Brent Holland - radio show
the value of a single human being
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this week
2010-07-28 Reza Kahlili CIA undecover agent inside Iran
A
Time To Betray
Reza Kahlili grew up in Tehran surrounded by his close-knit family and two spirited boyhood friends. The Iran of his youth allowed Reza to think and act freely, and even indulge a penchant for rebellious pranks in the face of the local mullahs. His political and personal freedoms flourished while he studied computer science at the University of Southern California in the 1970s. But his carefree time in America was cut short with the sudden death of his father, and Reza returned home to find a country on the cusp of change. The revolution of 1979 plunged Iran into a dark age of religious fundamentalism under the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Reza, clinging to the hope of a Persian Renaissance, joined the Revolutionary Guards, an elite force at the beck and call of the Ayatollah. But as Khomeini's tyrannies unfolded, as his fellow countrymen turned on each other, and after the horror he witnessed inside Evin Prison, a shattered and disillusioned Reza returned to America to dangerously become "Wally," a spy for the CIA.
In the wake of an Iranian election that sparked global outrage, at a time when Iran's nuclear program holds the world's anxious attention, the revelations inside A Time to Betray could not be more powerful or timely. Now resigned from his secretive life to reclaim precious time with his loved ones, Reza Kahlili documents scenes from history with heart-wrenching clarity, as he supplies vital information from the Iran-Iraq War, the Marine barracks bombings in Beirut, the catastrophes of Pan Am Flight 103, the scandal of the Iran-Contra affair, and more . . . a chain of incredible events that culminates in a nation's fight for freedom that continues to this very day.
Download Part 1 (30:00) Download Part 2 (30:00)
2010-07-21 Mark Lane - Jim Jone's People's Temple Jonestown witness & survivor
Jonestown
Massacre
Mark Lane is living history. Lane was present in Jonestown during the events of November 18, 1978, when more than 900 Peoples Temple members died in a murder-suicide by cyanide poisoning, and Congressman Leo Ryan and four others were murdered at a nearby airstrip. During the visit of Congressman Ryan, Lane helped represent the Temple with its other attorney, Charles R. Garry.
Late in the afternoon of November 18, two men wielding rifles approached Lane and Garry and told them bluntly they were to be executed. While waiting for their execution Lane heard the cries of children and gunshots less than 200 yards from where he was. The long black night of murder at Jonestown had begun.
2010-07-21 Mark Lane - Lawyer for The American Indian Movement - Wounded Knee 1973
Wounded
Knee 1973
Mr. Lane represented the American Indian Movement at the historic Wounded Knee trial, which he won. Following the trial, the United States District Court judge who had tried the case said, "Mark Lane is the finest investigative lawyer in America."
The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee of over 300 men, women and children was one of the most brutal acts of the U.S. government. Pine Ridge Reservation was created based on a treaty negotiated in response to the armed resistance of the tribe.
Today there are families who trace their history back to the Wounded Knee massacre and to signers of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.
In 1973, many elders feared that their cultural traditions and religious ceremonies were quickly being lost. Hopelessness was growing out of the lack of leadership from the tribal council, as well as a series of incidents including the killing by police of an Indian youth in the reservation border town of Custer.
Continued collaboration by the tribal leaders with anti- Indian policies of the federal government led to the occupation of the Wounded Knee hamlet, the site of the 1890 massacre. Oglala Sioux Tribe members and leaders of AIM undertook an action to dramatize the conditions on Pine Ridge Reservation. As a result, the world's attention became focused on the racism faced by Indians on reservations and in the cities, too.
The occupation became a 71-day struggle between activists and armed FBI agents and the National Guard. Those occupying believed the conditions were so drastic that they had to take a stand. Many expected to be killed - like their ancestors in 1890 - and two did die.
2010-07-14 Dr. Francis. S. Collins - leader of The Human Genome Project
“His groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we
consider our health and examine disease.”
— President Barak
Obama
“Man’s knowledge of man is undergoing the greatest revolution since Leonardo, and Francis Collins is at the leading edge of it. I am a better doctor today because Dr. Collins was my genetics professor in medical school, and now, the world gets to benefit from his wisdom by reading The Language of Life.”
— Dr. Sanjay Gupta,
Neurosurgeon at Emory University and Chief Medical Correspondent for
CNN
Francis Collins has been at the forefront of this revolution. He
was, for fifteen years, the head of the international Human Genome
Project, and he now serves as the Director of the National
Institutes of Health. He knows, better than anyone, how widespread
are the misperceptions about human genetics. Just in the past
decade, most of what you think you know about DNA has been
overturned. Much of the advice given routinely by health care
providers is ill informed, so you need to educate yourself about
this rapidly moving area of medicine. You are guaranteed to face
some surprises, and some difficult choices about personal knowledge,
treatment, and family risk.
2010-07-14 Brian Crowley
EMERGENCY BROADCAST
Here's
the link to sign the petition send it to everyone you know: http://freesakineh.org/
As you read this a life
hangs in the balance. A forty-two-year-old Iranian
mother, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, has been convicted of adultery
while being married and has been sentenced to death by stoning. As
family members of Sakineh have reported, she was originally
convicted of adultery in 2006 and received ninety-nine lashes as
punishment. Then, recently, her case was reopened and the judge
decided to sentence her to stoning.
As a citizen of not only Canada but the
world, I have signed the petition. These heinous and barbaric acts
must end. Are Iranian women any less human beings that you or I? It
is now the 21st century. At what point does humanity stand and
simply say enough. I make that stand now. Will you join me, Peter
Gabriel, Anne Lenox, Solomon Rushdie, Heather Reisman, Louise Denys,
Marina Nemet and thousands more?
Heather Reisman CEO of Chapters Indigo
has launched a website for Sakineh and writing a letter to Iranian
authorities. I immediately got on board. The website is now up and
running. Please share the link with all your contacts and sign the
petition on the site. International pressure can save this woman's
life. 
Special invited guests on
this emergency broadcast:
Heather Reisman -
CEO Chapters Indigo
Louise Dennys - CEO
Random House Canada and a brilliant compassionate woman
Marina Nemet -
author "Prisoner of Tehran" escaped
Evan prison after torture and execution sentence
Thank you, Brent Holland
Here's the link to sign the petition send
it to everyone you know: http://freesakineh.org/
2010-07-07 Lawrence Kraus- renowned theoretical physicist
The
Physics Of Star Trek
What warps when you're traveling at warp speed? What is the difference between a wormhole and a black hole? Are time loops really possible, and can I kill my grandmother before I am born? Anyone who has ever wondered �could this really happen?" will gain useful insights into the Star Trek universe (and, incidentally, the real world of physics) in this charming and accessible guide. Lawrence M. Krauss boldly goes where Star Trek has gone-and beyond. From Newton to Hawking, from Einstein to Feynman, from Kirk to Picard, Krauss leads readers on a voyage to the world of physics as we now know it and as it might one day be.Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. He is the only physicist to have received the top awards by the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers
2010-07-07 J. Kirk Boyd
2048
Project Humanity's Written Agreement To Live Together
Our mission is to educate students and the public about the evolution of human rights, and to provide a process to draft an international framework for enforceable human rights that can be in place by the year 2048, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Welcome! The goal is to draft an international bill of rights that is enforceable in the courts of all countries. 2048 asks for input from people in all professions and all countries to draft this document. Please choose the buttons above to make a general comment about the idea of an international bill of rights and choose from the buttons below if you would like to make a comment about a particular article within the draft document. All comments are reviewed by the staff of the 2048 project, and any change made to the draft document includes a description of the comment that was the catalyst for the change. Thank you very much for your participation. It does not matter who makes the comment. 2048 measures all comments equally based upon the weight of the idea.
2010-06-30 Sharon Doyle Driedger
An
Irish Heart - How A Small Immigrant Community Shaped Canada
During the Great Famine of the 1840s, thousands
of impoverished Irish immigrants, escaping from the potato crop
failure, fled to Canada on what came to be known as “fever ships.”
As the desperate arrivals landed at Quebec City or nearby Grosse
Isle, families were often torn apart. Parents died of typhus and
children were put up for adoption, while lucky survivors travelled
on to other destinations. Many people made their way up the St.
Lawrence to Montreal, where 6,000 more died in appalling conditions.
Despite these terrible beginnings, a thriving Irish settlement
called Griffintown was born and endured in Montreal for over a
century. The Irish became known for their skill as navvies, building
our canals and bridges, working long hours in factories, raising
large, close-knit families. This riveting story captures their
strong faith, their dislike of authority, their love of drink, song
and a good fight, and their loyalty.
Filled with personal recollections drawn from extensive author
interviews, An Irish Heart recreates a community and a
culture that has a place of distinction in our history. From D’Arcy
McGee and Nellie McClung to the Montreal Shamrocks, Brian Mulroney
and beyond, Irish Canadians have made their mark.
2010-06-23 Ky-Mani Marley - son of the legendary King of Reggae Music Bob Marley
Dear
Dad -
'The harder the battle, the sweet of Jah
victory.' — Bob Marley
This compelling narrative chronicles young Ky-Mani's gritty ascent out of the bullet-riddled life of street conflict and crack selling. An internationally known recording and performing artist, Ky-Mani shares his own story of personal redemption through his music, writing about his experiences, his struggles, and what he has survived to make it to the world stages he now commands as aGrammy-nominated musical artist and philanthropist. THE STORY THE MARLEY FAMILY APPARENTLY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW This memoir is the book the Marley Family tried to stop. By legal standards, they committed tortious interference as an attempt to stop it from going into print and to censor the author from telling his story. You now have in your hand that story in its uncensored form. Ky-Mani Marley, is a Grammy nominated reggae-music artist, film actor and son to legendary reggae icon Bob Marley. Born in Falmouth, Jamaica in 1976, his road to the world stage was wrought with challenge and even poverty growing up on the streets of Miami, Florida. Estranged to his 10 other siblings and family fortune early in his life, Ky-Mani fatefully discovered his inherent musical talent and arose to record 4 critically acclaimed albums, including the mega-hit entitled "Dear Dad".
2010-06-23 Howard Galganov
TAKING ON ETHNOCENTRIC QUEBECOIS NATIONALISTS:
In 1996, just after the second 1995 near nation ending Quebec Referendum to separate from Canada, Howard formed the Quebec Political Action Committee (QPAC) with which to take on Quebec’s Ethnocentric Nationalists who have made the UNRESTRICTED use of the English language ILLEGAL.
QPAC drove the Quebec government to distraction, effectively ending any opportunity for Quebec to hold another referendum to secede from Canada.
For Howard's troubles, his wife Anne endured countless death threats and were forced to live with armed bodyguards 24/7 for months at a time between 1996 and 1998.
Howard has been written-up in Time Magazine, The Economist and far too many other prominent news magazines and newspapers worldwide to count, including active participation on a CBS 60-Minutes feature on the language wars in Quebec. In 1996, Howard was included amongst Canada’s News Makers Of The Year.
2010-06-16 Iran On Fire
Persian
Canadians tell their true stories how they fled
the Iranian regime and came to Canada
This afternoon a special edition of The Brent Holland Show. It's been one year since the Iranian Election uprising and those horrific images of Neda bleeding to death on the streets of Tehran shot from an Iranian sniper's bullet. Today, we bring you exclusive interviews from ordinary Iranian Canadians who have fled Iran and now find themselves with loved ones trapped inside the Iranian regime. One year ago I was told:
“ Iran is on fire.” Those were the ominous words given only days ago by personal friends of mine via telephone from the depths of the interior of Iran to describe the conflict going on there. It took several weeks but finally I heard back from them and they were in good spirits, but, by then, many had been murdered.
They were born in Iran but fled and now make their home right here in Canada and are as Canadian as you or me. Why Canada ? For the opportunity to raise their children in true freedom. Make no mistake folks; Iran isn’t Canada where if you’re arrested at a protest you have basic human rights. Forget about that. This is Iran . If you’re picked up you may be just disappeared and never heard from again. It’s hard for us to imagine here in beautiful Canada with the trees, the lakes and where the biggest decision of the day maybe whether to get a small coffee or a large one. Imagine being in your home with your family. Your son in his bedroom studying for an exam when there is that knock: that ever dreaded knock. You know damn well what it is and you can do nothing but answer. In come the Iranian secret police that walk past you to your son’s bedroom and confiscate his computer and then your worst nightmare: they arrest him. They simply tell you as they leave if he hasn’t returned in 24 hours to come look for him. But where? This story is true. Think about that in your own context, to your own son or daughter maybe going off to University.
This afternoon you will hear horror stories of terror and barbarism. You will hear how they fled the Iranian regime and came to Canada ; how they hold Canada as a beacon of light in the dark. Indeed all nations of the persecuted hold Canada as a beacon light. It is something we as Canadians seem unaware of: just how truly great a nation we are. These are their stories and now as Canadians they are our stories. One more thing, all the stories you will hear today are true and what’s more they are the stories of your neighbours, your friends, the real people who you see and smile to who live right along side you.Download Show (30:00)
2010-06-16 Marina Nemat
"Prisoner
of Tehran - a Memoir"
In 1982, 16-year-old Marina Nemat was arrested on false charges
by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and tortured in Tehran's notorious
Evin prison. At a time when most Western teenaged girls are choosing
their prom dresses, Nemat was having her feet beaten by men with
cables and listening to gunshots as her friends were being executed.
She survived only because one of the guards fell in love with her
and threatened to harm her family if she refused to marry him. Soon
after her forced conversion to Islam and marriage, her husband was
assassinated by rival factions. Nemat was returned to prison but,
ironically, it was her captor's family who eventually secured her
release. An extraordinary tale of faith and survival, Prisoner of
Tehran is a testament to the power of love in the face of evil and
injustice.
2010-06-09 Right Honourable Irwin Cotler - Nobel Peace Prize Nominee 2010 & Canadian Attorney General
McGill
Professor Cotler teaches constitutional law,
international human rights law, law and poverty, Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, discrimination and the law, civil liberties,
and comparative and international protection of minorities' rights.
His main research areas are freedom of expression and assaultive
speech, equality law, peace and human rights, and comparative
constitutional law. Professor Cotler is Chair of InterAmicus, the
International Human Rights Advocacy Centre based at McGill Law
School; and Co-Chair of the Canadian Helsinki Watch Group. He has
defended political prisoners in Peru, Tunisia, China, Nigeria,
Indonesia and Russia and he has addressed major academic gatherings
in Washington, Moscow and Jerusalem. He has argued before the
Supreme Courts of both Canada and Israel and he has testified before
parliamentary committees in Canada, the US, Norway, Russia and
various Latin American states.
In 1999 Professor Cotler was elected Member of Parliament for the federal constituency of Mount Royal. He was re-elected in November 2000. On December 12, 2003, the Prime Minister appointed Mr. Cotler Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was re-appointed on July 20th following the General Election of June 28.
http://content.liberal.ca/fe9cf988-49a0-42eb-9e11-2a512494abd7/pdf/2010-01-07-r2p-petition.pdf
2010-06-09 Harvey Cashore
The
Truth Shows Up
Harvey Cashore has been a senior producer
for CBC’s flagship investigative program, the fifth estate
for twenty years where has prepared news-breaking documentaries on
government mismanagement, international fraud, and justice-related
issues. His in-depth work on the Airbus scandal began in 1994, and
he is considered the top expert on the story. Cashore is the
recipient of numerous awards including: The 2009 Gemini Award for
Best Direction in a News Information Program or Series and
The 2009 Canadian Association of
Journalists' “Best Investigative Journalism” Award.
He has been honoured with five Gemini Award nominations for
Best Documentary and Best Information segment.
Canadians everywhere are familiar with the broad outlines of the
infamous Airbus story. In recent years there have been countless
news stories filed on what has become Canada’s biggest political
scandal. What few know is the story of how this scandal was
unearthed. How one determined journalist kept the story alive — kept
picking at the pieces and posing the difficult questions the
government would have preferred to avoid. The public had the right
to know that millions of taxpayers’ dollars went missing in the sale
of Airbus jets to a Canadian Crown Corporation, and they had a right
to know where that money ended up. The
Truth Shows Up is a compelling and
fast-paced, behind-the-scenes journey with one journalist, and a
team of colleagues, who followed this story from the very beginning.
In 1994 Harvey Cashore, then an Associate
Producer with CBC’s the fifth estate, was working on a news
story about bribes in the airline industry. What he came across were
the first fragments on what would become known as the Airbus
scandal, a tale of bribes and kickbacks at the highest level of
federal power.
2010-05-26 Sam Cutler - tour manager for the Stones and Grateful Dead
You
Can't Always Get What You Want: My Life with the Rolling Stones, the
Grateful Dead and other wonderful Reprobates
An exhilarating, all-access rock memoir from someone who has seen and done it all, this telling recounts the many experiences of Sam Cutler, the former tour manager of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead. With intimate portraits of other stars of the psychedelic circus that was the music industry in the 1960s and 1970s-including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Band, the Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, and Eric Clapton-this account is an ideal resource for any music fan. A detailed explanation of the infamous Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, where a man in the crowd was killed by the Hells Angels, is also included. iTunes App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id365685513?mt=8
2010-05-26 Doug Clarke
Thin
Bruised LineLose respect and you lose the streets. That''s the hard lesson American police learned as their cities burned in the 1960s. Today, Canadian police are scrambling to preserve public order from a new "perfect storm" looming over the horizon and under the political radar. Their vaunted thin blue line of front-line officers is greyed, frayed, and stretched to the breaking point. Plagued by failed leadership and too few recruits, our police are frantically digging in behind the scenes against the converging triple threats poised to engulf them: shifting demographics, increasingly complex laws, and unrealistic expectations. The threat to officers and public safety has never been greater.
DOUG CLARK is an award-winning investigative journalist with thirty years'' experience. His books include The Roaring Game, Dark Paths, Cold Trails: How a Mountie Led the Quest to Link Serial Killers to Their Victims, which was shortlisted in 2003 for an Arthur Ellis non-fiction award; and Unkindest Cut:The Torso Murder of Selina Shen. He has written for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, The Edmonton Journal, Saturday Night, and Maclean''s, among others. He lives in North Gower, Ontario.
2010-05-19 Joseph Sebarenzi
God
Sleeps In Rwanda - A Journey of Transformation 
A harrowing tale of survival and reconciliation by a Rwandan Tutsi who flees his homeland before the 1994 genocide and later returns to be elected speaker of the Rwandan parliament, only to be forced into exile once again
This memoir tells the story of Joseph Sebarenzi, whose parents, seven siblings, and countless other family members were among 800,000 Tutsi brutally murdered over the course of ninety days in 1994 by extremist Rwandan Hutu.
Outbreaks of ethnic violence had been occurring in Rwanda since colonial times when the Belgians ruled the region. As a child, Sebarenzi twice hid with his mother during episodes of killing, narrowly escaping with his life. When he was a teenager, his father sent him away to school in Congo, telling him, "If we are killed, you will survive." Sebarenzi returned to Rwanda after the genocide and was elected speaker of parliament. But he then learned of a plot to assassinate him, leading him to once again flee the country in a daring escape.
The poetic title of the book is taken from an old saying, "God spends the day elsewhere, but He sleeps in Rwanda," but this African nation is not alone in having had a shameful history of ethnic violence. God Sleeps in Rwanda demonstrates how horrific events can occur when the rest of the world stands by and does nothing. It also shows us how the lessons of Rwanda can prevent future tragedies from happening in that country and other parts of the world. Readers will be inspired by the eloquence and wisdom of a man who has every reason to be bitter and hateful, but chooses instead to live a life of love, compassion, and forgiveness.
2010-05-19 John English
Just
Watch Me The Life of Pierre Elliott
Trudeau, Volume Two: 1968-2000 (National Bestseller)
This magnificent
second volume, written with exclusive access to Trudeau's private
papers and letters, completes what the Globe and Mail
called "the most illuminating Trudeau portrait yet written" -
sweeping us from sixties' Trudeaumania to his final days when he
debated his faith.
His life is one of Canada's most engrossing stories. John English
reveals how for Trudeau style was as important as substance, and how
the controversial public figure intertwined with the charismatic
private man and committed father. He traces Trudeau's deep
friendships (with women especially, many of them talented artists,
like Barbra Streisand) and bitter enmities; his marriage and family
tragedy. He illuminates his strengths and weaknesses - from
Trudeaumania to political disenchantment, from his electrifying
response to the kidnappings during the October Crisis, to his
all-important patriation of the Canadian Constitution, and his
evolution to influential elder statesman. John English is Professor
of History, University of Waterloo. Citizen of the World
was a multi-award winner and a Globe and Mail Best Book.
2010-05-12 Chris Wattie
In the summer of 2006, a Canadian army patrol travelling through Afghanistan''s Panjwayi region-a densely packed maze of villages, fields and vineyards west of Kandahar-surprised an unexpectedly large force of Taliban fighters. The soldiers of the Princess Patricia''s Canadian Light Infantry had stumbled into a hornet''s nest, the largest buildup of Taliban forces in the region since their regime had fallen in 2001. The Canadians found themselves up against opponents who were suicidally brave, cunning at planting mines and roadside bombs, and experienced at disappearing into the scenery whenever they chose. As their commanders threw more and more soldiers into what became a gruelling, drawn-out struggle, the troops of the battalion''s Charlie Company found themselves at the forefront of every firefight and ambush in what became a desperate, two-month pitched battle. The 150 soldiers of Charlie Company suffered more casualties and earned more decorations for bravery than any other Canadian unit since the Korean War and came into contact with the enemy so many times they became known simply as "Contact Charlie." In Contact Charlie , National Post reporter and embedded journalist Chris Wattie offers an intimate and harrowing look at the series of battles that would eventually take the lives of seven soldiers, including Captain Nichola Goddard, Canada''s first female combat casualty, and veteran soldier Sergeant Vaughn Ingram, who died trying to save one of his young troops. Based on Wattie''s own experience in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of post-tour interviews with the men and women on the ground, Contact Charlie is a rare piece of military writing, providing readers with a behind-the-scenes look at the stories that made headlines that summer-and continue to do so today.
CHRIS WATTIE is a senior national reporter with the National Post , and one of the first Canadian reporters embedded with the army when he accompanied Canadian troops on the International Security Assistance Force mission in Kabul in 2003. He was also with the Canadian Forces'' disaster assistance response team in Sri Lanka for the aftermath of the 2005 tsunami. In January 2006, he travelled to Kandahar with the first troops of the Canadian battle group deployed to southern Afghanistan and was embedded for eight weeks.
2010-05-12 Capt. Fred Doucette
When Canadian soldier Fred Doucette was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a UN peacekeeper in 1995, he had a premonition that this tour of duty would be different. He had been posted to Cyprus in the 1970s and 1980s, but the horrors of the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s were beyond imagining.
Doucette takes us to the heart of the conflict as the Bosnian Serb forces launch a massive, concerted assault. Sarajevo, the largely Muslim Bosnian capital, is devastated. Thousands of Sarajevans perish. UN forces, tasked with imposing and maintaining peace between the warring forces, realize this is an impossible task.
Upon his return to Canada, Doucette begins his own war with posttraumatic stress disorder. Nightmares and flashbacks plague his days and nights. Traumatized and disoriented, he must learn to face himself, his family and his army once again.With raw emotion, Empty Casing tells the story of the making and unmaking of a soldier, and the growth of a man.
2010-05-05 Jane Goodall
Hope
For Animals And Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being
Rescued From The Brink
At a time when animal
species are becoming extinct on every continent and we are
confronted with bad news about the environment nearly every day,
Jane Goodall, one of the world''s most renowned scientists, brings
us inspiring news about the future of the animal kingdom. With the
insatiable curiosity and conversational prose that have made her a
bestselling author, Goodall-along with Cincinnati Zoo Director Thane
Maynard-shares
fascinating survival stories about the American
Crocodile, the California Condor, the Black-Footed Ferret, and more;
all formerly endangered species.Interweaving her own first-hand experiences in the field
with the compelling research of premier scientists, Goodall
illuminates the h
2010-05-05 David Kirby
Swine flu. MRSA. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from algal blooms and flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacteria contamination. Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. In Animal Factory, bestselling investigative journalist David Kirby exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms, and tracks the far-reaching fallout that can contaminate our air, land, and water supply.
In this thoroughly researched book, Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are utterly changed by immense neighboring animal farms. These facilities, known as “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” or CAFOs, confine thousands of pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under stressful conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins. Weaving science, politics, big business, and everyday life, Kirby accompanies these families in their 20-year struggle against animal factories. A North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family’s life, and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an outsized cattle farm and its devastating impact. And, a Washington state grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is covered with soot and her water supply is compromised by runoff from leaking lagoons of animal waste.
Animal Factory is an important book about our American food system gone terribly wrong—and the people who are fighting to restore sustainable farming practices and safe natural resources.
2010-04-21 & 2010-04-28 Ted Sorensen - JFK's closest aid & advisor (special 4 part series)
Counselor
& Kennedy
In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history..
Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the
freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary
professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative
assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from
Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as
well as his bookk Profiles in Couragee. Sorensen encouraged the
junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice
presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential
campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the
President.. Sorensen encouraged the
junior
Download Part 1 of 4 (30:00) Download Part 2 of 4 (30:00)
Download Part 3 of 4 (30:00) Download Part 4 of 4 (30:00)
2010-04-14 Khaled Hosseini
The
Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army..
While in medical practice, Hosseini began writing his first novel,, The Kite Runnerr, in March of 2001. In 2003,, The Kite Runnerr, was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 48 countries. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. His second novel,,A Thousand Splendid Sunsswas published in May of 2007. Currently,,A Thousand Splendid Sunssis published in 40 countries. Khaled has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan throughh The Khaled Hosseini Foundationn. The concept for The Khaled Hosseini Foundation was inspired by a trip to Afghanistan Khaled made in 2007 with the UNHCR. He lives in northern California.
2010-04-14 David Finkel - Pulitzer Prize Winner
The
Good SoldiersDavid Finkel is a staff writer for The Washington Post, and is also the leader of the Post’s national reporting team. He won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2006 for a series of stories about U.S.-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. Finkel lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two daughters.
An eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War but of all wars, for all time.
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a sceptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic, Army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the Battalion nicknamed The Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front-lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
2010-04-07 Theo Fleury
Theo Fleury, at 5'6" made a name for himself in a game played by giants. A star in junior hockey, he became an integral part of the Calgary Flames' Stanley Cup win in 1989. Fleury's talent was such that despite a growing drug habit and erratic, inexplicable behaviour on and off the ice, Wayne Gretzky believed in him. He became a key member of the gold medal-winning men's hockey team at the 2002 Olympics.
The Colorado Avalanche picked up Fleury for the playoffs, and when he signed with the New York Rangers, he was a kid in a candy store. After one season of his next multi-million-dollar deal, this time with the Chicago Blackhawks, Fleury suddenly called it quits and wouldn't explain why.
2010-04-07 Tom Lipscomb -- Pulitzer PrizeeNominee
The
real life adventure of Tom Lipscomb to bring back Ché
Guevara's diaries just after his murder in Bolivia
Ever wondered who and got a hold of Ché
Guevara's diaries after Ché's murder in Bolivia October 1967 and how
they found their way back to the States? Join us today for real
living history and the real life adventure of our guest today, Tom
Lipscomb, and how he coerced, bribed and schmoozed Bolivian Military
officials to win them over and bring back Ché's diaries to the west. Thomas Lipscomb, is an investigative journalist
and publisher, was President of Times Books, the New York Times book
division when it published The Final Report of the House Select
Committee on Assassinations inn
2010-04-03 Jean Sasson - International best selling authorr
is a true story that few people ever believed would come to light. The book uncovers startling revelations, hidden secrets carefully guarded by Osama bin Laden. These secrets were revealed to Jean by the only people who could know such private details, his wife and sonn
Growing Up Bin Laden
GROWING UP BIN LADEN tells the story of a young girl who married her gentle and kindly first-cousin, enjoying a happy early marriage with the groom of her choice. But world events thrust her husband into a frenzy of militant activities, altering his once pleasing behavior in the process. Thus Najwa's life, and the lives of her innocent children became a maze of escaping from one country to another. Osama's fourth-born son, Omar, describes his early years, the son who wanted nothing but his father's love, but Omar's quest for his father's attention won him his father's cruelties..
Together, their powerful story as mother and son give us an extraordinary view of a man hated by so many, yet both loved and feared by his family, including: Osama's disapproval of modern conveniences, including electricity and medicinee
- His plan to toughen up his sons by taking them into the desert without food or waterr
- Transporting his wives and children to the rough terrain of Sudan, where he claimed to be preparing them for attacks from western powers, commanding them to dig holes, and to sleep in those holes, allowing nothing more than sand and twigs for coverr
- Omar's horror at the murder of a boy his own age, by members of a jihadist group living among them in the Sudan..
- Omar's observations of his father, his cohorts, and life in Tora Bora offer a fascinating perspective on the lives and interactions of the men who would become the world's most wanted terrorists..
- What happened in the Jeddah bin Laden home on the morning of September 11, 2001, and Omar's surprise phone call with his mother, who escaped from Afghanistan only two days before the shattering events that killed so many innocents..
Every word you will read is true, dispelling the many myths about Osama bin Laden that are currently circulating..
2010-03--31 Wade Davis- National Geographic Society- National Geographic Society
Wayfinders:
Why Ancient Wisdom Matters In The Modern World
Wade Davis is the bestselling author of several books,
includingg The Serpent and the Rainboww, Light at the
Edge of the Worldd, andd The Clouded Leopardd. He is
also an awardwinning anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker,
and photographer, and his writing and photographs have appeared
in numerous publications, including thee Globe and Maill,
Maclean'ss, Newsweekk, National Geographicc,
thee Wall Street Journall, and thee Washington Postt.
Davis divides his time between Washington, D.C. and northern
British Columbia.. Over the past decade, many of us have been
alarmed to learn of the rapidly accelerating extinction of our
planet's diverse flora and fauna. But how many of us know that
our human cultural diversity is also going extinct at a shocking
rate? Biologists estimate that 18% of mammals and 11% of birds
are threatened, while botanists anticipate the loss of 8% of
flora. Meanwhile, of the 7,000 languages in the world today, 50%
will disappear innour lifetime. Languages are merely the
canaries in the coalmine: what of the poetry, songs, knowledge,
and ways of seeing encoded in these disappearing voices?
Inn The Wayfinderss,
acclaimed anthropologist Wade Davis offers a gripping account of
this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through
aahandful of indigenous cultures and worldviews while reminding
us of the encroaching dangers posed by unchecked globalization.
An enlightening, awe-inspiring, and cautionary look at vanishing
cultures and languages from one of the world's most celebrated
and distinguished anthropologists.
Dr. David E. Guggenheim is a marine scientist, conservation policy specialist, submarine pilot and ocean explorer. He is president of 1planet1ocean, a project of The Ocean Foundation where he is a Senior Fellow and director of its Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program. He is currently leading a major project to elevate collaboration in marine science and conservation among Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. to a new level and leading the first-ever comprehensive research and conservation program in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico region, a joint effort with the University of Havana. Also known as the “Ocean Doctor” and host of the ExpeditionCasts podcast series, Dr. Guggenheim is currently engaged in a special “expedition” to all fifty U.S. states visiting schools and bringing special programs about ocean exploration and conservation to young students. So far he has traveled more than 35,000 miles, visited 13 states, made 39 speeches and reached more than 10,000 students in schools ranging from the northernmost community in North America, Barrow, Alaska, to Macksville, Kansas, close to the geographic center of the lower 48 states, to the southern tip of Florida.
Guggenheim holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from George Mason University in Virginia, a Master’s in Aquatic and Population Biology from University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master’s in Regional Science and Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
For additional information, please see: www.1planet1ocean.org and www.OceanDoctor.org
2010-03-24 Andrea Mandel CampbellAndrea Mandel Campbell
Andrea Mandel-Campbell was bureau chief for
London’s Financial Timessin Mexico and correspondent forr
Business Weekkmagazine in Argentina. For ten years she was
a
It’s time a country notorious for its middle of the road, fence-sitting proclivities, take a stand and come up with a winning strategy for taking on the world. To do that, we’ll first need to ask ourselves some hard questions about what it means to be Canadian and what we want to achieve. Andrea Mandel-Campbell invites you to participate in this crucial and much-needed debate. Please visitt her blogor contactt her directly
2010-03-17 Dr. David Suzuki
Dr. David Suzuki tells us of his early childhood a part of his life many maybe unaware. A part of his life where his family was subjected to racism, oppression and blatant ethnic profiling. The families valuables sold off to pay for their forced internment in ethnic camps, no not in Japan or Germany, right here in British Columbia, Canada!
Dr. David Suzuki is now a virtual international icon and has been voted one of the top ten Canadians of all time. Join us for an incredible story of fortitude and perseverance against entrenched bigoted racial Canadian government policy. There are many reasons Dr. Suzuki is admired on a global level ; this is one of them.
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew “ Marshall McLuhann
We only have one planet. We’re all in this togther. And we can’t sit back and wait for those who govern to legislate our way to a healthier, greener future. We need community-based leadership. Let’s make those changes ourselves right now, where we live every day – in our homes, workplaces and communities..
Here’s how you can be part of the solution:
Contact local mediaa
Write a letter to the editor, call a local radio show, pen an op-ed – make your voice heard! Suggest story angles to producers and provide background information. (Don’t forget to commend them for good coverage.) Here’s a contact list and tips forr engaging your local mediaato get you started..
Create change in your communityy
Urban sprawl is linked to increased air pollution, rising
obesity rates and loss of agricultural land. The DSF reportt
Understanding Sprawlloutlines ways to stop this problem,
and includes the toolkitt
Driven to Actionnto help citizens protect their communities
from overdevelopment. Invite neighbours and friends to help you
effect the changes you want to see..
Volunteerr
DSF has offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and
Montreal and there are Canadians across the country who feel
called too
volunteer with uss. You can also contact yourr
local
volunteer centreeto check out other organizations working
for the environment..
Support the Foundation
Our work towards a healthy environment is only possible
with the help of people like you. Give, become a monthly donor,
remember us in your will, or donate in honour of friends and
family with a gift cards..
Learn more about ways to givee.
Fundraise for DSFF
When you
raise funds for the David Suzuki Foundationn, you help us
find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world
that sustains us. Successful past events have included concerts,
art shows, auctions, and cycling or walking tours. Use your
imagination!
2010-03-17 John Ortved
The story of TV’s longest-running sitcom and the characters who created it, marking twenty years on the air
The Simpsons will celebrate its twentieth anniversary this fall. No other TV show has had the enduring popularity or cultural influence that The Simpsons has. When it premiered in 1989, the enthusiastic reaction to its subversive humor was instantaneous. It is one of the most astounding successes in TV history.
John Ortved’s unauthorized history—the first ever to look behind the scenes of this pop culture phenomenon—tells how the series grew from a controversial cult favourite to a mainstream powerhouse thanks to a group of intense, thoughtful, and creative people who came together to make something unique in the history of American culture. The writers, animators, producers, and network executives—as much a dysfunctional but loving family as the show’s stars themselves—are all here. It’s an intriguing yet hilarious tale full of betrayal, ambition, and love. More than an amusing narrative of the making of The Simpsons, this is an intimate look at the characters behind this cultural juggernaut—their creativity, intelligence, hubris, ego, and passion. The result is a book that is as amusing, dramatic, and compelling as the show itself.
John Ortved is a 28-year-old writer and former editorial associate at Vanity Fair who lives between New York and Toronto, where he was born and raised. Growing up, he was no good at hockey, and was forced to find other ways to impress girls, like writing, working out, and smoking weed – none of which worked. At McGill University, where he earned his BA in English Literature (with a little economics), he wrote a weekly column, The Art Dummy, for The McGill Daily, which 6 out of 10 students considered “pretty awesome.”
2010-03-10 Alan Dershowitz Human Rights Lawyer
Israel
Apartheid Week on University
CampusesProfessor
Alan M. Dershowitz is
Brooklyn native who has been
called “the nation’s most
peripatetic civil liberties
lawyer” and one of its “most
distinguished defenders of
individual rights,” “the
best-known criminal lawyer
in the world,” “the top
lawyer of last resort,”
“America’s most public
Jewish defender” and
“Israel’s single most
visible defender – the
Jewish state’s lead attorney
in the court of public
opinion.” He is the Felix
Frankfurter Professor of Law
at Harvard Law School.
Dershowitz, a graduate of
Brooklyn College and Yale
Law School, joined the
Harvard Law School faculty
at age 25 after clerking for
Judge David Bazelon and
Justice Arthur Goldberg.
He has also published more
than 100 articles in
magazines and journals such
as The New York Times
Magazine, The Washington
Post. The Wall Street
Journal, The New Republic,
The Nation, Commentary,
Saturday Review, The Harvard
Law Review and the Yale Law
Journal, and more than 300
of his articles have
appeared in syndication in
50 national daily
newspapers. Professor
Dershowitz is the author of
27 fiction and non-fiction
works with a worldwide
audience. His most recent
titles include Rights
From Wrong, The Case For
Israel, The Case For Peace,
Blasphemy: How the Religious
Right is Hijacking the
Declaration of Independence,
Preemption: A Knife that
Cuts Both Ways, Finding
Jefferson – A Lost Letter, A
Remarkable Discovery, and
The First Amendment In An
Age of Terrorism, and
The Case For Moral
Clarity: Israel, Hamas and
Gaza.
In addition to his numerous
law review articles and
books about criminal and
constitutional law, he has
written, taught and lectured
about history, philosophy,
psychology, literature,
mathematics, theology,
music, sports – and even
delicatessens.
In 1983, the Anti-Defamation
League of the B'nai B'rith
presented him with the
William O. Douglas First
Amendment Award for his
"compassionate eloquent
leadership and persistent
advocacy in the struggle for
civil and human rights." In
presenting the award, Nobel
Laureate Elie Wiesel said:
"If there had been a few
people like Alan Dershowitz
during the 1930s and 1940s,
the history of European
Jewry might have been
different." Professor
Dershowitz has been awarded
the honorary doctor of laws
degree by Yeshiva
University, the Hebrew Union
College, Brooklyn College,
Syracuse University and
Haifa University. The New
York Criminal Bar
Association honored him for
his "outstanding
contribution as a scholar
and dedicated defender of
human rights."
2010-03-10 Rabbi Aron Heir
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is
often the first to speak out on numerous issues that are germane to
the world at large. The aim of the Campus Outreach division is to do
this "in miniature" at colleges and universities by teaching about
and confronting anti-semitism, hate and terrorism, promoting human
rights and dignity, standing with Israel, and celebrating diversity
and tolerance. Our mission is to foster an awareness of contemporary
human rights and ethic issues. We want to encourage participation in
exploring Jewish spirit, culture and identity as human, personal and
national character. We aim to educate about social justice, to learn
to know who we are and what we stand for and how to navigate life
fully and competently.
Visit the
SWC Campus Outreach web site
click here to view video of violation of free speech at U of Irvine, California
2010-03-03 Katie Callaway Hall - Kidnapped and Raped in 1976 by Phillip Garrido
Summer 2009: police discover a backyard hidden lair at the home of Phillip Garrido. Garrido, a sexual deviant and sadomasochist pervert has kidnapped a young girl by the name of Jaycee Lee Dugard and kept her his sex slave for 18 years fathering two children with her, while all the time his wife looked on.
Katie Callaway
Hall was 25, a single mom of a 7-year-old son, when Phillip
Garrido entered her life one chilly evening in November 1976. Then
known as Katie Callaway, she was headed to her boyfriend's house
with a carload of food for dinner when a young man with a ponytail
tapped on her window in a grocery store parking lot. His car
wouldn't start. Could she give him a ride? She looked him over and
let him in. "He didn't look
like what I thought a rapist should look like," she said Friday
during an interview at her Las Vegas home.She followed his directions around South Lake Tahoe, Calif., as he
guided her to what she thought was his friend's house. He told her
to stop in front of an empty lot, then he struck.
The man, who was unarmed, grabbed the back of her neck and forced
her head into the steering wheel.
"All I want is a piece of ass. If you do everything I say you won't
get hurt. I'm serious," he told her, according to trial transcripts. He handcuffed
her, moved her to the passenger seat and used a leather strap to
bind her head to her knees. He tossed a coat over her and drove off.
She asked him when she would be back. "Maybe I will bring you back
tomorrow," she testified he told her. She asked him where they were
going. "Far away. I've got a shed. I've got it all prepared," he
told her, according to the transcripts. He drove across the state
line to a storage unit in Reno, which housed a carpeted room adorned
with a dirty mattress, sex toys and pornographic magazines.
2010-03-03 Alan Thicke
The
Alan Thicke Centre for Juvenile Diabetes Research
Alan has earned a Golden Globe “Best
Actor” nomination and seven Emmy Award
nominations (five for writing, two for acting.) Television audiences
know Thicke best as psychiatrist and father Jason Seaver from ABC’s
Growing Pains, now syndicated in over 65 countries.
Last year’s Growing Pains: The Reunion was one of
Disney’s highest-rated TV Movies. From 1980 to 1983, THE
ALAN THICKE SHOW became (and remains) the biggest hit in
the history of Canadian daytime television. The American late-night
entry THICKE OF THE NIGHT followed. Alan is
currently starring in CBC Television's monster comedy success
J-POD. The
The Centre, which is really a virtual Centre ( without walls), consists of a mass of dedicated, talented and creative scientists from the Lawson Health Research Institute, St. Joseph's Health Care, London, The University of Western Ontario, Robarts Research Institute and the London Health Sciences Centre. The work conducted by these scientists in search of a cure has gained national and international acclaim.
But as of yet the cure has not been found, further funds are required to move closer to end diabetes. All funds raised by the Centre are dispersed in London and are eligible to be supplemented by Federal Government grants. Dr. David Hill is the scientific advisor for the Alan Thicke Centre
2010-02-24 Drew Hayden Taylor
A moving and often funny look at Native sexuality from some of Canada's best First Nations and Inuit writers. A sequel to the highly successful Me Funny, Me Sexy is an anthology containing thirteen contributions from leading members of North America's First Nations writing communities. The many highlights include Lee Maracle's creation story, Salish style; Tomson Highway explaining why Cree is the sexiest of all languages; Joseph Boyden asking the eternal question, "Do Native people have less (or more) pubic hair?"; Marius P. Tungilik looking at the dark side of Inuit sex; and Marissa Crazytrain discussing her year as a stripper in Toronto, and how it shaped her life back in Saskatchewan. Drew Hayden Taylor, an Ojibway playwright, is widely known for his thoughtful and witty observations on Aboriginal issues. Other contributors include Lee Maracle, Joseph Boyden, Tomson Highway, Gregory Scofield, Daniel Heath Justice, Michelle McGeough, Norman Vorano, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Makka Kleist, Marius P. Tungilik, Marissa Crazytrain (a.k.a. Simantha Whitecalf ) and Nancy Cooper.
2010-02-24 Ian Gill
Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is Canada’s Galapagos, a West Coast archipelago famous for its wild beauty. It is also the ancient homeland of the Haida nation. In the 1970s, after decades of rapacious logging, the Haida joined forces with environmentalists in a high-profile struggle to save the islands. The battle found powerful expression through Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, the visionary artist, drummer and orator who would later become president of the Council of the Haida Nation.
The victories over logging interests are just one highlight in the Haida’s epic, decades-long struggle to take back control of their own destiny. In 2004, they filed suit against British Columbia and Canada, laying claim to their entire traditional territory.
In chronicling the Haida’s political and cultural renaissance, Gill has crafted a gripping, multilayered narrative that will have far-reaching reverberations.
2010-02-17 David Toycen - President World Vision Canada
2010-02-17 Erin Brockovich
It’s been 10 years since Julia Roberts starred in the Oscar-winning, tour de force, “Erin Brockovich”. The film helped turned an unknown legal researcher into a 20th century icon. Since then, Erin hasn’t been resting on her laurels… she continues to fight hard and win big!
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Major Meagan McGrath was born in Toronto, in 1977, and raised in Sudbury, Ontario. She enrolled in the Canadian Forces in 1995, and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 2000, with a Bachelor of Science (Chemistry). Upon completion of her Aerospace Engineering training, Major McGrath served for a short time as the Maintenance Support Officer at 19 Air Maintenance Squadron, CFB Comox. She was then posted to Ottawa in 2001, where she worked as an Imaging Radar System Engineer, a sub-project of the Aurora Incremental Modernization Project. On August 15, 2005 Major McGrath was posted to the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre Ottawa Detachment, the Air Force Experimentation Centre. Most recently, Maj McGrath has been working on the implementation of a Canadian Forces wide logistics tool.  Jan 2008 Carstenz Pyramid (16,023ft), Indonesia. Carstenz Pyramid is the one of the “Seven Summits”. May 21, 2007 Mount Everest (29,035 ft), Nepal. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the World, and as it is the highest mountain in Asia, is one of the “Seven Summits”. Apr 2006 Kosciuszko (7,310 ft), Australia. Kosciuszko is one of the “Seven Summits”. Jun/Jul 2005 Attempted Gasherbrum II (26,360 ft), Pakistan. 14th highest mountain in the world. Summit attempt aborted due to extreme avalanche danger. Preparation for Everest in 2007. Dec 2004 Vinson Massif (16,066 ft) Antarctica. Vinson Massif is one of the “Seven Summits”. Aug 2003 Mount Elbrus (18,481 ft), Russia. Mount Elbrus is one of the “Seven Summits”. June 2003 Mount McKinley (20,320 ft), USA. Mount McKinley is one of the “Seven Summits”. Dec 2002 Aconcagua (22,841ft), Argentina is the tallest mountain in the world, outside of Asia, and it is the tallest mountain in the Western hemisphere. Aconcagua is one of the "Seven Summits". Apr 2002 2 weeks on Safari in Africa (Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, etc) 1 week climbing Kilimanjaro (successful summit). Kilimanjaro (19,563 ft), an anomaly in Africa, as it is the only glaciated peak on the continent. Kilimanjaro is one of the “Seven Summits”.
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2010-02-10 Dr. Peter MacCleod
The Battle of the Plains of Abraham is one of the pivotal events in North American and global history. This clash between British general James Wolfe and French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on September 13, 1759, led to the British victory in the Seven Years’ War in North America, which in turn led to the creation of Canada and the United States as we know them today.
Rooted in original research, featuring quotations and images that have never appeared before, Northern Armageddon immerses the reader in the campaign, battle and siege through the eyes of dozens of participants, such as British sailor William Hunter, four Quebec residents enduring the bombing of their city and a teenage Huron warrior.
Sixty years after the end of World War II, not all those who were faithful to the Third Reich are dead-some members of the Nazi party and their collaborators are still alive, and increasingly difficult to track down. Time is rapidly running out, but Efraim Zuroff won''t give up. Launching Operation Last Chance in 2002, he spearheaded a vast public campaign to locate and bring to justice the worst suspected Nazi criminals before ill health or death spare them from potential punishment. Despite the passage of many years, the reluctance of many governments to cooperate, and even death threats and a price on his head, Zuroff''s project yielded the names of over 520 hereto unknown suspects in 24 different countries and led to dozens of murder investigations, as well as several indictments and extradition requests currently pending. Combining the thrill of a detective story with the inherent poignancy of the history of World War II and its aftermath, Operation Last Chance delivers the important and moving story of one man''s heroic efforts to honor the victims of the Holocaust. Simon Weisenthal Center
2010-01-27 Minnijean Brown Trickey
Seminal Moment in American
Education and Civil Rights"
As a teenager, Minnijean Brown Trickey entered the Civil Rights Movement -- and
America's consciousness-- through the front doors of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. As a member of the Little Rock Nine, and in defiance of the state, she took her rightful place in what had previously been a whites-only school. Walking past armed guards and an angry mob, and in front of a worldwide television audience, Minnijean helped desegregate public schools -- and change the course of education in America. Incredibly, this was just the beginning of her career as a social activist.
2010-01-20 Mark Zuehlke
Following his national best-seller, Juno Beach, and with his usual verve and narrative skill, historian Mark Zuehlke chronicles the crucial six days when Canadians saved the vulnerable beachheads they had won during the D-Day landings.
D-Day ended with the Canadians six miles inland-the deepest penetration achieved by Allied forces during this longest day in history. But for all the horror endured on June 6 every soldier knew the worst was yet to come.
The Germans began probing the Canadian lines early in the morning of June 7 and shortly after dawn counter attacked in force. The ensuing six days of battle between a Canadian division determined to widen its hold on the beachhead and an equally determined foe intent on eliminating Juno Beach was to prove bloodier than D-Day itself. Although battered and bloody, the Canadians had held their ground and made it possible for the slow advance toward Germany and eventual Allied victory to begin.Holding Juno recreates this pivotal battle and the ultimate triumph of Canadian arms through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, with the same dramatic intensity and factual detail that made Juno Beach, in the words of Quill & Quire reviewer Michael Clark, "the defining popular history of Canada's D-Day battle."
2010-01-13 Tom Lipscomb - Pulitzer Prize Nominee
"
The Nazi juggernaut was ripping across Europe and it looked as though nothing could stop them. Country after country fell to the onslaught. Just after the decimated British forces were forced out of France at Dunkirk and just weeks prior Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia, a Nazi Messerschmitt was sighted flying into British airspace over Scotland in the dead of night. No British aircraft were scrambled to intercept. No alert was given. Indeed no action was taken at all. Inside the cockpit was none other than Hitler's number #2 man Rudolph Hess. Why was he allowed free access into allied airspace and what was his intention?
His mission was to take part in an emerging covert plot and coup instigated from the upper echelon of British power to over throw both the British government and remove Churchill. The next step was to appease and make peace with the Nazis and Hitler.This story has all the makings of a master mystery novel full of intrigue and plot twists, except for one thing. It's true. Pulitzer Prize nominee Tom Lipscomb has done impeccable investigation, as always to the highest standards, and has turned this epic into a stunning new play: "LAST MAN IN SPANDAU…. The mystery surrounding Rudolf Hess’s flight, his subsequent murder and suspected SAS involvement." You'll never believe just how close we came to loosing the war except for the will of one man: Winston Churchill. The plot is afoot.
Thomas
H. Lipscomb is one of the few executives with high-level
experience in both conventional broadcast and print media and
the world of electronic media. He has been both a magazine
publisher of consumer magazines such as
The Ladies Home Journal
and a CEO in book publishing, where he was responsible for
bestsellers by authors as diverse as Agatha Christie, Susan
Isaacs, Craig Claiborne, Jack Anderson, and
He is the author of articles in
The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal,
The
He has
served in numerous non-profit positions including the boards of
PEN, the George Polk Award in Journalism, The New York
University Center for Copyright in New Media, The Museum Digital
Licensing Collective, The Governor’s
Mr. Lipscomb has had numerous speaking engagements at colleges
and universities such as Harvard, Stanford, The University of
Pennsylvania, and
He has appeared on many public affairs shows from NBC's
Today Show, and
The ABC Evening News,
to BBC Channel 1 News,
Extra (Germany), News Netherlands,
Four Corners and
Fine Print (Iran), MSNBC,
Fox News and
PBS, where he has hosted
“The Digital Age.”
He is a founder and on the board of CardiACT Inc. He is a
founder and formerly CEO of two current public companies, ICC
and Wave Systems, which use proprietary technology to create
advantaged systems for the secure distribution, marketing,
control and auditing of valuable digital information (DRM). He
holds five patents in digital technology and he has received
coverage by Forbes,
Fortune, Business Week, Newsweek, Wired, Advertising Age,
Crain's, Publishers' Weekly, Success and other publications.
ICC was named one of Fortune Magazine's "25 Cool Companies" in technology (along with companies such as Netscape and Cisco Systems) and Newsweek listed Lipscomb as one of the "50 most influential people to watch in cyberspace."
2010-01-06 Andrew Nikiforuk
Andrew Nikiforuk's Tar Sands is a critical exposé of the World's largest energy project - the Alberta oil sands - that has made Canada one of the worst environmental offenders on earth. In Tar Sands, journalist Andrew Nikiforuk exposes the disastrous environmental, social, and political costs of the tar sands and argues forcefully for change. Combining extensive scientific research and compelling writing, Nikiforuk takes the reader to Fort McMurray, home to some of the world’s largest open-pit mines, and explores this twenty-first-century pioneer town from the exorbitant cost of housing to its more serious social ills. He uncovers a global Deadwood, complete with rapturous engineers, cut-throat cocaine dealers, aimless bush workers, American evangelicals, and the largest population of homeless people in northern Canada. He also explains that this micro-economy supplies gasoline for 50 percent of Canadian vehicles and 16 percent of U.S. demand. Readers will learn that oil sands: burn more carbon than conventional oil, destroy forests and displace woodland caribou, poison the water supply and communities downstream, drain the Athabasca, the river that feeds Canada’s largest watershed, and contribute to climate change. The book does provide hope, however, and ends with an exploration of possible solutions to the problem.
Co-published with the David Suzuki Foundation
2009-12-30 Erin Merryn
Living
for Today: From Incest and Molestation to Fearlessness and
Forgiveness
Erin Myrren is a student at Western Illinois University, where she is pursuing a degree in social work. A leading participant in Take Back the Night, her goal is to raise awareness of abuse in order to end the stigma and silence. She is the author of Stolen Innocence, a memoir about incest. Her writing has appeared in the Daily Herald and Teen Voices, among others.
- Fans of Erin Merryn''s
heart-wrenching debut memoir Stolen Innocence were
left wondering what would become of an emotionally fragile
Erin after her confrontation with the reality of being a
child of incest and molestation. In Living for Today,
readers find that Erin cultivated the strength to face her
abuser and eventually experienced relief from years of
emotional restlessness, while also igniting the beginnings
of a new fearless journey. Living for Today offers
a roadmap for self-discovery, forgiveness, and empowerment
to help readers rid the stigma they have attached to their
trauma and live fully and fearlessly for today. Readers will
learn how they too can:
*Look foward, in spite of an abusive past
*Block off any impending guilt from outing an abuser
*Deal with interfamily strife as a result of incest and molestation
*Shake off the "victim" tag and replace it with one that reads "survivor"
Rape Abuse & Incest National Network
009-12-23 Marie Wadden
Marie Wadden began her journalism career in 1977 at CBC television in Newfoundland. The following year she took a boat trip along the Labrador coast for a holiday and saw the Innu community of Davis Inlet at the height of its addiction crisis. She's never lost sight of the needs of Aboriginal people since that time. In 1991 her D&M book, Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim their Homeland, won the Edna Staebler award for creative non fiction.
Her radio and television work in Newfoundland and Quebec has also been recognized with Canadian and U.S. awards. In 2005, Wadden received the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and published her research in a Toronto Star series entitled "Tragedy or Triumph: Canadian Public Policy and Aboriginal Addictions." She is CBC Radio's network producer in Newfoundland and lives in St. John's with her husband Chris Brown and their two children, Nicholas and Naomi. Aboriginal Healing Foundation
2009-12-16 Marina Nemat
In 1982, 16-year-old Marina Nemat was arrested on false charges
by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and tortured in Tehran's notorious
Evin prison. At a time when most Western teenaged girls are choosing
their prom dresses, Nemat was having her feet beaten by men with
cables and listening to gunshots as her friends were being executed.
She survived only because one of the guards fell in love with her
and threatened to harm her family if she refused to marry him. Soon
after her forced conversion to Islam and marriage, her husband was
assassinated by rival factions. Nemat was returned to prison but,
ironically, it was her captor's family who eventually secured her
release. An extraordinary tale of faith and survival, Prisoner of
Tehran is a testament to the power of love in the face of evil and
injustice.
2009-12-09 Lydia Reich
The Nazis forced her and the other prisoners on the Death March to Bergen-Belsen, where she spent the remainder of her imprisonment and where she met and befriended Anne Frank.
When Lydia Rychner-Reich took her
first breath in 1927, no one could have predicted the horrors
she would face in her life. Born just before the rise of the
Nazi regime in Germany, she personally experienced the
atrocities of the time and shares them in this memoir for the
whole world.
In Desperation, Lydia recounts the harrowing story of
her life under Nazi rule. The torment began in 1938 when, at the
age of eleven, the Nazis deported Lydia and her family to
Poland, where they struggled daily to survive in a Jewish
ghetto. In 1943, the Nazis tore Lydia away from her parents,
sending her to detention centers and later to toil in a slave
labor camp. It was at the end of 1944 that Lydia was truly
tested.
While at Bergen-Belsen, Lydia wrote and hid notes to document
the horrors she witnessed. This heart-wrenching account includes
photos and official documentation from the Nazi era. Of her
family, Lydia alone survived the concentration camps; her
parents and sisters died there. She tells her tale so the world
won''t forget the innocent victims.
2009-12-02 Rodney Stark
In God's Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. To the contrary, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to unwarranted Muslim terrorist aggression.
Stark reviews the history of the seven major Crusades from 1095 to 1291, demonstrating that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations, centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and sudden attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, Stark argues that this had nothing to do with any elaborate design of the Christian world to convert all Muslims to Christianity by force of arms. Given current tensions in the Middle East and terrorist attacks around the world, Stark's views are a thought-provoking contribution to our understanding and are sure to spark debate
2009-11-25 Abraham Bolden
From the first African American
assigned to the presidential Secret Service detail comes a
gripping and unforgettable true story of bravery and patriotism
in the face of bitter hatred and unthinkable corruption.
Abraham Bolden was a young African American Secret Service agent
in Chicago when he was asked by John F. Kennedy himself to join
the White House Secret Service detail. For Bolden, it was a
dream come true-and an encouraging sign of the charismatic
president's vision for a new America.
But the dream quickly turned sour when Bolden found himself
regularly subjected to open hostility and blatant racism. He was
taunted, mocked, and disparaged but remained strong, and he did
not allow himself to become discouraged.More of a concern was the White House team's irresponsible
approach to security. While on his tour of presidential duty,
Bolden witnessed firsthand the White House agents' long-rumored
lax approach to their job. Drinking on duty, abandoning key
posts-this was not a team that appeared to take their
responsibility to protect the life of the president particularly
seriously. Both prior to and following JFK's assassination,
Bolden sought to expose and address the inappropriate behavior
and negligence of these agents, only to find himself the victim
of a sinister conspiracy that resulted in his conviction and
imprisonment on a trumped-up bribery charge.
A gripping memoir substantiated by recently declassified
government documents, The Echo from Dealey Plaza is the
story of the terrible price paid by one man for his commitment
to truth and justice, as well as a shocking new perspective on
the circumstances surrounding the death of a beloved president.
2009-11-04 Anna Porter
Born Anna Szigethy in World War II Budapest, Anna Porter and her mother left Hungary in 1956 to escape the increasing Soviet presence. Porter was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992. In 2003, she was awarded the Order of Ontario. She has also been awarded Honorary Doctoral degrees from Ryerson University, St, Mary's University, the University of Toronto, and the Law Society of Upper Canada.
In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other maneuverings Kasztner may have saved another 40,000 Jews already in the camps. Kasztner was later judged for having "sold his soul to the devil." Prior to being exonerated, he was murdered in Israel in 1957. Part political thriller, part love story and part legal drama, Porter's account explores the nature of Kasztner--the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover, the man who believed that promises, even to diehard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today
2009-10-28 Major-General Lewis Mackenzie
Major-General Lewis Mackenzie (ret’d) was born in Truro, Nova Scotia, and has served in trouble spots around the world.
In 1992, he commanded the un Protection Force that opened Sarajevo airport to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid. He published the best-selling Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo after retiring from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1993; “A Soldier’s Peace,” a television documentary based on the book, won a New York Film Festival Award in 1996. His many honours include the Order of Canada and the United Nations Medal of Honour. Mackenzie is now a public affairs commentator on television and in the Globe and Mail and a sought-after lecturer on leadership and conflict resolution.
2009-10-21 Sandra Chu
Sandra Ka Hon Chu is a lawyer and senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. She has worked in East Timor, Libya, Hong Kong, Canada and the Netherlands.
A searing testimonial to the horrors of sexual violence in war—a little-known aspect of the Rwandan tragedy.
In the hundred days of genocide that ravaged Rwanda between April and July 1994, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were raped. No one was spared. Grandmothers were raped in the presence of their grandchildren; young girls watched the massacre of their families before being taken as sex slaves. To a lesser extent, boys and men also fell victim to sexual violence.
Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide, The Men Who Killed Me features testimonials from seventeen survivors. Through their narratives and portraits, sixteen women and one man bear witness to the crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of others. In their strength and courage, they challenge the stigma of surviving sexual violence and living with HIV/AIDS (an astonishing 70 per cent of survivors are HIV positive).
2009-10-14 Ray Wiss
A compelling and informed observation of the truth of Canada’s war, from a dedicated Canadian doctor.
Since returning from Afghanistan, Dr. Wiss has continued to teach nationally and internationally, and re-joined the team at the Sudbury Regional Hospital Emergency Department. He lives in Sudbury with his wife Claude and their four-year-old daughter, Michelle. Royalties from FOB Doc will be donated to the Military Families Fund, which was created by former chief of the defence staff General Rick Hillier to assist military families. Book excerpt: "We had sent out a patrol in light armoured vehicles, and they hit an IED on their way back to the fob. Some of our men were severely wounded and landed on my medics and me within fifteen minutes of being hit. Forewarned of the seriousness of the injuries, we called for the MEDEVAC chopper before the wounded men got to the fob.
2009-11-01 Book is on sale at CopyCopy (both branches) and Old Rock Café on Minto in Sudbury. Book being sold and signed at Sudbury Armouries on Remembrance Day at 1 pm. Thanks! Ray
