Gorilla Radio with Mickey Z. and Me, Kim Goldberg January 15, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 14th and 15th, 2023.

My old friend and frequent interview victim, Mickey Z. proposed turning the tables and interviewing me for his excellent Substack podcast, Post-Woke. The entire interview is available at https://mickeyz.substack.com/

Mickey Z. talking to an Ape in the first half.

And; it’s been three years now since the great global unraveling wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic began. In Canada, part of that meant changes to the laws of the land – changes Canadians are yet to resolve properly in Parliament and the courts, or among a polity divided in unprecedented ways.

Kim Goldberg is a Nanaimo-based poet, journalist, and author. She’s written 8 books of poetry and nonfiction, including her most recent collection ‘DEVOLUTION: poems and fables of eco-pocalypse‘. She covered BC current affairs for Canadian Dimension Magazine for many years, most recently on the Fairy Creek blockade. Kim’s writing is featured at Substack, and can be found again, after some rude interruption, on Twitter @KimPigSquash.

Kim Goldberg and emerging the emergency in the second half.

But first, me and Mickey Z. talking about alternative media and Gorilla Radio at twenty-four.

Song: Pure Mirror of the Beloved

Artist: Siddartha Corsus

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook Special Funding Drive Show March 17th, 2022

GR 11-67 Funding Drive 2022 Show CFUV 101.9 FM cfuv.ca

(airdate/time) Thursday March 17th, 2022

11:00:00 2:30 Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 12th, 2022

And Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all who celebrate Ireland’s great, green saint. Today I’m leaving the usual show format for my contribution to this year’s Funding Drive. If you’ve listened over the last week you know, today is the penultimate day for our annual outreach. I’ll talk a little more about that as we progress, and about stories of the year past, the strange two years done, and Gorilla Radio after 23 years. And play some music too.

If you can help the station, go online to supportcfuv.ca, or phone us up – operators are standing by at: 250-721-8700 locally, 1-250-721-8700 from elsewhere on the island, in the nation, or across the World.

Meanwhile, listen to this….

11:02:00 6:00 Music: Benjamin Zephania – Naked – Rong Radio

11:08:45 2:40 Blatherskite – (bg: Benjamin Zephania – Naked – You Dream)

The great Benjamin Zephania, from his album ‘Naked’. That’s Rong Radio. You too may have been listening to the wrong radio stations. You may be listening to just that now…With that in mind, better cover our…bases….

11:09:15 :30 CFUV Disclaimer – Elephant Talk

One of the enduring gifts of the Covid-19 pandemic is the intense focus it has trained on our societal institutions: Not least of these being media. But, and it is an enormous but; the real penetrating, laser-like, lethal dosage attention has been much less on THE media, the dominant, near monopolies of information that is the legacy press, with its papers of record, or the state-sponsored broadcasters, and corporate allieged and aligned television network monolith media. No, it’s the “social media” the matter. It is you and me, and the little people speaking to each other representing the real danger to democracy.

In their kindliest incarnation, the teevee personalities shake their talking heads sadly, and from their gilded studios in the sky look down upon us and say, “Forgive the transgressors, they know not what they transmit. It’s the Russians you see, and those extreme populists that’s got a-hold of their tongues and minds…” “Just a little reeducation’s needed to bring them around, and some time away from Twitter, and Facebook, and Youtube. Soon enough, they’ll be seeing things rightly, and singing again from the right hymn books.”

Yeah; or maybe not.

11:11:00 5:00 Music: Transglobal Underground – Impossible Broadcasting – Radio Unfree Europe

16:40:00 :29 CFUV Funding Drive Announcement – Truth

17:10:00 3:00 Blatherskite

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s special Funding Drive 2022 show. The impossibly good, Transglobal Underground and Radio Unfree Europe from their Impossible Broadcasting album of some years ago now. So, the pandemic is over! Well, maybe not so fast…but the mask mandates are dropping in BC, as are requirements for so-called vaccine passports – at least as of this date. Is it because the virus disappeared, surrendering the fight against humanity – a fight we never asked for? No. The mandates and ersatz vaccine passport regimes are going, for now, because legal challenges are primed and ready. Just more than a month has passed since the government here demanded health practitioners – including chiropractors, dentists, and all others subject to B.C. health-care colleges be vaccinated by March 24th or lose their license to practice. Last week, the provincial government changed their orders – while not, as Health Minister, Adrian Dix insists, backing down – saying health professionals must declare thier vaccine status to colleges, and those colleges informed they must now collect information on their membership. The files must be available to government inspection by month’s end, or else….something… the threat has been left unuttered for now.

It all goes to underscore the way the people of B.C., and in every jurisdiction, have been bullied, cajoled, and threatened to succumb to orders to subject their bodily integrity to substances whose medical efficacy and long-term safety are uncertain, or pay a price through a legal process that is so far unspecified, but certainly remains questionable. Will this all become a moot point as Covid-19 passes into endemic status? No. The groundwork has been laid for a next virus, where the same scenario will be restaged and refought but more importantly, the precedents set in information and behaviour control has been set, and where that is leading is already evident in the way the Ukraine war and its provenance is being presented – and not – across media.

20:10 4:45 Music: Angel Olsen – Aisles – Eyes without a Face

24:24 :30 CFUV Funding Drive 2022 Announcement – Timber

24:55 2:30 Blatherskite

Yes, you heard it. Once a year we here put our hats down on the pavement, laying bear our collective pates in a plea for alms. Nobody is going to starve if yoiu don’t donate, but it is a way you can show your appreciation for a nominal alternative to the kinds of radio nonesense we’re all subjected to. If you’ve just tuned in to CFUV: this is a campus/community station, comprised of volunteer programmers and syndicated contributors creating music, spoken word, and current affairs radio. Our studios are in the basement of the Studen Union Building at the University of Victoria, and we transmit locally via a puny 23 hundred and 90- odd watt transmitter. Honestly, you can barely pick us up in most parts of the city; unless you’re in traffic. BUT! The station also livestreams to the whole World – subject approval – on the internet at cfuv.ca. That probably doesn’t amaze many people today; but when I started doing this radio show, the internet wasn’t even a thing. There were no podcast, or anything like that: In fact, pterodactyls still ruled the skies in those day…and we spent our days watching for great circling shadows on the ground with the same intensity some now stare footward at there hand-held flatland machines. How things have changed!

When I began, the world was full of war and rumours of war. The Americans and Russian were nose to nose in eastern Europe, and many were fearing a war that could lead to a nuclear conflagration that would destroy us all. And the media; cripes!!! In those days, all you heard was how bad everybody else was: Evil-doer this and the next new Hitler him. Thank goodness that’s all over with. Goodness because CFUV survives yet for you listening enjoyment and information edification… FOR NOW… If you want to insure our continued flourishing…listen and tell your friends to listen… to alternative voices and opinions…

27:30:00 7:00 Music: Gil Scott-Heron – GasCD – Work for Peace

34:45:00 :30 CFUV Show promo – Pablo (Not Alone)

35:15:00 :30 CFUV Disclaimer

35:45:00 2:30 Blathersite

Well, you heard the lady: These opinions belong to me. It wasn’t until this year we here were impelled to attach disclaimers to programs. I mention this because it’s instructive when viewing where this country, Canada is in 2022, and where it’s headed when the citizenry are fear making their opinions known; or when those still unafraid to speak truth to power can do so only after taking the precaution of disassociating from those who may become collaterally victimized by truth-telling. This is apparently the democracy our leaders in Ottawa and Washington, and London, etc. would have us willing to send our sons and daughters to their doom defending, (or least send money and materiel to proxies for that purpose).

We have entered again the realm of censorship; a place where free speech is deemed dangerous to the common good, and thinking outside the provided parameters is in itself an act of sedition. Marching bravely beneath the banner of truth, the New Censors seek they say to protect us from ourselves – this was made evident during the pandemic crisis, and continues apace now, where those questioning the next war narrative are labelled agents of the enemy, and excommunicated. Just as the scars inflicted by the divisiveness of Covid will require years to heal, the abuse of our civil liberty will mark us indelibly. But, according to one of the exemplars of journalism and truth-telling, there is room to hope in this acrid atmosphere of censoriousness. Julian Assange says censorship is, quote “…an opportunity because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care what people think.”

38:15:00 3:20 Music: Angel Olsen – My Woman – Shut Up, Kiss Me

41:20:00 2:45 Blatherskite

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s special Funding Drive 2022 show. That was the inveterate bard and showman, Chris Chandler doing the promo there. Long-time GR collaborator and host of Plant Powered Radio Janine Bandcroft recorded that more years ago than I can remember now. Before that was Angel Olsen’s 2016 song from her album My Woman, “Shut Up, Kiss Me.She also covered Billy Idol’s Eyes without a Face earlier in the program. And, as I said earlier, this show has been borne on the wings of war. It was the Former Yugoslavia being bombed into whatever it’s called now back then. In addition to all the dirty little secret wars since then, there’s been the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, very nearly Syria, and of course Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine didn’t start two or three weeks ago. Even the CBC would admit, the killing and dying has been going on there for considerably longer. Back in 2014, agents of the Obama administration succeeded in hijacking popular – and peaceful – demonstrations against the fractious Yanukovych administration and overturning his government. They did this using the tactics of intimidation, street violence, assassination, and mass murder. The government installed by NATO and more specifically Obama’s hand in Kiev, Victoria Nuland moved next on the ethnic-Russian population of the eastern region. What resulted was a separatist declaration in two provinces and a subsequent war of subjugation by the central authority that had, before the recent Russian intervention, claimed the lives some 15,000 people, most of them in Donetsk and Lagansk. These are the regions repeatedly referred to by our state broadcaster as home to, “Russia-backed fighters” – as though they were not fighting from their own homes as Kiev’s shells rain on their back gardens.

Before the recent disaster, there were Canadians warning Ottawa of what we were heading for in Ukraine and eastern Europe and imploring it change course. Now, the opposite is the case, where Canada is increasingly fomenting war and destruction at the behest of our large neighbour south, and to the benefit of none save the arms dealers. I spoke recently with Glenn Michalchuk, a third-generation Canadian of Ukrainian decent and currently Chair of the Peace Alliance of Winnipeg about the then-impending storm now raging in the country of his forebears. Here’s Ken, joined by Tamara Lorincz of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute in a talk recorded in late January.

44:05:00 5:05 Clip Tamara Lorincz & Glenn Michalchuk (January 22, 2022)

49:10:00 3:35 John K. Samson -Winter Wheat – Vampire Alberta Blues

52:45:00 2:00 Blatherskite

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s special Funding Drive 2022 show. That was John K. Samson from his Winter Wheat album with Vampire Alberta Blues. Before that a bit of an interview I recorded with Tamara Lorincz and Glenn Michalchuk a couple months ago. We’re fast approaching the end of my time on this the penultimate day of this year’s effort to raise dough for the operations of the station. Go to supportcfuv.ca to find out what’s on offer gift-wise, (yes there are tote bags!). Or if you’re listening over the air, phone us up at 250-721-8700 to pledge your support.

54:45:00 3:00 Ashley Shadow – Nothing – For Love (can con)

12:00:00 –:–                              -0-

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Rick Sterling, Sandra Findley, Janine Bandcroft May 11, 2016

It’s one of the best regarded of all NGO’s, but reports emanating from Syria by the Non-Governmental Organization, MSF/Doctors Without Borders are raising concerns about that organization’s objectivity.

Doubts have been expressed about accounts of the April 27th bombing attack in eastern Aleppo that allegedly destroyed the Al Quds Hospital; doubts that bring into question what really happened at the “MSF-supported” Al Quds, and whether in fact what was destroyed, if it was destroyed, was a hospital at all.

Rick Sterling is an independent researcher, writer, and member of Syria Solidarity Movement whose articles can be found online at CounterPunch, ConsortiumNews, and Dissident Voice. He’s also an active member of the Task Force on the Americas at the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center.

Sterling’s latest piece, ‘Syria: Challenging the MSF Narratives and Bias in Aleppo‘ is an open letter to MSF questioning both what it is, and is not reporting in Syria.

Rick Sterling in the first half

And; yesterday was “census day” in Canada. Tuesday marked the official beginning of the official part of the national head count; that is, when officials will start applying pressure on the citizenry to comply with the count, or else!

Sandra Finley is an activist, writer, and researcher and former leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan. Finley and others challenged the participation of the international arms manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin in Canada’s 2011 census, and was charged for her very public refusal to be counted.

Sandra Finley, counting correctly our Canadian way of life through resistance and/or “minimal cooperation” in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things to do in, on, and around our city’s streets, and beyond there too, in the coming week. But first, Rick Sterling and getting a second opinion on Doctors Without Borders in Syria.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Roger Annis, Anthony Fenton May 4, 2016

May is a time for commemorations that begins with: the May Day(s), the ancient pagan ritual for Spring, and marking of Labour solidarity in Europe and America; and of course, tomorrow’s Cinco de Mayo remembrance of one of Mexico’s successful revolutions. But for the residents of Odessa, Ukraine’s third city and most important seaport, May the 2nd is no celebration. It’s a date that will live forever in infamy.

Two years ago, during the Western-inspired Maidan uprising, scores of citizen resistors to the Kiev coup were killed, burned alive by the fascist mob as they took shelter in the House of Trade Unions building in Kulikovo Square. Hundreds more were injured.

Listen. Hear.

The regime is yet to bring the investigation into the atrocity forward; in fact, after two years, the only ones in prison for what happened on May second are survivors of the attacks.

That failure is emblematic of the hopelessly corrupt and unjust rule of Washington’s puppet, Petro Poroshenko; two years into Kiev’s war-torn rule of Ukraine the country teeters tenuously on the brink of total disaster.

Roger Annis is a longtime socialist, trade union activist, and prolific essayist in the cause of social justice and peace both in Canada and abroad. He’s a contributing editor at the website New Cold War, where he’s written extensively on Ukraine, and his articles can also be found at his website, A Socialist in Canada, and at Rabble.ca, and Counterpunch.org.

Roger Annis in the first segment.

And; not to be left behind, Canada too has been busy enabling corrupt and violent regimes murder and maim innocents. As the body count of the House of Saud’s relentless onslaught in neigbouring Yemen continues to increase, Ottawa is beavering away to sign as many “defense” contracts as it can muster; possibly before the dammed outrage in the region, and indeed the World, breaks, washing finally away the Saudi’s forever.

Anthony Fenton is an independent researcher, former journalist, author, and PhD candidate studying the political economy of Canada-Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC relations. Anthony co-authored, with Yves Engler, ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority,’ and his many articles have been featured by the Asia Times Online, The Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, Inter Press Service News, Mother Jones, and Upside Down World.

Anthony Fenton and Ottawa arming its friends in the Saudi war zone in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will NOT join us as is usual today; prior commitments demanding her more immediate attention. So, first up, Roger Annis and Kiev’s victory two years later.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Art Farquharson, Jack Etkin, Janine Bandcroft April 27, 2016

With the rolling back of labour rights, deterioration of working conditions, government maintenance of an artificially high unemployment rate, proliferation of guest worker programs, and prolonged wage stagnation we’ve witnessed over the last few decades, the workers around here, if not the World, have good reason to cry “May Day” But who would answer the call now? As with much of labour history, even that term has been appropriated, its original meaning and intent being all but erased from public consciousness.

Art Farquharson is a fully paid, life-long member of the Working Class. He’s laboured in the fields and factories of this nation, and on its highways and high seas too. A proud unionist, Art’s held CAW, Unifor, Machinists, Public Service Alliance, IATSE, and Ferry Workers Union union cards.

He’s also a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, who never misses a chance to sing, march, or provide guitar accompaniment for pickets, protests, demonstrations, or celebrations of the working people like the Corporate Golden Piggy Awards, and New Year’s Day Poor People’s Levee Tour. In short, Art says he “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable,” adding, “There is no retirement from being a citizen, [and] can be no rest until all workers the world over have peace and justice.”

Art Farquharson in the first segment.

And; earlier this month, Citizen’s Forum, a public access public affairs program produced by volunteers at Victoria’s Shaw Cable affiliate, in accordance with the CRTC’s mandate to cable operators in return for the market monopolies they enjoy, was axed. Jack Etkin is the long-time, Victoria-based democracy and media activist who hosted and produced the show. He’s also behind a number of other media and democracy projects around here, and has been for more than a decade.

Jack Etkin on the demise of Citizen’s Forum, corporate media, and Canada’s frail democracy.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what’s good going on on the streets of our city, and beyond there too, in the coming week. But first, Art Farquharson and bringing the meaning back to May Day.

Ape Talks to Jack Etkin April 23, 2016

Earlier this month, Citizen’s Forum, a public access public affairs program, produced by volunteers at Victoria’s Shaw Cable affiliate, in accordance with CRTC mandate, was axed. Jack Etkin is the long-time, Victoria-based democracy and media activist host of, and producer behind the show, and a number of other media/democracy projects.

Jack Etkin on the demise of Citizen’s Forum, the corporate media, and Canadian democracy.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Luciana Bohne, VOWS, Janine Bandcroft Apr. 20, 2016

Last month, the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia came down with a verdict against Radovan Karadzic, the first president of the Serb Republic, and leader during the Bosnian War of the 1990’s.

Regardless of the merits of the ICTY’s case against Karadzic, the manner in which it was conducted, and the refusal of the Court to investigate properly, let alone prosecute NATO for the crimes it committed leading to and during the secession wars of Yugoslavia brings into question both the utility of the International Tribunal itself, and more broadly, the concept of international law entirely.

In fact, exemptions from international law that have allowed the litany of wars waged by the West since the dissolution of the Soviet Union can all be traced back to the Former Yugoslavia, where the United States made sure to exclude itself and its allies from the “supreme international crime” of aggression.

Luciana Bohne is a retired (and recovering) academic, and co-founder of Film Criticism, a journal of cinema studies at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. She describes herself as possessing “an internationalist outlook, having been born in Yugoslavia, raised in Italy, and matured intellectually in the US.” Luciana’s articles on politics and mainly Italian film history appear at CounterPunch.org, where her latest article, ‘The Cowards’ Wars’ was, she says, occasioned by the sentencing of Radovan Karadzic to forty years imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.

Luciana Bohne in the first half.

And; I went down Monday to Victoria’s Canadian Forces recruiting centre to talk to some of the people observing the international Day of Action Against Military Spending. For Canada’s part, VOWS, or Voice of Women for Peace called on the Canadian Government to: “Substantially reduce military expenditures and re-allocate them to urgent social and environmental needs;” saying, “The federal government should invest in programs that will reduce poverty and help our country transition to a low-carbon, green economy and NOT on combat missions overseas and buying new warships and fighter jets.”

Giving voice for a world without militarism with VOWS in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things coming to the streets of our city, and beyond there too, this week. But first, Luciana Bohne and the writing and unwriting of laws granting impunity ad infinitum, based on assumptions of the “altruistic morality of intervening to adjust the affairs of the world.”

Ape Goes to the April 18th 2016 VOWS Annual Day of Action Against Military Spending

I went down to Victoria’s Canadian Forces recruiting centre to talk to some of the people observing VOWS’ annual day of demonstration.

VOWS is calling on the Canadian Government too: “Substantially reduce military expenditures and re-allocate them to urgent social and environmental needs.”

They say:

“The federal government should invest in programs that will reduce poverty and help our country transition to a low-carbon, green economy and NOT on combat missions overseas and buying new warships and fighter jets.”

National and international events are organized on this day by the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the International Peace Bureau.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Mark Taliano, Eric de Place, Janine Bandcroft April 13, 2016

Welcome to Canada 2016: Less a nation “strong and free” than a transnational oligarchy.

Though the infamous ‘Panama Papers’ are yet to wash up on Canadian shores, the message they bear is as apt in the True North as in any Banana Republic: Money trumps democracy, and notions of freedom and justice are illusions in the face of a Realpolitik predicated by what my first guest terms, a “full spectrum apparatus of domination and control.”

Mark Taliano is an Ontario-based writer, researcher, and activist who, in his retirement from instructing the youth of the nation, has turned his attention to the rest of us.

Mark’s essays appear at the American Herald Tribune, Global Research, and the Common Sense Canadian, among other places.

Mark Taliano in the first half.

And; time is running short for the public to weigh in on a xylene processing plant planned for the shores of the Salish Sea. April 15th is the deadline for those wanting to make their feelings on the Texas-based Tesoro Corporation’s scheme to site the massive petrochemical facility on Anacortes Island known.

Eric de Place is policy director, researcher, writer, and policy analyst for Sightline Institute, a Washington State-based independent, nonprofit think tank. Eric leads Sightline’s energy policy work, and is a leading expert on regional coal and oil export schemes.

Eric de Place and the Tesoro Corporation’s proposed horror next door in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things coming this week to our city’s streets, and beyond there too. But first, Mark Taliano and Canadian politicians: Controlled by the transnational oligarchy.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Stuart Herzog, Ken Boon, Patrick Henningsen, Janine Bandcroft April 6, 2016

Looking around the City of Victoria, it doesn’t take a lot of insight to conclude: This place is humming! Old houses in the suburbs, and once venerable buildings in the city proper, are turning into holes in the ground; nesting pots for steel and glass condos sprouting uptown and down.

The increasing human population, both resident and transient, requires more room too; room to move into and room to get around.

Making room for those people’s in-migration is, naturally, just what made this place desirable in the first place; the remnant “natural elements” within the city – that would be developer-speak for trees.

According to a Habitat Acquisition Trust report of 2013, Victoria lost the equivalent of 12 Beacon Hill Parks between 2005 and 2011; and that was before things got seriously crazy around here.

Now, another stand of trees is slated for the axe to accommodate the ever more, more, more of a Garden City in full boom…

Stuart Herzog is the long-time, Victoria-based environmental and social justice advocate currently coordinating the Victoria Citizens Action Network, a coalition of groups and individuals coming together to work on issues effecting our city and region. Right now they’re focused on BC Transit’s proposal to clearcut the west side of Douglas Street between Hillside and Tolmie.

Stuart Herzog in the first segment.

And; Ken Boon is a farmer in the Peace Valley, and President of the Peace Valley Landowner Association. He’s in court today in Vancouver, trying to get in the path of Christy Clark’s Site-C dam.

Ken Boon taking Site-C to court in the second segment.

And; host to untold hundreds of thousands of refugees from Middle East wars waged by the West, tiny Lebanon is straining at the brink of national viability; and yet somehow it’s managing to cope. But, that may not last, as it increasingly appears Lebanon will be next on the ISIS hit-list.

Patrick Henningsen is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the online news site, 21st Century wire, launched during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Patrick’s geopolitical analyses and commentaries are featured online at RT and Al Jazeera, and of course at 21Wire. I spoke to Patrick last in the wake of the Paris attacks; he’s in Beirut now, and we’ll try reach him to get a sense of life today in what was once called “The Paris of the Middle East.”

Patrick Henningsen in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of what’s good to do in and around our town in the coming week, and beyond. But first, Stuart Herzog and a bus lane too far for one Victoria neighbourhood.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Heider Abu Ghosh, Michael Parenti March 30, 2016

Welcome to the Gentle Season. Spring has indeed sprung here in our green and pleasant land, and what marks change so profoundly as this season of rebirth and growth? It’s no surprise that political movements of liberation invariably make a symbol of this season.

Conversely, what could rival the cruel despair of changelessness; the bone-chilling, soul killing absence of Hope that withers the human soul, rendering life itself into frozen meaninglessness? Even so, in Palestine, where an Arab Spring never blossomed, and the people are caught in the relentless, merciless, implacable onslaught of Israeli atrocity; atrocities visited daily, year in and year out; atrocities sanctioned overtly, or through the omission of censure, by close and powerful allies like America, and to a lesser degree Canada, even so, Hope lives on.

Listen. Hear.

Heidar Abu Ghosh hails from the now disappeared village of Imwas, Palestine and has for more than a quarter century represented his people, those dispossessed by Israel following its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War in every non-violent venue available, including serving a five-year term as President of the Imwas People’s Committee. Mr. Abu Ghosh is currently touring Canada to educate us about ‘Canada Park’, the Canadian-sponsored project that effectively buried his home village; and, he’s scheduled to speak here at the University of Victoria Thursday, April 7 in the David Turpin Building.

Heidar Abu Ghosh in the first half.

And; Michael Parenti is an American educator, lecturer, social justice activist, and author of 23 books, including: ‘The Assassination of Julius Caesar,’ ‘Superpatriotism,’ The Culture Struggle,’ ‘Democracy for the Few,’ ‘ God and His Demons,’ and his latest, ‘The Face of Imperialism.’ Parenti is also recipient of awards from Project Censored, the Caucus for a New Political Science, the Social Science Research Council and many others organizations, including being awarded the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition. He now serves various advisory boards and sits as a judge for Project Censored.

Michael Parenti in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus, Janine Bandcroft won’t join us today, but will return with news of local goings on locally and beyond another time. So first up, Heidar Abu Ghosh and ‘Uncovering Canada Park: A Dispossessed Palestinian Speaks Out.’

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Franz Gigl, Ingmar Lee, Janine Bandcroft Mar. 24, 2016

The plans have been in place for a long time, but looking across any of southern Vancouver Island’s straits now, it’s clear to see the industrialization of the Salish Sea has arrived.

The sharp increase in tanker and freighter traffic though is not only effecting Victoria and Sidney, gateway to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the open Pacific beyond; up the island, between Gabriola and the Sunshine Coast, there’s a scheme in play to make of the foreshore there an overflow parking lot of sorts to relieve Vancouver’s lengthening line of backed-up freighters.

Franz Gigl is with Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorage, or (GAFA), an Island-based group behind the AnchorRage campaign opposing Pacific Pilotage Authority plans to create five anchorages for coal and other commodities freighters off the picturesque Gulf Island.

Franz Gigl in the first half.

And; it’s not only the straits of the southern end of the island experiencing the negative effects of industry’s hyperactivity; just off Campbell River, in the Johnstone Strait, the Ocean Eagle, a barge-hauling tug ran aground last week. It seems so far, yet another fortunate near-miss for the northern reaches of the island, with the Ocean Eagle reportedly not spilling its load of fuel and/or “general cargo” into the environment. Last August a fuel barge was run aground in Surge Narrows, its 60,000 litre load of fuel narrowly avoiding being spilled into the straits.

Ingmar Lee created and maintains the Facebook site, 10,000 Ton Tanker, the only sustained media effort to bring attention to regular foreign oil tanker traffic within BC’s supposed tanker moratorium area. A long-time BC-based environmental activist, Lee is campaigning to address the maritime risks going unaddressed along the province’s Inside Passage.

Ingmar Lee and what the Ocean Eagle’s hard landing at Chatham Point tells us about the way BC manages its waterways in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things coming to the streets of our town, and beyond, in the coming week. But first, Franz Gigl and Gabriola’s rage against the maritime machine.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Janine Bandcroft, Christina Nikolic – FunDrive – Mar. 16, 2016

Welcome to Gorilla Radio’s 17th FunDrive show! Yes, hard to believe…17 years of doom und gloom; and to think; when I started, I thought the World would be all sorted out by now! Well, as ever we do, today’s show will differ from the usual format. I’ll feature some of the music played over the last year and more, and palaver a little about the aims of the show. Janine is joining me too to talk up the station and inspire youse in the community to get involved with your station here and help us help you.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Gearóid Ó Colmáin, Greg Palast, Janine Bandcroft Mar. 9, 2016

Last month, the first of some the expected 250 Syrian families seeking refuge from the war in their homeland began arriving in Victoria; a veritable drop in the ocean of the estimated six million Syrians displaced both internally, and scattered to the World’s four corners.

This great diaspora tsunami is called a crisis as it arrives in Europe, while across the Atlantic, the ongoing US election has politicized the exodus, making of the people a hot potato no-one seeking office wants to catch hold of.

But seldom discussed either here or over there is the root cause of this human disaster, and why it was engineered in the first place.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin is Paris correspondent for the American Herald Tribune and is a political analyst whose work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. He’s a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English, and Dissident Voice, where he’s published an eleven-part examination of what he calls “coercive migration.”

Gearóid Ó Colmáin in the first half.

And; America’s presidential election has evolved into an unparalleled epic pageant costing billions of dollars and running non-stop across media for years before the event. But for all it’s sound and fury, the millions upon millions of dollars spent on advertising, the hundreds of thousands of miles traveled by candidates, and rivers of ink and forests of paper press coverage, the actual poll is only as true as the machinery used to count the votes, and honest as the people using them. And according to reporting investigator, Greg Palast, those vote counters ain’t straight.

Greg Palast and America’s democracy Stripped and Flipped in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of things happening on our city’s streets, and beyond there too, in the week coming. But first, Gearóid Ó Colmáin and examining the ramifications of a “policy of artificial mass migrations” on Europe.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Roger Annis, Bruce Livesey Mar. 2, 2016

John Lennon famously sang, “Give Peace a Chance,” but the Western Axis Powers and their media are clearly not sharing the chorus where Syria is concerned.

Despite the recently agreed Cessation of Hostilities, to listen to the CBC and America’s corporate news disseminators, the tentative steps towards peace made by Russia are false, doomed to fail, and appear in fact designed to do so.

A cynical observer might think the whole exercise is just a pretext to further NATO warmaking in its years-long efforts to either effect regime change over there, or create a smoking ruin of Syria in the attempt.

Roger Annis is a longtime socialist, trade union activist, and prolific essayist in the cause of social justice and peace both in Canada and abroad. He’s a contributing editor at the website New Cold War, where he’s written extensively on Ukraine, and his articles can also be found at his website, A Socialist in Canada, and at Rabble.ca, and Counterpunch.org. His latest article, ‘Syria Ceasefire a Triumph of Diplomacy, But Militarism Still Rules in Ottawa and Other Western Capitals’ examines the recent Cessation of Hostilities agreement for Syria.

Roger Annis in the first half.

And; they’re two of the World’s richest men, yet outside their native America the Koch brothers are barely known. In fact, even within the United States, the Koch’s have managed to keep an extraordinarily low media profile; and in Canada, where they happen to own a good portion of Alberta’s Tar Sands, they’ve achieved as close to teevee invisibility as a pair of billionaires can.

My second half guest hopes to remedy that. His documentary film, ‘How the Kochs and the Rich Buy Elections’ will expose the brothers’ “controversial practices,” addressing just how they’ve insinuated themselves into the heart of American democracy – if he can only get it made, again.

Bruce Livesey is a multiple award-winning investigative journalist and author who’s worked in print, radio, and television. He currently serves as the National Observer’s lead investigative reporter, and has written for most major publications in Canada, including: The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, The Gazette, The Walrus, amongst others, and his book, ‘The Thieves of Bay Street’ was a best-selling Arthur Ellis Award nominee in Canada. Livesey’s been a producer for CBC’s The Fifth Estate, The National, and CBC News Sunday, and Global TV in Canada, while working with PBS’s Frontline and the New York Times in the States, and directing documentaries for Al Jazeera English.

Bruce Livesey and smoking out the Koch’s in the second half.

But first, Roger Annis and winning the ceasefire battle, but not stopping the Syria war.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.