Guelph Politicast

End Credits #224 - November 24, 2021 (A Cop Movie)

This week's episode of End Credits has at least 75 per cent new material. Speaking of that new material, we will review a new and interesting documentary on Netflix about what it takes to be a police officer in Mexico, and it's also a love story. We're going to review the aptly named, A Cop Movie, and we will also walk down memory lane by re-running the series on Aaron Sorkin.
This Wednesday, November 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Re-Run the Series: The Films of Aaron Sorkin. We were going to do something else for the first part of the show, but it fell through, so let's revisit one of our Run the Series entries from last year. Next month, Amazon releases Meet the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's behind the scenes look at the making of I Love Lucy, so before that happens, we will look again at the films written and/or directed by Sorkin, and we will reconsider how his series should be run.
REVIEW: A Cop Movie (2021). The Mexican Police have long been played in American films and TV as endlessly corrupt and ineffective in the face of uncorruptible hero cops from north of the border, but that can't be the truth, right? Director Alonso Ruizpalacios' new documentary aims to re-frame how we look at police officers in Mexico in a unique mix of interviews, re-creation, and immersion as two actors take on the role of two different police officers, and by doing so they're not only telling the story, they're also living it. So does it work for the audience?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #299 - How ARCH Goes Beyond the ”A”

Despite the wealth of healthcare resources in our city, there’s one group that has been dedicated to helping those who have fallen through the cracks for more than three decades now, and their business has continued to boom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So here, on the eve of this year’s World AIDS Day, we’ll look at how HIV is only where ARCH’s story begins.
We’ve been insanely focused on healthcare for the last 20 months, talking about COVID-19 and its effects, but did you know that ARCH has been doing all sexual health testing and treatment for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph since the start of the pandemic? This is on top of a laundry list of services that ARCH offers including their core mission: Education, outreach, support and clinical services for those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and those who are at-risk for HIV.
Under the best of circumstances, ARCH is doing a lot of vital work and they have to find much of that funding for themselves, but in the midst of lockdowns and COVID precautions, much of their normal fundraising activities had to be cancelled. Still, ARCH has persevered, as they have for 31 years, assisting clients in Guelph and Wellington County, plus Dufferin, Grey and Bruce Counties, all thanks to a dedicated staff who cover a wide-range of disciplines and talents.
This week, we’re joined by one of those people, Communications & Fund Development Co-ordinator Sonia Preisler. She will talk about the long list of ARCH’s services, and how the pandemic has changed the way they deliver those services. She will also talk about the little discussed pandemic impact on sexual health, and how it's fallen on ARCH to pick up a lot of the work not covered by other other healthcare orgs. And finally, she will talk about ARCH’s future, and what the significance of World AIDS Day is in the year 2021.
So let's wrap our Countdown to Giving on this week's Guelph Politicast!
Today is the start of AIDS Awareness Week, and to learn more about all the events, the Red Scarf Project, and to interact with any of ARCH’s multitude of services, you can go to their website here. If you want to take part in the in-person 100 Candles event for World AIDS Day, you register to attend on Eventbrite.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, and Spotify.
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.
Photo: ARCH staff members Mindy and Nic from December 2020 courtesy of ARCH's Facebook Page.

Open Sources Guelph #352 - November 18, 2021

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going to talk about the disturbing state of politics. On the environment, the world's major climate action conference had only minor action. South of the border, it looks likely that a kid who shot people will get off Scott free while a rightwing troublemaker looks like he might be finally paying the price. Before all that though, look, we have a picture of bipartisan co-operation in 2021!
This Thursday, November 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Commons Home. About a month after the formation of a new cabinet, and more than two months after an urgent election, the House of Commons will sit again on Monday with Justin Trudeau coming off a big win reaching a childcare agreement with the Alberta government, and Erin O'Toole now facing a rebellion in the ranks of his own party. So what can we expect when Parliament Hill re-opens for business next week?
Coal Miner's Dither. COP26 has come to an end, and we have a deal to definitively overcome global climate change! that kinda, sorta does something. A lot of the great ambitions about this being a transformative COP went down the drain with no ban on coal and little help for non-wealthy countries to get protection from the worst effects of climate change. Did this COP do anything but create more cynicism?
Have Gun, Will Trial. By the time you're reading this, you may know the fate of Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois teen who allegedly shot and killed two people while, for some reason, "assisting" responders during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The trial has been ugly to watch, and people have been making assumptions of the judge's politics and the sincerity of Rittehouse's regret, but what happens after the verdict?
Bag of Jones. Family members of the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 have won a defamation suit against Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and internet host who posited that the mass shooting in Connecticut almost 10 years ago was a so-called "false flag." Will paying a literal price for his misinformation force Jones and his acolytes to think twice or is it too late to close Pandora's Box?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #223 - November 17, 2021 (The French Dispatch)

This week on End Credits, we're all about the movies. Of course, we're all about the movies every week, but after taking several weeks to talk to some filmmakers, we're going spend our extra time on this episode packing in as much movie talk as possible, and then, for our super-long review this week, we will travel to a fake French town for the equally made up French Dispatch.
This Wednesday, November 17, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
What We've Been Missing. For the last few weeks, we've been covering the Guelph Film Festival, and since we can only review one movie per week, it's really put us behind on the non-stop new releases in theatres and on streaming. Is No Time to Die the right way to end Daniel Craig's Bond tenure? Is The Eternals really Marvel's worst entry so far? And what about Netflix's Red Notice, did it pull a red card? We will talk about about those other movies before...
REVIEW: The French Dispatch (2021). In another forced delay because of the pandemic, the latest Wes Anderson movie has finally been revealed. Like past efforts it features well-known Anderson stringers like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Willem Dafoe, and also like past Anderson efforts, it's heavily influenced by French cinema and the music of the 1960s. The French Dispatch is a loving salute to the salad days of The New Yorker and when being a journalist was an exotic and influential job, but is Anderson's latest film all that, or just more of the same?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #298 - What About Your Friends?

There are a lot of groups and organizations in Guelph that are dedicated to helping the poor, the homeless and the disenfranchised, but there are maybe only one or two groups that are doing that work without the formal or financial backing of governments, non-profits or institutions. One of them is Your Downtown Guelph Friends, and they're now crowdfunding for assistance, so what makes this group of young people so dedicated?
Your Downtown Guelph Friends helps supply meals to people in need downtown, it helps get them essentials like socks or toothbrushes, it helps raise awareness about the needs of people struggling with economic disparity in Guelph, and. perhaps most importantly, they offer friendship. Your Downtown Guelph Friends is not just a name, it’s a state of being. But it’s also worth noting that Your Downtown Guelph Friends is youth driven.
Kate Nixon, who is the spokesperson and one of the founders of YDGF, was already an experienced high school activist when she helped start the group. She teamed up with other like-minded young people and started giving out sandwiches to people in need on days of the week when the other formal aid agencies downtown weren’t providing a meal. YDGF quickly established itself as not just a helping hand for people in Guelph living in poverty, but an advocate for them too. So what’s driving Nixon and her fellow friends?
Nixon and her colleague Jamie Gibson join us this week to talk about the origins of Your Downtown Guelph Friends, all the things they do, and how they’re different from the more formal agencies and non-profits that help people downtown. They also talk about their efforts to destigmatize the people they’re assisting, and how stigma can lead to criminalization. Also they discuss how the pandemic has changed issues around poverty, and how they’re trying to answer the increase in need through crowdfunding.
So let's talk about your friends, downtown, on this week's Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about Your Downtown Guelph Friends, to follow their efforts, or to connect with them about volunteering and donation opportunities, you can look them up on Facebook, and on Instagram. You can also donate to their Patreon.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, and Spotify.
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #351 - November 11, 2021

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we've got some very big things to talk about. Obviously, we always have big things to talk about, but this week, we take a trip into realms more ethereal. Is there a real shift underway giving more power to the workers? Is there really a pandemic of wokeness in the discourse right now? Looking locally though, we're going to talk about something more tangible, the budget.
This Thursday, November 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Living Wage Daylights. There's been a lot written about "Striketober" and "the Great Resignation", but beyond the hype all this points to a potential shift where the power is now with workers. We're seeing that in Ontario with a strike at CAA's southwestern Ontario branches, and the Ford government's approval of an increase to the minimum wage. So are workers finally seeing a shift in their favour or is this a moment in time?
Woke and Dagger. The greatest danger in current western politics is not the slide to authoritarianism, climate change denial, or vaccine hesitancy, it's wokeness. At least, that's how some people see it. While questions about how equality movements may be moving too fast for some people with still old-fashioned thinking, is it really the fault of progressives fighting for social justice that there's a growing right-wing blowback?
The Way Downer. Last week, the City of Guelph released the 2022-2023 budget, the first multi-year budget in the city's history, and a complex document that will struggle to balance the demands of a growing city while being affordable for its people. Questions this big require major expertise, and its hard to find more expertise on this council than Ward 5 Councillor Cathy Downer. She will join us for some more budget talk.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #222 - November 10, 2021 (Summer of Soul)

This week on End Credits, we've got tales to astonish, and they're both real! In the back half of the show, we will review Summer of Soul, a massive music event you've probably never heard of. Before that though, we will talk about another new documentary about someone who may have been one of the greatest Canadian athletes of all time, and you haven't hard of *her* either.
This Wednesday, November 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
INTERVIEW: Julia Morgan, director of Undeniably Young: Nora Young & the Six Day Race. In the 1930s, a Toronto woman named Nora Young proved herself quite the savant when it came to sports, but her ultimate sporting accomplishment was a famous six-day marathon bike race in Maple Leaf Gardens that made American Gladiators look like a game of hopscotch. Former CFRU volunteer Julia Morgan captured Young's story in a new short doc appearing next week at the Guelph Film Festival, and she will talk to us about it for this episode.
REVIEW: Summer of Soul (2021). Speaking of documentaries, our feature review this week will focus on a music and cultural event in the summer of 1969 that shaped history and left a lasting impression on everyone who was there to see it in person. Woodstock? No, think 100 miles to the southeast. The Harlem Cultural Festival was held over six weekends in the Summer of '69, and 40 hours of performances by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and the 5th Dimension were all captured on film and then lost for five decades. So was it worth the wait?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #297 - Spread the Word, Err... Pollen

We’re picking up where we left off a couple of weeks ago with our countdown to Giving Tuesday, and we’re going to talk to a community group that’s focused on a very specific aspect of environmental protection. Guelph has its share of so-called "tree huggers", but there’s only one group that’s trying to make this a better place for pollinating insects.
When talking about pollinators, most people think of bees, but some species of beetles, flies, moths and butterflies are also pollinating insects. We need pollen for things to grow, and we need insects to help move the pollen, so you can imagine why it was a pretty big deal when scientists started noticing that there weren’t as many pollinating insects as there used to be. In terms of committing to local action, that’s when Pollination Guelph was born.
Pollination Guelph is an incorporated non-profit that’s dedicated to promoting awareness and understanding about pollinators. Their success is kind of easy to see as they’ve helped establish pollinator gardens at Hospice Wellington, Alectra’s Guelph office, and, most notably, the large pollinator garden in Eastview Park. It’s an impressive feat for an all volunteer group co-ordinating their efforts, but like everyone else, COVID-19 has had an impact on their activities and fundraising.
This week, we're joined by Clare Irwin, the Co-Chair of the Pollination Guelph Board of Directors. Irwin takes us through the science of pollination, and how it relates to bigger environmental issues like the fight against climate change. She will also talk about how to create a more general insect-friendly environment, and why not all plants are pollinators and not all gardens are welcoming to pollinators. And finally, she will answer the question about what gardening  groups do in the winter months.
So let's talk about helping the pollen flow on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
If you're looking for an opportunity to help out with Pollination Guelph, or if you're looking for resources and advice about planting pollinator gardens, and you can find all that at their website. You can also follow Pollination Guelph on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, and Spotify.
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #350 - November 4, 2021

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we think globally and act locally. We will talk about that gathering of world leaders in Scotland trying to solve climate change, or at least that's what they say, and closer to home, the Canadian government is still taking Indigenous people to court. In terms of acting locally, we will talk to the head of Guelph Campaign School about running for something next year.
This Thursday, November 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
COP Show. Called the "last best chance" for world leaders to take decisive action on climate change, *almost* all the power players descended on Glasgow this week for COP26. There were a lot of pretty words inside the conference, but outside there was a lot of skepticism and outright anger as key polluters like Russia and China both took a powder on this COP. So was their progress, or are we still on the march to doomsday?
Fight Court. If the lesson of this most recent election was that the government's not doing enough to support First Nations people, it seems to have been lost on the Federal Liberals. The government is appealing a ruling from an Ottawa court to compensate Indigenous people taken from their homes and families as children, even though the new Indigenous Services minister says she wants a resolution. But seriously, does she?
Rock 'n' Roll Try School. Speaking of elections, there will be a Municipal Election next year, so local advocate are probably thinking about the stakes, their commitment, and the odds if they choose to run. Those decisions are even harder for people from under-represented communities, which is where the Guelph Campaign School is hoping to help out. Teresa McKeeman will join us this week to talk about her efforts.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #221 - November 3, 2021 (The Guilty)

This week on End Credits, we're being racked with guilt. For the review this week, we're going to watch the new Netflix movie, The Guilty, and all the unexpected timely thoughts it promotes. Before that, we will have another pre-Guelph Film Fest interview with a filmmaker who's trying to wrap her head around another 'G' word emotion, "grief."
This Wednesday, November 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
INTERVIEW: Jennifer Abbot, director of The Magnitude of All Things. When filmmaker Jennifer Abbott's sister passed away from cancer, she starting looking for an outlet for her grief, and her thoughts went back to growing up around Georgian Bay. The Magnitude of All Things chronicles Abbott's struggles with personal and planetary loss, and it's screening this week at the Guelph Film Festival, but she joins us here first to talk about the film and her journey.
REVIEW: The Guilty (2021). Jake Gyllenhaal's had a lot of wacky adventures in L.A. as a writer (Nocturnal Animals), as a news videographer (Nightcrawler), and as a cop (End of Watch). Strung out LAPD cop Gyllenhaal returns in The Guilty, which is based on a Danish film of the same name, and follows Gyllenhaal as he awaits his fate for a police involved shooting while answering phones at the 911 call centre, and then he gets the emergency call that changes everything. So will you be guilty of having a good time watching The Guilty?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.