This was originally posted on Girth Radio on February 2, 2016.
In the 20th episode of Welcome!, Karim Kanji talks with entrepreneur Romana Kassam about life travelling Europe and Africa, climbing Kilimanjaro, dealing with East Indian parents and their expectations of their daughter, working corporate life and her decision to stop participating in the rat race to start her own business.
Welcome! Episode #20: Romana Kassam by Welcome! By Karim Kanji on Mixcloud
The following was first published on Girth Radio on January 28, 2016.
In this interesting episode, Karim Kanji and Spider Jones talk about:
– Spider’s upbringing in Detroit and Windsor during the heyday of Motown
– Spider’s early career in amateur boxing
– How the Spider met George Chuvalo
– How the Spider ended up sparring with Muhammad Ali and helped him prepare for his first title defense against Chuvalo
– Spider’s past and future radio career
– Spider’s best-selling book and upcoming movie
– Spider’s Believe To Achieve Organization
Enjoy!
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Welcome! Episode #19: Spider Jones by Welcome! By Karim Kanji on Mixcloud
At the beginning of this year I wrote a piece for itbusiness.ca titled, 5 Canadians to watch in digital technology in 2016.
2015 was a very eventful year in Canada. We saw Justin Trudeau’s Liberals topple the Harper Conservatives decade long grip on power in this country. When it came to technology, we continued to see Uber battle local governments and the established taxi industry; marketers giggled with excitement as Facebook opened up the ability for all businesses to advertise on Instagram; Periscope made Twitter cool again (but for how long?); Netflix continued to grow; and Taylor Swift shamed Apple Music into paying artists a fair wage.
What will 2016 bring to the table here in Canada? Who will the movers and shakers be in technology here? Time will tell, however, here are five Canadians worthy of your attention in 2016.
Click HERE to read on.
The following post was originally posted on my Girth Radio-Welcome! page last week. Take a look at it HERE.
Morgan P. Campbell is an award-winning sports writer with the Toronto Star. He has written about the Canadian Football League, MMA, Boxing, Baseball and even rugby. In this episode we talk about Campbell’s journey playing football with Northwestern University to writing for Canada’s largest daily newspaper.
We discuss racism in sports (specifically baseball), football and the issue of concussions, and even steroids in professional and amateur sports.We also discuss the future (and current state) of newspapers.
Enjoy!
Listen below:
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You can also subscribe to the podcast via RSS Feed if you’re so inclined.
This post was originally posted on Girth Radio on January 5, 2016.
Sammy Younan has his own IMBD page, has been nominated for an Oscar (or at least a movie he worked on has), is a published author and has interviewed Dallas Green (City & Colour and Alexisonfire), Gerry Dee, and many others. He is also an entrepreneur and the curator for Girth Radio.
Enjoy!
Listen below:
Girth Radio
MixCloud
iTunes
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Stitcher
TuneIn
You can also subscribe to the podcast via RSS Feed if you’re so inclined.
The following post was originally published on Girth Radio on December 31 2015.
This podcast was originally recorded in May 2011 as part of the XConnect series.
Ryan Holmes is the CEO and founder of Vancouver-based HootSuite. What started as a simple social media dashboard has now grown into a billion dollar company. Take a listen to one of the early interviews with this Canadian startup success story.
I was going to call the title of this blog post: How professional football got away with murder. This is how emotional and powerful this story is.
Based on real life events, Concussion is the story of how Dr. Bennet Omalu (played by Will Smith) discovers a neurological deterioration that is similar to Alzheimer’s disease while conducting an autopsy on former NFL football player Mike Webster (played by David Morse). Dr. Omalu names the disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and co-publishes his findings in a medical journal. As other football players face the same diagnosis, the doctor begins a mission to raise public awareness about the dangers of football-related head trauma.
As the movie states, football players know that football is dangerous. They know they can break their leg playing the game. They may even get a concussion. However, the movie suggests that the NFL hid from the players the one thing they didn’t know could happen to them: That the repeated head trauma would lead to former football players literally losing control of their minds and body.
There are better writers than I who have written about this issue. Here’s one such article from USA Today that is well worth the read. It’s titled, “The chilling first script of ‘Concussion’ is everything the NFL doesn’t want you to see.”
Read the book, see the movie. It will change the way you watch NFL football.
Over the holidays millions of people went to the theatre multiple times to see one film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, there are at least two movies that are more important (at least here in North America).
One of them is the movie adapted from Michael Lewis’ book of the same name: The Big Short. According to IMDB, The Big Short is about “Four outsiders in the world of high-finance who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s decide to take on the big banks for their lack of foresight and greed.” However, it’s much more than that. This is, of course, a true story. Millions of people in North America and around the world lost jobs, their homes and their entire life savings.
In an interview with Variety, movie director and screenwriter Adam McKay said this when asked how the banking world has reacted to the film,
It started when we were filming. We’d book a location and then be told, “No, no, they pulled the plug. The husband’s a banker” or “the wife’s dad is a huge banker.” At first it was little prickly things like that. And then as the film opened in a limited run (on Dec. 11), there were six or seven op-ed pieces in the world of economics and finance, crossfire arguments. The Wall Street Journal reviewer liked the film but an op-ed piece took a swipe at us, then Paul Krugman responded to the Journal piece, then Forbes responded to Krugman, then a Libertarian columnist really liked this movie. … It’s encouraging. We made this movie to get the conversation going. Even in the last few Q&As, there’s been — well, I’d say a little arguing, but not yelling. It’s a good sign. This movie was designed to stir the pot. And even more than financial people, I’m glad that “regular” people are talking about it. What’s amazing about this story is that it’s still happening.
On September 27 2015 four white lion cubs were born at the Toronto Zoo to Makali and Fintan. On December 28 (3 months later) I paid the new family a visit.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is located in downtown Toronto near the intersection of Bloor and Bathurst. Over the winter break I visited the AGO and took a tour as well as visited the JMW Turner exhibit, Painting Set Free.
Tour:
I was shown the Thomson Collection of Ship Models (one of the largest in the world) and even saw Peter Paul Ruben’s masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents.
JMW Turner: Painting Set Free
“Turner’s late works, with their emphasis on atmosphere, are famous for their rich colour, textures and evocative use of light.”
The Art Gallery of Ontario is open most days from 10:30am until 4pm. Check out the AGO’s website at ago.net.
