Face2Face with David Peck

Rob Stewart

Rob and I talk about the environment, why Sharks are sophisticated animals, when he first fell in love with humanity, why he still has hope and the need for us all to go a little farther and deeper.

Biography

Rob Stewart is an award winning wildlife photographer, filmmaker, conservationist and educator. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Stewart began photographing underwater when he was 13. By the age of 18 he became a scuba instructor trainer and then moved on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, studying in Ontario, Jamaica and Kenya.

Before making Sharkwater (2007), Stewart spent four years travelling the world as chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s magazines. Leading expeditions to the most remote areas of the world, Stewart’s highly sought after images have appeared worldwide: www.robstewartphotography.com

While on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands, Stewart discovered illegal longlining, killing sharks within the marine reserve. He tried promoting awareness through print media, but when the public didn’t respond, Stewart decided to make a film to bring people closer to sharks. At the age of 22 he left his photography career behind and embarked on a remarkable journey over four years and 12 countries, resulting in the epic Sharkwater.

Sharkwater made history with the largest opening weekend of any Canadian documentary, and was the most award-winning documentary of the year, winning over 40 awards at prestigious film

festivals around the world. And is credited as being the genesis for the shark conservation movement, changing government policy worldwide, and inspiring the creation of shark conservation groups.

Stewart’s second film Revolution (7.6 on IMDB and 67% on Rotten Tomatoes) brought the “evolution of life and the revolution to save us” to the public, was the highest grossing Canadian documentary in 2013, was released by D films, and has won 19 awards at film festival all around the world.

Stewart has written two award-winning books – Sharkwater: An Odyssey to Save the Planet (Key Porter Books), and Save the Humans (Random House).

Stewart is on the board of numerous conservation groups including Wildaid, Shark Savers, Fin Free, United Conservationists, Shark Free, Shark Research Institute, and the NASA developed MEGA Global Initiative.

He has made featured appearances on numerous high profile TV shows including Larry King Live, The Today Show, Tonight Show, The Late Show, Nightline, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, ET Canada, Bloomberg, The Hour, BBC1, MTV and others.

Stewart continues to work towards conservation and environmental education, speaking at the University of Victoria, Yale University, Vancouver Aquarium, ROM, TEDx events, and others.

In a 2011 The Grid Magazine survey, he was voted top living resident for making Toronto a better place.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Aitchison

John and I talk his new book The Shark and The Albatross about the natural world, poetry, beauty, patience and emotion and looking for subtle signs in the environment.

Biography

John is a wildlife filmmaker who works for the independent production company Otter Films Ltd. Otter Films has worked with the BBC, National Geographic, PBS and Discovery Channel on series including The Hunt, Frozen Planet, Life Stories, Life, Big Cat Diary, Springwatch and Yellowstone.

He is the author of The Shark and the Albatross, published recently in the UK by Profile and in North America in May 2016 by Greystone Books.

The BBC's Natural World series commissioned Otter Films to produce the Amber Time Machine. It features David Attenborough's quest to discover what amber can tell us about the past. You can watch it here on the BBC Earth YouTube channel.

You can download a list of productions here.

The BBC's Frozen Planet website is here and The Hunt's website is is here

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Susan Delacourt

Susan and I talk about “image politics” and the media, Stephen Harper’s legacy, Ottawa and how it’s constantly changing and why voters are often appealed to through their wallets.

Biography

Susan Delacourt is a political columnist with the Toronto Star and iPolitics and a regular political panelist on CTV, CBC Radio, and Global TV. She is the author of four books on Canadian politics and teaches strategic communications and journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Since arriving on Parliament Hill to report for The Globe and Mail in the late 1980s, Delacourt has covered many major political events – Canada’s constitutional battles, the ups and downs of the federal Liberal party, the rise of the Reform Party, and the merger of a united right under Stephen Harper. Her writing has appeared regularly in the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post over the past few decades, as well as in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.

Delacourt writes often on political culture. Her most recent book, Shopping For Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them, exposes the influence of marketing and consumerism on Canadian politics over the past half century. In 2014, Shopping For Votes was a finalist for both the prestigious Writers' Trust/ Hilary Weston prize in Canadian non-fiction and for the Dafoe prize in Canadian history. Delacourt’s other books include United We Fall (1993), the story of the failed Charlottetown constitutional accord; Shaughnessy (2000), biography of the late MP Shaughnessy Cohen; and Juggernaut (2003), the story of Paul Martin’s ascent to the Liberal leadership.

Delacourt has been awarded with the Public Policy Forum's Hy Solomon award for excellence in public policy journalism and the Charles Lynch prize for career-long reporting on Parliament Hill. She has been a finalist for Canadian Newspaper and Canadian Magazine awards.

Delacourt holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Western University and is a member of the Canadian Political Science Association. She was a Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College in 2008-09 and is completing a master's degree in Canadian Studies at Carleton University. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation appointed her a Trudeau mentor in 2016.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jürgen Todenhöfer

Photo: Copyright: Jürgen Todenhöfer

Jürgen and I talk about “truth”, ISIS, brainwashing, the media, respect for other cultures and the real face of war.

Biography

Jürgen Todenhöfer was born on the 12th of November 1940 as the son of a judge in the German city of Offenburg/Baden.

In 1959 he completed his high school studies in the city of Freiburg. He then studied law and political science at the Universities of Munich, Paris, Bonn and Freiburg. He completed his training as a qualified lawyer in 1969 and received his doctorate in law from the University of Freiburg.

In 1970 Todenhöfer joined the political party CDU (Christian Democratic Union). Shortly thereafter, he became personal assistant of the CDU’s Secretary General Dr. Bruno Heck in Bonn. In 1972 he became a judge at the Criminal Court of the city of Kaiserslautern.

In the end of 1972, he was elected to the German parliament. He remained a member of the “Bundestag” until 1990. Todenhöfer attracted as much public attention for his political activities as he did for his humanitarian endeavours. In 1975, he traveled to Chile and met with the then dictator Augosto Pinochet. This meeting paved the way for the release of 4,500 political prisoners.

Five years later, together with a photojournalist and some Afghan freedom fighters Todenhöfer traveled via Pakistan to Soviet occupied Afghanistan.

As the CDU / CSU parliamentary group’s disarmament expert he made worldwide headlines with his far-reaching proposals. In 1982, he argued for a swift reduction of the U.S. and Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) by 50 percent. In the early 1980ies Todenhöfer urged German politicians to come out with a stronger commitment to Germany’s reunification. In 1984 he became the first CDU delegate to grant the public a complete insight into his sources of income.

In 1987 Todenhöfer joined the “Hubert Burda Media” company, one of Europe’s largest publishing houses and became the Vice Chairman of its Board, the man behind Hubert Burda. He retired from politics in the year 1990.

It was only after the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September 2001 in the United States, that he returned to the public. He was outspoken in his opposition to the U.S.’s war in Afghanistan and critical of the planned campaign against Iraq. He argued fervently in favor of diplomatic solutions.

Todenhöfer published numerous best-selling books. His books center around his conviction that peace should be achieved through negotiations only. In 2003 he wrote “Who cries for Abdul and Tanaya?”, decribing the war-stricken lives of a young Afghan boy and a young Iraqi girl. He wrote “Andy and Marwa” in 2005 wherein  he describes the fate of the American Andy and the Iraqi girl Marwa during the Iraq war. It was followed in 2008 by the bestseller “Why do you kill, Zaid ?” which was followed most recently in 2013 by his last book “Thou shalt not kill”. In 2010 he wrote a semi-biographic book titled “Share your happiness”. Todenhöfer donates the royalties that he receives for his books and the larger part of his private wealth to children projects in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Jerusalem, in Syria and in the Congo and realizes other social projects as well, like the project that he has founded in Munich for elderly people who have grown lonely.

Todenhöfer has devoted his attention to the relationship between the Western and the Muslim world.

As a 20 -year-old freshman, he traveled to Algiers during the Algerian War, and to Tunisia during the crisis of Bizerte. He has since visited Arab and other Muslim countries on countless occasions.

He urged the U.S. governments to settle their conflicts with Iraq, with Syria and with Iran through negotiations. He took up this matter in direct contact with the governments of Muslim countries.

Todenhöfer is married to Françoise Laval, a French officer’s daughter. The couple, who separated in 2004, has three children. His hobbies included in his youth piloting and parachuting. Today he finds relaxation while skiing and while going for his regular Saturday afternoon football matches; he has a special interest in history and philosophy.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawrence talks in our second interview about his love for magic, dogmatism, pleasure, making mistakes, about the notion of “tools and not rules”, why we’re all storytelling animals and how Aristotle was a friend to artists everywhere.

Biography

Lawrence Hass, Ph.D., is Professor of Humanities at Austin College and the Associate Dean of the McBride Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas. In 2010 he retired early from college teaching to pursue magic full-time as a performer, teacher, author, and publisher.

Lawrence Hass creates magic shows that combine astonishing, artistic magic with ideas that lift the spirit. He performs at theaters, nightclubs, universities, art museums, private parties, medical schools, public conferences, and corporate events all across America and internationally. He performs regularly in Las Vegas and at the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Dr. Hass has also won multiple awards both as a writer and an inspirational teacher of magic. His expertise in teaching and directing magic takes him on the road to offer lectures, seminars, and workshops for magicians and magic conventions. Every year, he spends weeks in residence in Las Vegas teaching Master Classes with Jeff McBride and Eugene Burger at the Magic & Mystery School.

In addition, Lawrence Hass is the author of several internationally bestselling books for magicians, including Inspirations: Performing Magic with Excellence (2015) and Transformations: Creating Magic Out of Tricks (2007). He has published essays on performance in most every print and online magic magazine, and his writings have been translated into four languages.

Lawrence Hass’s visionary approach to magic has been featured in print media around the world, including The New York Times, USAToday, The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and by the Associated Press and Canada West news services. He has been interviewed dozens of times on television and radio, and for documentary films, including feature appearances on the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, South Korean Television, and in his recent TEDx Talk.

Read more about Lawrence here.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greg Paul

Greg and I talk about identity, justice and the possibility of hope, poverty, love and why we’re short on happiness around here.

Biography

Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada’s largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness.

Greg is the author of four award-winning books: Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley.

His most recent book, Simply Open, offers a contemplative path for busy people.

He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brian McKenna

Brian and I talk about his new film Newfoundland at Armageddon, unnecessary war and how an incident with bullies changed his life.

Trailer

CBC link here.

Newfoundland at Armageddon will air on CBC TV on Thursday, June 30 at 8 pm (8:30 pm NT), mere hours before the 100th anniversary of the event that changed Newfoundland - and Canada - forever.

Synopsis

One hundred years ago, on July 1st, 1916, the Newfoundland Regiment took part in a massive First World War offensive on the Somme, led by the British to liberate France and Belgium from the claws of the Germans. Some 800 soldiers from the Regiment went over the top that morning, near Beaumont-Hamel in France.

The following day only 68 were able to answer roll call. Because of that battle, nothing about Newfoundland would ever be the same. To commemorate the one hundredth anniversary, Brian McKenna’s latest feature documentary film Newfoundland at Armageddon tells the story of this epic tragedy. Using a technique he perfected during his 2007 project, The Great War, 21 descendants of soldiers who fought with the Newfoundland Regiment were recruited.

Through descendants’ eyes, and with the guidance of regimental records, historians’ research, soldiers’ files, diaries, letters and family stories, the documentary recreates the battle and its aftermath in Newfoundland. With the help of dramatization, we go behind the scenes of history and visit General Haig as he’s planning the battle with his generals; we’re also confronted to the hardships of a family who sent a son to war.

Enhanced with special effects and CGI, the battle and night raids are intercut with dramatizations, archive footage and photos, as well as interviews with prominent historians, John Fitzgerald, Margot Duley, Gwynne Dyer and Adam Hochschild.

Narrated by Newfoundland musician Alan Doyle, written by renowned Quebec filmmaker Brian McKenna and multi-award winning Newfoundland author Michael Crummey, directed by Brian McKenna, this 90 minutes documentary film is a Galafilm Productions inc. (Quebec) and Morag Loves Company inc. (Newfoundland) coproduction.

Biography

Filmmaker, historian, author and journalist Brian McKenna is best known for his provocative, prize-winning films on Canada's and the world’s history:

The Great War, Big Sugar, The Killing Ground, War at Sea, The Valour and the Horror, Web of War, War of 1812, Fire and Ice: The Rocket Richard Riot, Chiefs, Korea: The Unfinished War, Battlefield Quebec: Wolfe and Montcalm, Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey, and his most recent project, The Secret World of Gold. McKenna also directed the Gemini Award - winning television program Memoirs of Pierre Trudeau, a five -part series broadcast on both the French and English networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A companion volume to the series became a Canadian publishing bestseller.

In 2003, McKenna was honoured with the prestigious Gordon Sinclair Award for Broadcast Journalism at the 18th Annual Gemini Awards. Brian McKenna is also a founding producer of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Oscar - winning current affairs show, The Fifth Estate, a former parliamentary correspondent for

The Montreal Star and co - author of the Penguin Books history of Montreal's legendary mayor, Jean Drapeau. He is the founding chairman of the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists, prompted by his experience with war, torture and terrorism. Brian McKenna is a graduate of the Loyola College (then part of University of Montreal) with degrees in English Literature (1967) and Communication Arts (1968).

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Hinton

Alex and I talk about peace and reconciliation, trust, genocide, Hannah Arendt and our understanding of the other and what all this means about “us”.

Biography

Alexander Hinton is Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs at Rutgers University, Newark. He is also a past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2011-13) and holds theUNESCO Chair in Genocide Prevention.

He is the author of the award-winning Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (California, 2005) and nine edited or co-edited collections, Colonial Genocide in Indigenous North America (Duke, forthcoming in 2015), Mass Violence: Memory, Symptom, and Response (Cambridge, forthcoming in 2015),  Hidden Genocide: Power, Knowledge, Memory (Rutgers, 2014), Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence (Rutgers, 2010), Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (Duke, 2009), Night of the Khmer Rouge: Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia (Paul Robeson Gallery, 2007), Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (California, 2002), Genocide: An Anthropological Reader (Blackwell, 2002), and Biocultural Approaches to the Emotions (Cambridge, 1999).

He is currently working on two book projects related to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, the first of which, Man or Monster? The Trial of a Khmer Rouge Torturer, is forthcoming with Duke University Press in the fall of 2016. He serves as an Academic Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, on the International Advisory Boards of journals such as the Genocide Studies and Prevention, Journal of Genocide Research, and Journal of Perpretrator Research, and as co-editor of the CGHR-Rutgers University Press book series, "Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights." He is also a co-organizer of the international Rethinking Peace Studies (2014-16) initiative. 

In 2009, Alex Hinton received the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology "for his ground-breaking 2005 ethnography Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide, for path-breaking work in the anthropology of genocide, and for developing a distinctively anthropological approach to genocide." Professor Hinton was a Member (2011-12) and Visitor (2012-13) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Professor Hinton served as an expert witness at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in 2016. He has lectured across the globe about genocide, atrocity crimes, justice, and the aftermaths of mass violence.   

To learn more about Professor Hinton head to his website here and to purchase his books look here.

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For more information about my podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit my site here.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jay Whitelaw

Jay and I talk about his new approach to giving and an amazing new app he’s designed called Givesome. We touch on philanthropy, why’s he’s passionate about the giver and how a meeting at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas changed his life.

Biography

After 10 plus years as a Manager and Director at Eagle’s Flight, a Guelph-based international experiential training company, Jay Whitelaw is pursuing his passion for charitable work around the world. 

Jay is the Executive Director and recent Founder of Givesome, a non-profit that provides a giving ‘experience’ by showing donors the difference they make through the gifts they give. 

Jay lived in Namibia, Africa and created the concept for Givesome after seeing first hand the tangible difference that donations can have on individuals and communities in need. 

Jay's desire is that Givesome will become a catalyst for an enormous increase in global giving. 

He lives in Guelph, Ontario with his wife Hannah and 4-year-old son, Jackson.

For more info about Givesome check them out here.

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mac King

Mac and I talk about comedy and magic, show business and working in Las Vegas and why he’s a good listener and how that makes him a better performer and why nice guys don't always finish last.

Biography

Acclaimed by MAGIC Magazine as the premiere comedy magician in the world today, magician and comedian Mac King was just named “Magician of the Year” by the Magic Castle in Hollywood, just broke a Guinness World Record, has appeared on seven TV specials for NBC-TV, just got voted the 6th best show in all of Las Vegas, just rocked on The Late Show With David Letterman, and his book from Random House just entered it’s ninth printing. How did a kid from Louisville, Kentucky find himself in the enviable position of being perhaps the funniest magician in America?

Mac became interested in magic as a kid because both of his grandfathers (Elwood Huffman and Pax King) were keen amateur magicians. Elwood would perform a trick for Mac, and when asked how he did it, Elwood would point to his shelf of magic books and say, “It’s in one of those.” Mac would then have to sort through all the books looking for how to do that particular trick. A few years later it finally occurred to Mac that this was merely Elwood’s little scam to get Mac to read more books!

As a kid Mac would do a show for his family and friends just about any time he could, but his first paid show was for one of the Herbert kid’s birthday party when Mac was 10. He got a whopping five bucks cash (plus cake). The first show he was paid by check was for his Grandfather Elwood’s Kiwanis Club in Greenville, Kentucky. Mac got 35 dollars for that show (but no cake).

After moving to Los Angeles in 1987 Mac’s amazing visual style of magic, and offbeat (but decidedly friendly) approach to comedy eventually caught the eye of the producers of all the stand-up comedy TV shows like An Evening at the IMPROV andComic Strip Live that were so popular in the late 80’s.

In the last few years, magic shows on television have become more popular than ever, and Mac has been there from the beginning. That beginning was, of course, with David Copperfield. Mac had developed a magic trick that just wasn’t right for his own show, but David thought enough of it to pay Mac for it and put in his live show and then on his television special later that year. The next year, the same thing happened with Penn and Teller. Mac was beginning to make a name for himself as a creative force in the magic world.

All that attention garnered Mac a showcase for the producers of NBC-TV’s The Worlds Greatest Magic shows. His unique hilarious tricks, including his ability to make his head cave in, landed him a spot on the first of these highly rated annual specials. After seeing him on that show, all of the people involved just had to have him in their next big NBC magic show,Houdini: Unlocking His Secrets where Mac performed his absurdly comical rendition of Houdini’s Thumb Tie Trick. The segments Mac devised the following year for The World’s Greatest Magic II were so popular that The Mac King School of Magic became a regular fixture on all of The World’s Greatest Magic shows. Mac is the only performer to appear on all five of these exceptionally well-received shows. His success on those programs landed him a spot on another NBC special, The World’s Wildest Magic. Which, in turn, lead to him being featured on Penn and Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.

At the end of 1999 Mac made his first appearance on the new syndicated Donny and Marie Show, where he performed his Amazing Goldfish Trick. Using a small piece of a Fig Newton as bait, Mac caught live goldfish on a fishing line cast out over the heads of the audience. His October appearance was so successful that it made their year-end highlight show of The Best of 1999. Mac made 4 appearances on their show before it was cancelled (not Mac’s fault). And a couple of months ago his house was featured on Home and Garden Television.

Barnes and Noble continues to offer Mac King’s Lunchbox-O-Magic, Mac King’s Book-O-Magic and Mac King's Magic In A Minute Suitcase-O-Magic, boxed kits at retail outlets everywhere and online. Mac’s hilarious how-to book, Tricks With Your Head just entered it’s 9th printing with Random House. Just released is a book of magic to do around the campfire, Campfire Magic, produced by specialty book publisher Black Dog and Leventhal. With all this stuff out there, Mac has probably started more beginners on the road to magic as a hobby than anyone else, ever.

To learn more about Mac head to his website here

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Please visit my website for more information on my podcasting, writing and public speaking.

With thanks to producer Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.