Outlook on Radio Western

Picture it, Maine and Boston, 2024 … A loon on a serene lake and six blind people are hearing its call from a boat in the middle of said lake, as the sound reverberates the way only sound can on open water. Fans cheer for their favourite baseball team and the sounds of their excitement echoes within one of the Major League’s most famous ball parks. Co-host Kerry wins the award for the best sound l...

Right before our end-of-the-month group trip to Maine and Boston we wanted to meet and speak with Nefertiti Matos Olivares, who describes herself as using her “voice” in the creation and narration of culturally competent audio description as a first-generation brown-skinned American woman, for another Disability Pride month chat on the podcast. This week on Outlook we’re talking with Nefertiti (au...

What is the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame? We talk questions like this and more in the first show of an important month for the disability community which we’ve marked for a few years now on air. Happy Disability Pride Month everyone! We celebrated Canada last week by replaying an episode with a fellow Canadian: Anne Mok’s Purpose In View, but we’re back, live, on Outlook this week with the thr...

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” - Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) said it and he was right, most especially with our Mixed Bag Monday shows at times. Check out Outlook this week as we review Forrest Gump on its portrayal of disability on screen, since the 90’s when it was released. We also discuss rainbows (June being 2S LGBTQ Pride), along with more examples...

In retirement, Paul Martz has discovered his love of writing science fiction and blogging about technology after a career in software development. Recently he's asking: What role can fiction play in educating society about climate change? Martz is doing all this by writing for the blind user's AppleVis website and now as co-editor of the "Without Brakes, Fingers Crossed" anthology.  He's with us o...

I am blind! Next month, July, is Disability Pride Month and our guest this week is Doris Belusic who is a poet, nonfiction writer, magazine editor, recent university graduate, and now children's book author. We speak with Doris about meeting her through The Canadian Federation of the Blind, what it was like to go back to school as a mature student, and about the children's book she's written with...

First show of June, and with it begins the next few months of “Pride,” such as for LGBTQAI+2S and next month, Disability. This week on Outlook, we are missing our third co-host Barry and guide dog Oyster, but we begin the show Speaking with host of the show right before hours every Monday morning for the previous few years - From Bach To Rock host Bernie joins on the third Mike and we find out a b...

"Love is sweet, have a treat." This was the verse written on the wedding favours, pairs of homemade shortbread cookies by all our plates at a recent wedding we attended in the family and our third host, Barry, he made it into the photos and is back with us, for another mixed bag show, to share about the experience. A wedding day or living with a disability, so many things in life are about learnin...

On June 1st, it will be three years since the initial release of the book "There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness" and its author and friend of the show Dr. M. Leona Godin is back with us, with us three live in studio.  This   week on Outlook, we're catching up with Leona on what she's been up to in that time and more recently, along with Barry as our third co-host, as we t...

Guide dog Oyster turned six on May 5th and we celebrate on this first episode of May with her and her guide dog teammate Barry, returning visitors and co-hosts as a part of our show. This week, on the first half of Outlook and another mixed bag episode, speaking of oyster, Barry and co-host Kerry share about a recent guide dog refusal by a local cab driver in Kerry’s town. On the second half we sh...

“Tempus fugit” - Latin proverb meaning “time’s a wasting” or “time flies” as we on Outlook discuss disability and endless other things. Our third co-host Barry (and guide dog Oyster) are back with us today. Times flying for Barry here in Canada, but this week we hear more from him about his life after blindness, in Ireland, and as he broadened out and began to travel on his own. How he learned to...

“Top of the morning to ya,” says friend and boyfriend of co-hosts and siblings Brian and Kerry. We’re here on Outlook this week with visiting guest hosts Barry and his guide dog Oyster, fresh from their journey all the way from Ireland. From acquiring a pet passport to a fit-to-fly letter, Barry shares with us the process for travel with a guide dog and both of them are with us for the next few mo...

“Every time I look at you, I go blind.” Solar eclipse, 2024 and the big topic around it all was eye protection. Thus the above lyrics from the Canadian band 54-40 song to start off the show. It’s another Kerry Connection this week on Outlook as we look back on last week’s eclipse with Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, Associate Professor of linguistics at Bowling Green State University. As the 2023 Baruch S...

Temperature change. Animals acting out of the ordinary. These are some non visual signs of an eclipse. It's the day of the total solar eclipse, April 8th, 2024. We're here, on Outlook today with our Eclipse Soundscapes app with its rumble map, to discuss how we plan to join this giant party, an astronomical event we can and should all be able to share in. We talk an accessible eclipse experience,...

WAKE UP AMERICA! As we wrap up Women's History Month, co-host Kerry shares about a recent panel put on by the Paul Longmore Institute On Disability Studies featuring black and brown disabled women and co-host Brian shares about March also being Epilepsy Awareness Month, started by a young girl right here in Canada. And, of course, don't forget about the upcoming solar eclipse in April. This week o...

CAUDES stands for Certified Audio Description Specialist. This week on Outlook we’re speaking with Lolly Lijewski and Kim Charlson about recently released draft certification guidelines and criteria open for public comments until March 31st. Kim is Chair of the Academy for Certification of Visual Rehabilitation & Education Professionals/Subject Matter Experts Committee and Lolly and co-host Kerry...

Co-host Kerry wears her (diversity includes disability) Aille Design braille T-shirt to remind us of the roles of disabled women throughout history. This week on Outlook it’s another mixed bag, as we celebrate World Kidney Day on March 14th. Co-host Brian shares a recent healthcare scare he experienced, we run into someone who understands in a hospital waiting room, and we discuss a particular inc...

Spring is on its way and an April eclipse is coming. Greater inclusion being the order of the day on Outlook this week. In honour of March’s International Women’s Day, co-host/sister Kerry is back in studio to share more stories from the rest of her time in Ireland this last visit to celebrate her 40th, with brother/co-host Brian with a Monday Mixed Bag alongside a shout-out to some of our regular...

Co-host Kerry met Anne through a public speaking workshop and then at a telling our mother’s story workshop. This week on Outlook we speak with Mok about her purpose and her view on life as an Asian woman who is blind and living with Chronic Daily Headache. Growing up on the Canadian West Coast, she struggled to fit in and in school. Since then, she’s been working and raising a family, while livin...

Co-host Kerry met Jen Violi at a writing workshop in Mexico back in 2017 and has gone on to take many of Jen‘s classes ever since. With the option of online, they can live across the continent from each other and still get so much from getting to know each other better through writing. Jen Violi is an author, mentor, elemental writing facilitator, and editor. This week on Outlook we talk about her...

It’s never easy to lose someone we love. This week we’re celebrating best friend and drummer Andrew McIntyre. On this first Mixed Bag Outlook episode of February, Kerry’s back in Ireland and Barry joins the co-hosts from Ireland too. We’re together, the three of us, for another one where we’re reflecting on what Andrew meant to us, along with discussing some of the accessibility obstacles Kerry an...

Benchmarks along the way on the journey to the end of sight with author of “The Country of the Blind: A Memoir At the End of Sight” Andrew Leland. Andrew joins us on Outlook this week to discuss feeling like a tourist in this particular country and a little about the H. G. Wells short story his title is based on, on eye contact as a visual communicator, and he even has some dating advice to pass a...

“This is the first time in history we’ve had authentic representation,” says “All the Light We Cannot See” lead actress Aria Mia Loberti, standing with her guide dog at The Golden Globes. “It was my honour to represent my community and my culture; it’s never been done before.” We kick off this week’s episode of Outlook sharing this clip, mid way through Braille Literacy Month (2024) teasing about...

B R A I L L E There are a few topics co-host Kerry finds are so important, she will bring them up over and over (no matter the day or month), as often as she can. Braille is one of those. This week on Outlook though we start by paying our respects to the loved ones, and Western University students, lost on Flight PS752 which took place in January, 2020, in recognition of the families still searchi...

Woody, warm, and smoky - this could very well describe our now yearly Ketchup On Pancakes (our pre-?Outlook podcast project) which we now produce around this time of year for our “By The fireside) annual series. This year it was back to our roots with “family, creativity, and humour” in a sad way as we dedicate our 2023 look-back to our Uncle Mike who we unexpectedly lost in April. Uncle Mike embo...