According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, 2023 is the year of the Water Rabbit:

Starting from January 22nd, 2023 (Chinese New Year), and ending on February 9th, 2024/which will be the day before co-host Kerry’s 40th birthday, (Chinese New Year's Eve). The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture.

Our audio guy (having purchased new mics for himself for Christmas at local business Music City Canada) and sibling co-host Brian just so happens to have been born in another past year of the rabbit.

Brought to you by we two, the rabbit and the rat, it’s our first live, in-studio episode of Outlook for the year as we cover a mixture of topics including other online podcast communities and our desire to reach out, hear from, and connect with anyone about disability on the Western University campus. And we share about the holidays (music played by Brian and friends and Kerry’s new keyboard) and on habits and establishing routines as we look to the year ahead.

In the second half we celebrate the life of Ontario’s first lieutenant-governor (2007) with a visible physical disability. David Onley lived with the traces of childhood polio and died on Saturday, January 14th and we include here a few clips of him in his own words as he explains his involvement in making change around issues of accessibility. David was instrumental in keeping the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2005 with aims of achieving its results by 2025) in the news, reviewing its progress or lack-thereof, and the importance for visible representation of people with disabilities in society to work on improved policy for all citizens, but specifically individuals of the population living with all kinds of disabilities of which any one of us could acquire at any point. That is why David spoke out about it throughout his life and why we two do what we do.

So do check out our first Mixed Bag show - 2023 is predicted to be a year of hope according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Let’s all find out together and check out these links for more on what we discuss in this first of many mixed bag shows to come in this, 2023, the year of the water rabbit.

The complete interview with David Onley from Beyond Politics as previewed on this episode can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0QYIbACIU

Check out the What's Your Excuse? Network:

https://wyexcuse.com/shows/

The Story Of How Braille Wound Up On Wine Labels:

https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/the-story-of-how-braille-wound-up-on-wine-labels/