Anna Porter The Rise Once Again of Intolerance & Anti-Semitism in Central Europe

One of the country’s most distinguished writers and publishers returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Habsburg lands. In 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Communism gave way to democracy. Since that time the former borderlands of the long defunct Hapsburg Empire and the more recently dispersed Soviet Empire have been trying to invent their own versions of democracy and market-driven economics. But these experiments have led to a widening gap between rich and poor. The worldwide economic crisis has severely tested Central Europe’s determination to live peaceably, and there are many disquieting signs of old hatreds and racial tensions returning. Author Anna Porter travels through the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to speak with leading intellectuals, politicians, former dissidents and the champions of aggrieved memories. She interviews great figures of the revolution (Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, George Konrád) and its new custodians, among them Radek Sikorski and Ferenc Gyurcsány, and also examines the younger generation with little or no experience of Communism and no interest in its aftermath. She visits Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, Prague’s Jewish Museum and Hungary’s House of Terror, each an attempt to reckon with dark episodes of history. The Ghosts of Europe is an exploration of power, nationalism, racism and denial in nations with a tumultuous history and an uncertain future.

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Hon Peter Milliken Canadian Speaker of The House

The Speaker of the House of Commons is the representative of the House in its powers and proceedings, and my functions fall into three categories. First, I preside over the debates of the House of Commons and ensure the observance of all rules for preserving order in its proceedings. Second, I am the Chair of the Board of Internal Economy (BOIE), which manages the budget and administration of the House of Commons, and those areas of Parliament Hill which are under the jurisdiction of the House. Third, I am the spokesperson or representative of the House in its relations with the Crown, the Senate and other authorities and persons outside Parliament.In terms of ranking, the Official Order of Precedence lists the Speaker of the House of Commons as being in 7th place, immediately after the Governor General, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Chief Justice of Canada, former Governors General and Prime Ministers and the Speaker of the Senate. Distilled to its essence, the main function of the Speaker is as the servant of the House.

The Presiding Officer is, however, entitled on all occasions to be treated with the greatest attention and respect by the individual members because the office embodies the power, dignity and honour of the House itself.The office of Speaker of the House of Commons is the personification of authority and impartiality. The Mace, symbol of the authority of the House, is carried in front of the Speaker by the Sergeant-at-Arms and is placed upon the table when the Speaker is in the Chair. The Speaker calls upon Members to speak; when they do, their words must be directed to the Speaker. When she or he rises to preserve (or restore) order or to give a ruling the Speaker must be heard in silence.

Ross King Defiant Spirits the Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven

A Governor General’s Award–winning author recounts the turbulent years during which a group of young Canadian painters went from obscurity to international renown.Beginning in 1912, Defiant Spirits traces the artistic development of Tom Thomson and the future members of the Group of Seven, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley, over a dozen years in Canadian history. Working in an eclectic and sometimes controversial blend of modernist styles, they produced what an English critic celebrated in the 1920s as the “most vital group of paintings” of the 20th century. Inspired by Cézanne, Van Gogh and other modernist artists, they tried to interpret the Ontario landscape in light of the strategies of the international avant-garde. Based after 1914 in the purpose-built Studio Building for Canadian Art, the young artists embarked on what Lawren Harris called “an all-engrossing adventure”: travelling north into the anadian Shield and forging a style of painting appropriate to what they regarded as the unique features of Canada’s northern landscape.Sumptuously illustrated, rigorously researched and drawn from archival documents and letters, Defiant Spirits constitutes a “group biography,” reconstructing the men’s aspirations, frustrations and achievements. It details not only the lives of Tom Thomson and the members of the Group of Seven but also the political and social history of Canada during a time when art exhibitions were venues for debates about Canadian national identity and cultural worth.

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Stanton Friedman living history The Father of Roswell

The UFO crash at Roswell New Mexico 1947The below memo is taken from Stanton Friedman’s ground breaking book called “Crash At Corona”. It is a chilling memo and one that comes from a source that will stun you: The Canadian Government. Our guest, Stanton Friedman, was shown this formerly top secret memo in 1979.  This memo had been sent and expedited to the: Controller of Telecommunications Canadian Department of Transport . It was sent from a senior telecommunications officer one Mr. Wilbert B. Smith, who at the time was working on the effects geomagnetism.

“I was able to make discreet inquiries through the Canadian Embassy staff in Washington who were able to obtain the following information:

a.     The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States, rating even higher that the H-bomb

b.     Flying saucers exist

c.     The modus operandi is unknown but concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Doctor Vanenevar Bush

d.     The entire matter is considered by the United Sates authorities to be of tremendous significance

Nuclear Physicist-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear powerplants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces and 16 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC, his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005. Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 3rd printing. His newest book, also co-authored with Kathleen Marden, is Science Was Wrong released in June 2010.

He has provided written testimony to Congressional Hearings, appeared twice at the UN, and been a pioneer in many aspects of ufology including Roswell, Majestic 12, The Betty Hill-Marjorie Fish star map work, analysis of the Delphos, Kansas, physical trace case, crashed saucers, flying saucer technology, and challenges to the S.E.T.I. (Silly Effort To Investigate) cultists. He has spoken at more MUFON Symposia than anyone else.

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Lawrence Hill The Book of Negroes

Lawrence Hill is the son of American immigrants — a black father and a white mother — who came to Canada the day after they married in 1953 in Washington, D.C. On his father's side, Hill's grandfather and great grandfather were university-educated, ordained ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His mother came from a Republican family in Oak Park, Illinois, graduated from Oberlin College and went on to become a civil rights activist in D.C. The story of how they met, married, left the United States and raised a family in Toronto is described in Hill's bestselling memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada (HarperCollins Canada, 2001). Growing up in the predominantly white suburb of Don Mills, Ontario in the sixties, Hill was greatly influenced by his parents' work in the human rights movement. Much of Hill's writing touches on issues of identity and belonging.

Lawrence Hill's third novel was published as The Book of Negroes in Canada, Great Britain, South Africa and Jamaica and as Someone Knows My Name in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. It won the overall Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award and CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. The book was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award and longlisted for both the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Award.

Hill is also the author of the novels Any Known Blood (William Morrow, New York, 1999 and HarperCollins Canada, 1997) and Some Great Thing (HarperCollins 2009, originally published by Turnstone Press, Winnipeg, 1992).

Hill's most recent non-fiction book The Deserter's Tale: the Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq (written with Joshua Key) was released in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and several European countries.

Hill won the National Magazine Award for the best essay published in Canada in 2005 for "Is Africa's Pain Black America's Burden?" (The Walrus, February 2005). In 2005, the 90-minute film document that Hill wrote, Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada, Travesty Productions, Toronto (2004), won the American Wilbur Award for best national television documentary.

Formerly a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for The Winnipeg Free Press, Hill also speaks French and Spanish. He has lived and worked across Canada, in Baltimore, and in Spain and France. As a volunteer with Canadian Crossroads International, he has traveled to the West African countries Niger, Cameroon and Mali. He has a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Hill now lives, writes and runs in Hamilton, Ontario.

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Lawrence Kraus- renowned theoretical physicist The Physics Of Star Trek

What warps when you're traveling at warp speed? What is the difference between a wormhole and a black hole? Are time loops really possible, and can I kill my grandmother before I am born? Anyone who has ever wondered "could this really happen?" will gain useful insights into the Star Trek universe (and, incidentally, the real world of physics) in this charming and accessible guide. Lawrence M. Krauss boldly goes where Star Trek has gone-and beyond. From Newton to Hawking, from Einstein to Feynman, from Kirk to Picard, Krauss leads readers on a voyage to the world of physics as we now know it and as it might one day be.Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. He is the only physicist to have received the top awards by the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers.

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Marina Nemat "Prisoner of Tehran - a Memoir"

In 1982, 16-year-old Marina Nemat was arrested on false charges by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and tortured in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. At a time when most Western teenaged girls are choosing their prom dresses, Nemat was having her feet beaten by men with cables and listening to gunshots as her friends were being executed. She survived only because one of the guards fell in love with her and threatened to harm her family if she refused to marry him. Soon after her forced conversion to Islam and marriage, her husband was assassinated by rival factions. Nemat was returned to prison but, ironically, it was her captor's family who eventually secured her release. An extraordinary tale of faith and survival, Prisoner of Tehran is a testament to the power of love in the face of evil and injustice.

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Dr. Peter MacCleod- Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham is one of the pivotal events in North American and global history. This clash between British general James Wolfe and French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on September 13, 1759, led to the British victory in the Seven Years’ War in North America, which in turn led to the creation of Canada and the United States as we know them today.Rooted in original research, featuring quotations and images that have never appeared before, Northern Armageddon immerses the reader in the campaign, battle and siege through the eyes of dozens of participants, such as British sailor William Hunter, four Quebec residents enduring the bombing of their city and a teenage Huron warrior.

Shifting from perspective to perspective, we move from the bombardment of Quebec to the field of combat, where Montcalm and Wolfe gave their orders but thousands of individual soldiers determined the outcome of the battle. In the final chapters, MacLeod traces the battle’s impact on Canada, the United States, both countries’ Aboriginals and the world, from 1759 into the twenty-first century.

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Erin Brockovich

Say the name Erin Brockovich and you think, strong, tough, stubborn and sexy. Erin is all that and definitely more. She is a modern-day “David” who loves a good brawl with today’s “Goliaths”. She thrives on being the voice for those who don’t know how to yell. She is a rebel. She is a fighter. She is a mother. She is a woman. She is you and me.It’s been 10 years since Julia Roberts starred in the Oscar-winning, tour de force, “Erin Brockovich”. The film helped turned an unknown legal researcher into a 20th century icon. Since then, Erin hasn’t been resting on her laurels… she continues to fight hard and win big!

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Links:
Erin Brockovich website
Buy Erin Brockovich on DVD

Marina Nemat "Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir"

In 1982, 16-year-old Marina Nemat was arrested on false charges by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and tortured in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. At a time when most Western teenaged girls are choosing their prom dresses, Nemat was having her feet beaten by men with cables and listening to gunshots as her friends were being executed. She survived only because one of the guards fell in love with her and threatened to harm her family if she refused to marry him. Soon after her forced conversion to Islam and marriage, her husband was assassinated by rival factions. Nemat was returned to prison but, ironically, it was her captor's family who eventually secured her release. An extraordinary tale of faith and survival, Prisoner of Tehran is a testament to the power of love in the face of evil and injustice.

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Sandra Chu "The Men Who Killed Me; Rwandan Survivors of Sexual Violence"

Sandra Ka Hon Chu is a lawyer and senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. She has worked in East Timor, Libya, Hong Kong, Canada and the Netherlands.A searing testimonial to the horrors of sexual violence in war—a little-known aspect of the Rwandan tragedy.In the hundred days of genocide that ravaged Rwanda between April and July 1994, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were raped. No one was spared. Grandmothers were raped in the presence of their grandchildren; young girls watched the massacre of their families before being taken as sex slaves. To a lesser extent, boys and men also fell victim to sexual violence.Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide, The Men Who Killed Me features testimonials from seventeen survivors. Through their narratives and portraits, sixteen women and one man bear witness to the crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of others. In their strength and courage, they challenge the stigma of surviving sexual violence and living with HIV/AIDS (an astonishing 70 per cent of survivors are HIV positive).

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