rabble radio

Since it's harvest season, what better time to take a look at farming. And sadly, it's not the family farm we're going to be talking about. There are still some family farms left, and still some independent farmers who are making a living for themselves adopting new forms of sustainable agriculture. But despite the growth of organics, artisan food products and people who are adopting farming pract...

There were hundreds of panel discussions at the  World Social Forum . The hard thing was to make a choice which one to go to. There weren't a lot of descriptions in the handbook sometimes, so often we just had to pick one and see how it all turned out. You never knew what you were going to get.   And there were so many interviews and recordings that we weren't able to fit in to  Ears on the Earth...

Just because you can't touch, see or smell sound doesn't mean that the sounds around us don't affect us just as much as the quality of our water, air and physical environment. Today's program is all about listening. July 18 was World Listening Day, named because it is the birthday of Canadian composer, educator and sound environmentalist  R. Murray Schafer . The founder of the  World Soundscape Pr...

The media landscape isn't at all the same today as it was 15 years ago when  rabble.ca  first started publishing on the Internet. In 2001, we looked at web pages. They were mostly text and image which didn't move. And there wasn't much to hear either except your hands clicking on the keyboard. YouTube wasn't invented until 2005 (the same year rabble established the podcast network). And the terms...

Here in Canada we don't have as many Black Lives Matter chapters as there are in the United States but the ideas are just as relevant. Despite our beliefs in this country that we are not racist and not violent, Black Lives Matter is helping us see that those perspectives aren't accurate. Today, we'll hear about the two Black Lives Matter chapters in Canada, in two different cities. Toronto and Van...

August may seem like a ways away, but for the organizers of the World Social Forum in Montreal in August, time is ticking away. Two years ago in August, the city of Ottawa was the site for a warmup to the World Social Forum.  The Peoples' Social Forum   was a huge event. The thing about these kinds of Social Forums is that they are very ambitious. Anybody can propose a workshop, or a discussion gr...

Honduras is a country that doesn't show up in the news very often, especially here in Canada. A quick google search brought up links for travel destinations, World Cup soccer and the free trade agreement which Canada signed with Honduras on October 1, 2014.   The Canada-Honduras Free Trade website lists the population of Honduras as 8.2 million. What it doesn't say is that there was a U.S. backed...

What a couple of months it's been in media land. Newspapers folding, television stations getting out of local news… all because of the Internet, they say. We don't hear much about radio, though. 1. Today we go to  Podcamp Toronto  and hear about something that hasn't changed in radio. There still are way too few women on the air. rabble radio contributor Kveshe Be tells us about a study on diversi...

The work world has changed a lot over 30 years. It used to be the case that most people got a job and stayed there. If not for life, then at least for a long, long time. That's not the case anymore. Employers don't like to make commitments to employees anymore. The idea of a full-time job with job security and benefits is becoming more and more a thing of the past. And we're all being encouraged t...

Hard to believe it's the end of the year. But it is. 2015 is almost finished. And what a year it was. Today, we round out the year with a look back at the year that was, a look ahead to the next, and a couple of big changes. 1) Karl's end of the year podcast: We got an early Christmas present this year on October 19, when we finally kicked the grinch out of Who-ville. Stephen Harper is gone. It wa...

This program comes to you from the  Community Media Convergence , a gathering of community television, radio, online and gaming people from across the country. We all know that different media forms are coming together. Radio websites have video on them. Newspapers have podcasts. If rabble.ca had been around 20 years ago, we would have likely been a paper based magazine. And a radio show. There wo...

It's been a great autumn for podcast anniversaries! 1.) One year ago on October 6, Indian and Cowboy made its internet debut.  Indian & Cowboy  is a listener supported media network  consisting of Indigenous media makers, artists, storytellers, musicians & producers rooted firmly at the intersection between digital media art, podcasting & Indigenous Storytelling.  Roshini Nair did this feature for...

We're in the home stretch of Election 42. Just a little under three weeks to go. We're not running out of things to talk about yet. Far from it. On today's show — 1. We hear from Amara Possian of  LeadNow  about their campaign  Vote Together . It helps us figure out who we should vote for to get rid of Stephen Harper. Especially in the swing ridings where a Conservative upset is a possibility. 2....

It felt like summer was over when we got word of the election call, didn't it? OK, so now that Stephen Harper has spoiled our summer fun, time to spoil some of his. It works in the favour of Stephen Harper's Conservatives if voters stay home. Today we'll talk about why it's necessary for YOU … to get out and vote.   We'll also hear about strategies to get out the vote among people who traditionall...

We're very proud of the fact that a lot of our podcasters at the rabble podcast network have their roots in community radio. A lot of our programs on the rabble podcast network are rebroadcast on community radio. On rabble radio 167, we're going to focus on community radio — both here in Canada and also in a couple other parts of the world. Because there's so much that we share with our comrades o...

Happy Birthday to us! Has it been 10 years of podcasting at  rabble.ca  already? Let the celebrations begin! rabble.ca  led the pack when it came to podcasting. In 2005, iTunes didn't yet exist. There were no iPhones. It was truly the dark and silent ages. But our visionary crew saw and heard great potential. Today as we begin our celebrations we talk about the original idea behind the podcast net...

Pigs flew, hell froze over and the voters of Alberta elected a majority NDP government.  We're coming up to the one-month anniversary of the election that shook up the whole country and struck fear into the hearts of the Harper Conservatives. Now that the initial euphoria is starting to subside, rabble radio invited two of rabble's own Albertans to weigh in on the discussion. Roshini Nair is the r...

It's getting green out there. Finally. It's been such a long winter. So this is the Get Growing edition. Today we have an assortment of stories related to how we get our food. Losing our grip on the family farm.  Most people still believe that the land should be owned by independent local farmers who directly farm the land. But this system has been under serious threat for many decades now. Twenty...

There was a time when we thought we'd have to be ready for a spring federal election. That hasn't happened, which gives us even more time to get information out about the various nefarious ways the Harper government has changed our country. And it gives us time to come up with more reasons why the Harper government needs to go. Today's program is an early spring warm-up for the fall election. We'v...

Halifax has been in the news over the past few months, and it's not been good press. We're talking about the infamous case of the so-called "Dalhousie Gentleman's Club" where misogynistic and sexually violent comments were made by 13 male students in the Faculty of Dentistry on Facebook. The story is no longer front-page news, but there were, and still are, a number of controversial issues that ar...

These days we're hearing a lot of voices encouraging all of us to be entrepreneurs. And it's not just from Chamber of Commerce types these days. Even the progressive community is saying that we all need to create our own jobs. On one hand, being self-sufficient is a good thing. But maybe not entirely. Today we're going to be looking at both sides of the entrepreneurial spirit and how it's practise...

Yes, it's a been a tough, tough year. I'm feeling it. We're all feeling it. But… all that bad news is not the totality of life. With this being the holiday season, this rabble radio show is the "Light the Fire, Pour the Eggnog and Think Philosophically For a While" edition. We thought it would be a good time to play some of the hidden gems that have shown up on the rpn this year. So go get that eg...

Employment is becoming more and more precarious. It's getting harder and harder to find what we used to call a "permanent" job, with a good salary, with benefits and with no specified end date. Unifor , Canada's largest private sector union held an event to address this issue earlier in October. There was a wide range of speakers, and today we're devoting the show to some of the ideas that were pr...

Lots of people are not welcome in Canada anymore. People can no longer count on finding refuge in Canada. It's like our country now has big signs on our borders saying Go Away. We don't want you here. rabble radio 158 is about the lives that undocumented migrants face, those who are incarcerated because they are undocumented, and also about people trying to help them make sense of it all and live...

The Peoples' Social Forum 2014 wrapped up in Ottawa yesterday. It was a dynamic day summarizing a lot of the many conversations, sessions and workshops which had happened during the three days. rabble radio's fourth and final podcast contains some highlights from the Final Assembly.