Outlook on Radio Western

We met old friend Emily Trepanier, now aka Starfish, as children, at a camp for the blind in Ontario. Kerry met Maxwell Ivey, now known as The Blind Blogger, online, through a LinkedIn community for writers and bloggers in 2014 and this is his full premier on our show. And how did this fellow Ontario friend/now a BC newcomer and a Texan/prior carnival worker and amusement park ride broker connect...

“Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom must undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” —Thomas Paine, 1777 We’re back, for round two, back in studio. We’re in person again for our final live show of October and, when live, you never know what will happen on air. We talk days of importance and if there’s a point to it. Days, weeks, months: Disability Employment Awareness Month (DEAM), Natio...

If you could have dinner with just one person who’s not alive today, a famous person from history, who would you choose? It’s October which means Blindness Awareness Month, October 14th being World Sight Day, and October 15th which is known as White Cane Day, we at Outlook speak with M. Leona Godin, friend of the show. We’ve been talking a lot about her recently released cultural exploration of bl...

Our last live in studio Outlook was March 9, 2020, which was our 64th show. Brian loves numbers and it’s quite the coincidence we recorded exactly another 64 shows from home. But now we return, LIVE, with episode 129. Back in studio, with a little VoiceOver to kick off the show, back at Western radio. Still taking precautions against Covid (masks/vaccines/distancing)- on this week we talk Septembe...

Here we are, having fallen into fall and by sharing a co-host’s love of The Fall (both the season and the band), but we two blind siblings are feeling the advocacy fatigue or, in other words, some weeks it just feels like we’re done AF. No, seriously, the advocacy fatigue, it’s real, but we push through with a new show this week, now known as Monday Mixed Bag on Outlook. This week, returning to ju...

As mentioned on this episode, check out the ACB Sunday Edition podcast where Wayne shares his story in greater detail: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sunday-edition-for-august-8-2021-a-survivors-story/id1531822445?i=1000531400268

Oh boy! Here we go! On September 7th, 2021 something called the Pan-Canadian Disability Coalition put on a federal leaders debate (on and for disability and Canadians living with one like blindness). This hadn’t existed before and though twenty-two percent of Canadians with a disability, we rarely hear our specific issues mentioned by politicians, on or off the campaign trail. It’s one week to the...

So much to say on the book “There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness” by M. Leona Godin and published by Pantheon Books. There’s so much to say that we could have had a seven hour discussion on all the themes and stories about blindness throughout history and in our culture today. On this special, slightly extended three-segmented episode of Outlook, we were three this week w...

Oh that Friday feeling. On last week’s Mixed Bag Monday, Part One, we made pleas and climbed sand piles. This week, in Part Two, we on Outlook discuss what we learn from attending an annual general meeting (or AGM) for Radio Western/reach out to new student listeners, sharing on The Rumpus and the process, and revelations around Strange Gods and sensitivity reading, It’s the wild west of sensitivi...

We begin this one with what we’re reading and how. Oh, and with a plea and a trip to see a giant sand pile. On Outlook this week, another Mixed Bag Monday discussing a musical gig, guitar by co-host here with band Trusty Fox. Brian reads and plays the same way. Other co-host Kerry is excited that fall is coming, but it’s always apple season for Brian, technology wise. We mention a few shows we’ve...

This week’s guest on Outlook describes herself as: “An open book.” Joanne says: “My setback is my setup.” Our conversation with Joanne Beckford showcases her openness in talking with us, in sharing her own outlook with us and the audience. Our main goal with this show, showing the world that blindness isn’t the end of everything that was worth living for in life, or certainly does not need to be....

From a recent binaural carwash adventure on their own podcast. To adventures talking space with us and Christine Malec’s dream of one day meeting astronaut Chris Hadfield, from one Chris to the other. You heard it here first, on the latest episode of Outlook. The two hosts of Talk Description to Me, Christine Malec and JJ Hunt, who we spoke to about their podcast on ours last winter, are involved...

From Ski Patrol to Ketchup On Pancakes to Outlook. The podcast that started it all celebrates five years this summer! Thanks to Kerry for coming up with the idea to start a podcast in the first place. Back on May 14, 2016, when we recorded for the first time, a pilot under the name Ski Patrol, we never could have imagined it would evolve into a show with a focus on advocacy that would air on the r...

Not a Kerry connection this time (as it’s been coined) but one from the other host of this podcast. It’s a Brian booking! Brian and Laura met, as teenagers, back in 2001 at the MIRA Foundation in Quebec, where they went for training for guide dogs. It’s social media which has allowed them to reconnect, something that wasn’t around when they last met in person and we’re glad they have and that we c...

It’s not easy to find others who can whip out their eye (prosthesis) in a crowd, as a Halloween party trick. One of us hosts on Outlook can do this, but doesn’t. Justin Evangelho can and does. Question is, is he an evil genus, a magician, a childhood cancer survivor? Answer is, maybe all three, and he’s our latest guest on Outlook. We discuss his evolution from creative writing to audio recording/...

June is Deafblind Awareness Month and we finish off the month with Penny Leclair. This week on Outlook she speaks to us about resilience and accepting the inevitability of change in one’s life. We learn about her experiences, being born blind and losing her hearing over time. She tells us about her journey with hearing aids, cochlear implants, two hand manual, and interveners. Penny has never let...

Getting your first guide dog is a challenging, exciting, life changing thing, as the two of us both know very well. We find out about this and more from this week’s guest on Outlook. Jinnie Saran has been a youth representative and now mentor, with an organization out of British Columbia, Canada known as Blind Beginnings, along with her work with the Camp Bowen Society. Today we speak with Jinnie...

In the month following our 2021 first ever all virtual Choices and Goals Canadian Federation of the Blind Convention, we’ve been hard at work to bring together the highlights of this year’s event. This week on Outlook, we continue with Part II, with us two, continuing on as the MC’s). From the weekend of convention, finishing off on May 1 where we led a diverse session day, full of insightful spea...

In the weeks since our 2021 first ever all virtual Choices and Goals Canadian Federation of the Blind Convention, we’ve been hard at work to bring together the highlights of this year’s event. This week on Outlook, we begin with Part 1, with us two as the mc’s from the weekend of April 30th, welcoming a diverse two days of sponsoring companies and insightful speakers. Door prizes (read with the he...

This week, on Outlook, we spend the first half of the show sharing our own, personal thoughts on the recorded presentation from the recent Canadian Federation of the Blind convention we featured last week. In the second half, we feature another inspiring presentation from the convention; a panel Kerry put together called Diversity and Intersectionality: In Their Own Words. At our 2021 first all vi...

Special episode of Outlook today and we’d appreciate it, more than usual, if you’d listen and then share this one around. This week’s episode is full of facts and figures most Canadians and others don’t realize, many others don’t think should be said out loud. At our recent, 2021 first all virtual national Canadian Federation of the Blind’s Choices and Goals convention, Mr. Daryl Jones (sighted al...

The two of us at Outlook took a week off, for an excellent reason, to MC the 2021 Canadian Federation of the Blind Convention. This year, our theme was Choices and Goals and this theme has felt rather fitting in these strange times, us hosting from home in our first all virtual convention weekend, April 30th to May 2nd. We’re back, this week with an all new show, as we return to one of our mixed b...

To quote our sister sibling on this week’s episode of Outlook, to describe her brother, she says: “He’s the self starter of self starters.” We like to ask this question, to describe the other sibling, on each April’s Sibling Month shows. We would say that about them both, as we wrap up our month of celebrating sibling pairs who are both blind, as we two sibling hosts are as well. Maggie and Erik a...

Attending a residential school for the blind and deaf-blind, seeing hide nor hair of your family over nights, until the weekends came. Check out our third week of sibling stories, tales from pairs of siblings, both blind with our discussion with Rob (second Outlook appearance) and his sister Jackie. We discuss their age gap and what that meant for their sibling bonding, about their experiences att...

No one messes with my sibling but me! This week, on Outlook, it’s the second week of April and our Siblings Series shows featuring sibling pairs who are both blind and the above line sums up the lovely sibling bond vibe that our latest guests illustrate with ease. Jessica and Zoe are Mexican-American, blind siblings, from Texas. Jessica loves tea and Zoe plays a flute on air during our interview....