Preparing for life with Alzheimer's

I seem to be doing a lot of stories related to mental health lately. Alzheimer's is not exactly a mental health issue, but there are some similarities -- and it's good to see that people are more willing to discuss the disease openly, rather than trying to hide it.

Yesterday, I was in the studio at Maritime Noon to talk about how patients and their loved ones can prepare for life with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia. You can listen to the conversation here.

Friends of Redtail

My half-hour documentary on the Friends of Redtail is online here.

This may seem like a story you've heard before: local group bands together to try and protect forest from clear-cutting.

But there is more to it than that. The Friends of Redtail don't want to create what they call "a tree museum" -- and they are looking to create a new model of local ownership and control of resources.

There are some great characters in this piece, including Billy MacDonald, who runs the nature camp from which the Friends take their name, and who is one of the only people in Canada to have successfully fought the National Energy Board; and Bernadette Romanowsky, a retired lawyer and mother of (I believe) 10.

The day the greyhounds came to Musquodoboit Harbour

My 5-minute radio documentary on greyhound enthusiasts in the Maritimes is now online here.

Every few months, Greyhound Pets of Atlantic Canada arranges for a truckload of ex-racing dogs to come to the Maritimes where they will find new homes. Greyhound lovers call the day Hound Day, and they converge at GPAC founder Jeanette Reynolds' house in Musquodoboit Harbour, near Halifax, to meet the new dogs, and get them settled. And some of them will go home with new pets they have just met.

The documentary features a United Church minister with 9 greyhounds, an explanation of how to hold a greyhound's collar so the dog doesn't take off on you, and an interview with Jeanette, who has 5 greyhounds and 2 jack russells.

It doesn't feature any barking, since greyhounds are such quiet and easy-going dogs.

My school breakfast radio documentary

Breakfast is served three mornings a week at East St. Margaret's, the local elementary school in Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia.

And on those three mornings, you can count on 85-year-old Kay Richardson to be there.

I stopped by recently to speak to Kay and some of the students. Click here to listen to the documentary. (It runs four minutes.)

The Secret Men Won't Admit -- more radio

If you live in Atlantic Canada, you can hear me with Tom Young on The Afternoon News, Friday, October 17 at 2:30. The show is on the Rogers stations in the region: News 91.9 (Moncton), News 88.9 (St. John) and News 95.7 (Halifax). 

Listen in if you can!

The Secret Men Won't Admit -- radio interviews on men and depression

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing a bunch of radio interviews to talk about men and depression -- the subject of an article I wrote for the October 2008 issue of the Canadian Reader's Digest.

Today, October 16, I'm on The Gary Doyle Show, on CKGL 570 News in Kitchener, from 1:30-1:45 Eastern Time.

Obviously this is a subject that people respond to, because it is talked about so little. I'm hoping to do my bit to change that.

Our week of stewardship on Micou's Island

For a week in August, my family served as stewards on Micou's Island. It's a 22-acre jewel in St. Margaret's Bay -- one of the few islands in the bay that's not in private hands.

Being stewards meant living in the 1850s house on the island (cold running water, composting toilet, wood-fired cook stove), greeting visitors, and making sure people respected the island environment.

I also brought along a broadcast-quality recorder and made a radio documentary about our experiences -- which turned out to be a lot more eventful than we ever would have expected.

The documentary aired in Nova Scotia on the CBC Radio One program Mainstreet. You can listen to it here in mp3 format.

Internet access at school

Maybe an odd topic for the middle of the summer, but I'm behind in putting this one online.

Back at the end of June, I did a short segment on the local CBC afternoon show with host Carmen Klassen.

The subject was the way the Halifax Regional School Board filters access to the Internet. They use software from a company called Netsweeper to control access to web content that may be offensive or that contravenes board policy.

The problem? The same filters apply to everyone, from 6-year-olds to staff.

The most shocking thing I found in doing this piece is just how reticent -- or maybe even frightened -- school staff are to say anything critical. I came across several teachers who were frustrated with the system, but who wouldn't agree to speak in public about it. The one who did told me she would probably get in trouble. 

Meanwhile, the principals at two local high schools outright refused me access to their premises, even to interview students or to test out the system in their computer lab.

I have to give credit to Gerard Costard, the man who manages the system for the board. He'd been excoriated in two previous pieces on the subject by writer Bruce Wark, but he was still friendly and happy to give me an interview. He even set up a laptop in his office with the filters active so I could try out the system.

You can listen to the segment here.

Randy Neily

About a month ago, I interviewed Randy Neily. I was working on a documentary for the CBC Radio One show Maritime Magazine. The piece was called "Where There's Smoke, Will There Be Firefighters?" and you can listen to it here.

Randy was the deputy fire chief in Blandford, whose volunteer fire department the documentary profiled. A few weeks later, Randy passed away (there's a Facebook group celebrating his life here).

On the night I was at the Blandford fire station recording a lot of my material I wanted to speak to Randy, but something about him intimidated me. He was physically large, and didn't do a lot of the social niceties with me. We were introduced, and he went back to his business without showing much interest. I approached fire chief Philip Publicover and said I'd like to interview Randy but was feeling a bit intimidated. Did he think Randy would be amenable?

Philip laughed, said Randy might seem intimidating but wasn't. On the other hand, he didn't know how much he'd be willing to talk. Later, I approached Randy, and after some initial hesitation he agreed to be interviewed.

We sat in the fire station office, Randy under a poster for the movie Backdraft, and talked for half an hour. A couple of times we'd seem to be done and I'd turn off the recorder, but then the conversation would carry on and I'd start recording again.

In the end, I didn't wind up using any of those interviews (although if you listen really, really closely you can hear Randy laughing in the background at one point). There just wasn't room. But I learned a lot, and it was helpful.

Randy was a volunteer firefighter, paramedic and former firefighter instructor. He visited every single fire station in Nova Scotia (there are over 300 of them) and had taken photos at each place. I suggested it might make a good book -- and he said he had thought about that. I hope that archive of photos winds up somewhere where they'll be appreciated.

Here's a short clip of Randy expressing his worry about the future of the fire service, and his photos.

Where there's smoke... will there be firefighters?

"Where There's Smoke, Will There Be Firefighters?" my radio documentary on the challenges facing volunteer fire departments, is now online  It was produced by Christina Harnett, aired on CBC radio regionally, and runs 25 minutes.

The piece focuses on the fire station in Blandford, Nova Scotia, but a lot of the issues they face hold true for other departments across the country.

Listen to it here.

My volunteer fire service story on CBC Radio One's Maritime Magazine, Feb 24

A few months ago, I heard Blandford, Nova Scotia fire chief Philip Publicover on the CBC radio news. He was talking about the problems he faced in recruiting and keeping new members for his community's volunteer fire service.

I wanted to know more, so I pitched the CBC a story on the challenges facing rural fire departments.

The result is my half-hour documentary, "Where There's Smoke... Will There Be Firefighters?"-- which airs on CBC Radio One's Maritime Magazine, Sunday, February 24 at 8:30 AM. The producer is Christina Harnett.

The show focuses on Blandford, and how the challenges it faces are emblematic of challenges faced by fire services throughout the region -- and the country. I had no idea that the vast majority of the fire services in the country are volunteer, or that sometimes stations are so broke they can barely put fuel in the trucks.

I hope you can tune in. If you're outside the Maritimes, it will probably be too early for you. The piece will eventually go online, and I'll post a link.

High Steaks / Gone Surfin' and more

There's a new section over there in the sidebar on your right. It's called My Stuff. That's where you'll find my vegetarian- converts- to- meat-eater radio documentary High Steaks (thanks to all of you who have asked me to post it).

Right underneath is the first installment of my new Gone Surfin' web/tech column, originally published in local paper The Chester Clipper. Enjoy.

The level of discourse keeps rising

I've had a weakness for right-wing American talk radio since just about the time I got my first radio. Do I listen for the intelligent conversation and the astute political analysis? But of course.

Like last night, when I flip on Michael Savage (slogan: "Borders. Language. Culture.") and the first words I hear are, "Am I saying all liberals have a mental disorder?"

Of course, Savage is not without a sense of humour ("Most Americans don't know anything about the Middle East. You're too busy reading about Tolkien's Middle Earth"), and sometimes I have to wonder if the whole thing isn't a big joke to him. After all, this is one of the most right-wing of right-wing talk-show hosts -- but also a guy who, in his previous incarnation as Michael Weiner, was pals with Allen Ginsberg and wrote piles of books on herbal medicine.