Heading to Central Blissville

$25/$25 challenge - Back at It

2011-03-19T08:31:00.004-04:00

It's not that I've had a short attention span for this project. It's because I had a tooth pulled and have been living on a diet of soup and bananas for a week. I didn't keep track because a) I was hurting and b) the dollar figures would be skewed.

But now I'm feeling better and back at it. I've changed my focus a bit .. I'm not trying to eat on $25 a week anymore .. $3.67 a day just isn't realistic. But what I am doing is tracking what I eat and deliberately trying to find bargains.

Which is what the picture above is about. It's a Tilapia, which I was served, head, tails and all in Honduras last year. It was coated with a breaded coating and baked in a wood oven. Wonderful.

All this as an intro to the latest bargain I found at the market. Tilapia with head and tails ... a fish the same size as the above was only $4. Good bargain. And now I know how to cook it.

I also discovered a fish called Basa, from Vietnam, for 3.99 a pound. I got two really good sized filet -- enough for two meals -- for $4. I did my research and discovered that it is similar to catfish, only much cheaper (catfish farmers in the States are a little worried about this fish).

So I'll cook them all up and let you know how I cooked it all and what it tasted like.

Tomorrow's post -- Hamilton's Good Food Box Program. Every community needs one.

$25 challenge - days 3, 4 and 5

2011-03-12T14:56:00.004-05:00

I've gone off the rails. I stopped keeping lists about what I've been eating.

But I also stopped eating normally too due to a toothache. I didn't eat anything for about a day after the offending tooth was yanked out. (Ouch!) So my tally would have been off anyway.

I'm going to go back to it .. though I'm definitely going to revise my goal upwards to $35 a week. That would be $5 a day. Still very very difficult to do considering I've been averaging $7 so far. But not unattainable like $25 a week.

I did keep track of some things in the past couple of days. A couple of my discoveries:

I've been pricing items of fruit individually. A medium sized banana costs about .25 if bought at .59 a pound. A medium sized locally grown apple or pear at $1 a pound costs about .50.

A medium sized organic beet at 2.99 a pound is about .75 and worth every penny. Likewise for the organic turnip.

I'm trying not to focus on just the cost, but also what kind of experience I'm getting from the foods I eat. So no pasta and boring tomato sauce in a jar just to keep the costs down. If it doesn't taste good, I'm not eating it. Which is one of the reasons my goal of $25 a week is unrealistic.

So, this is turning into not so much a cost cutting exercise. It's really about looking at what I eat, what it costs and how much it makes my life better. It's about quality of life .. not just the bottom line.

Day Two on $25 a week

2011-03-09T08:26:00.004-05:00

My menu yesterday was about the same as it was on Day 1 ... and just about as expensive, I think.

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee (I didn`t make a full pot so I could halve the grounds. I don`t drink a whole pot anyway. Coffee was weak) - .25
1 banana - .25
20 grapes - .60
1 small glass of juice - .30

mid-morning - one more pot of coffee -- a friend came over - .40

lunch - borscht - the rest from last night .50
humus and pita (should have made my own instead of buying those small tubs in the store) - 3.00
glass of milk .40

Supper - pork loin (bought on sale) .75
with veggies (frozen) - .40
glass of milk - .40
(a bit of balsamic vinegar, antipasto, olives and parmesan cheese for variety - about .50

Grand total: 7.75

A pattern is emerging -- convenience foods are not my friend ...

Day One - $25/week Challenge

2011-03-07T18:35:00.004-05:00

I just did the math. $25 a week is only $3.57 a day. I'm already over budget. Way over budget.

Before I give up this project, I am reminding myself that there are a few extenuating circumstances. First of all, I'm using up fresh food in the fridge that wasn't cheap (the gorgonzola cheese, pate and Ace bakery). By about week three, it will all be gone and I'll be working with a depleted fridge and cupboard.

Second of all, I've been using individual servings from the freezer and haven't been tracking how much it cost me to make the dish that I divided up into individual portions, so this is a guestimate.

That said, here's what I ate today:

Breakfast - 2 cups of coffee - cheap (not my usual standard) .40 for the pot. .10 for the cream. Total .50
1 banana - about 5 ounces - bought at .59 (which isn't a bad price) about .25
1 small glass of orange juice - from concentrate - .30
1 muesli bagel - .60

lunch - 2 pieces frozen pizza bought on sale - $1.50
1 small glass milk - about .40

snack - 1 pear, 10 grapes, baguette with pate and gorgonzola cheese - about $2

supper - 1 bowl of borscht with yogurt - about .50
salad greens (about .29) with cherry tomatoes and cucumber (about .40) and half an avocado - .65 (a splurge which will not happen often ... 1.25 for an organic avocado is a little pricey)

Total for the day: 7.39

I'm shocked. At this rate, I'll spend almost $50 this week. And this substandard coffee is a drag.

Maybe I'm estimating high ... hope so.

The Big $25 a Week Challenge

2011-03-07T07:59:00.003-05:00

Okay, so further to my last post ...

The challenge to eat well on $25 a week begins. Updates on this site regularly.

The objective is to do it while balancing quality of life. This is not about deprivation. This is about enhancing quality of life. It's not about beans for the sake of saving money. It's about "What am I missing because I don't know this kind of food very well?"

It's also about redistributing my money so I'm not spending so much money on food. So I can spend my money on other things.

And, of course, it's about living with less because that's good for the planet. And that enhances my quality of life to know I'm putting my money where my mouth is in terms of living sustainably.

I may find out that $25 a month means poverty. I may find out that it's not enough to satisfy basic nutritional requirements. The formula may end up being wrong. But at least I'll know. And at the end of this, I'll have a whole bunch of new information which will be useful.

Whatever the outcome, I'll share the results (and the recipes). Stay tuned.

Here, on day 1 ... I'm feeling like this will be a fun.

Why Observe Lent in this Secular Age?

2011-03-06T08:37:00.006-05:00

Many of my friends think I'm crazy for being Catholic. Especially for turning Catholic.

And sometimes I think I'm crazy too. Especially these day, with all the sex scandals and the election of a regressive pope who is trying to return us to pre-Reformation Catholicism

It's about the music, I tell them. And largely it is. Regardless of one's belief in a Christian God or not, there is something truly truly transcendent about the music, espeically of the High Renaissance. Especially when I sing it, which I do every week with the wonderful St. Joseph's Choir here in Hamilton.

As far as my belief in all the rest of it -- no, I don't believe that Christ was necessarily THE son of god to the exclusion of all others. And I fail to see why The Virgin Birth matters from a spiritual perspective (though I do understand why it matters on the socio political level)

Despite all of my misgivings, I do observe the season of Lent. The reasons are both practical and spiritual. From a practical perspective, it's a good time to practise the discipline of exploring what is really essential. It's grounding and makes me very aware of the things which sustain my life at the basic level, and what is not strictly necessarily.

It's also healthy -- I don't need a bottle of wine a week. It's easier on the budget to cut back, and it's also healthier. Ditto for that expensive Spanish Manchego cheese. And chocolate.

It's also good for my relationship to the rest of the planet. I'm consuming less. I'm not cutting out everything that's fun, but I'm buying less. I don't buy much to begin with, but recently I've let myself go just a bit ... I am very aware of what I don't need because of the pile of stuff in the dining room set to go out the door to Value Village.

And all of this is good for the spirit. My travels to South Asia, Kenya and Central America showed me how little a lot of people live on. And by their example, I know I can live on a lot less too. And maybe, if more people cut back on their consumption, there might be more left for them.

So I'm "depriving" myself of some of the extras. But I'm not going to cut out all of the really good things in my life. With all the time I'm saving not going to movies, or eating out, I'm going to sing -- I'm going to connect with those spirits out there, whatever they are. And I'm going to play my piano. And write. And read (Library books).

And it's only temporary. Come Easter Sunday - wine, chocolate (good chocolate) and one big exotic cheese platter.

Life is good. Even during Lent.

"Housesitting for Canada's Literati since 2006"

2010-07-15T15:09:00.006-04:00

That's what my friend Ellen said I should put on my business card. I seem to be spending less and less time at home in my minimal apartment and more and more time at my friends' well outfitted condos while they're away in exotic destinations.

Works out well. This week I'm at Lil's in Cabbagetown. Lovely 3 bedroom condo, brand new kitchen. Then in August I'm at Margaret's, also in Toronto ... swimming pool, piano, big house and a car to use while I'm there (which is a huge bonus since I haven't owned a car since I smashed mine up in 2006 (the only accident I've ever had .. nobody was hurt except my car, yet my insurance company decided that my insurance needed to go up to $5000 a year. I think they were surprised when I laughed at them. Really hard. And for a long time)

Je digress ...

So I'm enjoying going to readings, art openings and also working on my own stuff. So much easier when there are no distractions. I do all my best work away from home.

And I've had some really good discoveries ... the Surutha takeout, just around the corner on Parliament Street. Sri Lankan food .. really inexpensive. I just had a mouth searing, flaky, delicious Masala Dosa, which is like a crepe filled with hot curry. Yum. Having been to Sri Lanka, I'm really happy to have found this place.

Now here's a question: When did Toronto panhandlers started suggesting a minimum contribution? This guy came up to me in Kensington Market this morning. Started talking to me, asked me if I could spare anything for lunch. I always keep a pocket of change for this kind of request. And then he asked me "do you have a five? I'd rather have a five". Whoa, man, that's nerve. He was friendly and good natured when I told him with a large note of exasperation in my voice that no, he couldn't have five. Some people's kids, eh? ...

Speaking of nervy, the two cats that live in Lil's house are harassing me for lunch. Nothing more to report of any interest right now anyway. Just a fun time with lots of space for new ideas. And I'm finally getting the self-discipline together to realize some of these big ideas. Feels so good.

Yes, I did come back ..

2010-07-01T20:57:00.005-04:00

If the only way you know me is through this blog, you might be thinking I decided to stay in Central America. I did come back. Had an amazing time, which you can hear all about by subscribing to The Green Planet Monitor. I'm working on my last story and sending it to Dave, my producer this week. And the, no more trips until Dave and/or I write another grant for another infusion of travel funds.

BTW,the picture above is taken from a mountaintop in Honduras .. I love Honduras .. I need to go back there again. But for a while, I think I'll hang around home a bit more.

I was thinking today about how my life has changed since I began this blog. It was in June of 2005. Marriage had quickly and unexpectedly self-destructed the previous December. My friends Tim and Simone invited me to come down to Bear River, Nova Scotia to get some perspective by the Bay of Fundy. Then, back home to the arduous task of disassembling 20 years of marriage, selling the house, dividing the stuff, yelling at the gods ...

Then, two years of rootlessness. By choice. Summer in Vancouver, the fall in south Asia, back to Hamilton in 2007, where I have been ever since. With some really great trips to Central America, Africa, Nova Scotia again ...

Five years later, reflecting back .. it's been hard. (though I have to say, if your heart has to break, no better place to mend in than in the Himalayas. Or on the Serengeti. Or even having a drink between planes at Heathrow). And, even though I responded by living life large, it still took a long time to be where I am right now ... happy again, making a living, doing work that I love, with lots of people in my life I love and who love me.

It's all working out ... think I'll get back to doing some more writing here .. I've been mostly concentrating on writing material that brings in money. And that's important but so is the stuff I do for myself. So, hi again ... time to get back into the habit of writing just for me. And you, my friends who visit here to see what I'm up to these days ... (though most of you know because you're all on Facebook .. blogs aren't so essential these days. how times change ...)

Almost lift off

2010-02-14T02:08:00.002-05:00

It's two am ... I tried to sleep last night. Went to bed at about 10 pm dozing while watching a bit of the Olympics. Those ski jumpers are amazing. What a feeling it must be to hurdle down a hill and then be airborne for 100 feet (or is it metres?).

Rather nice to catch a glimpse of snow before I go. Last night here in Toronto it snowed too. Hard to believe that tonight I'll be in a climate that feels like summer.

I'm feeling surprisingly calm for someone who is going into uncharted territory. Fortunately, it's my own uncharted territory. Lots of people have charted it before me, and I am really grateful to be travelling with the good folks of World Accord - Terry, David and Nelson.

My itinerary:

- land in San Pedro Sula, Honduras about noon
- travel to a farming village about five hours away in northwest Honduras
- stay in Honduras about five days .. then down to Antigua, Guatemala for a day of r & r
- then go to Chimaltenango, not too far from Guatemala City
- Guatemala City on the 24th until March 3rd
- March 3 - go to San Salvador
- March 5 - back home to arrive in Toronto at the frosty hour of midnight ...

.. 2:17 already .. cab will be here in about 20 minutes .. good morning all, I'll update you when I'm at a computer again ... this time in the sunny south.

Time to start blogging again ..

2010-02-02T08:19:00.003-05:00

Good morning, friends. The reason why I started this blog in the first place is so that my friends can keep track of me when I travel.

So far, this blog has covered India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Kenya. With stops at airports in between. Closer to home, I've been to Vancouver, Bear River Nova Scotia, Ottawa, South River Ontario, Windsor Ontario and places I've forgotten about.

And now I'm going to be adding Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. I leave next Sunday, the 14th .. Valentine's Day and my nephew Anthony's first birthday ..

I'm doing another installment of documentaries for The Green Planet Monitor, the podcast/radio series I have been working on with my buddy Dave Kattenburg for many years now.

Today, I'm summarizing my story list, trying to figure out where to stay in San Salvador, whether to stay longer in Guatemala City and take the TICA bus to San Salvador .. many questions.

And as is my usual state of mind before a big trip, I have the usual moments when I just sit immobilized in my comfy chair as I say to myself "I can't believe I'm doing this .."

More later .. much more later.

Happy New Ear!

2010-01-02T09:08:00.003-05:00

and New Year too .. for my new year's resolution, thanks to Kathryn Borel Jr. (author of Corked! - a Memoir of Wine and Existential Dread" -- from today's National Post (why I subscribed to the NP is a story for another blog entry"

I would do a link to her book but I can't find one. If it's as good as this quote, I want to read it.

Says she:

"Don't trust all your feelings right away ..

I have a long and explosive history of experiencing a large scale feeling, trusting that it is correct and making twisted life decisions based on what turns out to be a mere impulse, as opposed to a real emotion. Like most significant things, big life truths or important feelings tend to take a bit of time to reveal themselves in full... I now generally squash the impulse to make public -- or private -- proclamations of big feelings. I mix the truth with a little time and light and measured discussion and see if it holds as steady as I thought it did in the first place. And then I act."

I think she's a bit further ahead of me when it comes to this particular skill .. I expect this will be hard work for me.

My new year's project

2009-12-29T12:04:00.004-05:00

Dear Media Friends and Supporters:

Way back in the 1980’s, at the tender young age of 25, I discovered that my work in media didn’t have to be as an observer, “objectively” reporting on things that I saw around me in a dispassionate, detached way.

I’d learned in school and by doing classical journalism that this was the only role of the media maker. And then I arrived in Vancouver, 1982 ... a city in a polarized province reeling from the cutbacks of the Bill Bennett government. Cruise missile testing in Cold Lake Alberta was a catalyst for some of the largest peace marches in history. Ronald Reagan had just arrived in the White House. For seven years his ideological mistress, Margaret Thatcher, had been convincing us from 10 Downing Street that only the rich and powerful mattered. And here in Canada, too many people were starting to believe her.

It was in the midst of this climate that I discovered Vancouver Co-op Radio and its message that media makers didn’t have to stand by and merely watch. We could write, take photos, do documentaries, create video and audio art in a way that participates in society, not just reports it. We could be catalysts for change, not just hold up a mirror to reflect the status quo.

Ever since that time, I’ve looked at my work in a different way. I have done my share of “objective” journalism but no longer believe that this is the only role for people working in the media. In more recent years, my experience in community-based activist media has taken me in some interesting directions. Two years at Appalshop, a major American community media arts organization dedicated to social change in the heart of the impoverished, environmentally devastated Appalachian Mountains; working with teenagers in an American inner city living in poverty; working with immigrants and mental health survivors helping them use tools of the media to tell their own stories .. All of this and my continuing involvement in community radio and the internet magazine Rabble.ca have strengthened my belief that we have important work to do.

Comparatively speaking, media for social justice is less developed in Canada than it is in places such as the United States, Europe and the UK. For a few years now I’ve wanted to start a new organization to provide a focus for work of people who share my aesthetic and my perspective on life (and more practically, so we can get grants that are only available to organizations.) I know there are a lot of you out there .. because many of you are my friends.

I am writing to tell you I am now doing it. The main goal of the yet-unnamed organization – to produce new works about some of the burning issues of our time; to create festivals, exhibitions and other dissemination opportunities for artists working in social justice oriented media; to provide workshops for our fellow travellers. And most important – to build a community of artists who work in social change so that we can work collaboratively and support each other in our work.

This is just beginning, so I don’t have it all figure out yet. If you would like to join the community of artists who have already said “Count me in”, get in touch. We’ll figure it out together.

Because this is important work we’re all doing, especially now. In many ways, it feels like the work I did and the things I learned way back in the 1980’s was just the dress rehearsal for the conditions we find ourselves in now. Our voices are needed now more than ever.

In the words of an inspiring writer, Clarissa Pinkola Estes ..

“I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. .. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

… For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

.. Do Not Lose Heart. We Were Meant for These Times”

In Peace,
Victoria

Big Changes, Big Travel

2009-08-23T08:07:00.002-04:00

It's a condition of our time .. too many blogs, too much Facebook, too much Twitter ..

Well no, I'm not going to say it's Too Much, because I just love this new internet environment. But it does mean it's hard to get everything done. And as usual, my businessy, arty blogs get more attention than this one, my personal reflections.

I originally set up this blog as a way for all my friends to stay connected when I'm on the road. Time for me to heat it up again, because I am once again GOING ON THE ROAD!

Not until the new year. I need some time to sort things and get rid of all the things I never should have packed up and kept in storage last time. And I need time to develop the plan. Which so far includes house-sitting in Toronto, a trip to Guatemala, a few months on either the west or the east coast doing my audio art camp again.

And I would dearly love to spend some time in Montreal studying with Montreal's famed electroacoustic composers. Especially Eldad Tsabary, who I had a brief and wonderful time with a couple of weeks ago studying Ear Training for the Electroacoustic Composer (including games like Name that Frequency. Is it 5000 khz, or 7,000?)

In the meantime, I am continuing to build business doing podcasts for clients. And building a new organization focussing on Media Arts and Social Engagement. Theoretically I'll be able to work anywhere there's a high speed internet connection.

It's all good .. I'm enjoying the present and really looking forward to the future.

Love
Victoria

Remembrance of Easters past

2009-04-12T08:03:00.003-04:00

Happy Easter, everyone. Beautiful day today .. reminds me of Easters back on the farm at my grandparents' place. First tulips of the spring (we lived in extreme southern Ontario where flowers bloom three weeks earlier than down the road in Toronto. So while the daffodils are out down here, the tulips are likely coming out in Ruscom).

Childhood memories of Easter all revolve around being able to finally go outside without a coat on with my city cousins. In recent years, one of my strongest memory was Easter morning in the Appalachian mountains ... I decided to haul out the mattress and sleep under the stars so I could watch the sunrise. I awoke to the sound of birds .. one of the best choirs I've heard in my life.

So Happy Easter, Passover or whatever Rite of Spring you celebrate. The Light has returned after the long, dark winter.

The Nature of Progress

2009-04-01T16:26:00.003-04:00

For the first time in my life, I decided that I was going to go to the gym on a regular basis.

That was last August. The first few months (until about December) were really, really painful. The minutes dragged by so slowly, my legs complained at me constantly. I ran out of breath. I could run for maybe a minute at a time at a speed of about three and a half miles an hour (which isn't even a fast walk) before I had to drop my speed back. My heart rate maxed out at 140 once I approached a 4 mph ... it was working hard.

Well, today I ran at four and a half miles an hour for five minutes without stopping (hey, I know it's not marathon standard but really good for me). I even got up to 2 minutes at 5 mph. I couldn't get my heartbeat to go over 140 even at that speed .. at 3.5, it barely went over 118 today.

And as I ran and walked I reflected on how much harder I have to work now to get the same result (actually I wasn't so much reflective as pissed off). Somehow it just didn't seem fair. Do I have to keep working so damn hard ALL the time?

But that's what happens. I do more and more, and expect more and more from myself. And how often do I stop and look at what I can do now that I couldn't do last summer, and compliment myself on how great I'm doing?

That's what I am realizing. I will always expect a lot of myself. When I achieve one milestone, I will constantly look ahead to the next one. And that's good .. as long as I remember to appreciate where I am at this moment and allow myself at least a little bit of contentment before taking another gulp of water, mopping the sweat off my forehead and challenge myself to Five and a half miles an hour.

Hello from Ottawa

2009-03-19T03:07:00.003-04:00

It's four in the morning
The end of December
I'm writing you now
just to see if you're better ...

Whoops, that poem has already been written. Thanks Leonard.

Doesn't matter ... I just wrote my own. Do you ever have that happen to you .. you wake up at some early hour of the morning and a perfect poem or story is going through your head. And you want to just say go away, I want to sleep. Kind of like a lover who is trying to get your attention and you're in the middle of a good dream.

I got up and wrote it. I'm glad. Except now I can't get back to sleep. Oh well, doesn't matter. Lots of good poems going through my head.

Something about Ottawa does this to me ... for some reason I am at my poetic best when I am up here. I think it's because when I lived here I had lots of time that I could spend on things not directly related to making a living. It was nice not to have to be the primary income earner for a change ...

I'll let you know when the poem is ready for publication.

Living in Two Places

2009-01-25T09:07:00.004-05:00

See! Said I would do another update!

For the past month, I have been living in two places. Half the week, from Sunday to Wednesday, I am at my friends Lil and Ronnie's. I'm housesitting for them for a couple more weeks.

Then, from Thursday to Sunday, I am back in my own place here in Hamilton.(The photo above is a winter scene from my balcony of my Hamilton home, looking over to Locke Street)

This kind of lifestyle has its challenges. But every time I do it, I am reminded that I am the kind of person who really likes this way of life. I've done it several times before .. first, when Barry was in Ottawa and I couldn't leave Hamilton yet. Then when he was in Appalachia and I didn't want to entirely leave Canada. Now I'm realizing I really like living like this.

Some of the challenges -- never knowing which place my favourite sweater is living this week. And groceries are a challenge -- inevitably, I end up packing the lettuce, tomatoes and zucchini that won't last until I come back to whatever house I am leaving. So my backpack tends to be heavy. And it always takes me a few hours to acclimatize to whichever place it is I'm at.

The advantages -- I see a lot more of my friends. It makes my Hamilton friends seem more special because I don't get to see them all the time (absence makes the hearts grow fonder). And I get to spend time with my Toronto friends, many of whom I haven't seen in a long, long time.

The change of scenery really shifts my perspective and gets me thinking about change .. too easy to get "settled" and dull in one place. At least it is for me.

I want to keep on living like this. I won't be able to afford to live in too many places. But I do want to have two homes .. one here in Southern Ontario and one in Bear River, Nova Scotia. And fill it in with invitations to housesit for friends in other parts of the country and even the world.

I am really glad that my business (Sound Out Media -- multimedia productions for the internet) can be done any place where there is high speed ..

I have not abandoned this blog ...

2009-01-22T09:37:00.003-05:00

If you looked at this blog on a regular basis, you might come to the conclusion that Heading To Central Blissville is an orphan.

No, it's not ... it's just that I have been working on my OTHER blog, which is business-related (therefore money generating related). This particular blog is all about me .. the rest of my life that reflects the real, personal me.

Got to admit, I haven't been taking the time to reflect the personal side of me in recent months. Seems like I did lots and lots of that in the past four years so now time to focus on my more public side ...

If you want to see how the public side of me is evolving (and I know you do), my other blog is www.soundoutmedia.com

Check it out and check back here as I pay more attention to this blog and the other sides of my life!

Happy new year .. and congratulations all on the inauguration of Barack Obama .. I can feel the world turning in a better direction ...

Happy Snow Days!

2008-12-07T10:25:00.002-05:00

I know, we haven't had any official snow days yet. But we're off to a good start. We haven't had an early start to the winter like this for at least a few years.

Early Happy Christmas .. now that work is winding down, I am going to be taking more times and write blogs for fun rather than just business ...been a while since I've been here!

Looking South

2008-08-28T21:00:00.004-04:00

I'm watching the Democratic National Convention and listening to all the references to the election of 2000.

At that time, we were in the process of moving to the States. In retrospect, I didn't really want to go. Don't know whether it was because I felt comfortable where I was .. in Ottawa, content in my quiet little Canadian existence. Or whether I felt ill winds blowing .. I don't know.

We moved to the mountains of Kentucky right around the time of the election. Barry was already down there when the election happened .. I was still up in the north country packing up our stuff. He was coming back in a week to load up the truck, pack up me and the cats and then be out of here. We were on the phone with each other constantly ... talking about what our new life would look like.

I remember the night of the election .. watching what was happening and feeling more and more like I didn't want to go as the election returns rolled in. And then travelling south down I-81 a week later, thinking .. this place is going crazy. (On top of it all, our car broke down on the highway, leaving us stranded in a hamlet with a gas station, a Burger King and a Best Western for two days while we wondered if we were ever going to get down there. I think I just wanted to turn around and come home).

When we got down there, Barry's co-workers at the Media Arts Centre where he was working said "you sure picked a hell of a time to move down here". And we didn't know the half of it ... the next year, the planes hit the towers, the country prepared for war and I said time to get out of here ...

In some ways I am glad that I spent two years in the States. After all, can we really understand the world without understanding the US of A? No .. but then again, can we really understand the US with all its contradictions, its sense of itself which doesn't match people in other countries' sense of the US? A country that can throw around the word "liberty" and "freedom" yet its actions demonstrate either that they don't know what the words mean .. or that they do and just don't care?

It was time to come home ... I wonder if I'm any wiser from having wrestled with some of the questions about the contradictions I saw. Or whether I'm just confused by it all.

I like this picture

2008-08-04T09:15:00.005-04:00

I just like this picture .. feeling a bit nostalgic this morning. These were taken at WMMT in Kentucky. Hi Barry .. thinking of you .. hope you're doing well.

Living Alone - Pros and Cons

2008-08-04T09:01:00.003-04:00

This isn't my house ... it's a friend's in Appalachia

I've been living alone for the first time over the past year since I was 25. This morning as I got up and drank my coffee, I got thinking about what I like and also don't like about this. Here's my summary.

What I love:

*I can decorate however I want. I can use the colour pink. And lots of lace if I want.
* I can fling my stuff wherever it lands and tidy up whenever I want. Or not.
* I don't have to negotiate space for my stuff and his stuff.
* I can have quiet and not talk whenever I don't want to.
* being able to concentrate on work without interruption.

What I don't love:

* waking up by myself
* cooking for somebody else .. I love cooking but I need an appreciative audience
* not having somebody to share morning coffee with. I end up drinking the whole pot myself and then I'm on caffeine overdrive all day.
* having to hang pictures, move heavy furniture and do all the household stuff by myself
* those wonderful spontaneous conversations which break out at unexpected times.

I think conversation is what I miss most of all. And the hugs too. For now, I like living by myself but I don't think I want this forever. That's been a bit of a shift in the last couple of months ... it's a good space to be in .. content but looking ahead to the day when I might want a change.

Hi again, everybody ...

2008-08-01T15:46:00.003-04:00

Been a while since I've posted .. just wanted to pop in and let you know this isn't an abandoned blog, despite the fact that I now have THREE MORE!

This online habit is taking a lot more to organize. It's fun though .. I wouldn't do this if I wasn't such a queen geek.

In case you're wondering what I'm up to .. mostly working this summer. If you look back on my previous summer blog entries, I've been hardly working instead of working hard. It was good and a welcome break.

But now I'm back at it, business is growing well .. social life is doing well .. I'm happy. No big changes contemplated .. maybe I'll move somewhere but not until next spring. Planning my Guatemala trip the end of October ..

Until then, I am here .. and liking where I am.

Rethinking Appalachia

2008-07-01T14:53:00.005-04:00

There are many places I have yet to write about. One of those places is Appalachia, where me and my then-husband Barry lived, from 2000 until 2002.

I am about to go back to my dozens of sound files that I recorded when I was down there .. square dances, old time fiddle music, clear mountain springs high enough that the pollution couldn't get to it ... the distinctive accent, the coal trucks, the clicking and hissing of mountain bugs on sweaty hot summer nights.

If things go according to plan (that is, if my arts funding comes through), I will be starting to create a documentary poem with my good friend Angelyn deBord. Ange is a mountain woman, born in North Carolina, who has lived almost all of her adult life in a hundred year old house on a mountaintop. She's an accomplished writer, actor, painter, storyteller and she's now learning how to play the fiddle. It will be wonderful to go to Angie's mountain and work with her again.

It will also be a time to process my own thoughts and feelings about a time which was very beautiful, transformative, full of of good things. But also full of challenges. We happened to move down there two weeks before the first US stolen election, and we also lived there when the planes hit the towers. There was a kind of intensity that was hard to put into perspective .. and a very good opportunity for insight into what America really is as opposed to what it says it is. Revealing, but also disturbing on a number of levels ...

It was also the beginning of the end of my 23 year marriage. I wonder sometimes if we would have split up if we hadn't gone down there, and whether it really was a good idea.

But that's hindsight .. and now there are stories to write ... I almost feel ready ... almost ...

My new podcast and blog

2008-06-25T10:39:00.005-04:00

A Gypsy in Kashmir .. heading 300 miles south to winter grazing grounds

I am very excited. I've been trying to find a way to combine travel, listening and tourism. Lots of people do photography but I haven't found anyone who takes sound pictures like I do.

So I have started a new blog and will be doing a new podcast ... I won't be announcing the name until I get the domain name registered (it's competitive out there). It will be a place where I can post my sound art from different places and also my journalistic pieces I've done. I've got enough pieces done to keep me going for at least a couple of months. Soundwalks in Nairobi, temple bells in Kathmandu, falcons on the tundra ... listening to my sounds brings me right back there.

The whole idea being that you don't just have to take your camera .. sound recording devices and editing program are inexpensive enough and easy enough that you can bring home your memories in sound. And add them in a slideshow presentation to your photos .. maybe even do some poetry around it ...

I'll let you know when I get some content up ... I'm so excited. Especially about getting enough traffic to my site to get free trips ...

Current blog count:
this one -- Heading to Central Blissville
Sound Out Media - my tips and tools blog
My non yet announced blog and travel and sound

Podcasts:
The House of Sound and Story - (which I really need to do more frequently)
The Green Planet Monitor (a project of Earth Chronicle Productions -- new series coming starting in September)

I know that sounds like an awful lot of podcasts and blogs .. but believe me, I know people who have 10!

My Next Mode of Transportation

2008-06-19T16:11:00.003-04:00

I'm going to move somewhere next year at this time.

It will probably be a city. I really want to move to Nova Scotia but I don't want to buy a car. Partly because of the expense, mostly because I had one small accident, the first and only in my entire 25 years of driving. And the insurance companies want to charge me extortionate rates.

The damage to the car was around $8000. The book value of the car was only $6000. So they wrote it off. The person who hit me only got a scuff on her bumper. So this is justification to charge me $5000 a year in insurance?

I'll stop ranting now. I will rent cars. And live in cities. I will not own my own car as long as the insurance companies want $5000 a year from me.

If I did move to Nova Scotia, I think I would buy a horse. It would be less than an hour to ride to Digby to get groceries. Of course, Superstore doesn't have a hitching rail, so that's something I'd have to lobby for.

Overall, in rural areas, it makes a lot of sense. Still haven't ruled out the idea.
But I think I will continue to be a city dweller. Maybe Toronto. Maybe Ottawa. Leaning towards Ottawa ... where for sure there is no place to hitch your horse ..

Lessons in Patience

2008-06-14T17:18:00.005-04:00

Trying to slow down for a good look around

The other day a friend of mine and I drove past a garden shop. They were advertising Impatiens for .69 cents. My friend said "you sure don't need any of those. You're already impatient enough".

I have never been known for my patience. I attribute it partially to my background working on current affairs shows. I could often get three stories chased down and written in the time it was taking others on the show to finish one. My secret ... know when it's not going to happen and move on to the next one.

It is very useful to know when to cut and run. But to live a truly balanced life, one must also have the capacity to sit and wait. And I'm not good at that. Especially right now. The last three years in my life have been one of those phases where growth took place slowly, (if at all, sometimes it seemed .. things moved so slowly for a while there that I think they were actually going backwards).

And now things are just bursting wide open. All kinds of exciting possibilities. Great things happening .. it's kind of like Christmas. So much to open, so much to be excited about. I want it all. NOW.

I am very consciously trying to slow myself down, telling myself that everything still takes time even when time is travelling at a dizzying pace. So much value in slowing things down a bit.

So I try to meditate (never have been very good at it), try to live in the moment, try to tell myself that some things are still going to take their sweet time. And not drinking as much coffee ... I am like a madwoman on four cups of coffee in the morning.

Ah yes, this quest for patience.

The biggest challenge is that I want more patience NOW.

The Richness of the Question

2008-06-03T17:19:00.004-04:00

In my last post, I wrote a bunch of notable statements that I heard at the Deep Wireless Festival. One of them is staying with me.

It's from Chris Brookes presentation "Making it Rain". He told a story about a snake .. can't remember what the snake connection was, but this snake asked the question "Why would you destroy the richness of the question with the poverty of an answer?"

Maybe it's because I ask questions for a living. Or maybe I ask questions for a living because it's something I've always done. Journalists are the answer seekers. In my art, which is not always journalism, I am always an answer seeker.

In my personal life, I also ask a lot of questions. And I'm always looking for answers. Life is a mystery to be solved. Ambiguity is just something to be contended with, not something to be enjoyed like a foggy day.

The reason why I am drawn to Chris's (and the snake's) question is that maybe, finally, I am starting to enjoy the questions. For the first time in my life, I am starting to relax with the idea of mystery .. of not needing to know the answers to everything.

It's slow growth, though. I have to remind myself to be patient. I have to remind myself that not knowing what I'm going to be doing every minute of the day tomorrow is good. That there is a lot of life in the unpredictability, because then I am open to the possibilities I wouldn't see by requiring everything to conform to a predictable path.

Don't expect instant patience from me right away .. but I'm planning to be around this world for a lot longer ... so I do have some time to work on it. Another good thing that happens with patience is accepting that I am a work in progress.

I am the richness of the question. I am not the answer.

Deep Wireless

2008-06-01T20:18:00.002-04:00

This weekend was the annual gathering of the Tribe of Radio Producers.

The Radio without Boundaries conference is part of the Deep Wireless Festival, presented by an intrepid group called New Adventures in Sound Art.

I started this conference until it was passed on to the capable hands of Nadene Theriault Copeland and Darren Copeland. So naturally I feel a bond to this event that goes deeper than other events with which I am involved.

Hard to describe what happens when people get together united by a common passion for the work they do. Sound people are a rare breed, radio people even rarer. Add artist to the mix and it's truly an adventure in every sense of the word.

In addition to being the radio art deejay streaming on line to Free103.9, occasionally running two mixers at a time, I got to reconnect with people whom I haven't seen in a long time. And meeting people for the first time who have either known me or vice versa through the radio listserves I am on. It's a great community.

Here are some of the best quotes from the weekend:

"Radio is a process art, rather than a product" -- Tetsuo Kowgawa, visiting artist from Japan.

"The role of the producer is to ask clarifying questions. The producer is a fresh set of ears" - Neil Sandell, Senior Producer, CBC Radio's program "Outfront"

"A radio producer is only a radio producer if somebody tunes in" -- Christopher Allworth, Halifax (but I've decided I can leave "radio producer" on my business card anyway, even if I don't know if anybody's listening"

"The Moral High ground is where money flows away from" - Andreas Kahre, performance artist, Vancouver

I learned that when you only use one piece of duct tape on a dog's collar, your recording device ends up in the middle of Dundas Street" -- Marjorie Chan, one of this year's commissioned artists who did a piece about what dogs say. Further reflections -- little dogs are no damn good if you're trying to get the essence of dog. They don't record well.

And my favourite -- recounted in a story by Newfoundland artist Chris Brookes -- think about this several times -- it's truly a profound question about the deep mysteries of life:

"Why would you want to destroy the richness of the question with the poverty of an answer?"

What I'm doing ...

2008-04-21T14:54:00.004-04:00

I haven't checked in here for a while so thought I would provide an update.

It feels like a slower time of the year right now .. my broadcast tech consultant job at Wilfrid Laurier University is winding down ... I'm working on some podcast projects and learning a lot which I need to know as my business grows .. learning how to take pictures which aren't just happy accidents (I have been told I have a pretty good eye .. the way I measure competence is whether I can look at something, analyze how I did it and do it again. Not at that point yet but getting better).

The big news is that The Green Planet Monitor has received another year of funding. I will be going to Guatemala in the fall. Other than that, maybe a trip to Nova Scotia in July ... a lot of going to festivals since it is summer season, hanging around home and doing some serious urban gardening on my balcony.

It's all good .. life is interesting and entertaining and as always, well worth the trip ...

PS - Happy birthday to all my friends and family who are April Fools .. there are a lot of them this month.

The Wild Hawk Winds of March

2008-03-10T10:40:00.002-04:00

I wrote this four years ago. This winter I've been visited by several hawks who fly by my window and perch on the antennaes on the roof of the apartment building across from me. Since it's March, and since the hawks are here .. it is worth reprinting ...

*****************************************************

March 2003 - 107 Victoria Ave. S. Hamilton Ontario

I saw something rare and special this morning on my usual walk around the neighbourhood with my dog Ursula.

It was especially beautiful this morning, with one of the last snows of the season coating the trees. Nonetheless, I was deep in thought working on a problem that I wasn’t convinced really had an answer. I looked up in the sky, saw a bird soaring overhead. At first I thought it was a seagull, a common sight in downtown Hamilton where I live. It wasn’t. It was a beautiful red-tailed hawk.

I have never seen a hawk in our neighbourhood. I see them lots of other places – I counted 17 of them one day on a drive to Toronto. Hawks appear in my life all the time, but never here.

Whenever a hawk appears, I know that it’s a time to pay attention because something is speaking to me.

My rapport with hawks began in the summer of 1999. I was at art camp – one of the other people there was a Mohawk artist who told me that I need to pay attention to the animals that appear in my life. “Animal medicine” he called it. He said that he thought the animals I needed to pay attention to were the bear, which is about hibernating and journeying into oneself, and the badger, which is about self-protection.

But no bears and badgers appeared, so I didn’t think about it again.

A few months later I was in my second floor studio, working on yet another seemingly unsolvable problem. I went to the window to get some outside inspiration. Sitting in front of me, eye level on the fir tree five feet in front of the window was a big, magnificent hawk. We looked each other in the eye for what seemed like half an hour. Probably only five minutes, but time stood still as we stared in each other’s eyes.

Since that time, hawks have appeared whenever I needed them. One of the most startling was the time when I stood at the foot of my grandparents’ grave, feeling especially sad despite the fact that they’ve been gone for many years. Through my tears I asked them “if you can see me now, are you proud of me?” Just at that moment, a hawk took flight from behind a row of tombstones two rows away. There have been many other instances like this. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that whenever a hawk appears, it is time to pay attention and look at my world from a larger perspective.

We’ve just entered the month of March, which is believed by some to be the time when the energy of the hawk is especially powerful. The winds are strong this time of year, a good time for soaring above the earth and looking down. The winds are also very unpredictable – it takes more courage than usual to soar upon the wild winds when we don’t exactly know where they are going to take us.

This month I invite you all to fly, supported by the strong currents which will carry us to unknown places. The glorious thing is that we don’t have to spend all of our efforts flapping our wings. The gusty March winds will carry us, giving us the rare opportunity to glide and look the view from above. Don’t be afraid that the wind will slam you into the side of a building, because you’re flying higher than that. Besides, if you don’t like where the wind is taking us, all you need to do is use your strong wings to take you in another direction.

And while you’re enjoying your wild ride, think of what it’s all for. Remember that the hawk is the messenger. According to native legend, the hawk brings word to us on earth from the spirit world of our grandparents and the Creator. So think about what messages you bring to those around you, and like the hawk, cry them loudly to those who need to hear it.

Cry them out boldly – the hawk is not afraid of its power.

My Poor Little Neglected Blog ....

2008-03-07T08:28:00.002-05:00

I have been unfaithful. I shamefully confess, there is another blog in my life.

My new blog is dedicated to communications and technology. It's for my new company Sound Out Communications and can be found here.

I will make a point to focus my attentions on both my blogs, though. The two are very different -- Sound Out is more about facts and ideas you can use in your communications strategy. Business oriented.

Heading to Central Blissville will continue to be the places where I post my innermost thoughts, ideas and perspectives on the world.

I'm still here ...moving in new directions all the time ...

A Lesson in Letting Go

2008-02-19T19:06:00.002-05:00

Just when I think I've really let it all go ...

I thought I had a bunch of stuff in a storage locker .. the stuff that didn't get divided up properly when we split up. Mostly boxes of stuff .. papers and junk. I can't even remember what was there. Except I think most of our pictures and sentimental stuff was there. The Victoria and Barry puppets from the puppet show at our wedding. Likely our wedding pictures too ..

I'd been wondering what to do with the wedding pictures. Seems I don't have to think about it anymore. Because they're all gone ... thrown out in the junk.

This is hard. Also a lesson in detachment. I can't even remember what was in there. So I can't really miss it if I don't remember I ever had it, can I?

Is this what memory loss feels like? To know you had something but you can't remember for love nor money what it was you had ...

Roses for Kenya

2008-02-13T17:08:00.003-05:00

These roses were in the lobby of Hotel La Mada in Nairobi, the place where I visited for the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio was held in September.

Roses are one of the main export crops of the Rift Valley in Kenya. It's almost Valentine's Day. Ordinarily those roses would be headed for Europe. I am posting my picture of these roses for the people of Kenya ... these roses, which were picked by ordinary Kenyans trying to make a living to feed their families. These roses are for you, in hope and in solidarity.

I am listening back to the recordings I made at the awards gala, the high point of the conference which was organized by the Kenya Chapter of the IAWRT. It was a happier time in Kenya, a few weeks before the election call -- the election that scarred the face of Kenya perhaps forever. The theme of the conference was, ironically, Women Making Peace.

The sounds I am hearing are the sounds of music ... drums, lively songs in the local Swahili language. Voices of women .. from all over the world but mostly from Kenya, laughing.

I am hearing speeches which talk of difficult times for Kenyan women, but with an unmistakeable tone of hope that things were getting better. Talk of the upcoming election, the wish and desire for more representation by women in the highest halls of power.

If we had been able to see the future, would there have been all this hope? Good thing we couldn't have seen what was ahead or maybe we wouldn't have even all come to Kenya in the first place.

I am grateful that I had this opportunity to see this country when it was optimistic, when people really believed that things were getting better. And that the upcoming election, only the second free election in the country's young history, would bring even better things.

These roses are for you, women of Kenya. For strength, for resilience as you continue to work for peace in your fractured, bleeding country. See these roses for the beauty that they, and you, are.

The Ides Of February

2008-02-05T11:34:00.001-05:00

If Julius Caesar had lived in Canada, the Ides of March would have been the Ides of February (for those of you who aren't up on your Shakespearean references, the Ides of March was the day that he met his death at hands of a group of senators who justified it by saying thing didn't assassinate Caesar, they committed "tyranicide".)

In the popular vernacular, the Ides of March are simply a reference to dark days. Which is what we have in Canada in the month of February.

I was talking to a friend of mine with prairie roots today about how February always seems to affect me ... doesn't matter how happy I am or how well things are going, February is the hardest month. This year, it's even tougher because I broke my glasses. To see clearly I have to wear my sunglasses, which, to coin a well used phrase, is akin to looking at the world "through a glass darkly". When I take off my sunglasses I see daylight but everything is fuzzy. And everybody who knows me knows how much I crave clarity in my life.

My friend reminded me "this is February and we are a northern people". She then reflected on her grandparents' life ... it's always been cold in February in Canada. And it used to be much colder than it is now. And they survived February just fine. Their solution, she postulates ... they just stoke the fire, stay home and just remember that spring will return.

I would imagine that the condition of depression existed back then too, so I'm sure not everybody handled it as well. Northern literature (especially the Scandinavian kind) can be very dark .. I once sat through a whole afternoon of Norwegian radio documentaries one afternoon .. holy hell, it was enough to make you want to stop living. It was kind of funny in a dark absurd kind of way.

So no Bergman this month.

So what's up with me? I'm frustrated because I'm not focussed. I'm frustrated that things are going exceptionally well but I can't seem to enjoy my success right now.

What to do? Well, I think I'll start by declaring February " the month of Take Care of ME". This is not the time to think about all of the heavy things I am used to thinking about.

When the sun comes back, I will focus once more on the fate of the world and all the people in it. Right now, I am going to remind myself that it's time to take care of me. Because, after all, we can't take care of anybody else if we don't take care of ourselves.

So I'm going to go for a walk. Eat chocolate. Borrow a musical instrument from my friend (because I'm always so much happier when I'm playing music). Not put pressure on myself. Reminding myself that it's Super Tuesday, which means GEORGE BUSH IS GOING!

And above all, reminding myself ... it's Canada. And this is February.

Update from Kenya

2008-01-31T02:57:00.001-05:00

This is a roadside cafe near the town of Naivasha in Kenya where me and my friend Njaaja stopped for tea last October. I saw the very same cafe on the website of CNN last week ... only this time it was the scene of people being beaten with sticks.

It is a very different Kenya right now that the one I visited in the fall. Hard to believe that things can change so fast.

I've been getting updates from my new friends .. ironically I haven't heard anything from the journalists I met ... likely too busy getting the story out there in the big media to communicate one-to-one. I would guess that those working for Kenya Broadcasting Corporation are fine .. busy, but fine.

I was more concerned about Leah, my friend who works at the radio station in the Korogocho slum. I hadn't heard from her in a while .. I was very relieved to hear back from her last week that she is fine. She is working on a story that we're not hearing about ... rapes and violence against women that are happening as a direct result of the current conditions.

And of course I have been even more worried about the 74 children in the Njaaga's Hope Child's Home. At first, the violence wasn't near the home so I wasn't so worried. Now it has moved closer in, and the village close to the home has had incidences of violence. Thanks to Fran, a woman here in Canada who is in constant contact with them, I am getting regular updates.

A few days ago it looked like the kids were going to be moved to Nairobi. There are now 90 of them ... James and Lucy, the two Kenyans who started the home, have taken in 16 more kids ... all between the ages of 3 and 5. Their parents were killed in the violence when they took refuge in a church. It was then was torched and they burned to death, leaving all these babies ... a blessing that the babies weren't with them in the church ... but so tragic and horrific that so many more children are being orphaned .. as if the AIDS epidemic wasn't enough to cope with.

So we just wait for news ... the other children I am concerned about in all of this are my two nieces Elizabeth and Emily. Just before Christmas their family decided to sponsor a child from the orphanage. Having friends in Africa is really a big thing in their lives ... they are sponsoring a boy named George and they wrote them letters before Christmas. My sister Lori and I have had many discussions about how much to tell her kids .. who are only 12 and 8.

Lori had a talk with Elizabeth, who's 12. She is a very sensitive little soul and is carrying around some sadness about all of this. And some fear too. I feel some responsibility for this ... I was the person who introduced my nieces to these children in Africa. And if anything happens to them, this will be a very difficult life lesson... and that I was the one who inadvertently brought this into their lives.

Somehow it's different to bring messages to "the masses" than it is to bring them to those within our small circles of family and friends. We don't ever know what kind of impact our stories bring in the greater world ... I can see clearly how the stories shared with my immediate circle has created awareness and change.

I have to constantly remind myself that we can't ever totally control the impact of our words. Telling stories and sharing them with the world requires a great deal of faith that our words will have the impact and results that we intend.

In this case, even if something bad does happen, Elizabeth will be fine even though it will be hard. And despite the gloomy tone of this piece of writing, I do have faith that the children will not be harmed. I'll keep you posted.

Word from Kenya

2008-01-05T03:56:00.000-05:00

I got a message back from James of the Children's orphanage that I visited in October. I sent him an email asking how everybody is because I was worried. Here's what I got back:

Jambo Victoria,

I am well as well as my family together with the extended family (the kids.

The political situation is quite volatile at the moment but the children are safe right now.

The skirmishes have now caused the delay of reopening of the schools. we
are trying to manage though the prices of commodities have gone very high
thereby causing lots of anxiety as to what tomorrow will bring.

my business is not doing very well following the political instability in
our country.

thank you so much for your concern. It feels much better to know someone
out there is watching us.

Best regards

james.

Ten things you didn't know about me ...

2008-01-03T17:37:00.002-05:00

A few of my friends have started the new year writing about the things people didn't know about them. So I thought I'd join the fray. Here goes:

1.) Everybody called me "Vicki" until I was 25. (when I was really little, it was "Vicki Lynn".) When I moved to Vancouver I decided to adopt the more regal version of my name.

2.) I changed majors several times in University -- I started in philosophy until I realized that there aren't many jobs out there for philosophers. I also have 3/4 of a music degree. My official degree is in Communication Studies.

3.) I spent a week living with the Moonies in rural Wiltshire in England. That's when I knew I was indoctrination proof ... they were glad to see me go because I kept correcting them on their theology. And morning wakeups at 6 am by a woman with a thick accent, singing John Denver songs accompanied by bad guitar playing .. a rare form of torment indeed.

4.) I am Catholic by choice. People who were born into the Catholic faith think I am crazy .. especially since I am a feminist and Catholic. I sometimes wonder why I did that, but I still stick by my decision. Some days more than others. I do not like this current pope and I didn't think much of the last one either.

5.) All branches of my family settled in Essex County no later than 1830. The earliest branch of the family, the Delauriers, arrived somewhere around 1775. There is a museum in Point Pelee National Park called Delaurier House, the original family homestead. Our roots go deep in the flat soil of the most southern part of Canada.

7.) I've always wanted to play in a band .. I did it when I was in my 20's .. would like to do it again. Anybody want to join me?

8.) I once shared a house with 2 crazy blacksmiths, two dogs, several horses and 25 guns. I even learned how to shoot. (The horses weren't in the house, they were in the barn). I even carried my house-mate's M-16 when we went shooting groundhogs (I'm a pacifist so I didn't kill any. Never will ..)

9.) I lived in a very primitive artist warehouse in Toronto that used to be a coffin factory. We sublet it from a man who was the current boyfriend of Anne of Green Gables (Meaghan Follows). We had the only loft with its own private bathroom .. everybody else shared the one down the hall with the people who lived under the Bathurst street bridge.

10.) I was immortalized on the CBC Radio comedy show "Double Exposure" in the '80's -- the character "Victoria Penner, small but vital reporter" was named after guess who ...

This is hard work ... I think I've gotten a bit too ordinary in recent years ...

The Wrong Side of the Digital Divide

2007-12-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas a day late, friends. Some of you have noticed that I have been unusually quiet on my blogs, my facebook, my phone ... yes, I have been incommunicado.

I am up at my parents' place in central-northernish Ontario in a small town called South River. My parents have internet, but it is dialup. They have a phone, but they have to pay for each long distance call.

I don't know whether my expectations have changed, or whether their internet is not working right. Regardless of the reason, I can't do a thing with their internet except read other people's webpages. I can receive, but even doing a simple email is a big challenge. (Some applications do work .. I've been trying to see which of my various transmission tools still work .. for some reason I can get into Blogger but not into Facebook. I can get into my Gmail account but my Magma account is hit and miss).

It's frustrating not being able to be a transmitter, but it's also a good reminder that the digital divide exists. And not just in the third world, but here in our own country. Things that we take for granted in the wired city just don't always work as well .. or at all .. out in the woods.

I hadn't really thought too much about this before my trip to Kenya. One of the panels I cohosted at the conference I attended was "Bridging the Digital Divide". The focus of the panel was to discover what the issues around connectivity were between journalists in the first and the third worlds ... I didn't do a lot of prep before I got over there because I really had no idea how big the digital divide really was.

What I found out in Kenya was: a) high speed isn't necessarily high speed .. there is not much fibre optic cable to get the signal out so they rely on satellite. Which isn't always fast b) most people go to internet cafes run by the private sector to access internet, which means that people have to pay for internet access and c) most phones are cell phones which don't work so well for internet. So most people don't have internet access. And the other thing which stands in the way of equal access is the size of websites ... many websites are now too big to load properly. I am becoming much more aware of why small is better ... some websites may contain vital information, yet can't be read properly because they're too big for the pipe to handle.

Up here in South River, there are also connectivity issues. There is dialup, but high speed is just coming to town in the new year. It hasn't been here yet because it's in a less populated area. The town will be connected to cable internet, but out here on the lake, it will be satellite, connected via a tower a couple of roads over. But we still don't know if we can get it because we may be too far or at the wrong angle from the tower. So even in a wealthy country like Canada, connectivity is not guaranteed.

Why should we care about whether or not people have access to the internet? For a lot of reasons ... but mostly because the internet is not a niche interest anymore ... it has grown to the point where it is now an essential technology to connect with the rest of the world. And if we have two different standards, some people are going to be shut out.

Like I am right now. This holiday with only a bit of internet is very nice .. I am glad I can't spend all my time on the internet. And I am developing much more of an understanding of the challenges of communicating from semi-connected places on the planet. (Facebook doesn't work at all up here! But I am also looking forward to getting back to the city so I can communicate in the ways I'm used to.

Until then .. email me at vlfenner@gmail.com ..that one seems to work .. it was also my best bet in Africa.

Editorial jobs in China

2007-12-21T09:18:00.000-05:00

This could be an editorial challenge ... check your ideas about objectivity and freedom of the press at the door??

The China Daily newspaper group is looking for English-language copy editors and writers to beef up its international team. We offer a competitive salary package, free accommodation with utilities paid for, medical coverage, and annual ticket to country of residence.

Senior copy editors
You will assist the editors of the National, Business, International, Features and Sports departments in setting goals and working on achieving them.

You should be an excellent team person who can generate ideas and think creatively, be able to rewrite totally if needed and mentor junior staff.

Ideally, you are working, or have worked, in a position of responsibility and understand what leadership entails.

You should be familiar with computer programs used in the industry.

Copy editors
You’ll work on shifts in different departments and usually have the last word before the page is sent to print.

You have to edit or rewrite copy and give snappy headlines and captions.

You would have had at least two year’s editing experience working on editing desks and be familiar with industry software.

Writers
You would have been a writer/reporter in a newspaper for at least two years and, depending on your skills, you will be assigned to one of the major departments.

If you’re interested and think you fit the bill, write to job@chinadaily.com.cn, and send your CV and samples of your work.

More adventures in Web 2.0

2007-12-17T09:32:00.001-05:00

I just got back from Ottawa where I did a workshop on podcasting and was able to talk to others who might be interested in hosting this workshop in the future.

My suitcase is still packed, it's a snowy day and I need to get to work. Since I'm not really geared up to get working yet, and thinking about the results of the last couple of days. It's a good time to collect some of my thoughts about the work I'm doing and the results of the last couple of days.

The Ottawa experience was a great way to find out why people are interested in these new technologies, and also why maybe they're not. My meetings were full of people both supportive and skeptical ... some very good questions were asked, which helps me understand what people know and don't know, where they're receptive and not.

a) who's listening to podcasts? Stats are needed. Those of us in the business know that this medium is growing, but hard information is needed for those who aren't in the loop. So I, and anybody else working in this field, need to do a lot more work on looking at the numbers. Who is listening, where are the areas of growth in terms of distinct sections of the population? More research. I'm working on it.

b) There are so many fads on the internet ... things come and go all the time. So how do we know this has staying power? I was more prepared for this one .. it is true that individual things come and go .. ie. last year it was Facebook and Youtube. No doubt its effect will diminish in the new year when the next big thing comes along. Likewise with all the individual services and applications.

Regardless of which applications come and go, it is clear that the internet will be increasingly used for moving images and sound. What we know as TV and Radio is going to be changing and a lot of the things we go to TV and radio for now are going to be moving over to the internet. Podcasting and vodcasting as we know it now may not be "the thing" in a couple of years. But people will still be listening and watching things on the internet in increasing numbers, regardless of what we call it.

What I am teaching is production skills ... and a good grounding in media production is becoming more and more necessary for people in the communications business.

c) Why should I, as a communications director, spend my money on internet multimedia production? I'll follow up later today with the stats once I crunch them. Overall, though, I would say it's because that's the way communications is moving. More and more is moving over to the internet. From a cost perspective, it's cheaper than spending money on traditional media and print. And anybody working in media relations these days knows it's getting more and more difficult to grab the ear of editors and producers in traditional media. Organizations and businesses will do well to take charge of their own message and bypass the gatekeepers. For a whole bunch of reasons ... you can send out WHAT you want to send out WHEN you want to send it out.

All good questions. For those of you who asked them, thanks for keeping me on my toes. I'll get back to you .. and you'll want to book a workshop .. it's a good time to start your journey on the learning curve.

Amazing Small World ...

2007-12-07T07:10:00.000-05:00

I am constantly amazed when people from my past pop up in surprising places. It happens all the time. And these days, not just in my own hometown. This morning, I reconnected with someone in Africa who I had met in the Netherlands.

I was trying to set up an account with an organization called One World Radio

One World Radio is an international radio exchange where producers can post material to have other stations use it. I emailed the Editor, whose name is Kelvin Chibomba to ask him some questions.

I got an email back from him this morning saying "Do you realize that you are talking to someone you tutored in The Netherlands 2001? I am kelvin Chibomba guy from Zambia. This is a small world indeed. I owe you a lot, you and Bruce Girard. I have since moved from Maz Community Radio to OneWorld Africa as Radio Editor."

When I first saw Kelvin's name and the fact that I was sending an email to him in Zambia, the thought briefly crossed my mind. But it was a quick thought because .. after all, Africa is a very big place.

The course that I facilitated was a three day intensive training for community radio station managers in the developing world. It was at the Radio Netherlands Training Centre, a division of Radio Netherlands which focusses specifically on training media people in the developing world.

Out of the ten people in the class, I have heard from/about three of the participants .. Kelvin; Fernando who moved to Toronto a couple of years after the workshop; and Diana who works with a women's radio station in Ghana (Ghana has amazing community radio).

I just love it when this happens ... and this also reminds me I should send off another CV to Radio Netherlands because I would love to do this again ...

"The People Formerly Known as the Audience"

2007-12-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

"The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about.

Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers who picked up a camera. The formerly atomized listeners who with modest effort can connect with each other and gain the means to speak— to the world, as it were."

An excerpt from an excellent article on a website called Pressthink
I think the writer was Jay Rosen, but it said "posted by" .. not sure if that meant "written by" as well. Whoever wrote it, brilliant!

It's one of many compelling articles about the changes in journalism that are happening .. despite the protestations of the traditional media machine. Well worth a read if you're doing any thinking about the changes that are taking place in our industry.

More things to think about from the article:

The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all.

* Once they were your printing presses; now that humble device, the blog, has given the press to us. That’s why blogs have been called little First Amendment machines. They extend freedom of the press to more actors.

* Once it was your radio station, broadcasting on your frequency. Now that brilliant invention, podcasting, gives radio to us. And we have found more uses for it than you did.

* Shooting, editing and distributing video once belonged to you, Big Media. Only you could afford to reach a TV audience built in your own image. Now video is coming into the user’s hands, and audience-building by former members of the audience is alive and well on the Web.

* You were once (exclusively) the editors of the news, choosing what ran on the front page. Now we can edit the news, and our choices send items to our own front pages.

* A highly centralized media system had connected people “up” to big social agencies and centers of power but not “across” to each other. Now the horizontal flow, citizen-to-citizen, is as real and consequential as the vertical one.

Amen to that!

All about You

2007-11-26T06:55:00.000-05:00

I spent 20 minutes last night doing one of the most enjoyable on-line personality tests that I've ever seen.

After being bombarded with too many TV ads, I went to www.eharmony.com to see what it was all about. (I often sign up to these things just to see if I have the nerve to do it and then ditch out after I get two or three "matches" and it then seems too weird.) I don't think internet dating will work for me but I did find this really handy quiz.

Here's the thing ... if you put down anything other than 'single' or 'divorced', they'll tell you, sorry no, they won't match you with anybody. But this is AFTER they let you do the quiz, which takes about 20 minutes.

I was truly surprised by how much they told me that I already knew .. but maybe hadn't phrased in quite the same way to myself. They tell you the positives and the negatives and even the negatives didn't seem too bad.

A few of the things I learned/rediscovered/reconfirmed about myself:
a) Holy heck, am I ever a Libra. And need to balance everything. That makes me come across as warm and friendly much of the time but sometimes cool and aloof when I'm weighing the options.
b) my emotions and intellect are pretty well balanced (after several years of working on it, I must add ...)
c) my extraversion and adventurous spirit is very appealing and some people want to be like me. At the same time, I can also scare people with my over-the-top exuberance and non-conservative perspectives.
d) the best thing was the overall description of me "TAKING CARE OF OTHERS AND TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF - You are important. So are other people, especially if they are in trouble. You have a tender heart, but you know how to establish and keep personal boundaries. You are empathetic and compassionate, but you also believe that it's best if people solve their own problems and learn to take care of themselves, if they are able." I don't think that's always true, but it's something I strive for. With a lot more success in recent years because I've been more aware of the need for boundaries and also to take care of myself.

I also it was really curious that I came out so high on the extraversion scale .. tell you a secret .. I'm really an introvert by nature. Used to hide behind chairs a lot when I was a kid. But a radio producer I once worked with said "radio people are all introverts pretending to be extraverts". Ya, what else can you say about people who go into little rooms to talk to themselves for four hours at a time ...

The link to eharmoney is here. A tip to those of you who are in committed relationships and are worried that it might look to your partner like you're on the prowl ... you can always do it together ... (although don't look over each other's shoulder while you're answering. It would distort the results).

type in 'separated' and they'll let you do the test without getting matched up. The first few questions are all about what kind of partner you're looking for ... there are only five or six of them and you can pretend. It doesn't take long to do that part ... so bear with it until you get past it into the "rate yourself" questions.

I copied all my results and saved them in Word for future reference .. because I don't know if they'll let you come back if you're not.

Have fun with it ... and tell me all about it ...

Flight from Darkness

2007-11-21T21:24:00.000-05:00

I just got an email from my friend Percy Paul, who pops up from time to time.

I have never met Percy in person. I met him over email when I was working at Outfront at CBC Radio. Percy sent in a story pitch to do an Outfront piece. At the time, he was proposing that he do a story about what it's like being a brilliant, addicted, bipolar physicist living on a rez in Northern Saskatchewan.

Our first instincts were to say "sure you are, buddy", but the rest of the group said, hey well, maybe there's something to it. And they gave it to me to fill in the details.

We never did Percy's story. Somebody else finally did, and it's going to be broadcast on CBC next week -- next Tuesday and again on Dec. 1 on The Lens. Check it out here.

I don't hear from Percy very much but each time I am glad because it means he's still alive. It's a tough life -- I don't think he's ever gotten his illness or his addiction under control. I did a google search on his name a while back ... and he is what he says he is. Brilliant and in an incredible amount of pain.

He occasionally sends me chapters of the novel that he's working on. It's a combination of confusion and randomness with occasional flashes of perception and beautiful writing.

Much like his life, I suspect. I'm really looking forward to seeing Flight from Darkness and seeing more about this enigmatic person who I've only been able to experience through his novel and his emails.

A Jewel from the Archives

2007-11-13T18:23:00.000-05:00

I have finally been getting around to unpacking most of my boxes and settling in. I ran across this, which is wonderful and well worth sharing.

For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, there is a boy tired of feeling strong when he feels vulnerable.

For every boy who is burdened with the constant expectation of knowing everything, there is a girl tired of people not trusting her intelligence.

For every girl who is tired of being called over-sensitive, there is a boy who fears to be gentle, to weep.

For every boy for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity, there is a girl who is called unfeminine when she competes.

For every girl who throws out her Easybake oven, there is a boy who wishes to find one.

For every boy struggling not to let advertising dictate his desires, there is a girl facing the ad industry's attacks on her self-esteem.

For every girl who takes a step toward her liberation, there is a boy who finds the way to freedom a little easier.

- adapted from a poem by Nancy R. Smith. Distributed by Crimethinc, a dynamic organization not as scary as it sounds. Great work in a wholesome anarchistic kind of way. Check them out.

Writing about Africa

2007-11-09T09:34:00.000-05:00

Animals can always be counted on for a good story

I am listening to a sad and funny (dark funny) interview on The Current. Today it's being hosted by Stephanie Nolan, the Globe and Mail reporter based in Africa. She just released a book called "28 Days", about her experience of AIDS.

Her guest was Binyavanga Wainaina, a Kenyan writer now living in Texas. The subject of the interview is "how to do really bad journalism about Africa".

His first tips -- write about poor people. Better still, write about animals. "an elephant provides a really well rounded story line". And "lions have good family values. See how they take care of their children"

I need to listen now to hear what I'm doing wrong ...

* when you need a dark story about human tragedy, look to Africa. Lots to be had.
* saying "I went to Africa ... I care about Africa" -- who cares? Lots of people come to Africa. Big deal.
* many non-functional people end up in Africa because they want to make themselves feel like they're compassionate people
* even literature in Africa was donor-funded literature for a long time ... want to get a grant to write a book? ... apply to western donors for a grant to write a book about AIDS eg. papa, papa, can you tell me about how my aunt tragically got AIDS and how I can make sure I don't?
* interest in Africa isn't always interest in Africa .. it's about interest in markets
* Africa is very fashionable right now, but that doesn't mean that being "fashionable" will translate into economic benefits for African people
* ignore stories like the economy is doing better, there are free elections, tourism is up
* ignore people who are making a positive change and only write about those who are desperate and dying countries

A couple of other points, not necessarily related to Africa:

* being an African living in Texas isn't so bad .. except for the scary insects like tarantulas and obnoxious animals like skunks
* he is commissioning three plays about perceptions of Africa which will be staged in Toronto in 2010 -- but he isn't going to work with the standard theme of "good, good Africa, bad, bad West"
* to be a writer means to be independent. He was nominated for the World Economic Forum's "Young Global Leader" award and he declined because he thought his credibility as a writer will be diminished. His reason, in a letter to

He subsequently declined the award. In his own words:

"I assume that most, like me, are tempted to go anyway because we will get to be ‘validated’ and glow with the kind of self-congratulation that can only be bestowed by very globally visible and significant people,” he wrote. “And we are also tempted to go and talk to spectacularly bright and accomplished people – our “peers.” We will achieve Global Institutional Credibility for our work, as we have been anointed by an institution that many countries and presidents bow down to.

“The problem here is that I am a writer. And although, like many, I go to sleep at night fantasizing about fame, fortune and credibility, the thing that is most valuable in my trade is to try, all the time, to keep myself loose, independent and creative…it would be an act of great fraudulence for me to accept the trite idea that I am “going to significantly impact world affairs." (quote from Wikipedia)

You can read an entire article "How to Write About Africa" here. It's brilliant.

So how many of his points I am I guilty of? Probably all of them to some degree. But I try hard not to. And I tend to spell African names wrong. But I doublecheck.

A couple of excerpts from Binyavanga Wainaina's web story: (because it's too good not to quote:

"Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular."

And my favourite:

"If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed."

Where I've lived

2007-11-07T14:57:00.000-05:00

My friend Flora just did a tally of all the places she's lived. I'll bet I've lived more places than you, Flora! Here's my list:

Hamilton Ontario - Queen St. S.
out of my suitcase - Vancouver, south Asia
Hamilton Ontario - Victoria Ave. S.
Wise, Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains
Ottawa - side street in Nepean
Ottawa - Fisher Avenue
Hamilton - Stinson St.
Toronto - Indian Grove
Sharon Ontario - Mount Pleasant Rd.
Mount Albert Ont - Centre Rd.
Toronto - 109 Niagara St (artist warehouse in an old coffin factory)
Toronto - 144 Eileen Ave.
Vancouver - W. 12th Ave.
Vancouver - another apartment on west 12th
Vancouver - a co-op house on w. 12th
Vancouver - a co-op house on West 16th.
Windsor - Sandwich St.
Windsor - further down Sandwich St.
Windsor - Indian Road with the Atkinsons
travelled to England
Windsor - Partington Ave.
Windsor - Pitt St. W.
Windsor - another apartment on Pitt St. W.
Essex - Kelly St.
Windsor - Laurier Hall University of Windsor
Essex - Talbot St. E.
Harrow Ontario - 7th Concession
Ruscom Ontario - tiny farming village where my ancestors settled.

So there you go. Twenty nine places in half a century. I don't think I have lived more places than Flora. Of course, if I counted the number of couches I've slept on, especially in the last three years, I win!

The Future is Radio 2.0

2007-11-06T09:55:00.001-05:00

I have been looking for a way to describe the convergence which is happening between radio and the internet. There is a big shift underway which is somewhat about radio, somewhat about the internet ... the bottom line being that something is changing and I couldn't define what it is.

Today I got a post from an international development radio colleague of mine called Local Radio 2.0. And finally I got the description/term I was looking for.

It comes from the term Web 2.0, which is the phrase referring to the new interactive capabilities of the internet as demonstrated by sites like Facebook, myspace and other social networking sites. It refers to a more general phenomena -- as Internet guru Wayne MacPhail so aptly puts it "the internet is now a conversation". And the internet allows all of us to contribute to the dialogue about the ongoing progress of the world ... we are not just passive consumers of information. We are producers.

The internet is also turning radio into a conversation. The biggest thing is that we can all create our own radio stations, and our own audio content. We can do podcasts, we can have shoutcasts, we can post sounds and images of ourselves. The internet is our transmitter.

How this will affect the transmitters we have come to know ... and the radio stations that use them ... remains to be seen. If you turn on the radio right now, you won't hear that it's significantly different than it was fifteen years ago. That is going to change, though. I don't have my crystal ball (or my crystal transmitter) handy so I am not yet hearing what that's going to mean. But it will mean something, and that something will be huge. The change may be quick, it may take place over a long time.

All I know is that we in traditional radio have to start thinking laterally and start to think of radio as the conversation that the internet is becoming.

If you want more food for thought about this, there is a conference in Kuala Lumpur in December addressing some of these issues. You can find the information on the site of the World Electronic Media Forum.

Needless to say I would LOVE to go. But I can't go anywhere for a bit .. meanwhile, I just got an invitation to speak in Norway in March ... Malaysia will have to wait for now.

Want to be an Independent Producer?

2007-10-22T08:10:00.000-04:00

People frequently ask me "how can I do what you do?" Here is a list of qualifications to be an independent producer -- by Catherine Vibert, an independent producer in the United States, from the Association of Independents in Radio listserve.

I would only add one more: for those who don't have the luxury of someone in the household with a good income -- keep the expenses low. (Easier to remember if you remind yourself frequently that this isn't just your job .. it's your life ...)

Skill Set for a Media Indie:
by Catherine Vibert, independent producer

The required skillset for independent contributors to the current media marketplace is manifold. For radio submissions alone, an indie must be skilled as:

An audio technician.
A computer junkie.
A great interviewer.
A bitchin writer.
A persistant journalist.
A brutal editor.
An awesome storyteller.
A narrator with "the voice".
A sociologist or anthropologist and/or extremely well read.
Sensitive and compassionate about inequities.
A musician (Actually, not necessary but it seems so many are, indeed one wonders how many came to public radio due to their involvement in music.)
A thorough researcher.
A good marketer.
Excellent at sales and followup.
Able to create extra time out of nowhere to listen regularly to every episode of all the programs on all public and foreign outlet radio so they are thoroughly prepared to pitch to that show�s exact style and flare.
Able to drink 10 cups of coffee in a single shot, 10 times a day.
Fearless
Rich, or married to someone who can support them.

Keeping current with contemporary media options, (and one must or they may be left behind, because as one knows, this is The Way of Progress) add photography, videography, web design, blogging, web presence management, video editing, creative slideshow creation, hours spent on researching solicitation opportunities online, oh, and the ability to pull money out of nowhere to pay for the endless supply of equipment and updates needed. If one can master all of the above, one finds they have themselves a skill set to reckon with!

And truly, once one has mastered a skill set such as that, should one really have to ask for fair remuneration for their efforts? Yes, methinks, to ask, perchance, to eat

Flying out of Africa

2007-10-19T14:31:00.001-04:00

I am going back to my journal to the thoughts I wrote while I was in Africa. This entry was written on October 9th on the plane, about 15,000 feet over Kenya.

For the first time (or maybe the second) I am feeling a small rush of emotion. Throughout this trip my emotions have felt damped down a bit. Which is good. I've been able to feel exhiliration but not fear (except a couple of minor times .. like riding on the matatus yesterday ... these crazy overpacked busses that get people around the city. And almost getting lost in a crowd of 50,000 at a presidential rally in Nakuru.)

I am doing much better at travelling -- the culture shock wasn't as great as it was in India last year. And overall, I was much more relaxed.

I was able to do more this time ... last year I never would have had the emotional strength to go into a place like Korogocho. And I don't think I would have been as free and relaxed as I was with the kids at the orphanage.

I also look at how I've changed as a journalist. I'm not as rigid as I used to be, both in my approach to my stories and also how I deal with the people who are in muy stories. I'm much more relaxed about pulling out my mike, and because of this, I've come back with a wider range of material.

This has been a goal of mine for the last 3 years -- to merge the things I've learned about compassion and justice which I've (slowly) learned to apply to myself .. and place my work within that same compassionate framework. Simply put, to get to the point where I am approaching every story from a place of love, passion, equality and fairness. Rather than frustration and anger.

I am sad to see how many journalists approach their work from fear. Which is why we get stories that are often so angry. And how the traditional journalistic method of "objectivity" often serves to distance us from ourselves.

My goal is to integrate the inner self with the outer world in a ways that reflects connection with the world outside of ourselves. Rather than distance and disconnection, which is the state of much contemporary journalism.

Not sure how I am going to do this yet .... not even sure what my new working definitions are. All I know is that there is a different way to write about the world than the one I've be taught ....

Korogocho

2007-10-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

It always takes me a long time to process what I've seen and experienced when I've been away.

Of all the places I went during my Africa trip, Korogocho is the one which is occupying most of my thoughts.

I met a wonderful young woman named Leah Murugi at the conference I was at .. The International Association of Women in Radio and Television. Leah was invited to speak because she works at Koch FM, a tiny radio station deep in the heart of the Korogocho Slum. Korogocho is the third largest slum in Nairobi, with half a million people living in a space the size of six city blocks.

We connected because I did a workshop on listening and collecting sounds, and she wanted to use some of my ideas to work with children. I was really happy about this ...

Then she invited me, and my friend Frieda (also from Canada) to visit the radio station and her home. I felt very honoured and privileged ... it must have taken some kind of trust for Leah to have the confidence to say "this is where I live ..." and not be worried about being judged or getting a bad reaction from us.

Also, Leah is a journalist. She understands that things never change unless people are shown the things that need changing. As her bright red Radio Koch T-shirt says:

Since returning home, I have read some articles on the internet by other people who have visited Korogocho. Many of these articles focus on the despair, the filth, the poverty, the City of Nairobi garbage dump that is so close to the slum that it's part of the slum.

I didn't feel this sense of despair, and as I thought about it on the plane (and when I gave myself the space to shed a tear or two), I asked myself why. And I think the reason is that Leah doesn't feel despair. She is a woman who is working to make a difference.

She sings a song, the words of which are "It was not my wish to be born in Korogocho, but God help me to do good while I am here".

She's lived there for all twenty of her young years, but the vision of her life doesn't include living there for the rest of her life. She has a plan .. to go to journalism school and get a job to move her, her mother and her sister out of the slum. I believe she will do it.

That's why I didn't feel hopeless. Though I do feel sadness for the children without adequate health care who are fighting worse germs than any of us ever will. For the friendly boys we met who Leah told us were high on glue ... for the people who don't have the hope they will ever get out of there.

But it's too much to think about all at once. Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, they say. And Leah is one bright little candle ...

And here's the front side of Leah's T-shirt, and Leah's smiling, beautiful face:

Safari Trips and Tricks

2007-10-12T04:24:00.001-04:00

Can you see the leopard?

It's 4:15 am and I am slowly getting over jetlag. Awake again but I am starting to believe I am in Canada and that it's really 4:15 am.

So, while I sit here awake, I thought I would add a few notes about the FUN part of being in Africa. Because I did take some time to play tourist in the midst of all the hard work of discovering some of the more weighty issues.

Tip #1 - Kenya is incredible safari-land. You can see all the "big six" animals here -- lion, rhino, elephant, water buffalo, giraffe and wildebeest (great name, wildebeest, isn't it?).

Tip #2 - bring a camera with a good zoom. That's why you might be having a hard time seeing that there really is a leopard in the tree in the photo above. He's there really -- draped out across the top of the branch like a rug.

Tip #3 - if you want to see lions, you have to get up very early in the morning. The only lion I saw when I was there was bronze and on the front lawn of the hotel. But I saw every other major African animal (except elephants because I was in the north where elephants are not indigenous. They could import them but they will wreck the forest because they'll eat everything in sight. So you have to go south of Nairobi if you want to see elephants too.)

Tip #4 - Go to Masaii Mara. Especially September, because that's the month when the migration of hundreds of thousands of zebras and wildebeests migrate. The big cats follow them in search of lunch. I didn't get to Masaii Mara but will the next time.

Tip #5 - hire a tour company. Don't do it yourself. Hiring a tour company can result in overall savings and you will have a knowledgeable guide to tell you what you're looking at.

Tip #6 - book with Planet Safari Adventures. This company is owned by James and Lucy, who are the friends I met when I was over there. In addition to providing good trips that are on the lower end of the cost scale, they own their own camp in Masaii Mara. And they need the business -- they feed, clothe, house and educate 74 orphans. And they have 4 kids of their own. That's a lot of kids. They are good, good people and will show you an amazing time. You can also ask them to visit the children's home for an African experience that will transform your soul. Their website is www.planetkenyasafaris.com

Tip #7 - If you want to see Mount Kilimanjaro, go to Amboseli National Park, southeast of Nairobi. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, but it is a stunning backdrop to Amboseli.

Tip #8 - You can also book trips to neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania from Nairobi. You won't want to go to the other neighbouring countries .. or if you do, it's likely not a good idea. Bordering Kenya to the north are Somalia -- many refugee camps on the border -- the only way to get in is to fly. Ethiopia -- I think Ethiopia is more politically stable than it was a few years ago. But still not a good idea. And Sudan .. and we all know about the problems there right now. Hopefully this will clear up in upcoming years so that it's a safer tourist option.

Tip #9 - you can also go to Mombasa, which is on the sea. Didn't make it there but since it's right on the equator I am sure the seascapes are quite wonderful.

Kenya isn't one of the cheapest African countries (South Africa is cheaper) but what's good about it is that they know how the tourist business works. You will be well provided for -- I stayed in five star hotels, people's homes and also a budget hotel. All were very good experiences, so there are lots of ways to have a vacation that doesn't cost a lot.

Community-based tourism (which is mostly what I do when I'm on vacation) is also a growing trend. That's where you stay in people's homes. There are companies that organize these kinds of trips .. the advantage of this method is that the money goes directly back into communities. And you get to be up close and personal with the people and the lifestyle.

I'd suggest combining a few days of community-based tourism with days in a resort or western hotel. That's what I did ... because all that learning and socializing can be exhausting. It's a good balance between comfort and education.

And I almost forgot .. most people will be very happy if you take your picture. The Masaii, on the other hand, expect to be paid. Not unreasonable ... after all, we should all be entitled to own our own image ...

Journal Reflections -- Child's Hope Home Saturday Oct. 6th

2007-10-11T02:29:00.000-04:00

The kindergarten class at the Child's Hope Home

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be posting some of my reflections that I captured in my journal -- this is one of them

I am in a monk's cell of a hotel room in Nakuru, after a long day at a political rally for the president of Kenya. Much more about elections and the electoral process in one of my next journal entries. For now, I'm thinking about the children at the Njaaga's Hope Child Home, an orphanage for 74 children, funded by my Kenyan friends James (Njaaga) and Lucy. I've been spending the last few days there, and it has been truly memorable.

First thing this morning the children knocked on my door. Constantly from 7 am on with letters to bring back to their sponsors back home, and my two nieces Emily and Elizabeth who sent money over to buy the kids some things that they need. I have been reading through the large stack ... they are sweet, sweet, sweet. What is amazing about these kids is that they are happy, well adjusted and don't carry the kinds of scars and wounds that you often see in children who live in poverty and deprivation.

I am sure they have their sadness too, but their joy is there in much greater measure.

Yesterday I went for a walk to gather water with them. What a job! I still can't understand how they can carry 50(!) pounds of water on their heads! Even the little ones have to go fetch water every day. The home has plumbing but no running water yet, so they have to go to the river and haul it up a steep hill. Even the four year olds do their bit. (I am going to suggest to the people here in Canada who are helping the orphanage financially that our next project should be to raise money to dig the well deeper -- there is a 60 foot well but it's not deep enough to get enough water for all these kids. The plumbing is in, but the well needs to go down another 60 feet. It's attainable ... it will only be $1000 to do it).

I've been spending my time at the home recording the children to do a story for the donors back here. I have captured some great stuff -- first of all, the kids are great singers and they sing all the time. One of the songs they sing the most contains the refrain "Happy, happy, we should be happy". This is the theme I want to use as the central theme.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about that statement. They are living in poverty. Their parents have died. A lot of them will be living a life of poverty that their families have lived. So why SHOULD they be happy?

Not a question they ask themselves. Because they ARE happy, though to Western sensibilities there doesn't seem to be much reason. Washing clothes in the pond (and a dirty pond at that). Having to carry 50 pounds of water .. some of them carry two buckets at a time. No toys. Having to wear the same clothes day after day.

For most of us, this would be a recipe for unhappiness.

But they are happy. So maybe these things don't have much to do with human happiness?

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between "want" and "need". When it comes right down to it, we need only four things -- food, shelter, water and love.

Even health care isn't necessary if all the other three are provided. The need for health care mostly stems from a life out of balance. I realize that this is a broad statement, stemming from my current thinking that a) suffering is inevitable and b) life and death should be allowed to take its own course.

There are many yes-buts to this position, which I even argue with myself over .. for example, it may be "natural" for a certain percentage of woment to die in childbirth. but shouldn't we do everything we can to prevent it? Yes. And I'm sure glad I got a typhoid vaccination before I left Canada.

Even a life in perfect balance won't help you if you're bitten by a malaria-carrying mosquito. A life in balance will help you fend it off better, though.

So okay, my list of needs is now up to five -- food, water, shelter, love and health care.

And what about education? Necessary or not? Back before the world intermingled to the extent it does now, people were well served through traditional education, passed on down through the family and the tribe.

I look at the kids at the Hope Home -- some of them will go on to higher education. Others will stay in the village. So what good is a western-style education to people who never leave the village?

Here, my answer to myself is clear. They wouldn't need "education" in the western sense of the word if they were living in closed situations. But they're not. Even if they have no desire to live anywhere else, the rest of the world will come to them. And they'll be exploited just as they have been in the past. Not just by European interests anymore as in colonial times, but by the economic powers of their own central governments and corporations.

If the people in the villages are not educated, they will not be able to deal with incoming change from a position of empowerment. If these children are educated, they will be able to lead their communities from a position of strength. So I hope some of these children stay in their traditional villages. Because their leadership is needed right here.

No more answers this morning, sad to say. Back later with many more questions.

The traditional village of Kirengiro, near the children's home. Most of the children come from this village and would be raised by their grandmothers if they weren't in the home.

Jambo, Mzungi!

2007-10-10T00:48:00.000-04:00

That means "hi, white folks!"

I landed in Toronto about two hours ago and I'm now at my sister Marianne's place in Toronto. The clock says it's 12:45 and my body says it's 9 in the morning. My way of dealing with jet lag is to let whatever time my body says it is be that time. So I have no idea when I am going to sleep and when I am going to wake up.

I am exhaling a huge breath right now, partly from relief that the flight was uneventful and that I'm back home. Also, it's a big sigh of contentment and thankfulness for the absolutely incredible time I had.

(Also a bit of delirium because I feel like I've entered a parallel universe. I am glad to be back in the land of high speed internet and water you can drink straight from the tap).

I will be posting my pictures when I get back to Hamilton tomorrow morning. I am fading fast .. I was going to be philosophical and share all kinds of insights but my confused body is now telling me it is time to go to bed (likely partially because I've had two glasses of wine .. it's also asking me what the hell I'm doing having wine for breakfast!)

So much more to come ... goodnight, good morning or whatever the hell time it is!

Everything I know about Kenya ...

2007-09-18T08:35:00.001-04:00

Now that the first rush of activity is subsiding (visas applied for, plane tickets book
ed etc), I can get down to the business of figuring out just where I am going.

Here's what I know about Kenya/Nairobi:
- it's on the east coast of Africa
- it was colonized by the British (they were the main ones, I'm sure there were others)
- Nairobi is a major United Nations centre
- Nairobi is in the centre of the country
- Kenya is not a great place if you're a vegetarian -- the diet is major carnivorous
- there are giraffes, elephants and lions there (though not in the middle of the city, one would hope)
- it's a major transportation hub in Africa -- but Air Canada doesn't fly there. So Sir Richard Branson is getting me there (Virgin Atlantic)
- I will be staying at either the Hotel La Mada or the Kenya Institute of Monetary Studies
- both places have a pool
- the temperature is around 20 degrees this time of year, so it will be nice but not hot

After doing a little bit of surfing, here's what I now know:
- Kenya has roughly the same population as Canada, but is about the size of .. (I'm guessing) New Brunswick ... (Kenya is 583,000 square kms, Canada is 9 MILLION)
- it's a nice time of the year to go .. not too hot, not too rainy
- main languages are English and Swahili

More later as I learn more ...

Last minute craziness

2007-09-15T06:35:00.000-04:00

Well, this looks like the start of another whole travel journal section of my blog. (Blogs are great, BTW, for filling in large numbers of people who want to hear from you as your trip progresses. Saves sending out large numbers of emails. And being able to post pictures is a bonus).

Right now, it's 6:43 am and way too early.

It's been a crazy 18 hours. The conference I am going to is less than two weeks away. And Kenya is one of those countries which require a visa. And it takes 7 business days to process a visa app, not counting in-transit time to get the paperwork from point A to Point B.

So I am up getting the last bits of my application together and calling Fedex. Thank god the paperwork only has to go to Ottawa and not all the way to Nairobi.

So it was a whole day of scrambling, booking plane tickets, getting passport pictures, money order to pay for the visa, arranging expensive one day FedEx delivery on both ends ... I could have saved myself about 50 bucks if I had been able to get it all off yesterday but I couldn't. So it goes today, along with many prayers that it will get there and back in time.

Haven't even had a minute to think about the workshop I'm going to be doing -- fortunately I've done similar workshops before so it won't be a great deal of work to figure it out. Next week will be fine. Heck, I'll have seven hours at Heathrow while waiting to change planes to do it since I'm taking my laptop.

That reminds me of another thing to do ... check on the power standards so I can bring the right adapters.

Travel is fun .. travel is fun ... travel is fun .... I repeat to myself. Or, at least it will be when I'm more organized and less overwhelmed.

Nairobi Bound!

2007-09-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

I am sitting here typing and burning off excess energy while I wait on hold to book my ticket to Nairobi.

I just found out today (!) that the Canada Council is funding my trip, which has to begin on September 26 (!!!). That's like ... the middle of next week.

My head is spinning .... I thought there was a chance my application would be approved but I never took it as a given. So I've been just going ahead doing my work as though I was going to be here in Hamilton in my little apartment for the forseeable future.

I have been invited to do a presentation on creative ways to present audio documentaries . The organization which invited me is the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (www.iawrt.org)

I am still waiting to see how much my ticket is going to cost ...

I am getting boggled. Happily boggled but I am hyperventilatng.

Update -- got a good price. I will be spending 7 hours at Heathrow while I make a connection, but it's good!

My Best Buddy Dave

2007-09-03T18:41:00.001-04:00

I've wanted to write about Dave for a long time. But I didn't have a picture.

Today he sent me a long email and this picture from Hanoi. It was taken in the Marshall Islands where he was doing a story on the nuclear tests in the '40's.

Dave is off on a halfway around the world tour, doing stories as he goes. He's one of my all time favourite people and most wonderful of friends.

My first introduction to Dave was back at CFMU at McMaster University in Hamilton in 1992. Our surly engineer who came from an eastern bloc country and wasn't fond of peaceniks kicked a piece of dirt on the floor at the station and snarled "I see Kattenburg is back from Nicaragua and bringing his Commie dirt back with him". Somehow I knew I'd like this man. It was a good start to a wonderful friendship.

Dave came to McMaster in the late 60's. He was about to finish his doctorate in some kind of biological sciences. Then "IT" happened ... the thing that was to define most of his life and make him forget about being a scientist almost forever. That's when he met our mutual friend Lil, who asked the innocent question "would you like to be part of my radio show?". Well, that was it. Dave fell in love with radio.

Over the years he has produced many outstanding productions. And in 1998, he invited me to be part of his work. Since then, we have done 5 radio series together on issues of social justice and human rights. It was the beginning of a whole new area of inquiry in my life, and I am grateful that he opened those doors for me.

Working with Dave and being his friend has been one of the great joys of my life. He has challenged me, shared new ideas, hugged me, laughed with me, commiserated with me and has been there for me both professionally and personally every step of the way.

Hope you find many, many great things about the world to share with us, Dave. Love ya, miss ya. Come home soon .. but not too soon. There is still much to be discovered.

Travels in Atlantic Canada

2007-08-19T21:09:00.000-04:00

This is a very quick post -- I am sitting here in a gorgeous little bed and breakfast in St. John New Brunswick. The house is probably 150 years old, refashioned from a one-very-rich-family house to 15 rooms of guest accommodation.

The woodwork is original, so is the leaded and stained glass windows and it is splendid. And they have internet in the drawing room with the original fireplace from days of olde. Beautiful.

Tomorrow morning, very early, we get on the ferry to Digby Nova Scotia, across the Bay of Fundy and to Bear River, the place where I want to live for at least part of the year.

It's been a long trip of miles and miles. I do a lot of driving anyway so I'm used to it. I'm travelling with my two older sisters (my older twin sisters, whom my friends call "The Double Diane Keatons" -- they do look a lot like her, and the energy is quite similar). And with my parents .. who were promised this trip for their 50th wedding anniversary.

There will be many stories after this trip is over .. so far, the highlights are ... we are finally here in the Maritimes. Long, long, long drive. And I'm not overly tired. And I was able to impress the hell out of all of them by doing the driving through Montreal. They were awestruck ... and swore they would never go further east than the Quebec/Ontario border again unless I was doing the driving. I enjoyed that .. both the driving and also the compliments when they all said "I can't believe you brought us through that". It wasn't that hard .. but if they want to believe it was a feat of great bravery, I'll let them believe that.

Tomorrow morning we catch the 9 am ferry to Digby. My mom and dad are having a good time .. which is a big deal because up until now we haven't been able to convince them to go on a trip anywhere. So this is good.

Enough for tonight ... I'm going to enjoy my wine and this beautiful house (hope there's a ghost or two hanging about ... makes it so much more interesting to have an apparition or two to reckon with ...)

Instructions for Freedom

2007-08-14T14:13:00.000-04:00

If you haven't read it yet, read "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a story about one woman's journey of self-discovery -- first to Italy to enjoy sensuality, love of self and good food; next to India to discover her spiritual centre; and then to Indonesia to tie them all together. It's a great book.

In one chapter, she's at an ashram in India. She is instructed to go to the roof of the ashram, watch the stars come out, and to come back down again when she can let go.

Here are her Instructions for Freedom:

1) Life's metaphors are God's instructions.
2) You have just climbed up and and above the roof. There is nothing between you and the Infinite. Now, let go.
3) The day is ending. It's time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, let go.
4) Your wish for resolution was a prayer. Your being here is God's response. Let go, watch the stars come out -- on the outside and on the inside.
5) With all your heart, ask for grace, and let go.
6) With all your heart, forgive him, FORGIVE YOURSELF, and let him go.
7) Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.
8) Watch the heat of day pass into the cool night. Let go.
9) When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.
10) When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.

So What's Up With That?

2007-08-09T08:13:00.001-04:00

If you're a Facebook friend of mine, there is a 50% chance you are also a Facebook friend of Barry's. We have a lot of overlap. Some of you are casual friends, but a lot of you are pretty good friends. So as you watch his status updates come in and then watch mine, you may be wondering "what's up with them?".

And also a lot of you have warm concern for both of us. And that is lovely. So, as I try to make myself NOT look at his page (and don't often succeed), I still find myself wondering things like "how the hell did he find an internet connection when he's on a bus in White River?". (Though if anybody could find an internet connection in the middle of the bush, it's him)

I'm not going to pretend I don't care, but I wanted to reassure all of you who care about me (and him) that I'm doing alright. It's another stage in a letting go that is getting less and less difficult all the time. Every now and again, a big wave will come and knock me over .. which is what is happening this week. But the waves are getting smaller and smaller with calmer seas in the middle.

It hurts to watch him go. I'm not at the point yet where it doesn't hurt any more (looking forward to that day, though ..) I am also glad he's going ... we met out in BC. His family is there. Regardless of whether or not this particular new relationship works out (ho, man, this guy falls in love easy ...), BC is home.

I always kind of felt like I dragged him back here to Ontario .. I don't think he really liked it here (he hated Toronto for the longest time). And he adores his mother. She is 80 and it is really good that he is going to be closer to her. And his brother and sister, his nieces and nephews. He seemed very alone out here, even when he was with me. So it's good he's going back to a place that feels like his.

Something else some of you might have noticed ... Barry started a Facebook group called "Bring Barry Home". He explains that he's been sick over the past year and very broke and he needs some help right now with relocation costs. When I saw it, my first reaction was guilt ... like, it's my fault. And then a bit of anger because I thought it might reflect badly on me ("she took him for everything he's got" .. which is not true). All irrational stuff ... as I remind myself not everything is about me.

Then I took a few minutes and let compassion settle in. He's had a rough time of it, just in a different way than me. And throughout our whole separation, he's been pretty honourable for the most part. And reading through his request for help, I realized that five years ago, he would never, ever, ever, have asked for help from anybody but me. And often, not even me. What this shows is that there is growth happening. He is trusting people. And that is so good.

And however mad I still get at him, I do have to acknowledge that he has helped many, many people over the years. He very rarely asks for anything for himself. I support him in his efforts to reach out .. I am not contributing to the fund myself because I don't think he wants me to. And my first instinct is to rush in and save him (a hard habit to break after 22 years together). I can't do it. But I hope that others do.

As for me, I know I have to stop looking at his damn Facebook page. And I have to leave living of his life to him. Time to butt out (as several of my friends have been sternly reminding me .. after I post this, I am fully expecting at least two people to chime in and remind me to get back to work. They're right ...

Time to take care of myself. It's not about him anymore. It's all about me. For now. Maybe some time it won't be just about me, but I think it's going to be a long time before I get seriously involved with anyone ever again. It's all still pretty raw ..

I always believed that I could maybe find somebody as good as Barry. But never better. It's not that I have to stop loving him .. it just means that I have to learn how to do it differently.

It's a good thing that he's going back ... and it's time for me to butt out ...

The Urge for Going

2007-08-05T18:45:00.000-04:00

And I get the urge for going
when the summer grass is turning brown
and summertime is falling down
and winter's closing in - Joni Mitchell

Fall is always the time when my feet get restless. Starting with moving out of my parent's home to go to university many years ago, to hopping on the train to move out to Vancouver ... and most recently, packing up my house two years ago and living various places. And last fall .. preparing for my trip to Asia, and getting on the plane and actually going.

This year, I am staying in one place. It's other people who are going ...

I just found out that Barry is planning to move back to British Columbia ... 25 years after I hopped on the train and went west myself. And met him. And then came back with him. And now he's going back ..

And another friend of mine has just told me that he's moving too. Hamilton is a hard city to live in for a gay man, he tells me. He's moving back to the community where he lived before he had to come back to take care of his elderly parents. They are both gone. He is sad that they're gone, but free to go.

I talk to other friends who are also wondering where their lives are going to take them. On the fun side of things, I just had an energizing conversation with a group of galpals of mine ... we were dreaming ahead to the day when we'd open up an old lady commune. Similar to the way we were living in the '60s and '70s but with more style, flair and money. We were also talking about buying a joint property on some tropical location as our winter home (NOT Florida .. we're talking about somewhere really exotic).

I am wondering where I am going to be travelling next. I don't think I'll be staying in Hamilton over the long term but for now it's time to cool my itchy feet. Like my dog, I never did learn to listen to the command "Stay!"

But stay I shall. For now ...

So I'll ply the fire with kindling, pull my blankets to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or two
But she's got the urge for going
So I guess she'll have to go.

Those Weak Female Politicians ...

2007-08-04T07:28:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the stranger paragraphs I've seen in a long time:

From The Globe and Mail, today, "Pakistan: Former PM's Lobbying Trips Leave Little Time for Family" by Brett Popplewell:

(preceded by several paragraphs about her rise and fall from power as the only woman to have governed an Islamic state in the modern era)

"Though she's comfortable wielding the powers of a world leader, she's not without her weaknesses. It's said her personal library in Dubai houses four shelves devoted to self-help books. A lover of Ben and Jerry's caramel fudge ice cream, chocolate cake and meringues, she keeps her impulses in check by switching from one diet to another. Although, for treat, she enjoys lunch at Harrods, London's famed department store".

Maybe that's why I never had the desire to go into politics ... my weakness for Ben and Jerry's obviously deems me unqualified for the halls of power.

The Art of Eating Slowly

2007-08-03T21:31:00.001-04:00

I recently joined the new Hamilton Chapter of Slow Food.

I heard about the Slow Food Movement almost twenty years ago and have always wanted to join. Slow Food was started by a man named Carlos Petrini in a town in Italy back in the '80's. When a McDonald's opened up in his town, he reacted to fast food by promoting Slow Food.

Slow Food means noticing what you're eating. Tasting it. Smelling it. Taking time preparing it. And enjoying what you're eating with people who are also enjoying what they're eating. It's about quality instead of quantity.

Today, we were invited by the head chef at Ancaster's Old Mill, to have our meeting at his restaurant. Jeff Crump has been involved in the Slow Food movement for longer than us. It was sure evident when we sat down at the table. He had prepared a simple, but elegant and beautiful dish of fresh tomatoes with herbs and pesto, a platter of four artisan cheeses, grilled flatbread. We finished off with a cherry clafutti, which was sweet cherries cooked in a delicate, sinfully rich batter that you might use to make crepes. To say it was all divine is an understatement.

And so we ate ... slowly. But it wasn't just about the food. The conversation around the table was far-ranging ... we talked about local products, local restaurants, but also issues which affect the food we eat. Urban sprawl, poverty, availability of organic food, supporting our farmers, patents on life forms such as seeds. The point of Slow Food is not just to eat and enjoy good food .. but to become informed and involved in the issues so that good food is accessible to all.

It's a noble cause. And rich .. in taste and in content.

Distraction Addiction and the Internet

2007-07-30T09:52:00.000-04:00

I subscribe to a newsletter by Eric Maisel, a psychologist who works specifically with artists. The focus of his newsletter and much of his work are about getting out of your own way and getting writing. Or painting. Or dancing. Or whatever.

His books are really good ... one of my favourite ones is "The Van Gogh Blues -- The Creative Person's Path through Depression". Even if you don't have this particular problem it is still very useful. And so are his other books, written to help us unleash all the buried creativity and turn our thoughts and emotions into something useful that the rest of the world can relate to.

Click here for his website.

In this week's email newsletter, he addressed something which struck close to home ... being a person who really enjoys my virtual on-line life (maybe a bit too much).
Here is an excerpt:

The Distraction Addictions
By: "Eric Maisel" www.ericmaisel.com

Hello, everybody:

Ive thought a lot about those special addictions that might be dubbed the distraction addictions, addictions like compulsive Internet surfing, online shopping, and video game playing that have sprung up alongside our technological advances. These new addictions are a lure for everybody, but they are especially alluring to folks like
full-time writers who spend their working days on the computer a mere split second away from Internet access.

If we are even minimally anxious, resistant, discouraged, uncertain or unmotivated and therefore eager to find some way to avoid getting on with our writing, how strong the pull is to distract ourselves with a beckoning, right-at-hand Internet possibility. The pull to avoid our work can prove so strong that it is fair to call our flight compulsive and to characterize our behavior in real and not metaphoric terms as an addiction. How many millions of hours are writers losing to the distraction addictions? And insofar as these behaviors represent a real addiction, the solution isnt an easy onewhats required is nothing less than a full-fledged recovery program.

Something similarly real, poignant, and prevalent are the adrenaline addictions. Here a person who is addicted to fast driving, fast living, risk-taking and other hormonal wildness is using the bodys ability to create excitement as a substitute for the earned excitement that comes with nailing a page of the novel he or she is writing. How much easier it is to get a rush by hopping on your motorcycle and racing down the road than by canalizing your energy, channeling your being into your creative work, and waiting for the rush of good adrenal feeling that may not come until late this afternoonor next weekor not at all.

The distraction addictions and the adrenaline addictions are existential cheap thrills. We have to guard against them, and deal with them forthrightly if theyve gotten their claws into us, with as much honesty and care as we are obliged to deal with anything with the power to rob us of our time, energy, and authenticity. A little Internet surfing, like a little social drinking, is no problem whatsoever. But when you begin to lose control, the negative consequences and the feelings of guilt and shame commence, and you know, even as you have trouble admitting it, that you have a problem...well, you do.

If some form of distraction addiction or adrenaline addiction is a significant reality in your life, share your story with me and, with your permission, Ill pass a few such stories along in this newsletter. I know that wed all love to hear, so that we can begin to understand them moreclearly and deal with them more effectively.

Taking up Less Space on the Planet

2007-07-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

Aerial view of Bangalore India

Selling my 110 year old Victorian house was the second hardest thing I've ever had to do. Leaving behind my gardens with my 80 year old heritage roses, my big maple tree in the back yard, the high ceilings and the spacious rooms was a huge loss. At the time, I didn't want to live anywhere else.

So I hit the road and decided not to live anywhere for a while. I came back to Hamilton in February and started to feel like it was time to settle in. I went to the opposite extreme and got myself an average-sized one bedroom apartment.

And you know, it's okay. I don't miss my old house the way I thought I would. There are a lot of pluses -- starting with $300 less in utility bills. And I'm not buying so much anymore because there's no extra space to put things in. When I had the house, there was always a blank wall to fill, a spot that would be perfect for the chair I saw in the antique store. In the apartment, I only have enough space for what I have.

And I even have a garden ... in pots on my spacious balcony. No weeding to do, no leaves to rake. I even have a couple of tomato plants in production right now .. there aren't a lot of tomatoes on it, but they are really good.

I think I've begun to shift my thinking because of all the other homes I've seen in my various travels. New York City --- everybody has small apartments there. After visiting friends and finding out how much rent costs in the big apple, I can understand why the New York style of decorating is sparse .. because nobody has any money left to buy much after the rent is paid.

And Delhi -- the family I stayed with in India had a two bedroom flat. Ten people lived there. Eleven, counting me. And it worked. It's all about the rhythm you establish with the people with whom you live ... some people get beds, others roll out the sleeping mat on the floor. You do what you need to do.

I'm thinking more and more these days about sustainability .. both ecologically and economically. Standing on the sidewalk looking at my big house, I can see now that we had more than we needed. It is this kind of living that leads to urban sprawl. Mind you, our house was not built recently on good farmland. But it's the same suburban attitudes ... that we all need three bathrooms, a guestroom, a family room, a living room. In the case of families, I can see the need for larger spaces. But for the two of us, all that space is wasteful.

Last year I went to the World Urban Forum in Vancouver. The predominant theme was that soon, very soon, there will be more people living in cities than in rural areas. Everyone agreed, we need to figure out ways of creating living space for more people.

I think part of the job is to change our definition of what constitutes a good life. We don't have to have as much as we think we need.

Small though it is, I like my little place. If I go into a larger house, I want it to be shared space. Because we all need to share what we have with each other as resources get scarcer and scarcer. Looking at it now, I haven't lost anything. I've gained a new understanding about how I need to live on this planet.

On-line vs. non-line

2007-07-19T16:22:00.000-04:00

The shape of things to come -- an online meeting through the computer with Vancouver, Toronto and some city in Poland ...

A friend of mine told me today how much he likes my blog. And I got to thinking how little I've paid attention to my blog since Facebook came along. Oh, the seductiveness of these new little sirens on the Internet makes us all faithless lovers.

I'm rather culture shocked by all these new gadgets. I consider it important to keep up with all the new trends and ways that people are using the internet. Partly out of interest but mostly because I don't think you can do participatory media work without keeping up.

And there's so much to learn. Life was simple when there were blogs. Blogs are now so ten-minutes-ago. Know how I can tell? When people who were positively internet phobic are showing up on blogs, you know they're becoming pretty standard fare.

Same is becoming true with Facebook. I just got a friend invitation from somebody I hadn't heard from in a long time who accepted my invitation to be a Facebook friend. (I sent the invitation about three months ago, so it took a bit of thought on his part). So then I went to his listing and hit "view friends" and there were no friends there. So he still doesn't quite get it ... a Facebook page with no friends. But at least he's there. It's a start, pretty good for a person who has never shown up in a Google search. That's how internet-absent he is. Geez, even my grandmother shows up in Google searches and she's been dead for 15 years.

I am getting quite boggled (bloggled?) by it all. I just signed up with Ning, on the advice of the Exalted One Wayne MacPhail (knower of all things in the new generation Web ... you can bow down to him in homage at www.w8nc.com). I look at his Facebook site every day to find out what the latest is .. and there's always something new.

It takes a long time to figure out how to integrate a lot of those new apps in communications projects and daily life. I still don't understand all of the implications. I recommend to people that they try out some of these new things ... only by using them can you really start to understand the impact they're having on society. And your kids.

Had a discussion yesterday with someone who refuses to be a presence on the internet because he doesn't want it to replace his personal relationships face-to-face. He told me "I've only got five people I consider to be my friends. And I want to see them in person, not on the internet". And that's fair enough .. one of the things I've heard said about friendships these days is that many people's pool of friends is wide, but shallow. He prefers narrow and deep.

I'm pretty picky about to whom I attach the word "friend" as well. Even so, I would describe my pool as deep and wide. I enjoy having easy access to my friends through the internet. If I could sit down with a friend for a beer, I'd rather do that. But I can't do that with most of them because they're all over the place.

That's the point, I think. I don't want to see people live all their lives in virtual reality. But using virtual reality to augment life on non-line is valid.

It's all a question of balance. And using new tools to enhance your life. Not take over it.

I still love being a geek-girl ...

When things fall apart ...

2007-07-10T07:33:00.001-04:00

I don't know what it is about July of 2007. For some reason, a lot of things are falling apart for a lot of people in my life right now.

Several people are in a state of confusion, not sure where they should land and what they need to do to get there. It's not as desperate as "is my parachute going to open or am I going to get schmucked on the ground?" but there is a lot of uneasiness around anyway.

Several organizations I am involved with, or peripherally involved with, are going through some troubles right now. In my own life, the job that was supposed to provide me a financial base for the forseeable future is on the verge of collapse. I've only been involved with this group for several months, so I'm not sad about this so much for me ... it's an organization which has been in existence for almost twenty years. A lot of people have put a lot of heart and soul into this group. I'm mostly sad to watch their hopes and dreams whither away. It may not come to that, but it's looking like shutting down is a distinct possibility.

And there are a couple of other groups in town (many, actually) that are living a tenuous existence .. from grant to grant, miracle to miracle.

The biggest problem is that people get tired and burn out .. I wish we could just do the work and be able to forget about mere survival for a while. If that were possible, we could all get to the business and art of building our communities. As it is, we're just treading water.

This is not a lament, though. And regardless of what happens, I'll be okay. I've learned a lot about resilience throughout my life, especially in the last couple of years.

Some of my reflections about change:

1) change is cyclical. What seems to be insurmountable usually works out in the end.
2) change happens all the time. But sometimes it gets more dramatic than at other times. It's not that change wasn't happening before a particular dramatic event happens. It's just that most of the time it doesn't come roaring in ... most of the time it's more subtle than that. So nothing's really different except the intensity. Same old, same old.
3) the more you try to force things to resolve themselves, the worse it's going to be. That doesn't mean you should quit trying. It's about the kind of trying you do .. the times I ride out the changes the best are the times when I am able to give up attachments to particular outcomes. For example, maybe this organization I'm working with will come through the crisis. Or maybe it won't. Whatever happens, it won't be the end of the story. The old systems will evolve into new ones.

My wise mountainwoman friend Angie told me a story about her Granny that has stayed with me through the years. Her Granny was widely acknowledged to have powers that people couldn't explain. When Angie asked her "Granny, where does it come from?", her Granny just said "sshhh .. we don't talk about such things". Because if you try to find the source of the power, it will leave you.

"Not FROM me", Granny said, "THROUGH me".

Hard mantra to put into practice ... but a profound statement about reducing our ego investment in whatever's happening around you. And it works when you can manage it.

Living on the Fault Line

2007-07-09T17:15:00.000-04:00

I just got back from doing a really compelling interview.

I am working on my documentary about the family I stayed with in Kashmir, India, in the fall. I have turned the story into a print piece that will be coming out in Mayday Magazine this month. My radio piece (the first one anyway) is just about done and will be broadcast/podcast sometime over the next two weeks.

Those two pieces focus on the lives of the Muslim family I stayed with. I had many, many questions after I left than I had when I first got there, and the more I learn, seems the more complex it gets.

Some of the stories that I work on are disposable .. I write them and forget them. Then there are the stories that stay with you .. it's not so much that I found the story. Rather, the story found me. This is one of them.

A friend of mine casually mentioned that she had a student in her class from Kashmir, and then asked "you went there, didn't you?". She told me more about him .. he's a Hindu from Kashmir, originally from Srinagar, where I had been.

I really wanted to talk to him because there aren't that many Hindus in Kashmir anymore .. a lot of them had left or were driven out when the conflict intensified in 1989. This was a piece to the story I didn't really know a lot about yet. So I got together with Raj this morning. I will post the entire interview on rabble.ca at the same time as I post the documentary.

What was so remarkable about it? What it demonstrated to me was the significance of Kashmir to this young Hindu man .. it's not just holy to Muslims. Even though he had left Kashmir when he was three, Raj referred to Kashmir as a Mecca for Hindus too. And not just Hindus and Muslims. Many people believe that the crucifixion didn't kill Christ ... that his disciples spirited him and Mother Mary away to Kashmir. There have also been genetic tests done showing that Kashmiris have Jewish blood.

Raj says he can remember his family's house, his family's lifestyle and leaving Kashmir. He talked about his aunt who was killed in a bomb blast. He doesn't remember a lot because he was only three. But he is proud to be a Kashmiri even though he is in exile. He would like to go back for a visit but says it isn't safe for a Hindu.

I asked him the question that had been on my mind ever since coming back ... was I brave to go there, naive, or a combination of the two? I asked him if he would recommend that his friends go to Kashmir. He answered, if they are Muslim, yes. Hindu, no. And if you're any other nationality, also no.

But haven't things settled down now, I asked? Yes, they have, he said. Because relations between Pakistan and India are now better? He said he didn't think that was it ... he thinks that the jihadis who were active in Kashmir in past years are now active in other parts of the world. Like Afghanistan.

I tried to get to the heart of his belief about Kashmiri Muslims -- explaining that the fear, the bloodshed, the fighting, was not at all what I experienced living with the Dandoo family. He said "Asian Muslims are different. They come from different traditions." Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Jews all lived in peace for many years. This is a type of Islam that has been imported into Kashmir from elsewhere, he told me. And the Muslims in Kashmir are going through a crisis of identity, not knowing who they are anymore.

I have been looking for a metaphor that symbolizes what I perceived while I was there. Raj gave me the metaphor I was looking for ... this is India's fault line, he said, shifting all the time. Sometimes dramatically, sometimes subtley, but always shifting.

If there is no huge shift, things can continue on as they have. But the violent shift that changes everything could happen at any time.

And nobody knows when.

Another Perspective on American Media

2007-06-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed this post from an international listserve in India --

Responding to this ad:

Wanted: Journalists from the Developing World to come to the U.S. for fantastic journalism training opportunity. Apply now!

The Humphrey Fellowship Program offers a ten-month stay at a leading journalism college in the U.S. to study journalism and undertake professional affiliations at top U.S. news organizations.

The response:

What will they study? the art of embedded journalism, the skills needed to gloss over issues when reporting on politicians, the ability to turn any serious discussion into a sound bite?

Why not do it the other way, encourage the Humphrey Fellowship to spend its money on sending young US journalists to the Third World, to understand how to accomplish serious reportage under the most trying circumstances, without fear or favour and often without reward? Who knows what they may learn - perhaps English.

a radio goodbye ..

2007-06-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

It was with a heavy heart that I received the news this morning of the death of Robert Chesterman.

Rob was a radio features and drama producer with CBC for many years in Vancouver. I went to Vancouver in the early '80's .. one of the reasons being that I wanted to work with this man. I had heard some of his arts programs on CBC Stereo when I was back in Windsor in 1981. I even sold a piece to his national network program "Audience" ... an interview with renowned flautist Jean Pierre Rampal. Something about the spirit of Audience and the respect with which it treated artists made me want to be there. I don't know why. I knew nothing about Robert Chesterman except that some of the people I worked with at CBC Windsor spoke his name with reverence. And that I liked his show.

It took me a couple of years in Vancouver before I was able to get up the nerve to approach him to ask him if I could work with him. When I did, he was very welcoming and we connected right away. He invited me to contribute to the BC Arts Program "Monitor". One of the things I remember the most was his approach towards artists. The most refreshing thing I have ever heard from a CBC was "I don't want to interfere with your creativity". Rob was the only producer ever to have said that to me within the corporation's walls. He never vetted a single script I wrote for the show .. something unheard of at CBC. He trusted me to write what I thought was best for the show. And he always liked what I came up with.

In 1985 I was offered a job as his production secretary .. not a job I would have done if I was working for anyone else. It was in the last days of his work with the Corp ... he was being edged out the door on early retirement and he did not want to go. He freely shared his feelings with me about broadcasting, about CBC, about his career and his life in radio. And his frustration and yes, anger, at having to leave before he thought his time should be up.

At the time, he was also transitioning into his film career ... I did a lot of support work for him on his second film "Which Way to Carnegie Hall?", about the challenges of young musicians trying to develop a career in music. He had finished his film on Kings College Choir a few years earlier, called "A Boast of Kings". It was a rare opportunity to work with a very talented person who was creatively moving into another form of art as his previous art form was starting to wind down.

It was also a crazy time at the CBC ... CBC went through a huge programming shift in the mid 1980's (some, including me, would say the beginning of the dumbing-down of the Mother Corp) ... I was working for three producers at the time -- Robert Chesterman who represented the old and fine intellectual tradition of the CBC, Tom Deacon, the producer and co-creator of Disc Drive (whicn was received which much scepticism from some quarters, ya, it's a pretty effortless listening experience), and Susan Englebert, the new Area Exec Producer of Performance Programming whose background at that time was primarily in radio variety (Great Canadian Goldrush, Gabereau and other well produced, but shall we say "lighter" fare?"). It was quite a study in contrasts.

Two out of three of that diverse group have now passed away .. Susan Englebert just last fall, and now Robert Chesterman. And that's sad. Susan and I never really never really connected in that heart-to-heart way .. we worked together okay, and I respected her, but not the same way I respected and related to Rob. Partly because he represented the intellectual, thoughtful tradition of CBC of yesteryear that many of us miss ... and also largely because he was an intellectual, thoughtful producer who considered himself an equal partner of the artists he worked with ... no doubt his funeral will be a who's who of artists in Vancouver of his generation. Because they respected him just as he respected them.

I am sad he's gone. I wonder what he was working on when he found out he had cancer. And that now will never be finished ....

Say Radio Meow!

2007-06-01T07:45:00.000-04:00

This guy will not be working at Radio Meow. He's an example of why it's needed.

Radio Meow is India's first talk radio station aimed at women. This is remarkable in so many ways. First of all, if there was ever a place where women need to speak, it's India (and a lot of other places, too of course. It's just that I haven't been there, so I don't feel as compelled to write about it).

Second of all, it's a commercial radio station. In a country that has only 68 (!) commercial radio stations, it's pretty significant that there's a women's station at all in the bunch. (Commercial radio has only been allowed on the air for a few years, which is why there are only 68. If you divide up the population of India, over 1 billion, by 68 radio stations .. well, my math skills aren't that good so I can't calculate how many pairs of ears per station that would be. How many zeroes in a billion?)

If India follows the broadcasting style of the west, likely the on-air content will be restricted to fashion, the home and other things that won't get the men terribly upset. But it's a start. Even the idea that there is a place on the airwaves devoted to women is an important political symbol.

In terms of real on-the-ground change, I still think that community radio has more capacity to change society (and community radio is now legal in India too, with many in the planning stages preparing to go on-air). But having stations like Radio Meow in Mumbai might help women realize some new possibilities. There are many, many, maybe even half a billion, women who never ever thought a woman could or should go on air. So it's a step. Maybe it will inspire some of them to find a community radio station and go on air themselves. Or even go to get into radio as a career.)

For those of you who are going to be travelling to Mumbai, Radio Meow is on 104.8. Bring me back a tape of the programming if you go. Better still, an interview.

Meow stations are also due for launch in Mumbai, Kolkata, Amritsar, Patiala, Shimla and Jodhpur in the coming months.

A question for those of you who know Indian culture .. I am puzzled by the name. I can understand why a radio station aimed targeted at women over here would be named after a cat. But never in my travels in India did I even see a cat ... are cats a female symbol in India too ??

Happy Spring! - Magnetic Spirits Spring E-News

2007-05-30T06:45:00.000-04:00

Magnetic Spirits E-News
May 29, 2007-05-29
(a reprint of my email newsletter for those of you who aren't on the list)

Hello, all of you. I haven´t been in touch by email for a while -
part of that is because I have been moving, resettling, re-
prioritizing. I have a home again after many months of being on the
road. It feels good .. even though I really miss that incredible
feeling when the wheels lift off the runway and I´m up and away. And
my apartment still looks like a warehouse.

The other reason why some of you haven´t heard from me is because I
am changing my internet strategy - new developments on the internet
and the evils of spam are causing me to look at new ways of getting
information out. Blogs, podcasts, online communities like Facebook
and Myspace are changing the ways we communicate. It´s all very
exciting ... and it means that some of you who are in touch with the
new digital universe are hearing from me a lot (those who already
read my blog and are on my Facebook site). Bear with me, these are
transitional times .. one of these days all these things will be
integrated.

I am continuing to send out newsletters via email because I know a
lot of you are still using email as your main internet communications
method. I invite you all to visit, my blog, listen to my podcast
and become part of my Facebook community. Just email me if you´re
not sure what this all means and how you can be part of it. And I´ll
bring you up to speed.

Enjoy the universe - digital and otherwise. Especially now that the
really nice weather is here ... I need to remind myself of the wonders
of life in the non-digital world too.

So here´s what I´m up to .. get in touch if anything fires up your
imagination.

In today´s newsletter:

1.) Back on the Air! - Bringing the World Home
2.) Keeping the World Safe for Words of Wisdom (and otherwise)
3.) Upcoming and Notable - future plans

1.) Back on the Air - Bringing the World Home

I´ve been back in Hamilton now for three months. It was inevitable
.. I am back on the air starting tomorrow morning. Join me at CFMU
93.3 FM in Hamilton for my new show "Bringing the World Home". Or if
you´re not in Hamilton, listen on line at http://cfmu.mcmaster.ca

I think of "Bringing the World Home" as what a dinner party would
sound like if I was able to invite the whole world (even though, in
real time, it´s more like a breakfast party .. at least here in
Hamilton). For the next couple of months I´ll be digging through my
archives and playing the sound pieces I´ve done that I would like
people to hear again. And I´ll be playing the episodes of The Green
Planet Monitor, the radio program that took me to India, Nepal and
Sri Lanka.

On tomorrow´s show:

The Green Planet Monitor -- The Medicinal Plant Revolution - how
traditional herbs are building economies and improving health in Sri
Lanka, India, Nepal and Ecuador. An interview with Canadian Governor
General Michaele Jean by Michelle Betz in Accra, Ghana

"Sweet Waltz Bitter Waltz" - my friends Sarah and Kevin Atkinson,
also known as "Teach Yourself Piano" Europe between the wars, Lotte
Lenya, Randy Newman and a bit of Tom Waites thrown in. Great music
and chat.

(And thanks to Gord Jackson, my friend who has graciously given me
his timeslot for the summer. Have a nice break .. I promise you can
have your time slot back when you want it)

2.) Words of Wisdom

Another big part of my life right now is my work with the Kairos
Literary Society. Since March, I have been working half time helping
the writers of Hamilton tell their stories. It´s a really varied job
.. sometimes I´m planning workshops and readings, sometimes I´m the
resident beancounter making sure we have enough money to make all the
workshops and readings happen.

My particular enthusiasms involve adapting literature to the digital
age, understanding how writing is changing in the post-post-post
Gutenberg era. And also exploring those grey areas where fiction and
non-fiction intersect. In the near future, I will be establishing a
Hamilton journalists group where those of us with our feet in the
"real" world (or maybe deluding ourselves that there IS a real world)
can explore where we and the rest of the world connect. It´s a
fine, fine line.

3.) Upcoming and Notable

I am hoping that I will be in Nairobi the end of September if the
gods and goddesses of funding approve. I´ve been invited to speak at
the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio and
Television (www.iawrt.org) What makes this group outstanding is that
we of the "first world" are vastly outnumbered by women of the
developing world .. if you count the members of the IAWRT, 75 of us
are from the so called "first" world and 225 are from the rest of the
planet. The focus of the conference is primarily on social justice
.. with many seminars on the role of media in conflict resolution,
new ways of reporting elections, solving violence against women
through media. Very exciting. Fingers crossed that the funding
comes through.

I am also developing a new project which won´t happen until next year
.. but I´m really excited about it. The focus is on activists and
social justice workers .. what motivates people to go to a place far
away and expose themselves to difficult conditions .. what keep them
motivated, why do they think this is worth the risk? And things to
think about if YOU´RE considering taking off halfway around the world
because you think you might be able to make a difference.

I think it´s going to be mostly a web project. With online audio
and video. It's still evolving ...

Oh yes .. this is just for fun. I am taking belly dancing lessons
tomorrow afternoon. And right now I´m listening to my friend Laura
Hollick on the air talking about how to make your life an artform.

That´s all I can think of for now. Be happy. Be in touch.

Blessed be
Victoria

Blackberry Digital Hash??

2007-05-27T10:30:00.000-04:00

(Photo: unripe blackberries in Harrison Hot Springs, BC)

No, Blackberry Digital Hash isn't a new kind of fruity illegal substance.

Those of you in the recording business may find this interesting. The Blackberry transmits a more powerful signal than an ordinary cellphone. So when there's a Blackberry in the room, it can interfere with your recording.

This is true of ordinary cell phones too. Even when they're turned off.

Mouseland - A Socialist Parable

2007-05-26T04:36:00.000-04:00

(This is a story which was written by the great Tommy Douglas, father of medicare in Canada. Written many years ago but still relevant today. Lots of people know this story .. I post it here for the people who don't know it yet)

This is the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played. Were born and died. And they lived much as you and I do. They even had a parliament. And every four years they had an election. They used to walk to the polls and cast their ballot. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. They got a ride for the next four years afterward too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day, all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big black fat cats.

Now if you think it’s strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats. You just look at the history of Canada for the last ninety years and maybe you’ll see they weren’t any stupider than we are.

Now I am not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows; they conducted the government with dignity. They passed good laws. That is, laws that were good for cats.

But the laws that were good for cats weren’t very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouse holes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much physical effort.

All the laws were good laws for cats. But oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn’t put up with it anymore they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse the polls.

They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats. The white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said all that Mouseland needs is more vision. They said the trouble with Mouseland is those round mouse holes we’ve got. If you put us in we’ll establish square mouse holes. And they did. And the square mouse holes were twice as big as the round mouse holes. And now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn’t take that anymore they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. And then they went back to the white cats, and then to the black, they even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up with up cats with spots on them. They were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but they ate like a cat.

You see my friends the trouble wasn’t with the colour of the cats. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats they naturally look after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends watch out for the little fellow with an idea. He said to the other mice. “Look fellows why do we keep electing a government made up of cats, why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?�? Oh, they said, he’s a Bolshevik. So they put him in jail. But I want to remind you that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.

- Tommy Douglas, then leader of the NDP

The Future is a Place

2007-05-25T06:53:00.000-04:00

(Note: this article was written by my friend Roxanne Amico who is an artist and radio producer living in Buffalo. I was dazzled by this article and asked her if I could post it on my blog. She said yes, and I am happy. The above picture is also by Roxanne and is called "Circle Casting". Links to Roxanne's site are at the end of this post. Enjoy. Be inspired. Be hopeful)

The Future is a Place
By Roxanne Amico

We walked to the playground, from my mother's house, where I go for dinner most Friday nights, to play with my sister's 2 daughters (10 and 5 yrs old) and my mom's dog. The ten year old has mastered everything at the playground with an admirable cockiness, and still challenges herself to step outside her limits. The five year old worships her older sister and wants to do all the older one does. I've been marvelling this spring over how much stronger they are, how much more confident in all the things they do...

The five year old saw what her bigger sister did on the monkey bars--a move that made ME envious--and she wanted to do it. What she can't do alone, I help her with if I can. I couldn't help her this time. I had to say no. I hate that. So does she. She stomped away, her hair flying behind her like a kite with the words ":F-You" written on it... I know how she felt--I knew that if I were bigger or stronger, I could have helped her. I walked slowly behind her to her pouting spot and told her that it was only because I didn't want her getting hurt by doing something I couldn't help her do. "It's not fair! Why can't I do ANYthing?" I told her how much she does this year that she couldn't do last year, when she was four. I knew that would have some meaning, because she makes it clear on a regular basis how proud she is to have arrived at five years old. I called her older sister over to help remind her of the strides she's made in one year. She wanted to do that monkey bar thing though and pressed her case. I said, "You will." She said, "When?"

I said what I knew to be the most irrelevant answer I could give a five year old child, knowing both before, during, and after saying it that it was inane: "In the future."

It was inane because ultimately time means at once everything and nothing to a five year old. "Five years old" is just "more than four", and therefore "better", in many respects because she feels progressively more privileged "now" than "before". It means this thing that means so much more to everyone else --older and bigger--around her, and therefore becomes something she wants desperately to understand, as if it were the secret to the universe. Her mother and I laughed about this recently, because she's been asking, "What time is it?" a lot lately, (..."Why--You got a date?"...), just as she's been talking about death and age. The future is nothing, does not exist, and I know this, yet to say, "In the future" was all I could think to say, while all the while I thought about the problems with this answer, the things I did not say to her, about how I hate this answer I am about to give her... I hate it because I hate this culture that teaches children to become adults who sell their lives to the clock and wallet; because I loathe the fact that she is growing up in a culture that is obsessed with pretending death won't happen, and therefore lives insanely as if the future is the only thing, a culture then unwittingly enslaved to the future as death, disguised as eternal youth, which is actually eternal ignorance, and amounts to acute lack of responsibility for the lives of others in other cultures who die at the hands of this foolishness--others who cannot--don't have the luxury to-- forget about their impending death, too often imposed by this culture...

...I feel rage rise in my chest, right next to the grief that I've got a niece who is 5, one who is 10, one who is 13, and another who is 16, knowing as I do that the future is grim because:

* if the bee population collapses which it is, humanity has 4-5 yrs to survive;
* if the climate change reports are accurate … we have maybe 20 yrs before it's too late to do anything to stop the worst of the consequences of climate change ...
* because I know that another 570+ species go extinct every day, huge areas of the planets forests are felled and cleared every day, more topsoil is removed, deserts keep expanding, oceans keep dying, Greenland and all places ice are melting at a much faster rate;
* because we act like the economy is ok because it hasn't hit "us" yet, but we're just plain wrong and to say otherwise is like talking a language no one can translate. And there are good reasons it SHOULDN'T continue as it is, and in the middle of ALL of the above, people still think we will find a technological silver bullet fix for the energy crisis we are now immersed in ----
* AND-this culture keeps pretending that to look closely at these facts is to invite depression, rather than it being an act of reason to look at the facts and recognize WE -CANNOT-GO-ON-LIKE-THIS YET-WE-CONTINUE-TO-ACT-LIKE-WE-CAN....

And when a 5 yr old asks me one 'simple' question, I think of the rest of her life in these conditions, because I love her, and because I know how much she loves to be alive. (And because I know she won't go all ga-ga about how fast and high that dow jones is climbing--whoop-de-effing do--Aren't we all doing so wonderfully???? I know she won't say something even more inane like, "hey--but we can always try wind/solar-power, while all the while ignoring all these other factors, and forgetting that even these "low tech" solutions rely on PETROLEUM )

Now before I get any emails telling me everything is ok, or checking in on my state of mental health, I'll just say right now I am not "Depressed". This time is one of the happiest, most satisfying and exciting times of my life. What I despise is this culture, not people, not reality, not everything. I can't stand that to merely look at and raise the topic of the danger we are in brings people to blind fear, rather than awakened agency, but I keep looking for a way...

And I think that until we truly see and feel and grasp the deeply disturbing reality, we cannot truly do anything effective about it.

I passionately believe it's entirely possible to love life, love the people I know and many I don't know, love the planet and all living things, past, present, and future. And at the same time to have deep contempt for that which threatens all I love--that which is within my agency to oppose, that which is, as my niece calls it, "Not fair." When I say I hate this culture, I mean the petri dish we're all in, festering away in the disease that's killing the planet, (and there's simply no positive way to put that one anymore), and I don't mean culture in the classic (and elitist) sense of the term. This, of course, is what makes me the artist I am: Because I love, and because I hate, and because the future is not enough, so that what my life is about is shaping a sustainable culture, and because I know in my heart that the only answer really is the present, [even if, at the same time, I know the future I am working for is far too much in the future than I can describe to a five year old] as does the five year old know so dearly about the present...

...As this avalanche of thought crashed through my mind, fully expecting a rumble from my niece in response to my simplistic "in the future" claim, she didn't skip a beat: She sort of growled, and sneered, and with her fingers extended in her own gesticulated passion, sort of like a cat's untrimmed toe-nails, she said loudly,

"the future is just this boring place where they let you do everything and you can't have any fun!!!"

This took my breath away. Knowing I wouldn't remember this exact thing later, I grabbed my pen and paper I always keep in my pocket I don't always have and said, "Hannah--Wait!! Before you say another thing--THAT is one of the coolest things anyone has ever said to me--Can I write it down?"

She said, "Now this is fun. I like this writing things down when I say them--let's do more of that..."

(to hear Roxanne's radio show, go here
To see more of Roxanne's work, go to her online studio here
Her myspace site is http://www.myspace.com/radioroxanne)

My Neglected Blog

2007-05-01T07:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've done a posting. Not that I haven't wanted to express myself online. Used to be that this blog is where I did it.

Ah, times have changed. Blogging is being replaced ... by Facebook!

Yes, I will admit. I am going to be in need of a 12-step program if this continues. I first heard about Facebook down at CFMU, where program director (and who was a volunteer when I was station manager 10-15 years ago) told me that the "kids" got him to sign up. Sign of the times ... both James the PD and I are now old enough to refer to the 20-somethings as "kids". When I was at CFMU I was only in my mid-30s so the age difference didn't seem so great. Now there's no denying it ... we are becoming elders in the world of community radio.

That was a month ago. I didn't even look at Facebook then .. figured it was a fad. And then I got an invitation from my niece Crystal in Kelowna who is 25. Crystal isn't at all what I would call a tech-head. Yet she uses technology in ways that I don't ... and a quick visit with her, her sister and brother shows me new ways of communicating that I hadn't thought of.

So okay, I'm the cool aunt. Better sign up.

And every day I look at my list of friends to make sure it's growing. For a while I was stalled at 38. And I started to get a bit obsessed about it. Come on, I've got more friends than that. And then I would think about my status line Victoria is ... Victoria is ... what? There are people who update their status line by the hour. do they live on line or something? And then there is the optional information ... what do I put under Status ... do I say I'm single? Maybe that sends out the wrong ... or right? .. signal. Or do I ignore the question? Quotes ... what are my favourite quotes .. should it be profound or fun? And then there's the picture .. a lot of people are going to be seeing this (although probably not as many as most Facebookers think. What one shows my best side?

Too many decisions and I haven't even finished my coffee yet. It's getting cold because I am too busy typing. Oh yeah, I gotta get some work done this morning.

What is truly fascinating is to see who signs up and who doesn't. There are some surprises. I look at my friends list just to see who's showing up. What? Him? I thought he was scared of the computer. And some of the ones who seem like they'd be naturals are nowhere to be found.

A couple of observations -- there is an age thing happening. For sure. The friends collections of my younger Facebook friends are a lot bigger than those my own age. Makes me wonder how much of this is a popularity contest. Of course it is. And the updates seem to come minute by minute. My friends who are roughly the same age as me don't change their entries as frequently.

The friends who aren't there tell me a) it's just another gadget they don't have time for and b) they want to protect their privacy. Fair enough. Being a media person who really likes politics, my own perspective is that not being seen is not a good thing. So I realize I'm a much more in-your-face-in-your-ear kind of person than the average person my age.

Inevitably, because I like to ask a lot of questions (and can't help it), I do wonder what this shows about the communications methods and attitudes of people who are younger than me. We do know they don't read in the same way as we did ... small bites rather than novels. And mainstream radio and TV are bemoaning the possibility (probability) they're not going to have any listeners at all once those who are now over 40 die off. They're right ... which is a whole other story.

What this makes me ask, as a communicator, is how to stay relevant as all these changes occur. As I age, am I going to keep communicating the way I always have, using the same old media?

I don't want that. Because it means that I'll only be communicating with people my own age. That for me is the value of learning new technologies like Facebook. And why I'm spending so much time with this thing. Or so I tell myself.

Not just because it's a whole bunch of fun.

Whoops. Gotta go. Haven't checked my Facebook in 15 minutes!

(update: I just checked it out. I am stalled at 53 friends. And that's really only 52 because Simon signed up twice. Come on! I've got more friends than that. And what's with all those question marks where the pictures should be??!!)

Canadian Humour

2007-04-16T08:15:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine in the States sent this to me. It was fun to be able to tell her I've flown with Westjet, and yes, the quotes are probably accurate.

FWD: You've got to love the Canadian sense of humor.

West Jet is an Airline with head office situated in Calgary, Alberta.
West Jet airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety
lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining.

Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:
On a West Jet flight there is no assigned seating, you just sit where
you want. Passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a
flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out
furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"
___________________________________

On another West Jet Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew,
the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and
will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to
enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."
____________________________________
On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your
belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's
something we'd like to have."
____________________________________
"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out
of this airplane."

-----------------------
"Thank you for flying West Jet Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us
the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
---------------------------

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at the Vancouver
airport, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
-------------------------

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Ontario, a
flight attendant on a West Jet flight announced, "Please take care when
opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that,
sure as hell everything has shifted."
-----------------------

From a West Jet Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard West Jet Flight 245
to Calgary. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the
buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you
don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
-- -------------------

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend
from the ceiling, stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face.
If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before
assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."
-----------------------

"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but
we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember,
nobody loves you, or your money, more than West Jet Airlines."
------------------------

"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an
emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."
-----------------------

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings.
Anything lef t behind will be distributed evenly among the flight
attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."
---------------------------

And from the pilot during his welcome message: "West Jet Airlines is
pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in
the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"
-----------------------------

Heard on West Jet Airlines just after a very hard landing in Edmonton;
The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a
bump, and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't
the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight
attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."

------------------------------
Overheard on a West Jet Airlines flight into Regina on a particularly
windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain was
really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight
Attendant said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Regina. Please remain
in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's
left of our airplane to the gate!"

------------------------------
Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We
ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the
terminal."

---------------------
An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered
his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which
required the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited,
smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline."
He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking
the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment.
Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking
with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Why, no, Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?"
The little old lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"
-------------------

After a real crusher of a landing in Halifax, the attendant
came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until
Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching
halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning
bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way
through the wreckage to the terminal."

-----------------------
Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank
you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the
insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we
hope you'll think of West Jet Airways."

-----------------------
Heard on a West Jet Airline flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish
to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing. If you can
light 'em, you can smoke 'em."

-----------------------
A plane was taking off from the Winnipeg airport. After it reached a
comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the
intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome
to Flight Number 293, nonstop from Winnipeg to Montreal. The weather ahead
is good and, therefore, we should ha have a smooth and uneventful flight.
Now sit back and relax.. OH, MY GOD!"

Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on
the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I
scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant
accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the
front of my pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You
should see the back of mine!"

Another favourite picture

2007-04-10T11:26:00.000-04:00

In the final stages of winter (supposed to be spring, but it's still snowing), it's so nice to go back to my India/Nepal/Sri Lanka pictures and feel the warmth.

Different pictures jump out at me at different times. I have just rediscovered this one. I was at the Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka and a group of school kids asked if they could take my picture with them. So then I asked one of them to take a picture with my camera. And I just love the way it turned out.

Good Work, Mom and Dad!

2007-04-09T17:58:00.000-04:00

Today is my parents 52nd anniversary. April 9, 1955 was the day. The place was Ruscom United Church, in a small village (hamlet, really) about 40 kilometers from Windsor. A farming community populated by people who were mostly all related to each other (by marriage, not all by blood). My mom and dad lived only a couple of kilometers from each other but somehow didn't get to know each other until they were teenagers. They met detassling corn, and their first date was at the stock car races.

For fifty two years they've kept it together. Pretty amazing from my vantage point ... I am in the final stages of ending mine after 21 years. I can remember times which were tense, especially when we were teenagers. But they're still together.

And I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted them to stay together "for the kids" if they weren't happy. But I don't think they stayed together just for us. They did it for them. Which is the way it should be.

Hope you have lots and lots more anniversaries, Mom and Dad.

Love from your five girls,
Marianne, Dianne, Victoria, Lori and Cindy
and your two little girls .. Elizabeth and Emily

(PS - The other people in the picture are my sisters Marianne and Dianne, and my brother in law George. I guess you can tell who my mom and dad are ... this picture was taken on Christmas Day 2006)

Remember This

2007-04-05T11:34:00.000-04:00

This from my wonderful friend Angelyn Debord in the mountains of Virginia:

Speak the following lines out loud:

I love everything about me
I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain
I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing
I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself

Opting back in

2007-03-12T20:54:00.000-04:00

Well, I am becoming a member of North American (read:consumer) society again. I now have my own apartment (haven’t moved in yet but that will happen next Monday), I am now typing this as I wait for Cogeco Cable to go through their exceedingly long voicemail message that explains that I am liable for everything and they are liable for nothing. I cannot get exit this message because if I hang up they will not hook up my cable and internet, which makes the fifteen minutes I’ve already been on the phone signing up rather pointless. It is very, very, very boring. So I am updating my blog at the same time.

Living by society’s rules is really complicated. It has been much easier with no home and wandering around from place to place with no bills but my Visa card to pay so that I can do more travelling. I like being a gypsy. I am going to miss it.

Fuck … this message isn’t over yet … pardon my profanity. I don’t like businesses which waste my time like this. I don’t need them to read a whole contract to me OVER THE PHONE!

So I’ve put down the phone and let the recorded message blather on.

Even though I’ve opted back in, I’m still undecided about how much to do it Okay, an apartment for now is the way to go. For now. Until I can establish an intentional community with likeminded people. It will happen but it's a few years off. And I don't know where it's going to be yet. And I have to have communications services. I will have to do that even in my intentional community Shangr-la. Some things are inevitable. But I don’t have to shop at Walmart or at the mall. I don’t have to buy into consumerism to the degree that I used to think I had to.

I’m thinking that I want to buy little, and bank my money for travelling. Forget RRSP’s – at my age it’s not going to do me much good. I was listening to one financial advisor on the radio who pointed out that in order for most Canadians to live the Freedom 55 lifestyle, they’d need at least half a million dollars in RRSPs when they retire. And the average Canadian RRSP savings is $40,000. I think I’m just going to have to take my chances and trust grace and luck to get me through my old age. And thank god people in Ontario don’t have to retire at 65 because I’ll be working until I drop dead.

Update -- Fifteen minutes later. The annoying dial-a-contract message is STILL going. So I hung up. Wonder if they'll tell me I can't have cable now. My god, read me House of Commons proceedings instead. It would be a lot more interesting compared to this. Hope this telecontract thing doesn’t become a trend. If the pollution and wars don’t get us, these big corporations are going to bore us to death.

Tonight’s contacts with the big wide world of North American commerce has reaffirmed something that I already knew … that I don’t want to deal with big corporations any more and will do business with ordinary people except in cases where I can’t avoid it.

(I am unusually crabby today … probably because I woke up annoyed because my body was telling me it was 8:00 and the clock said it was already 9. I'm also bitchy because somebody decided to make daylight savings time happen 3 weeks early. Daylight savings time is not supposed to start when the snow is still on the ground. It ain't natural)

I really must be careful …. this last 18 months has been a welcome holiday from frustration and cynicism. The challenge is to maintain that spirit … and to discover how I can opt out spiritually while opting in to those things that I need – like services of big companies that do phones, internet and rent apartments. And to enjoy the good things about Western society without letting the not-so-good things drag me down.

It's truly a spiritual challenge, it is.

Media with a Forgiving Mind ..

2007-02-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

I have referred several times in this blog about the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. That's because it's an amazing collection of stuff about dealing with the emotional content of our work, both in terms of the people we write about and also ourselves.

There is an article I found that is especially resonant with me. It's all about Trauma and Forgiveness, written by BBC Reporter Jennifer Glasse after a workshop on trauma and forgiveness, done by Robin Shohet and Ben Fuchs of the Findhorn Foundation (which is a website you should also check out).

Ms. Glasse starts out being skeptical, but then starts to challenge her own definition of forgiveness. And she made some really good discoveries about herself and her profession.

Well worth a look.

A Splash of Colour

2007-02-22T16:57:00.000-05:00

Oh, this page of my blog is looking way too grey .. such is February in Canada. So here's another view ... the Malabar coast on the west side of India with waves rolling in from Africa. It would be nice to be there today, sitting in the sun and looking up at the tall, tall coconut trees.

The History of Podsafe Music

2007-02-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

I am finishing my doc about Indian community radio and have a few segments that are naked of background sound. So I did a search for Indian Podsafe Music. Didn't find much except for one enterprising rock band named Parlay who are everywhere in Google search land.

I did find a reallllllly funny site that you have to see called The History of Podsafe Music

This is the comment which instigated the item coming up in Google:

"The first evidence of podsafe music was discovered in this cave drawing in central India. It depicts the mirth and disdain of the fertility goddess after attending a show by an unsigned band. Squirting milk from her breasts was not only a prehistoric version of throwing a tomato, but also indicated the band members' inability to get women."

Click on the site to get the full effect. And the other four significant eras of podcast history.

Going Home to Hamilton

2007-02-11T20:44:00.000-05:00

I'm slowly making my way back to Hamilton. It's taken me a long time to figure out where I wanted to be. Last year at this time, I figured I was gone for good. I'm in Toronto right now but watching the apartment ads every day to find a place to call home.

Most of my friends are supportive of my decision to go back, and a couple of them are not. The ones who aren't are former Hamiltonians themselves who have left and I guess didn't have that great an experience when they were there.

That's not me, though. I love Hamilton. When I first moved there is 1992 to work at CFMU (McMaster University's radio station), no less than 6 people in the first week called me and said "hi, remember me?" They were all people who I had known in other cities. And I have always found it so easy to make friends in Hamilton. Something about the city .... I just like being there.

It's also about the character of the town. There are ghosts, there is mafia and biker gangs. There are people with PhD's and salt of the earth folks who are good people who just want to make a little bit of difference in the world.

Hamilton's different from Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Because there's no real upper crust in Hamilton (well, okay, now that Ancaster is part of Hamilton, there are a few people who think they're upper crust. But that doesn't go very far downtown.

In terms of the work I do, it's a great city. Cities that don't see the need to change don't have much use for social change work. In Hamilton, everybody knows that a lot has to change. And while some would look at the problems of poverty as an insurmountable problem, I see it as an indication that there is so much useful work that can be done here.

Not that there isn't work to be done in every city ... but it is harder to do social change work in cities that don't want to face the idea that changes are needed. The prettier and richer the city, I find, the harder it is for the people who live there to look beyond the facade. In Hamilton, a lot of people are open to new ideas. Not everybody of course, but we voted him out last time around.

So I am going back to the city with more waterfalls than anywhere else in North America. And more pitbulls than any other city in North America. And a beautiful harbour. And steel mills that are both scary and beautiful at the same time.

I think that's a good way to describe Hamilton ... scary and beautiful at the same time. And real down to earth and a great place to live.

Documentary Poetry

2007-02-07T11:25:00.000-05:00

I have been looking for a while for a term that describes the kind of poetry I do .. whereby I combine subjective writing with sounds gathered from the real world. The term I came up with was "documentary poetry" ... and to see if anybody else thought of this genre, I turned to my good friend Google.

I was really excited to find out that it is a term used (and perhaps invented) by Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay. I'm glad to see my work fits into some kind of historical context, and I am also really happy that a poet who I admire and respect and I have something in common. I think we have a lot in common, actually, since she writes from her roots as an activist.

This from the Athabasca University website:

"She offered a theory that Canadian literature favoured a mode she called “documentary poetry,” long narrative poems that comment on particular social topics and that “are a conscious attempt to create a dialectic between the objective facts and the subjective feelings of the poet” (“The Documentary Poem: A Canadian Genre,” 267). Call My People Home (1950)--about the mistreatment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War--and The Documentaries (1968) are examples of her own work in this genre. In the same vein, Right Hand Left Hand (1977), her remarkable autobiography about her life of activism in the 1930s, combines retrospective commentary with period photographs, newspaper articles, poetry, drama, and unedited letters that emphasizes the integration of the individual history with social history. She also believed in the close affinity between poetry and music. ( Vivian Zenari )

"A Model Wife and Mother"

2007-01-31T20:00:00.000-05:00

I love this statue.

I'm sure you all know who this is. If not, let me give you a clue ... one of the reasons why I love this statue is because of her name. When I was in India, a number of people said to me "oh, Victoria, you have a very important name". And yes, I guess it is. After all, she was the first and only Empress of India.

The most amazing thing about this statue to me is the inscription:

VICTORIA
QUEEN AND EMPRESS
A MODEL WIFE AND MOTHER

It was dedicated to the Queen by the women of Hamilton in the early part of the century.

Queen and Empress --- yes.

But ... a model wife and mother ????

I guess it depends which model you're looking at. Model wife she was. She loved Prince Albert. In every sense of the word. Prince Albert, despite being regarded as her social inferior, was her closest advisor. When he died, she went into mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. By all reports, she was a woman deeply in love and a woman who deeply loved.

As far as the Model Mother part ... by all reports, that's stretching it quite a bit. She was the mother of nine children, but allegedly thought the act of childbirth and all things associated with it to be deeply disgusting. And she once referred to babies as being ungainly as little frogs. Deeply maternal she was not. Allegedly, anyway.

All that aside, what I find ironic about this statue is the juxtaposition of those words, Empress, Queen, Wife, Mother. It makes me wonder what statement was being made about ideal womanhood. Was it not enough to be Queen and Empress?

Or maybe it was an attempt to humanize her and minimize the distance between her and her loyal subjects in Hamilton?

Well, without reading too deeply into it, the statue just plain makes me smile. Partly because of the absurdity of it, partly because it's so damn dramatic ... I wouldn't describe her face as severe, but she is not a woman to be trifled with. "Mom" is not the word which comes to mind when gazing upward at this woman with sceptre in hand and a lion guarding her feet.

I like it because it's a great piece of art, a great piece of history. With a really great name.

In the Middle of Nowhere

2007-01-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I google a phrase and see what comes up. Today I googled the phrase "staying with pain" .. tough day today. And I landed upon a page called Electronic Iraq and I found these words by the late Tom Fox, one of the men from the Christian Peacekeeping Team who was imprisoned along with Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh .. they were freed but Tom Fox didn't make it out.

There are a lot of brave words here, and also words which express the difficulties of peacemaking work. Amazing words from an amazing man ...

"The ability to feel the pain of another human being is central to any kind of peacemaking work. But this compassion is fraught with peril. A person can experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. Or a feeling of rage and desire for revenge. Or a desire to move away from the pain. Or a sense of numbness that can deaden the ability to feel anything at all.

"How do I stay with the pain and suffering and not be overwhelmed? How do I resist the welling up of rage towards the perpetrators of violence? How do I keep from disconnecting from or becoming numb to the pain?

"After eight months with CPT, I am no clearer than I when I began. In fact I have to struggle harder and harder each day against my desire to move away or become numb. Simply staying with the pain of others doesn't seem to create any healing or transformation. Yet there seems to be no other first step into the realm of compassion than to not step away."

Here, Fox quotes Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, from her book The Places that Scare You: "Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere makes our hearts more tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the nowhere place then compassion arises spontaneously."

Fox adds: "Being in the middle of nowhere really does create a very queasy feeling and yet so many spiritual teachers say it is the only authentic place to be. Not staking out any ground for myself creates the possibility of standing with anyone. The middle of nowhere is the one place where compassion can be discovered. The constant challenge is recognizing that my true country of origin is the middle of nowhere."

Hope that helps when you're wonder if you're standing in the middle of nowhere. Helps me. my struggle is small compared to his was, yet his words resonate ... which means his words still live and have power.

Berlin, are you there .. Prague .. come in ...

2007-01-17T20:39:00.000-05:00

I spent the afternoon today in a radio studio celebrating Art's Birthday. Art who? ART. With a capital A. As in AHHT ... dahling.

My job was to search the internet and pull audio clips from all the Art's Birthday celebrations from around the world. Which would mean mostly Canada and Europe. Japan had a live netcast too, but their day was all finished by the time we got to the station. That international date line thing, you know.

I did a lot of listening today and a lot of surfing too. The best thing about it was that this was the first time I've used internet broadcasts as a programming tool. And I learned a lot.

First of all, you have to get up early in the morning to grab your material because by the time the afternoon rolls around, the net gets very congested and slow. And some streams don't even appear at all ... we techologically based artists are pretty good at this stuff but we're not infallible. I never could get Prague to come in.

And speaking of Prague, I sure wish those Czechs would put the little loudspeaker symbol on their web page so I don't have to figure out what the word "Listen" is in Czech. Some of these web masters make it awfully hard to figure things out. Respect the conventions of UWL, (Universal Web Language), folks.

I also realized that you don't ever plan a whole afternoon on live netcasts. Or, if you do, you always have a good backup plan in case Prague doesn't show up for your party either.

The other things I learned were about Art himself (who decided that Art was a guy, anyway?) After listening to a whole bunch of artists paying homage to their master, I have come up with the conclusion that Art is a pretty cool guy. Damn cold, as a matter of fact (actually, it's a matter of perception, not fact).

Art is a real machine these days. All those computer generated sounds. Beeps, squawks, machine sounds. So I have to ask, where is the humanity in all the beep squawking that is going in galleries these days? Where are the human voices? Where are the real world sounds? Where is the stuff that stirs the soul?

I enjoyed the workout that the left side of my brain got today, though. I'll visit my right brain again tomorrow and be glad that for me, Art's a whole lot softer than all that.

If you want to listen to some Art's Birthday celebrations yourself, click here.

P.S. the guy with the cake above is Pierre Filliou, the guy who decided over a hundred years ago that Art's Birthday should be celebrated. He was French. You probably figured that out ....

So Long, Catfish John

2007-01-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

I just got the very sad news that Catfish John, co-host of the Sunnyside Up Gospel Hour at WMMT is no longer with us.

The news was emailed to me via L'il Willard of the Bluegrass Express Show, also from WMMT. I met Catfish Jean and Catfish John when Barry and I were living down in Kentucky. Barry was managing the radio station, I was taking a break from working and learning about the things I missed while I was working.

WMMT had a rule ... you could sing about God, but no preachin' and no prayin'. The Catfishes walked that line really closely. Devout Christians themselves, but they appreciated the station and its rules. And in all of the time I've talked to them, not once did they say anything that expressed anything other than love and respect for other people. Truly a model that other Christians would do well to follow.

One especially memorable day, we went to the home of two WMMT folks who could no longer do a show. Mallie and Levie Gross were their names. So they did their weekly radio program of gospel tunes with a guitar, a voice and a really tinny Sears tape recorder and microphone that no broadcast professional would ever let near a radio station. They did their show anyway and it was broadcast, every week. And what it lacked in depth of sound, they made up for in depth of spirit. We went up to Levi and Mallie's house, along with Catfish Jean and Catfish John, who played in the ensemble on his slide dobro. He was a hell of a (whoops ... I meant "heck of a") good musician.

I'm glad I still have the recording that I made of that day, and I will listen to it and think of Catfish John. I am sure Catfish Jean's heart is really breakin' right now. But her faith is so strong that I don't believe she doubts for a minute that there is a heaven, and that Catfish John will be waiting for her when she gets there.

Reminds me of a song I learned when I was in Appalachia:

"I'll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan
I'll be waiting drawing pictures in the sand
And when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout
And I'll come running through the shallow waters reaching for your hand".

Alive and Well in Cabbagetown

2007-01-09T15:32:00.000-05:00

I know. I've been neglecting my blog. So have you .. not a comment from anybody in over a month. (bitch, bitch, bitch) Guess I have to go to Antarctica to get your attention.

I am nicely settling for five weeks at a generous friend's home in Cabbagetown. I am housesitting while she is away. For those of you not familiar with Toronto, Centre of the Universe, Cabbagetown is in the centre of Toronto, not far from Yonge Street, the longest street in the world (Toronto claims that Yonge Street goes all the way up to Timmins or something like that. Which is stretching it, but Toronto and Texas have a lot in common because both places are really invested in the suffix "est" .. as in biggest, longest, smartest (okay, so Texas doesn't usually claim that one).

I like Toronto. And I don't like Toronto. Just like all the other Canadians, I have an ambivalent relationship with Hogtown (Hogtown is the alternate name for the city. Cabbagetown is a neighbourhood within Hogtown). Named because it used to be the hog slaughtering capital of Ontario. And because the people in my neighbourhood were so poor they had to eat cabbages.

I like the neighbourhood. It's a place where gentrification started to take hold about 20 years ago and then slowed down. Can't say it stopped entirely, but it's a mixed neighbourhood which has both very affluent people and also the Regent Park Community Housing Neighbourhood (aka The Projects). It's a neighbourhood where the day old vegetables don't stay on the clear out rack for long in the No Frills Grocery store, which is three doors down from the shop with the high end expensive cheeses.

Much to my surprise, this area has also become a big area in Toronto for Tamil settlement. When I was in Sri Lanka, I heard a lot about the conflict and life in Sri Lanka from the Sinhalese point of view. But I never heard much from Tamils. Likely because I was mostly in Colombo, which is a different part of the country than the area where Tamils live. I went for a walk and discovered a Sri Lankan restaurant which I must check out. And an Indian/Sri Lankan grocery store with a friendly man named Mahindra behind the counter. I told him I'd like to come back and talk to him about what life is like for Tamils in his home country.

I haven't lived in Toronto since 1990, so this is a really great opportunity to take advantage of what the city has to offer. Which is a lot. Come mid-February, I will be back to my old haunts in Hamilton where gentrification is moving even more slowly than here.

Looking forward to it. And in the meantime, really enjoying being here too. There is so much to explore no matter where you are. There is no excuse to be bored in this amazing place called Earth .. no matter which part of it you find yourself in.

Write to me! All this solitude can be too much of a good thing.

Update

2006-12-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm starting to get "where are you NOW?" messages. So this is a very practical post just for those who want to know and who can't keep track of me (I even have a hard time keeping track of where I am).

Right now I am in Burlington, heading to my parents' place for Christmas week. After a trip back to London to spend New Years Eve with friends and figure out what stuff I need to lug back with me (and exchange clothes .. I am again living with the same 12 items, which is what happens when I am on the road. So I can trade them for some new ones from my suitcase so I won't get bored).

I am now working in a very focussed way to find a new home. In January/February, I will either be in Toronto, house-sitting for a friend, or in Hamilton, staying in the same friend's Hamilton house (she will be away .. still determining if she needs me to house-sit in Toronto. If not, I will be at her place in the Hammer just off of trendy Locke Street. Cool).

My goal is to look for a place in Hamilton for the next little while ... it's a good town, rent is cheap and I have one heck of a great social network. Decided that I don't need to stay away just so that I won't run into any ghosts of my life as it used to be ...

In terms of my longer aspirations, I'm looking for a very creative solution. I am thinking that I want to do more international work, so I would really like to find a low-cost situation where I can just lock up the place for a couple of months when I am away without it costing me a fortune to pay for a place I'm only going to live in some of the time.

Still figuring out new ways to make this happen. Maybe a very compatible shared arrangement? One way or another, I am looking forward to unpacking my kitchen stuff, my pottery, my artworks, my CD's, getting my furniture back from my sister and living a life that's grounded in one place for a while. I need some more of that earth/rock energy. The Air energy has been good but it's time to quit blowing around in the wind quite so much.

Still figuring out the work situation .. I know I can make money writing but do I want the freelance lifestyle? I've been living it now for 8 years and it is starting to wear on me. Then again, it allows me a lot of freedom. So this will take a while to figure out.

I am meeting with my life coach this afternoon -- maybe I'll find some new perspectives on this. Balancing life and art .. always the challenge.

Journalism and Soul

2006-12-18T10:18:00.000-05:00

I am a member of the Association of Independents in Radio, a wonderful group of people mostly in the States. The listserve is full of inspirational ideas, tech tips and notes from people who are very supportive of each other. It's wonderful -- if you're a media artist or a journalist, I recommend membership in AIR very highly.

Today, Scott Gurian, an AIR member, posted this quote from Robert Krulwich. Wikipedia describes him this way: "Robert Krulwich is a respected radio and television journalist whose specialty is explaining complex topics in depth. He has done pieces for ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight, PBS's Frontline, NOVA, and NOW with Bill Moyers. He has previously worked for CBS, NPR, and Pacifica. TV Guide called him "the most inventive network reporter in television" and New York Magazine said he's "the man who simplifies without being simple".

He spoke at the Third Coast Festival in Chicago this year.. Scott posted this excerpt and it really spoke to me, so I thought I would reprint it here:

"There is a sense in which every time you choose to do something new, you're gonna be re-born. And if you do this well, each time up... every time you do a new story -- even if it's just going down to do the parade or talk to the mayor or whatever... Each time up, small or large, it's a little challenge. And it asks you to look and listen very, very closely and find the thing that you pick out, that you notice, that bounces out of the situation and hits your heart or your head or makes you angry or makes you sad or makes you suspicious... And everything then becomes very personal.

And if you do this well, even if you're working in an organization which doesn't want you to be personal, which wants you to sound like the others, the secret thing you do is you sound sort of like the others, but you put in a little bit of your heart somewhere in there... just a little. And if it's there, it's like a marker. It's the IOU to your soul. And sometimes they let you sing loudly. And sometimes you have to sing soft. But you keep singing. You never ever stop."

listen to the full speech here:

The link for Third Coast (which has wonderful stuff on it) is www.thirdcoastfestival.org

The Story of the Belly

2006-12-14T08:30:00.000-05:00

It is with great joy every week that I receive an email with a picture from my niece Crystal in Kelowna. She and her husband Joel are having their first baby in January, and never has a child been so welcomed into the world.

I (and the rest of her friends and family) have an entire collection of weekly shots of Crystal's belly as it gets larger. Her emails are full of exclamation marks it's clear that she is entirely thrilled about this. Her own private emails to me describe some of the little kicks, flips and turns that the baby makes. In one especially wonderful email, she writes about sitting on the couch and just enjoying feeling the baby sleep.

How does she know the baby's sleeping? Having never carried a baby myself, I have no intuitive sense of this. From what my own mother has said many times to me, it's just something about mothers. They know.

In a world where we hear often about babies who are not wanted, it is a wonderful gift to share with Crystal (and Joel too) as this baby has grown from an idea to the large-and-growing-larger bump on (and an important part of) her mother's body.

Thanks for sharing this, sweet one. And for including us all in the coming of your (and our) new baby.

P.S. - the latest pictures are 33 weeks. The baby is due the end of January.

Come Back Alive

2006-12-13T09:27:00.000-05:00

Oh, I'm on a roll today. Something about wanting to write freeform instead of getting down to the business of dubbing, editing and writing stories for editors to pick apart.

Okay, this one post. Then, back to the self-conscious market-driven stuff.

At least my research has been somewhat market-related. I am doing a story on tourism in conflict zones, an offshoot of my incredible time in Kashmir. The story focusses around a wonderful family who owns a tourist houseboat in Srinigar. They have made their living from the tourist trade for three generations. Since 1989, their business has declined because of political instability and many guys with many guns.

In the course of my research, I found a really good website -- it's called Come Back Alive . It is scary, amusing and a wealth of information.

By the way, on the map of the world, Canada is colour-coded as "a vacation with Grandma". It is also described as "one of the least dangerous places in the world". Britain is mostly harmless except for Northern Ireland and the U.S. is listed as one of the world's hotter places in terms of danger (of course the site is written by an American, and we know America has to be the best at everything, even if the category is dangerous places".

Cautionary note of a different kind: Just because it says a place is dangerous, doesn't mean you're going to get killed. I was in three conflict zones and one post-conflict zone and I didn't have any problems at all. And the sad thing to keep in mind is that people in these areas need our help more than ever. Forty percent of the world's economy is tourist-based, and a lot of the places which depend on tourists are politically unstable. Staying away makes it even harder for the people who live there to make a living.

So don't be a chicken-shit about your travel plans either. Be courageous (but not stupid .. that's up to you to decide what that means in terms of your own life.)

Citizen Journalism

2006-12-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

I found a phrase today which really sums up my aesthetic and philosophy towards my journalistic work. It came out of a thread on the email list of The Association for Independents in Radio, a very worthwhile producers collective I belong to.

The thread started with a story about ChiTown Daily News, a citizen journalist site in the Chicago area. As usual with groups of professionals, a lot of the discussion revolved around the theme "but they won't do it very well ..." (hence the need for professionals). They've got a point but I always find this kind of discussion to be based in part by at least a teeny bit of self-serving protectionism. This group is less infected by that, so I won't be too hard on them. And the point that "citizen journalism" is often a way for media outlets to get free content (and not have to pay us) is rather bang on.

The aspect of the discussion which caught my attention was phraseology by fellow AIR member Steve Sargeant -- "There's this whole meme being discussed out there about how journalism is no longer a packaged product, instead it's becoming a
conversation."

That is what's best about citizen journalism, and why it's the kind of journalism I am practising more and more. I'd have a lot more to say about this (and I will later) but I've now got to get back to being a traditional journalist -- with much writing and editing to do. Being a "professional" journalist (who works for pay) in addition to being a "citizen journalist" (who works for free).

Some Soul in the Hammer

2006-12-08T10:20:00.000-05:00

I am back in Hamilton for a couple of days. Right now I am at my friend Laura Hollick's Soul Art Studio in Hamilton Ontario (Hamilton is known as "The Hammer" for those who are wondering about the reference in the title of this post).

It's an amazing space with incredible energy. Most of that is because of Laura herself, a dynamic individual with energy that never seems to stop. Though the location helps too -- her studio is on the second floor with lots of windows, looking out at Hamilton Harbour and the train yards. It's also one of my favourite places to soundwalk. I woke up this morning to a minimalist soundscape of a train slowly shuttling out of the yard. Lots of squeals, bumps, frequencies ranging from deep bass to screechy treble.

Right now Laura's studio is full of 7 foot mannequins which she made herself out of paper mache. Her latest project is head dresses -- the mannequins are topped with all kinds of ceremonial garb. Some of the head dresses look like hats you would wear to tea (though not your grandmother's kind of hat). Others are warrior goddess helmets which need to be accompanied by face paint and a costume that says "this woman means business". They are made of feathers, sticks, brooms, beads, jewels ... truly opulent, powerful and designed to bring out many different kinds of spirits.

That's what I love about Laura's work. First of all, there's so MUCH of it. One of my goals is to be at least half as prolific as she is. And most important, it's imbued with spirit, confidence and a deep sense of what's in her own soul.

Another thing Laura does is teach workshops to people on accessing this kind of creativity in themselves. She also does one-on-one coaching where people are encouraged to actually do art along with Laura and find out what's deep inside of themselves.

So go to her webpage. And if you're in the Hamilton area, do one of her workshops or book an hour or two with her. Your emerging soul will thank you!

Laura's Head Dresses