Gorilla Radio

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If the pundits are to be believed, Hillary Clinton is on the threshold of successfully fulfilling her marathon presidential campaign. Decades in the waging, Clinton’s dogged pursuit of the Oval Office has possessed both a near-maniacal intensity, and ruthless determination, the depraved depths of which is perhaps best illustrated by her gleeful performance while Secretary of State to the news of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafy’s gruesome undoing. And, just as Libya’s fall was a step in Hillary’s upward progress towards power, the successful destruction of Bashar al-Assad and Syria is the essential prerogative to maintain it.

For those in Hillary’s America hoping for a change in foreign policy it means sore disappointment, but for those in Syria and the other far-flung fronts of the forever war her election is much more dire.

Patrick Henningsen is a freelance journalist, co-founder of the online news site, 21st Century wire and host of its consciousness expanding radio program Sunday Wire. Launched during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, 21 Century Wire’s geopolitical analyses and commentaries are an essential counterweight to a skewed media monolith. Patrick’s reports are too featured online and on-screen at RT and Al Jazeera.

Patrick Henningsen in the first half.

And; Tom Waites was right when he sang, “It’s a sad and beautiful World”, but he might have included the descriptors “big and baffling” too. As little people, we Lilliputians have small chance of grasping how the great tapestry is woven together. Certainly, the meagre threads offered us by corporate-interested media aren’t sufficient to patch together a coherent picture, so how then can we hope to come to understanding our lives in these modern times?

James Corbett is the author of The Corbett Report, a web-based newsite the Japan-based Canadian expat describes as “an outlet for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history, and economics.” Since its inception in 2007, he’s produced thousands of hours of audio and video, uploading regular podcasts, and recording several, regular online video series for his site, and collaborating with GRTV, and BoilingFrogsPost.com. His editorials also appear at the weekly e-newsletter, The International Forecaster. Corbett’s Youtube videos have garnered millions of views, none more notably than his satirical deconstruction of the official World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks in 2001, ‘9/11: A Conspiracy Theory.’ He recently looked back on 9/11, producing a series of video featuring some of the players behind the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks,‘9/11 Suspects.’

James Corbett and dealing with the “day that changed everything,” fifteen years later in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us newz of some of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Patrick Henningsen and riding the 21st Century media maelstrom.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

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Last week, the Joint Investigation Team, an internationally composed body looking into the downing over Ukraine of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 more than two years ago released some of their findings, enough to implicate, they say, Russia in the crime. The western press immediately repeated the findings, and its accusations fully, while doing little digging of its own into either the rigor of the JIT’s methods, or resilience of its facts.

The media’s curious incuriousness surrounding the Dutch-led panel’s probity, considering the scope of the story and its possible ramifications for international relations between Russia and the west at this most sensitive historical moment, may be the most telling part of the tragic mystery behind flight MH17.

John Helmer is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist; the only one, his site, Dances with Bears informs “to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties” since 1989. He’s a former political science professor who’s served as an advisor to the governments of Greece, the United States, and in Asia who regularly lectures on Russian topics in China, Europe, and the US. His book titles include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression’ among others.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; there was dancing in the streets last week when a long-sought peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC, (the leftists guerrilla organization engaged in a multi-generational insurgency) was announced, but Sunday the music stopped as it became apparent the national referendum called to ratify the deal failed to pass. Why the vote failed, and what happens next are the questions burning the wires across Colombia now.

Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steel Workers union. Kovalik is just back from Colombia where he witnessed the peace plebiscite. Dan’s also a long-time peace and justice activist, specializing in that in Colombia and Central America, where he serves as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in cases alleging corporate human rights violations. Kovalik is also co-recipient of a Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in Colombia.

Dan Kovalik and failing peace in Colombia in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, John Helmer and MH17, a prejudiced verdict verified and delivered two years after the fact.

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While the election spectacle south sucks most of the political air from the media universe, British Columbia too is poised to begin its own democracy circus, and it’s with an eye to the Spring vote here issues from across the province are being aired at the Union of BC Municipalities meetings currently going on at the Victoria Conference Centre.

Yesterday, Victoria Councillor, Ben Isitt joined Metchosin Councillor Andy MacKinnon, Cowichan Valley Regional District Director, Sonia Furstenau, and Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee on the steps of the VCC demonstrating to have MacKinnon’s Vancouver Island old-growth logging moratorium proposal included on the UBCM’s resolutions committee agenda.

It’s a busy time for Isitt, who presented Monday night with Andy MacKinnon ‘The Future of Forests and Communities on Vancouver Island‘ a draft policy statement at the Public Presentation and Discussion on the Future of Forests and Communities on Vancouver Island at the Victoria Event Centre, presenting the findings of the group he’s been working with, Island Forest Futures.

Ben Isitt in the first half.

And; hopes for the tremulous peace agreement in Syria were blown to smithereens last week by a sustained American air attack against Syrian army units protecting the town of Deir ez-Zor from ISIS/Daech. The blitz, which US officials later said was all a case of mistaken identity, killed more than sixty soldiers outright, and was followed by what seemed a coordinated ISIS incursion. The result is an end to the peace deal and ratcheting up of the propaganda battle for the hearts and minds on the home front. To that end, prepare to hear lots more about Syria’s famed ‘White Helmets’ organization. Already recipients of a prestigious Right Livelihood Award, the shadowy group are also being promoted for a Nobel Peace prize.

Rick Sterling is an independent researcher, writer, and member of Syria Solidarity Movement, an organization who has mounted an online campaign to pressure the Right Livelihood Foundation to reverse its award decision. Sterling’s articles can be found online at CounterPunch, ConsortiumNews, Dissident Voice, and at Pacific Free Press. Rick’s also an active member of the Task Force on the Americas at the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center.

Rick Sterling and helmets of another colour in the second half.

And, Victoria Street Newz publiser emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good goings on planned for our streets and beyond in the coming week. But first, Ben Isitt and what future the forests of Vancouver Island?

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It’s hard to believe, five and a half years have passed since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that rocked Fukushima prefecture. Harder to believe still is the International Olympics Committee buying prime minister Abe’s assertion that Fukushima will be ready to host events at the 2020 games. Or maybe it wasn’t the IOC doing the buying?

That in recent years the Olympic Games, both Winter and Summer, has become less associated with sporting excellence and the upper limits of human achievement than with deceit, base corruption, and unparalleled venality – where the purity of amateur athleticism, and ideal of international cooperation, if only on a playing field and for a short while, is entirely transmogrified by a corporatist, win-at-all-cost ethos – is news to no-one; hardly worth mentioning, but what is interesting is the accelerating sense of doom the five-ringed circus has come to forebode.

Whether the tremendous environmental price of industrial hyper-development, as glimpsed through Beijing’s choking smog shroud, the spectres of Sochi’s ethnically cleansed original inhabitants, or Rio’s erased favelas and emergent Zika contagion, it’s almost as though those rings carry a curse. If that’s so, nothing seen so far can compare with the horror potential currently lurking just below the surface of the next planned Olympics in Japan.

Robert Hunziker is an environmental journalist whose climate clarion calls appear in numerous journals and multiple languages around the World and across the internet. He’s also appeared in a variety of media to talk about global climate change and has written extensively about the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Robert Hunziker in the first half.

And; now they’ve done it! Last week, Capital Regional District directors voted to fund a new sewage treatment plant to be located at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt. The controversial issue of how best to handle the region’s effluent has livened council meetings, and the local press for years now, but is the CRD greenlighting of the McLouglin Point plant an end to the contentious project, or just another log on the fire?

Richard Atwell is Mayor of Saanich, the region’s largest municipality, and represents the sole dissenting vote on the CRD board’s “almost unanimous” sewage vote. It was Atwell’s advocacy for an alternative sewage plan for the region that led him into politics, and a stunning political upset rookie win against the near two decades-old administration of incumbent mayor, Frank Leonard in 2014.

Richard Atwell and finding a lasting regional pollution solution in the second segment.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio host, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things going on in and around our town and beyond in the coming week. But first, Robert Hunziker and the Fukushima disaster past, present, and forever.

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That in recent years the Olympic Games, both Winter and Summer, has become less associated with excellence and the upper limits of human achievement than with physiological deceit, base corruption, and an unparalleled venality, where the purity of amateur athleticism, and ideal of international cooperation – if only on a playing field and for a short while – is now entirely transmogrified by the corporatist, win-at-all-cost ethos is news to no-one. It’s hardly worth mentioning, but what is interesting in a macabre way is the accelerating sense of global doom, both past and present, the biennial circuses have come to mirror.

Whether the tremendous environmental price of industrial hyper-development, as glimpsed through Beijing’s choking smog shroud, the spectres of Sochi’s ethnically cleansed original inhabitants, or Rio’s erased favelas and emergent Zika contagion, it’s almost as though the five rings have become Karma balls, dread omens for a human civilization that has lost its way.

If so, nothing seen so far can compare with the potential horror lurking just below the surface of the next planned Summer games in Tokyo, Japan.

Robert Hunziker is an environmental journalist whose climate clarion calls appear in numerous journals and multiple languages around the World and across the internet. He’s also appeared in a variety of media to talk about global climate change and has written extensively about the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

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If you follow the news regularly, you can be forgiven for not knowing much other than Trump’s latest harrumph, or Hillary’s health scares, but there is still a World out there spinning, independent of America’s election cycle. Last week, North Korea again tested the nuclear waters with its second weapon test this year. This time they claim to have detonated a Hydrogen bomb.

With a thumb aimed squarely at Uncle Sam’s eye, a Korean Central News Agency release said, “The U.S. will be made to clearly see how the DPRK rises imposingly out of chains of sanctions, blockade and pressure.” (The Obama administration recently responded to a series of North Korean missile tests with promises of more sanctions.) We’re all left to wonder, “What would/will president Trump do?”

Tim Shorrock is a journalist, musician, and author of the web site, Money Doesn’t Talk, It Swears, and the book, ‘Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.’ Tim’s upbringing in the Far East especially informs his coverage of Japan and South Korea, and he spent much of the 1980’s in Japan, following the financial intrigues of the then-biggest of the Asian Tiger economies. These days he’s based in Washington, D.C.

Tim Shorrock in the first half.

And; living here, at this time, in this still magnificent remnant of creation called British Columbia, the sorrow of what of the wild world here has already been lost, and what is currently risked through unrelenting “resource” extraction may make it easier for we less imaginative, less passionate people to understand Grant Hadwin’s last desperate act. The former logger and backwoodsman disappeared after felling, in a mad act of environmental apotheosis, the singularly majestic Golden Spruce, a tree sacred to all who beheld it.

Hadwin’s life was immortalized in John Vaillant’s book, ‘The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed,’ and now in a film inspired by that book, ‘Hadwin’s Judgement.’

Elizabeth Yake is one of the producers of the film, who will appear with John Vaillant and Ken Wu and TJ Watts at the fundraiser screening for the Ancient Forest Alliance in Victoria Thursday, September 29th at UVic’s Cinecenta theatre.

Elizabeth Yake in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things planned for the streets of our city, and beyond there too, in the coming week. But first, Tim Shorrock and a World still restive, beyond the Beltway politics.

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Tom Waites was right when he sang, “It’s a sad and beautiful World”, but he might have included the descriptors “big and baffling” too. As little people, we Lilliputians have small chance of grasping how the great tapestry is woven together. Certainly, the meagre threads offered us by corporate-interested media aren’t sufficient to patch together a coherent picture, so how then can we hope to come to understanding our lives in these modern times?

James Corbett is the author of the Corbett Report, a web-based newsite the Japan-based Canadian expat describes as “an outlet for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history, and economics.” Since its inception in 2007, he’s produced thousands of hours of audio and video, uploading regular podcasts, and recording several, regular online video series for his site, and collaborating with GRTV, and BoilingFrogsPost.com. His editorials also appear at the weekly e-newsletter, The International Forecaster. Corbett’s Youtube videos have garnered millions of views, none more notably than his satirical deconstruction of the official World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks in 2001, ‘9/11: A Conspiracy Theory.’ His latest production on the 9/11 theme is, ‘9/11 Suspects’

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America’s corporate media is doing its level best to crucify Colin Kaepernick, without making a Spartacus of him. The president and the Clinton camp too are playing it cool, because they, and the thin white line at FOX News, and the networks, know “from small embers, great fires grow.” Especially true in a tinder-dry election year like this; one so parched of civic optimism, none alive remember its match. And so for now, Mr. Obama and VP hopeful, Tim Kaine can send backhanded support for the upstart 49ers’ “constitutional right” to voice his opposition to a national “shoot first and shoot to kill” policing policy by sitting out the national anthem, but you can bet Great Caesar’s ghost, FIX News and the Washington consensus will see Kaepernick and his growing retinue of rebel sports figures line the Via Appia before election day.

David Swanson is a most active peace and political justice activist, journalist, radio host, and author whose book titles include: ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition,’ ‘When the World Outlawed War,’ ‘War Is a Lie,’ and ‘The Military Industrial Complex at 50,’ among others. He’s director of WorldBeyondWar.org, campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org, and blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He too hosts Talk Nation Radio, and is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

David Swanson in the first half.

And; last week the Dzawada’enuxw nation united, traveling down the coast of Vancouver Island, linking up with other nations as they went, in their quest to protect the web of life by removing salmon farms from their traditional waters, the place colonists named the Broughton Archipelago. I went down to the demonstration in Victoria Saturday.

Voices of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw raised against fish farms in their territory in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio host, Janine Bandcroft enjoins us to bring newz of good goings-on planned for the streets of our city and beyond in the coming week. But first, David Swanson and America’s racing pulse in a hotting election season.

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The nations of the Dzawada’enuxw are uniting and traveling down the coast of Vancouver Island locking arms with other nations in their quest to remove salmon farms from their traditional waters, sometimes called the Broughton Archipelago.

They have said “no” for almost 30 years to the salmon farms using their territories.

But somehow Canada, BC and the Norwegian/Japanese salmon farmers decided to ignore them and so today one third of the BC salmon farming industry has made themselves at home in Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw territory.

They will be in Victoria TOMORROW, Saturday Sept 3, 2016 – 1 PM At the BC Parliament Buildings

Vancouver ART GALLERY Monday Sept 5, 2016 1 PM the Art Gallery

This industry is disrupting the web of life throughout this coast, entrapping wild fish, disrupting migration patterns that fed hundreds of species, smothering the seafloor, altering the chemical composition of the water with industrial feedlot effluent, release of billions of lice, viruses and bacteria daily! The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, a people with a 13,000 year relationship with this place, view this as yet another form of genocide.

This remote tribe from the Kingcome Valley has received support from nations in Campbell River, Comox, and Nanaimo.

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On Monday, a historic “permanent ceasefire” agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC was ratified, paving the way for an end to a civil conflict lasting more than half a century. Or so the headlines read.

Representatives of the two parties have spent the last several years hammering away at peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba, and while there was dancing in the streets this week at news Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ military forces would cease attacks against the FARC, there was no guarantee against increasingly powerful private armies and death squads continuing their war on rural peasants and urban Unionistas.

And worse, fears are, those loyal to former president and head of the official opposition in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe will follow his lead in opposing the peace accord the only way they know how, with violence.

Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steel Workers union. He’s also a long-time peace and justice activist, specializing in that in Colombia and Central America, where he serves as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in cases alleging corporate human rights violations. Kovalik is also co-recipient of a Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in Colombia.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And; all is not well in British Columbia either, where the oppressive weight of colonial history is straining relations with First Nations on myriad issues. There is a distinct sense of tension here, a feeling of impending collapse, as though one were watching a heavily laden camel standing unsteadily beneath an overloaded hay loft. The anticipation is a wondering, “Which issue will prove the proverbial straw to lay the dromedary low?”

Kiff Archer has worked decades with his partner, Deb “Wilhpun” Nelson to help save the Bears and Wolves of the Bella Coola Valley, at the end of the only road entering deep into the Great Bear Rainforest. He’s just returned from the Kwatna Gathering, a meeting of Bear-loving Central Coast nations, who have called a moratorium on trophy hunting in their territories.

Kiff Archer and standing Stronger Together to end trophy bear hunting forever in the Great Bear Rainforest in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us newz of good goings-on in, on, and around our streets, and beyond there too, for the coming week. But first, Dan Kovalik and Colombia’s dissonant Peace Accords.

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More than five years into the forced Syrian regime change effort, NATO’s media allies are sounding desperate. How else to describe the increasingly shrill, and dizzyingly frequent condemnations from “unnamed sources”? Even the staid old CBC has leapt into the new news paradigm fray, massaging Washington’s message, even while entombing its journalistic credibility.

The recent photo-bombing of a five year old victim, if not a new tactic in the propaganda war, marks a new low, leaving only a descent to tales of babes on bayonets, or the same thrown from incubators onto the cold, cold floor.

But what’s really going on in Syria, and how did it come to be in such a sad state?

Mark Taliano is a Canadian writer, researcher, and activist who, after a career instructing the youth of the nation, has turned his attention to educating the rest of us. His articles can be found at Global Research, American Herald Tribune, IntrepidReport, and at Pacific Free Press, among other places. His latest article, ‘Imperial Lawlessness’ argues, “The dirty war on Syria will be settled on the battlefield. International law is broken.”

Mark Taliano in the first half.

And; Canada’s iconic rock and roll band, ‘The Tragically Hip’ finished a curtain-dropping concert on their lengthy career over the weekend, with Hip front-man, Gord Downie – dying of inoperable brain cancer – voicing support for Canada’s hip, young prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Downie specifically mentioned Trudeau’s stated support on the many First Nations issues left unaddressed by all previous governments. But, not everyone agrees; some critics singling out the green lighting of the Site-C Dam project in BC as a prime example of a Liberal forked-tongued policy.

Ken Boon is a Peace Valley farmer standing to lose his livelihood should Site C be built. He’s also the president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association, and one of the six cited by the Crown corporation in its suit for, “intentional interference with economic relations by unlawful means.” I spoke with Ken in early June about the contentious Site-C.

Ken Boon and the dam Justin would see built in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of coming good times in, around, and on the streets of our town, and beyond there too. But first, Mark Taliano and at international law’s end in Syria.

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Last March, the American-flagged tug, Ocean Eagle ran aground near Campbell River. The single-hulled barge it towed too came to grief, with its cargo – including more than 80,000 gallons of diesel and other, unspecified toxic materials – threatening the waters off Chatham Point. More dangerous to the marine environment than this near calamity though is the woefully inadequate response apparatus in place to deal with the increasing number of grounding incidents in and around the Salish Sea.

Ingmar Lee is a long-time, BC-based environment defender, some of whose many Herculean efforts to protect both the wild lands and coastal ecosystem have been chronicled here at Gorilla Radio over the past decade and a half.

Among those efforts is the creation of the Facebook site, 10,000 Ton Tanker to track, and hopefully cease, the regular passage of pusher-tug, Nathan E Stewart and its 10,000-ton capacity tanker-barges through BC waters. Ingmar filed Freedom Of Information requests on the Ocean Eagle tug incident, and nearly five months later, has received some information of interest.

Ingmar Lee in the first half.

And; almost as old as the Silver Screen itself is the “gritty reporter takes on corruption” plot line; but, like a lot in Hollywood, the Real World tells a different story. Ted Rall knows it too well. The LA Times syndicated political cartoonist nosed too close to the ugly truth in Tinsel Town, getting himself in a jam with the local boys in blue. And, just when he needed his bosses at the Times to cover his back most they turned Judas, throwing him to the wolves instead.

Ted Rall is a Pulitzer Prize-finalist, journalist, prolific graphic artist and author whose books include: ‘After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You As Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan,’ ‘To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue,’ ‘The Book of Obama: From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,’ ‘Snowden,’ and his latest, ‘Trump: A Graphic Biography.’

Ted Rall getting out of step with the LA Times in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us newz of good things planned for the streetz of our town in the coming week – and beyond there too. But first, Ingmar Lee getting the file on the Ocean Eagle’s rough landing.

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In an example perhaps of the accelerated times we live in, Turkey’s recent “Seven Days in May” ran its course in as many hours; but what has followed the Ides of July military coup wasn’t covered in John Frankenheimer’s classic 1964 film. Since the failed attempt to oust him, President Recep Erdogan has conducted a wide-ranging purge of civil and military institutions, and moved with great speed to strengthen and enhance relations with Turkey’s neighbours; neighbours like Russia, Iran, and Syria.

Ostensibly, yesterday’s meeting in St. Petersburg between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on repairing the rift caused by last Spring’s downing of a Russia warplane over Syria, but according to my first guest, there’s much more behind this link up.

John Helmer is a long-time, Moscow-based journalist, author, and essayist; the only one, his site, Dances with Bears informs “to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties.” He’s been working from the Russian capital since 1989, thus making him the “doyen of the foreign press corps in Russia.”

The Harvard educated Helmer is a former political science professor who has served as an advisor to the governments of Greece, the United States, and in Asia. He regularly lectures on Russian topics in China, Europe, and the US, and his book titles include: ‘Uncovering Russia,’ ‘Urbanman: The Psychology of Urban Survival,’ ‘Bringing the War Home: The American Soldier in Vietnam and After,’ and ‘Drugs and Minority Oppression.’

John Helmer in the first half.

And; to assuage public concerns following the National Energy Board’s controversial greenlighting of energy giant, Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion project, that would “twin” an existing pipeline, facilitating the transfer of Tar Sands bitumen from Alberta to Burnaby, the federal government struck a panel to conduct “public consultations” across British Columbia, where opposition to the plan is varied, organized, and vociferous. Now, the panel itself has become the focus of conflict of interest charges and protest.

Lynn Perrin is a Fraser Valley-based public policy analyst, environmental activist, and board member with the Pipe Up Network, an organization of “pro-information, pro-environment united people.” She got involved with the proposed Kinder Morgan expansion plan when KM contractors showed up to clearcut greenspace in her neighbourhood.

Lynn Perrin and bumps in the NEB’s plan to build public confidence in the TransMountain Pipeline Expansion environmental assessment process in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things planned in the coming week for the streets of our town, and beyond there too. But first, John Helmer and a New Byzantine Alliance on the Bosporus rocks a rollicking world order chess board.

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Congratulations contemporaries for having the good fortune to be living in a time of renaissance. To be sure, the World’s a marvelous place, and this an astonishing time to be a part of it, no matter how passingly.

But, with great Yin comes more than a little Yang.

Just as we witness, almost daily it seems, the miracles of technological developments that edify and enhance human existence, there is too another side to our Janus-faced modern reality. As the new century dawned it brought with it the notion of ‘Nuclear Renaissance.’

It was the hope of the atomics industry to inter past disasters like Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, and to bury forever the terrifying collective memories of our lives lived at three minutes to midnight during the long Cold War. And of course, obliterate from history the twin atrocity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Long-time Victoria-based activist and organizer, and local coordinator for Victoria’s Women in Black, Terry Wolfwood will, with the Women in Black, be at Victoria’s Inner Harbour this week, standing determined vigil in remembrance of the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Terry is also the Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation, and her articles on peace and social justice are featured in Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence among other places.

Terry Wolfwood in the first half.

And; from Black Rain to the lack of same; the West Coast of Vancouver Island, renowned for its massive annual rainfall, is parched. Following last year’s drought, and prior years seeing a diminishing rainfall pattern, the land is beginning to show signs of distress.

Susanne Hare is a long-time resident of the island’s wild west coast. The Wickaninnish Island-based artist, environmental activist, and former co-chair of the Canadian Environmental Network has been at the heart of the battles to save Meares Island and Clayoquot Sound from clear-cut logging, fish farming, and a mining industry determined to level mountains if needs be to get at the gold they believe lies beneath the forests of the international recognized UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. 

And now, as the sky will not rain, the ecological threat posed by continuing business as usual in the rainforest is greater than ever. Of the persisting clear-cuts, Hare says, “This logging and removal of the blue print of the forest that was inherited by all should be considered a crime against the planet and future generations.”

Susanne Hare and threats old and new in and around Clayoquot in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things planned for the streets of our city and beyond in the coming week. But first, Terry Wolfwood and bringing an end to an unthinkable nuclear future by remembering our atomic past.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Wednesday, 1-2pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

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This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook – Gorilla-Radio.com

July 27, 2016
It may be America’s most fractious elections ever; not so much because of the bitterness accrued during the gridlocked Obama years by both Republicans and Democrats, but more due to toxic levels of acrimony within each of the parties between grassroots activists and a ruling elite seen as hopelessly corrupt.

As we go to air, president Obama is preparing to address Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and award-winning print journalist, broadcaster, and founder of the web news site, This Can’t Be Happening.net, Dave Lindorff is there, on the streets of his native Philly covering the extravaganza.

Dave Lindorff is also the author of: ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy,’ ‘Marketplace Medicine: The Rise of the For Profit Hospital Chains,’ and ‘Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.’

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; poor old Hillary is getting it from all quarters; now Vlad the E-mail Impaler is jumping on the dog pile.

Yes, the latest out of the embattled Clinton camp has Russian president, Vladmir Putin teaming up with cybervillian Julian Assange and Wikileaks hacking into the former first lady’s privates in order to make their secret agent, fifth columnist, Donald -codename “The Donald”- Trump 45th president of the United States of America.

It may make for a thin film plot, but that’s the script Hill’s people are shopping around.

Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US global policy. He is the moving force behind the Asian affairs website China Matters which provides continuing critical updates on China and Asia-Pacific policies. His articles to appear at Asia Times, and CounterPunch.org, among other internet news sites, and his latest takes a look at the latest scream meme coming from the Clinton camp.

Peter Lee and ‘Trumputin! And the Leak(s)’ in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of what’s good going on in the coming week for the streets of our town, and beyond. But first, Dave Lindorff and a questionable amount of brotherly and sisterly love among Democrats in Philadelphia at the DNC.