Tag: Larry Hannant

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Larry Hannant, Kim Goldberg December 16th, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded December 4th, 2021.

That an impression of immutability, properly mediated, can be used to serve the interests of the status quo was not lost on prime minister and noted “Iron Lady”, Margaret Thatcher. She famously wielded the slogan,”There is no alternative” – acronymized ‘TINA’ – to batter opponents of her withering economic austerity program in long ago Britain. Looking around at the political stasis afflicting Western democracy today, it may seem our path to economic and environmental disaster is too fixed, inevitable as the movement of the planets.

Similarly, according to my first guest, Alberta, Canada’s reputation as an unassailable sinecure of conservatism past, present, and future is less real than engineered, but unlike Thatcher’s variety the provenance of the prairie province’s TINA is more intriguing than the utterance of a deranged demagogue.

Larry Hannant is a writer, historian, educator, social justice advocate, activist, and author. His book titles include, the Robert S. Kenny Prize-winning book, ‘The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art’, ‘The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens’, ‘All My Politics Are Poetry’, and the newly released, ‘Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s’.

Larry Hannant in the first half.

And; 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 writing about the Fairy Creek blockade.

Kim Goldberg on Devolution, a poetic discourse on ecosystem and societal collapse in the second half.

But first, Larry Hannant and Bucking Conservatism, Alberta-style.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.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.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Mathew Legge, Larry Hannant, Janine Bandcroft November 7th, 2019

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More than a century and half after Dickens’ observation of living in the “best and worst of times“, we living now on the verge of transformative technologies promising to make of our existence the paradise on Earth so long promised are, instead of grasping the best of all times, stuck in an Iron Age paradigm of endless war and violence. And worse yet, according to my first guest, things are getting worse yet.

Mathew Legge is Peace Program Coordinator for the Canadian Friends Services Committee, the peace and social justice agency of Quakers in Canada. He’s also a researcher in the fields of neuroscience, social psychology, and behavioral economics whose blog, Are We Done Fighting? appears at the Psychology Today website.

Matthew will be on the island next week to speak on the issues presented in his newly released book, ‘Are We Done Fighting? Building Understanding in a World of Hate and Division‘.

Mathew Legge in the first half.

And; Canadians seem never to tire of making connections with native sons and daughters who have achieved great things abroad. Just one such person is Dr. Norman Bethune. A national hero in China, Bethune’s communist sympathies though has long presented government of Canada propagandists with a dilemma; so, while his humanitarian contributions are undeniable, Norman Bethune may just be, 80 years after his death, the most famous Canadian hero most Canadians have never heard of!

Larry Hannant is a writer, historian, educator, social justice advocate and activist. He’s author of the Robert S. Kenny Prize-winning book, ‘The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art‘, the soon to be released, ‘Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s’, ‘The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens‘, and the just out, ‘All My Politics Are Poetry’. Hannant and fellow speakers, Eric Zhao, Parneyan Weera, and Florian Castle will be presenting a commemoration of the life and times of Norman Bethune and simultaneous launch of Larry’s book tonight at the Victoria Event Centre on Broad Street at 7pm sharp.

Larry Hannant, Norman Bethune and the politics of poetry in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Mathew Legge and strategizing responses to the current wave of hate and divisiveness.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.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/