Lise's Ramblings

When it comes to vaccines, have you ever whined about a bruised arm, long lines at a clinic, a tiny blood speck on your shirt sleeve, or inconvenient opening hours at your doctor's office? I know I'm guilty, but I encourage you to stop for a minute to ponder how fortunate we are to live during a time when vaccines exist. Or for that matter, in a country where vaccines are available to us, in many cases, even covered under health care plans.  As adults, we tend to think about vaccines when we face potential harm. Step on a rusty nail and you wonder, "When was my last tetanus shot?" You're taking a trip and realize you should get to a travel clinic early for a Hepatitis A/B needle. Or, fall arrives, bringing seasonal influenza along for the ride.   And what a ride! The flu pulled a hit-and-run on my hubby this week. It's sobering to see what the flu can do to someone who eats well, is fit and has more get-up-and-go than the En...

In the days before satellite digital music, customized MP3 playlists and online radio/video channels, we had to wait for a long commercial-free music set to li sten to hit, after hit, after hit. No ads. Just tunes.       AWESOME!

It’s odd that most of the Christmas classics tend to be ones filmed back in the 1940s through to the late 1960s. Here are some examples of the major ones: ·           Holiday Inn (1942) ·           It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) ·           Miracle on 34 th Street (1947) ·           Scrooge (1951) ·           White Christmas (1954) ·           Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) ·           The Sound of Music (1965) ·           A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) ·           How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) ·       ...

I chose today’s topic when I found out our neighbours in the U.S. will celebrate National Radio Day tomorrow. My fondest public radio moments always happen right before Christmas, when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) plays an on-air reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince. Through national radio, a reading like that can reach remote communities and be heard in cars even when all other stations turn to static noise. Unlike commercial radio stations full of ads, banter and tiny news snippets, national radio programming is as varied as its audiences. National radio listeners explore comedy, science, news, books, culture, politics, all genres of music, sports, controversy and much more as the writers and radio personalities take the time to delve into deep discussions, interviews, phone-ins and exceptional, well-researched programming. Who among us hasn’t: learned something about natural or physical sciences from Bob MacDonald, Jay Ingr...