What on Earth is Going on?
Ben Charland1
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SubscribersFarzana Doctor's new novel, Seven, juggles family, history, culture, and the incredible weight of those forces on women today. It's a detective story and travel novel, and a powerful insight into a wo...
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- 5 years ago
54:57
It's been over two years since host Ben Charland kicked off this podcast in a basement in Kingston, Ontario. After nearly 100 fascinating conversations about everything from the mafia to the water sup...
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- 5 years ago
58:46
The one thing that doesn't change about cities is the fact that they are constantly changing. Most people now live in cities, transforming them with their consumer behaviour, their culture, their idea...
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- 6 years ago
59:01
The coronavirus pandemic is altering our lives in ways we cannot yet comprehend, and in decades we will marvel at this transformative time. COVID-19 is not just accelerating trends that were in place ...
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- 6 years ago
01:02:22
What makes a book interesting? Beautiful? Provocative? Necessary? Is reading still the best way to get a message across and tell a good story, and how is it changing in our world today? The Kingston W...
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- 6 years ago
01:10:30
We will all encounter disability in our lives, either ourselves or someone we know and love. What is our responsibility when that happens? What role should the greater community play to provide care a...
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- 6 years ago
50:30
What if being a Member of Parliament or Congress had nothing to do with an election, but rather worked like jury duty? What if our officials were seated randomly in a legislature? What if we innovated...
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- 6 years ago
01:13:46
Rosemary Sullivan is an acclaimed Canadian poet and biographer. She has written definitive biographies about Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen as well as a book about the early life of Margaret At...
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- 6 years ago
01:00:13
Kent Hehr is a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and member of parliament for Calgary Centre. As a so-called "recovering politician" with careers on both the federal and provincial levels, Kent ...
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- 6 years ago
01:02:57
Aurora Browne is one of Canada's national treasures. Best known as one of the cast members of the Baroness von Sketch Show and as co-host of the Great Canadian Baking Show, Aurora has been creating da...
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- 6 years ago
01:11:19
What does it take to write a novel? What about genre? How does marketing define the books we read before we even open the first page? What does it mean to find a space that isn't programmed? And is th...
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- 6 years ago
01:12:21
Elizabeth Hay is a Giller Prize-winning author of novels such as Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and Alone in the Classroom. Most recently, she published a memoir about her parents' final years in...
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- 6 years ago
58:54
Is dividing people up by their generation (Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, etc.) unhelpful and even harmful? Is it a form of ageism, along the same lines as racism or sexism? What is the coming crisis...
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- 6 years ago
01:14:05
One of the key features of the democratic process is opinion polling, whether it is leader likability or attitudes on various issues. But do these snapshots of the horserace have an impact on the race...
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- 6 years ago
01:02:00
Do our names shape our destiny? What does it mean to live life as Don as opposed to Donald or Donnie? What prejudices do we carry with our names and the names of others, and what about those who chang...
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- 6 years ago
01:07:14
Humans are living longer, delaying disease and decay later and later. It's conceivable that we could eradicate the big killers and attain a certain kind of infinite postponement of death. But what wou...
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- 6 years ago
01:12:09
Ziya Tong is "one of the world's most engaging science journalists" and after co-hosting Discovery Canada's Daily Planet television program for ten years, she wrote her first book, The Reality Bubble....
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- 6 years ago
54:42
Guy Gavriel Kay is a bestselling, world-renowned author whose works have been translated into over 30 languages. Originally from western Canada, Guy practiced law, developed a radio series with the CB...
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- 6 years ago
01:14:01
Lucy Ellmann's groundbreaking and award-winning novel, "Ducks, Newburyport", consists of a single sentence broken up only by the small bits of a parallel story of a mountain lioness protecting her cub...
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- 6 years ago
52:21
Do the problems we face today -- political gridlock, climate change, social upheaval, accelerating economic inequality -- stem from fundamental imbalances in our society and thinking? What role might ...
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- 6 years ago
44:29
Do music and poetry share the same roots? How do you write poetry that embraces complexity, history, beauty and atrocity? How can literature confront the self with the past, and the events that seem o...
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- 6 years ago
01:08:08
What is the future of technology, and what does it take to be a real lifelong innovator at the ground level? Ben's guest is James Brown, a serial entrepreneur, technologist, and head of Limestone Tech...
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- 6 years ago
51:01
Live theatre is one of the oldest art forms, but rather than fade away in the face of easy social media and instant entertainment, it is experiencing a resurgence. What is it about live drama that kee...
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- 6 years ago
59:38
Rampant and increasing polarization of our politics? The turn to populism as a result of economic inequality? The growing, scarcely regulated political power of social media and Big Data? These are so...
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- 6 years ago
01:06:22
We can't seem to talk about gambling without reference to its very real, very serious social problems -- whether it's the association with organized crime, the addictiveness, or the ruination of many ...
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- 6 years ago
01:02:15
What makes an election work? Is it the technology aggregates our preferences? Is it trust that our choices will be fairly counted, that they have an impact? Is it the institutions that manage the voti...
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- 6 years ago
01:06:37
Some argue that all of humanity today faces an identity crisis, as we struggle with rapid change and a deteriorating habitat -- and that the solutions may lie in indigenous social technologies, especi...
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- 6 years ago
01:05:24
We often see video games as a form of consumer entertainment—an escape from reality, not that different from watching TV or reading a book. But the structure of games are perhaps fundamental to what i...
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- 6 years ago
01:08:33
What is consciousness? Where does the mind reside? Can we create artificial intelligence that can fake intelligence, or maybe just have it? What happened in 17th century Europe that led to such a fasc...
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- 6 years ago
01:17:50
It's Friday 13th! What does that mean? Is it an unlucky day? According to science—no, it means absolutely nothing. But there is one exception: the date has meaning if we think it does. As meaning-mach...
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- 6 years ago
57:55
What does it mean to have a good conversation about politics, democracy, our place in the world, Donald Trump and sports? How do we bring disparate and distinct voices into that dialogue, and keep it ...
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- 6 years ago
01:11:38
Is colonialism ongoing in the Kalahari Desert? What do the struggles of the San peoples tell us about democracy, tradition, adaptation to the environment, and the exercise and imbalances of power in t...
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- 7 years ago
01:06:51
What is social media doing to our politics from the inside? Are politicians themselves getting along, or are the deep partisan divisions in our culture also fraying the relationships of the people who...
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- 7 years ago
01:04:54
What is the future of the university and higher education? Will the local, broad-scope, brick-and-mortar campuses that form a critical part of our society give way to a fragmented system of hyper-focu...
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- 7 years ago
01:01:10
How do we understand and engage in today's conversation about gender? What on earth is going on with gender and identity politics, and what is the personal dimension? Ben is at Queen's University in K...
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- 7 years ago
01:06:49
What does it mean to be a storyteller? What happens when we look into the mirror after a long day, let the masks drop, and come face to face with who we really are? What does ownership mean in the art...
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- 7 years ago
01:04:33
How important is culture to the long-term success of an organization? What role does being vulnerable play in leadership? How does story help weave and even make up our everyday experience? And what c...
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- 7 years ago
01:03:46
George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984) is a touchstone of 20th-century English literature and a key piece of modern political thought and speculative fiction that continues to provoke conversat...
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- 7 years ago
01:01:50
What does it mean to be an introvert, and is it harder in our society to keep to oneself? Is there a pressure to conform to an Extrovert Ideal? How do introverts assert themselves in education, the wo...
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- 7 years ago
01:02:11
What does it mean to be creative? Where does creative expression lie: in the individual, in the shared experience, or in the coming together of public and private? How can an actor be more than just a...
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- 7 years ago
01:01:52
Denise Clarke is one of Canada's most respected performing artists, perhaps best known for her work with One Yellow Rabbit. Since 1997 she has opened up the company's process with the Summer Lab Inten...
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01:05:24
Thomas Friedman has been explaining the modern predicament as an author and New York Times columnist for decades. With Thank You For Being Late, he turns his sights to the unprecedented rate of change...
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- 7 years ago
01:13:36
What are the challenges and pressures that face growing cities like Toronto? How do we make housing affordable in such places? And what does the future of the city look like? Ben is in Toronto to chat...
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- 7 years ago
01:04:07
Making films is often about balance: between the singular vision of the script and director and the ideas and impulses of the team; between getting the perfect shot and keeping the project on time and...
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- 7 years ago
01:07:56
People take to the streets to change the world. Sometimes regimes fall and power shifts, yet too often nothing much happens -- it's business-as-usual the next day. But are we missing the spirit of act...
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- 7 years ago
01:07:18
Michael Kaufman's newest book, The Time Has Come: Why Men Must Join the Gender Equality Revolution, is a stirring call for men to step up for women's rights, as well as a poignant analysis of what on ...
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- 7 years ago
01:05:33
In April 2019, Jason Kenney returned the Conservatives to power in Alberta. Is this a return to normal in Alberta politics, where one party usually rules? What's happening underneath the platforms and...
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- 7 years ago
01:02:15
What does it mean to be human? Is the world a mirror or a window? Should our experience of reality be mediated, and if so, who should be the mediators? We ask these questions earnestly today, but they...
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- 7 years ago
01:04:56
Sally Armstrong has been to some of the most dangerous places to speak with, learn about and report on women and girls in conflict zones. Countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia have been her bea...
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- 7 years ago
55:10
Bob McDonald is one of Canada's most recognizable voices. An author, science journalist and chief science correspondent for the CBC, Bob has been hosting Quirks & Quarks (a weekly radio show about sci...
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- 7 years ago
01:03:25
Description
Your weekly podcast for a world in flux. Globalization and climate change. The rise of social media and the decline and fall of Blockbuster Video. AI and VR. Donald Trump and Flat Earthers. The world is changing so fast that we can't get a grip on how we got here, let alone where we're headed. Join Ben Charland as he peels back the headlines to ask, what are the events, characters, forces and ideas that shape the human story today? Have things always been this nuts, or are they getting crazier by the day? Who were those barbarians that took down the Blockbuster Empire? Just what on Earth is going on?
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