will lead to the increase of cloud lifetime, the reduction of precipitation efficiency and the removal of cloud water. From this lecture and many other well documented studies, we know that putting certain aerosols into our atmosphere will not only reflect the sun but also affect a cloud’s ability to produce rain and thus the increase and decrease of rain fall in certain regions.
Dr. Hui Su of NASA, a participant at the Aerosol and Precipitation Symposium, was asked if she has noticed a considerable increase in stratospheric aerosols. She replied by stating that she has noticed a significant increase but has not measured the composition of the aerosols. This observation was also noted in a recent study by the National Ocean Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110721_particles.html. While both have failed to acknowledge the source and composition of these particles, evidence points towards ongoing stratospheric aerosol geoengineering programs. Dr. Su went on to say that putting aerosols in the stratosphere impacts temperatures, water vapor and clouds leading to droughts and other negative consequences to our atmosphere including ozone depletion. When asked about the idea of adding aerosols into the atmosphere from geoengineering programs, she stated the idea is “scary” and concurred that it could give governments and corporations the ability to corporatize and thus control our weather.
Summer of Love
CharacterDriven
Anyone over the age of 40 has probably heard of the "Summer of Love" which began at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets, the now famous corner known as the Haight District of San Francisco. The neighborhood became the center of the San Francisco Renaissance and with it, the rise of a drug culture and rock-and-roll lifestyle by the mid 1960s. College and high-school students began streaming into the Haight during the spring break of 1967. San Francisco's government leaders, determined to stop the influx of young people once schools let out for the summer, brought additional attention to the scene, and an ongoing series of articles in local papers alerted the national media to the hippies' growing numbers. By spring, Haight community leaders responded by forming the Council of the Summer of Love, giving the word-of-mouth event an official-sounding name.
The mainstream media's coverage of hippie life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. Hunter S. Thompson labeled the district "Hashbury" in The New York Times Magazine, and the activities in the area were reported almost daily. During that year, the neighborhood's fame reached its peak as it became the haven for a number of the top psychedelic rock performers and groups of the time. Acts like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived a short distance from the intersection. They not only immortalized the scene in song, but also knew many within the community as friends and family. Another well-known neighborhood presence was The Diggers, a local "community anarchist" group known for its street theatre who also provided free food to residents every day.
During the "Summer of Love", psychedelic rock music was entering the mainstream, receiving more and more commercial radio airplay. The Scott McKenzie song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, became a hit single in 1967. The Monterey Pop Festival in June further cemented the status of psychedelic music as a part of mainstream culture and elevated local Haight bands such as the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane to national stardom. A July 7, 1967, Time magazine cover story on "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," an August CBS News television report on "The Hippie Temptation"[1] and other major media interest in the hippie subculture exposed the Haight-Ashbury district to enormous national attention and popularized the counterculture movement across the country and around the world.
The Summer of Love attracted a wide range of people of various ages: teenagers and college students drawn by their peers and the allure of joining a cultural utopia; middle-class vacationers; and even partying military personnel from bases within driving distance. The Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate this rapid influx of people, and the neighborhood scene quickly deteriorated. Overcrowding, homelessness, hunger, drug problems, and crime afflicted the neighborhood. Many people simply left in the fall to resume their college studies. On October 6, 1967, those remaining in the Haight staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony, to signal the end of the played-out scene.
Terry Graham, or Tall Terry as he's know on Salt Spring Island where he has lived for the past 40 years, was there that summer and sets the scene for listeners, first with his background and the trek from Vancouver to San Francisco, how he was immersed in the Haight culture from the moment he arrived and what, from his perspective, ended the "Summer of Love" and the hippie movement itself. His insight are fascinating for those who were there, wanted to be there or who just want to live vicariously through the memories of a raconteur.
Vancouver Island Music Festival
CharacterDriven
The Vancouver Island Music Festival has been providing summer entertainment to eclectic audiences for decades. Doug Cox has been searching out the act that comprise the sound of the festival and as a musician himself, his tastes run the gamut. Doug talks to me about his role in putting together the festival as well as discussing his own music and influences. He also makes a surprise announcement about an act that was booked the day before, an exclusive scoop for Character Driven listeners.
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Lyn Hancock
CharacterDriven
Author, lecturer, teacher and world traveller Lyn Hancock talks about her work as a writer, her latest trip to Africa and Asia and her upcoming book tour in Calgary.
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Koby 2012- A Critical View
CharacterDriven
Sophie Hough and Francesca Vukovich are sixteen years old and want to challenge their peers to become more aware and involved when it comes to such things as social media. A case in point is the recent phenomenon "Koby 2012" which has gone viral on social media sites as a direct result of the video creators'
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Inner Peace Movement
CharacterDriven
Phillip Ponchette is on a tour from Nova Scotia to British Columbia offering workshops that introduce participants to the Inner Peace Movement and how to begin experiencing the benefits of finding peace and fulfillment in our lives.
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Assimilation
CharacterDriven
he Nanaimo Daily News featured a story on the front page of its February 8, 2012 edition. There, in bold headline read:
Dismantle Reserves and Integrate First Nations, with the first line reading, “The time has come to abolish native reserves and integrate, once and for all, our aboriginal brothers and sisters into society.”
Ian Caplette responded to the article on CharacterDriven, citing the small, but vocal, band of protesters who made their views on the story known by sitting outside the offices of The Daily News until they could speak with the editor. A letter to the editor in the following week’s paper laid their views out clearly.
Compare and Contrast
CharacterDriven
Billy Boy handed over the Blue Plate Special to DJ Dirty Job and DJ Blues Herron and this was the result: a show about the pioneers of the blues and the folks who made their work 'mainstream'...or at least lucrative...and didn't necessarily give them the cred they deserved. We're here to set things straight.
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Energy Solutions
CharacterDriven
If you use energy of any kind- physical, emotional, spiritual or hydro- you need to hear Ian Gartshore talk about not only the tangible ways that we can conserve energy and re-channel our hearts and minds toward positive solutions to the various ways we waste energy.
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Peadar O'Donoghue
CharacterDriven
Peadar O'Donoghue is a poet and publisher who is trying to keep up with the orders for his magazine "The Poetry Bus". The magazine began as an idea on his blog http://totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com. His anthology of poetry "Jewel" will be published by Salmon this Spring.
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Lynn Thompson and Celeste Authors
CharacterDriven
Lynn Thompson (www.livingonpurposelynn.com)and her niece Celeste Authors join me for a discussion about 'new beginnings': how we process the experiences that challenge us and create from that reality a positive outcome. Celeste had a promising career in the film industry in Toronto when she was hit by a car in March 2011. The accident changed her life and her hopes for a future in her chosen profession. The following months of recovery afforded her an opportunity for re-evaluation and change, including a Christmas visit with her Aunt at the home she was caretaking in Lantzville. The show features music by Lynn Thompson's brother, a flutist, who performs with a trio in Toronto. For more information visit www.characterdriven.co
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Stellar Band of Neighbours
CharacterDriven
A rebroadcast of last year's interview with 'A Stellar Band of Neighbours' which brings together a bunch of amazing musicians from groups of various stripes: Del Cowsill (The Cowsills), Steven Drake (The Odds), Johnny Fay (The Tragically Hip), Kevin Kane (Grapes of Wrath), Simon Kendall (Doug and the Slugs, etc) and Wyckham Porteous (Bop Trio, etc.). Some of the band members were pulling a trailer to their next so were 'on the road' until the fateful moment in the interview where the phone rang and the sad news that they'd broken down near Parksville was delivered over the air. All was well and the show went on in Port Alberni that night, but the drama was intense. Check it out.
Mason Bees
CharacterDriven
Rose McCulley's handiwork can be seen everywhere you look on the eight acre property she shares with husband Jim. Whether it's adding fill to create a new garden area, the huge garden itself blanketed in carpet to keep the weeds down, the relish, jellies and syrup that have been produced in her kitchen and stand like soldiers by the front door waiting to be scooped up by customers, Rose's East Coast industriousness is the hallmark of J and R Farm. Rose's passion, however, is to teach others about Mason Bees. Whether a classroom of kids that arrive on a huge yellow school bus or an individual who was lure down Extension Road by her colourful green sign leading the way, her knowledge of and enthusiasm for Mason Bees is evident. The row of small wooden houses outside the front door look like they were built for birds until, on closer inspection, I see a series of hole bored into each of them. These are not bird houses at all, but custom built Mason Bee homes. And the rest of the story is even more intriguing.
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