Filed under: Radio-Video | Tags: Acting, Adventures, Age, Ambition, Architecture, Artists, Australia, Being Fine, Belfast, Car Parks, Catoan, Change, Characters, Children's Books, Cities, Comedy, Comic Books, Comic Strips, Communication, Conservativism, Construction Work, Credit Cards, Damien Dempsey, Damien Rice, Digital Technology, Directors, Documentaries, Dr Seuss, Duke Special, East Belfast, Education, Ethnic Minorities, Failure, Family, Feature Films, Film, Filmmakers, Gigs, Graphic Novels, Guitar, I Wanted to Talk to You Last Night, Identity, Immigration, Indie Films, Intimacy, Ireland, Irish-Americans, Jared Longlands, Jobs, Joyful Subjects, Julia Atkinson, Jumping Fish, Land, London, Magic Rats, Michael MacBroom, Mischief, Models, Money, Music, New York, Northern Ireland, Northern Irish Accent, Nutsy The Office Squirrel, Office Work, Paddy McKeown, Parties, Paul McParland, People Who Sit in Rooms and Talk, Philosophy, Photography, Poland, Polish Architects, Presents, Property Development, Protestants, QFT, Record Contracts, Religion, Rent, Risk-taking, Screenplays, Selling Out, Serious Literature, Sinead O'Connor, Singer Songwriters, Skeleton Boss, Skill, Space, Squirrels, Subcultures, The Empire, Thespians, Titanic Quarter, Travel, Urban Alienation, Vulgarity, Work, Writing, Young People
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Jared Longlands (for more: smartturkey@hotmail.com)
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Julia Atkinson
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Paddy McKeown (for more: http://www.myspace.com/patrickmckeown)
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Michael MacBroom
Filed under: Radio-Video | Tags: Accent, Age, Alcoholism, Art, Belfast, Belfast Wheel, Body, Body Image, Botanic Gardens, Chinese, Drinking, Drunkeness, East Belfast, Education, Family, Feminism, Foreigners, Gender, Generalizations, Hair, Image, Immigration, Independence, Language, Latin Culture, Life, Life Plan, Locals, London, Make-up, Mediterranean Culture, Mockery, Nationalism, Northern Ireland, Perfect Women, QUB, Queen's University Belfast, Relaxation, South Belfast, Spain, Stereotypes, Stress, Students, Superficiality, Teenagers, The Bot, The Eg, The Parlour, Turkmenistan, UK, Ultimate Frisbee, Weather, West Belfast, Women, Work, Working Class
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Filed under: Radio | Tags: Abortion, Adoption, Adoption Agency, Armhair, Attraction, Babies, Belfast, Birth Control, Birth Parents, Bitchiness, Boat Cruise, Boredom, Boyfriends, Catholic Church, Chatting Up, Chronic Fatigue, Concentration, Detroit, Diapers, Doctors, Downs Syndrome, Drugs, Energy Ration, Family, Flab, Flirting, Foster Parent, Gender, Grandparents, Health, HIV, Illness, Insanity, Love, Marriage, ME, Memory, Motherhood, Muscle, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Names, Night-feeding, Northern Ireland, Overbathing, Physical Therapy, Pittsburgh, Pregnancy, Prenatal Care, Race, Rape, Retirement, Russia, Sex, Social Life, Special Needs, Speed Dating, Students, Susan Darin Hagan, Swearing, Teenage Pregnancy, Travel, Urine, Vodka, Waitressing, Wheelchair, Yuppie Flu
The Chair
A young Belfast woman talks frankly about life with ME (or chronic fatigue syndrome) in the first half of the show. She discusses how the illness arrived, how it induced swearing and rattiness from her, and what the trade-offs have been. Also: whether she wants people to push her in the wheelchair, her plans for family or nunhood, and how she’s found men look at women in a chair.
In the second half, foster mother Susan Hagan talks about all the babies that have come in and out of her home. She, along with her husband and family, has been fostering newborns for the past seven years through a Pittsburgh agency. The babies stay for a weeks or months, and Susan describes what life with them (and without them) is like — including the health concerns, naming choices, attachment issues, and relationships with birth and adoptive parents.
A Foster Baby
Filed under: Radio, Radio-Video | Tags: Activism, American optimism, Androids, Aristotle, Atheism, Belfast, Britain, Christianity, Conservatives, Creationism, Cults, David Cameron, Debauchery, Democracy, Denmark, Depression, Economists, Education, Egoism, Environmentalism, Epicurius, Eudaimonism, Family, General Well-Being, God, Graeme Watson, Gratitude, Happiness, Hatred of Motherly Virtues, Hedonists, Hippie Lovefest, Humanism, Ibiza, Introversion, Ireland, L. Ron Hubbard, Libertarian Socialism, Lord Richard Laird, Low-grade hedonism, Marriage, Mental Health, Middle Class Lefty Guardian Readers, Narcissism, New age, New Economics Foundation, Northern Ireland, Nutrition, Patriarchy, Pessimism, Philosophy, Physical Education Teachers, Pleasure, Political Theory, Politics, Post-Humans, Prospect Magazine, Public Policy, Queen's University Belfast, Rationalists, Richard Dawkins, Scientology, Secular Society, Social Justice, Social Science, Social Virtues, Socialism, Souls, Sweden, The Enlightenment, Theory of The Good, Tony Blair, Tories, Tragedy, Twee, UK, USA, Utopia, Voting Behavior, Welfare, Well-being, Workplace Democracy
Graeme's Chosen Image of Happiness: Picasso's Joie de Vivre
Episode 27 has Graeme Watson talking about the philosophy of happiness and the politics of well-being. He’s finishing his PhD in political theory at Queen’s, examining different approaches to achieving happiness and how politicians (especially those in the UK) have brought the notion from twee to power.
Graeme discusses the ascendancy of the notion ‘Well-Being’ into a watchword of Tony Blair’s New Labor and David Cameron’s New Tories, as well as predictions that it will be one of the ‘Big Ideas of the 21st Century’. He explains how the personal is being made political and how the consumer industry of happiness is feeding into a new kind of politics — attracting Middle Class Lefty Guardian Readers, among others.
Plus, Graeme offers some visions of our coming post-human future, his low-grade hedonism, some secrets to happiness, and his planned cult.
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Filed under: Radio-Video | Tags: Ascali, Dance, Family, Hillbillies, Ida Rizzo, Immigrants, Italy, Music, Pittsburgh, Tarantella
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Filed under: Radio-Video | Tags: Family, Fostering, Parents, Birth Control, Babies, Diapers
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Filed under: Radio | Tags: Belfast, Film, Family, The Troubles, Catholic Church, Scandal, Human Rights, Bill of Rights, Human Rights Commission, Northern Ireland, Priests, Performer, River Phoenix, Lost Boys, Underage drinking, Secret, Tabloids, Louis Walsh, Singing Priest, Ross Hamilton Cleary, Michael Cleary, Alison Millar, Monica McWilliams
Ross Hamilton Cleary, the son of The Singing Priest of Ireland, Father Michael Cleary, speaks alongside filmmaker Alison Millar about the new documentary ‘At Home With the Clearys’. Ross and Alison discuss the scandal that arose when Fr Cleary’s secret relationships were revealed, what life has been like for the family since, and how the film has been received in Ireland.
In the second half of the show, the Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Dr Monica McWilliams, talks about the upcoming Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland — how the process has developed, why it is necessary, and what the future holds for it.
Filed under: Radio | Tags: Activism, Belfast, Carribean, CIA, Citizenship, Colonialism, Cults, Decolonization, Ethnic Minorities, Family, Film, Global South, Globalization, Guyana, India, Jim Jones, Jonestown, Michael Mahadeo, Migration, National Geographic, Northern Ireland, Ormeau Avenue, Pakistan, Politics, Radicalism, Social Problems, Socialism, Southern Command, Student Protest, Teaching, Television, The Troubles, USA
Michael Mahadeo
Michael Mahadeo has lived in Northern Ireland since the mid 1980s, when he moved here from British Guyana. He speaks about growing up in Guyana during its decolonization, and about the most notorious part of the country’s recent history — the Jonestown massacre, in which hundreds of American citizens killed themselves on a compound in rural Guyana. Michael also discusses being an ethnic minority in Northern Ireland, adjusting to the Troubles, and whether it’s ever possible to become a local here.
Filed under: Radio | Tags: Alcoholism, Asylum Seekers, Belfast, Catastrophe, Chocolate, Christmas, Ethnic Minorities, EU, Family, Health, Homelessness, Hostels, Mental Illness, Migrant Workers, Pennsylvania, Pickles, Politics, Puddles, Retirement, Simon Community, Social Problems
The Original Wilma
In the first half hour, Mandy Jones and Julie Rea of the Simon Community NI discuss why homelessness is on the rise in Belfast, how their group works to address it, and what results they’ve seen. In the second half, Carla Pflueger talks about owning and working in Wilma’s Candy & Fudge Factory over the past twenty-some years. She and her husband Harold started the business in the basement of their home in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania and sold it 2 years ago. Carla talks about the art of making candies, the catastrophes that can happen in a chocolate factory, and what life after chocolate holds for her.
The Pfluegers
Filed under: Radio | Tags: Binghamton, Childhood, Family, FBI, Feminism, Great Depression, Guam, Haircuts, Kitchen Floor, Lunch, Mount Washington, Mt. Lebanon, Pittsburgh, Roller skates, Sisters, Syracuse, USA, Vietnam War, Washington DC, World War II
Dorothy Hagan
Dorothy Hagan died at the age of 87 this February. Episode 12 features an interview with her recorded in December. She recounts her life: growing up in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression, working for the FBI, starting a family while her husband was overseas in World War II, raising 9 children, and living through the upheavals of the past century.
