A bit of shameless cross promotion here: Centennial College’s Journalism program has its own YouTube channel where student produced television stories, and interviews, are posted.
Here is the interview with Cabral Richards “Cabbie on the Street”
Here is one by reporter Abby Crosby. Let us know what you think!
By SHAWN STAR
Though Canada’s women’s hockey team didn’t win the gold medal at the Nagano Olympics, one player still came away feeling like a champion.
Without being in Japan for very long, Vicky Sunohara could tell it would be an unforgettable experience, but she never anticipated how overwhelming it would all be.
“We got off the plane to go to the Olympic village,” the two-time Olympic gold medalist said, “and there were all kinds of reporters and they all gathered around me and I thought ‘What’s going on?’”
Though some of the media were there to interview her for a one-hour documentary, a lot of the attention was coming because of her heritage. Sunohara is half Japanese, and she had always though she had uncle living in Japan. But she discovered soon after arriving she had a lot more than one relative living there – and to them, she was a big deal.
Vicky Sunohara poses with her 3 Olympic Medals
by Andrew Gelfand
Freedom is such a subjective word that a lot of people in the Western world have no concept of the liberties they have. But some people experience oppression that most couldn’t begin to fathom.
Marina Nemat, author of the memoir Prisoner of Tehran, knows what it feels like to be persecuted for simply being. Having grown up a Christian in Tehran, Iran, she was attending a Zoroastrian high school when the Ayatollah Khomeini took power in the early 1980s.
Omar Moseleh. Andrew Gelfand, Marina Nemat and Saba Taye
With Iran experiencing a religious revolution, Nemat was one of the first in her school to speak out against the replacement of qualified teachers with young members of the revolutionary guard under control of the Ayatollah. After causing a school-wide strike and starting a school newspaper protesting the Islamic changes, Nemat was put on a blacklist of people to be watched for not submitting to the new protocols Iran was facing.
On Jan. 15, 1982, at the age of 16, Nemat was arrested at her home and taken to Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.
“Being arrested was really like watching a movie. It was like I was watching this happen to someone else, it wasn’t really happening to me,” Nemat said. “Now I understand that I probably entered a state of shock that just kept on going.”
Once at Evin Prison, she was blindfolded and led to a room where she was questioned about a separatist that she had met only once. When she told the guards she didn’t know anything, she was led into a hallway full of other prisoners like herself.
When the guards returned for her, Nemat was led into another room and placed on a bed. She was then tied up.
“Because I have very small bones, they realized that my hands would come out of the cuffs. So they put both of them into one cuff, and just that… that metal digging in your bones. I screamed. And that was when I realized… oh, this is really, really bad,” Nemat said.
“But once you are tied up and they are beating you, there’s nothing you can do.”
Later, when she went to the cells, she realized that the number of people coming in to the prison was much more than the prison could hold. Because she was perceived to have lied in her interrogation by withholding information, she was sentenced to death.
Nemat and a group of girls were blindfolded and marched outside on lashed feet. After walking outside for a long time, the girls arrived at a large, empty field with wooden stakes in the ground. Their blindfolds were removed and they were tied to the stakes.
At the last minute before the execution a guard that had arrested Nemat the previous night, Ali Moosavi, drove up with in a car. He whispered orders to the commanding officer in charge of the execution, untied Nemat and threw her in to the back of his car.
Having no idea what was going to happen to her next, Nemat was more terrified than ever. She was taken back to Evin, processed and sent to a place known as 246, the women’s section of the prison.
Four months later, Moosavi returned and told Nemat that she had to be his bride. He forced her to convert to Islam and released her from 246 for a short marriage and honeymoon, where he repeatedly raped her.
About 16 months after they married, Moosavi was assassinated. Having grown close with Moosavi’s family, Nemat’s father-in-law secured her release from prison in March of 1984.
Nemat went home to live with her parents, but being a political prisoner in Iran at that time was a very taboo topic and her parents refused to talk about her experience with her. So she tried her best to just put it out of her mind.
A few years later she secretly married her Christian boyfriend, Andre Nemat. The marriage was outside of her now Islamic religion and she was arrested and sent back to prison for another stint.
In 1991 Nemat was able to escape to Canada, but was still haunted by her time in Evin. After the death of her mother, Nemat experienced a mental breakdown where she realized she was still a prisoner of her experience.
“If I had discussed it since the very beginning, that need [to psychologically deal with Evin] would have worn out. But it didn’t, so kind of like I was a volcano that just blew. And the result was the book,” Nemat said.
However, even that didn’t give her all of the freedom she was seeking. She received a harsh response from some of the Iranian community for discussing a taboo cultural issue in such a public forum.
“Iranians feel this is dirty laundry and you don’t hang it in public,” Nemat said. “Maybe if it had changed, and maybe if this was an issue of the past it would be easier to discuss. But it’s not.”
Evin Prison still stands in Iran today, one of the most notorious prisons for mistreatment of political prisoners and execution without reason.
While the Western world is preoccupied with the economic hardships and unemployment rates that many feel is stealing their freedoms, it’s a world better than what some are being forced to live through.
In what many feel is a time of trials and tribulations, it’s important to never forget that things could always be much, much worse.
by Victoria Wells
Victoria Wells, and journalism class interviews Steve Stipsits, south pole explorer
It was the biggest challenge Steve Stipsits ever had to face.
Trudging 200 kilometres on skis, dragging a 100-pound sled behind him and confronting -50 C wind chills that sapped his strength and never ceased – all with no hope of escape.
Though he had prepared himself physically and mentally for half-a-year for his trip to the South Pole, Stipsits felt, after only one day in Antarctica, that he could never have prepared enough.
“All that [preparation] went out the window that first night,” Stipsits said. “It was completely gone. It was complete anxiety, realizing that we are so deep now, and there is no way to get out of here.”
Stipsits, 46, owner of Branthaven Homes, trekked to the South Pole with three other businessmen from the Hamilton area in December 2008 to raise money for children’s charities. Their efforts netted close to $600,000 in funds for kids’ nutrition and music programs in the Niagara, Hamilton and Halton regions. Distribution of the money is set for March 10. Keep reading →
by Sarah Frangione
He’s been there and done that, well sort of. So why would a 46-year-old husband and father of three and his team of part- time explorers decide to do it again?
Victoria Wells, Ellin Bessner, Steve Stipsits and Sarah Frangione show off South Pole gear
Steve Stipsits, owner and president of Branthaven Homes in Burlington, Ont., in a joint effort with four other business owners, has just returned from the South Pole and managed to raise $600,000 in charitable donations for less fortunate kids.
“Our donation was really to pay for the entire cost of the trip so that every dollar that we could receive for the charities would go towards children’s programming,” Stipsits said on Friday in an interview with Centennial College journalism students.
In 2006, the team trekked to the North Pole on foot, and by late 2008, they were at it again for the South Pole for Kids charity, this time on skis and facing colder temperatures (-40 C to -60 C).
“I’d get to think about how well off mine are (children) and how much need there is out there for others and so despite the fact that I really didn’t want to leave (my) kids for any length of time anywhere near that, we kind of felt it was necessary,” he said.
The extreme dangers Stipsits and his team faced in the Pole in 2008 were much more extreme than in 2006. Stipsits said in the interview the team had to rent a gun because the threat of polar bears was a constant one, although he added, they never had to use it. Keep reading →
Hearse by National Specialty Cars
Jessicka Loduca, Maddie Bodenstein and David Nicholas
by Jessicka Loduca
Jessicka Loduca and David Nichols interview Maddie Bodenstein
Notions of what is essential to consumers are always changing. High-end goods like limousines are generally considered a luxury, but some jetsetters consider them primary needs. Yet in this current economic downturn, there is a decline in the number of premium products consumers are willing to splurge on.
National Specialty Cars (NSC) is one of many companies dealing in luxury products whose business is affected by the current economic crisis. Mainly specializing in limousine and custom car restorations, NSC has been dealing with the prevailing economic situation by shifting their focus onto a more reliable source of business – funeral services.
“It’s hard for limousine companies because the first thing that people cut out of their lives are the luxuries,” said Maddie Bodenstein, CEO for NSC. “Currently we are moving toward the hearse business.” Keep reading →
by Farrah Cole
Paul McLaughlin is telling journalism students to ignore the doom and gloom reports of changes in the media.
McLaughlin, author of Asking Questions: the Art of the Media Interview, was at Centennial College recently discussing the changing roles of journalists from producers or writers or photographers to all three roles in one.
“That was never my job description,” McLaughlin said. “My job description was, ‘You do one of those things.’ Well, now you do all of those things.”
He said it’s understandable why journalism students of today might be worried about finding a job with people in the media industry consistently saying newspapers are doomed but he reasons the students in school these days are part of the revolution of media.
“People like yourselves, who have grown up with this technology and are making it up as they adapt to it, you’re the right people,” McLaughlin said. “You’re actually in the right place at the right time. Don’t let old people like me tell you that the world is full of doom and gloom because it’s not.” Keep reading →
by Ciaran Thompson
There are shots, saves, rebounds, goals, penalties and, surprising to some, lots of body contact, yet women’s hockey is still not as popular as men’s hockey.
Vicky Sunohara, a three-time Olympic medal winner for Canada in women’s hockey, believes the popularity for the sport is increasing and will someday get the recognition it deserves.
“It’s come a long way and it’s come a long way since women’s hockey has been in the Olympics so I can only hope that it keeps going and keep progressing,” Sunohara told students at Centennial College’s journalism program March 6.
Having won 18 medals in total as a member of the women’s national team, Sunohara thinks women’s hockey can advance while maintaining the integrity of the game.
“We want to keep it a finesse game and we want to keep it fast,” she said.
Body checking is not allowed and is one of the main differences between men and women’s hockey. Although in some games, when tensions run high, there is some body contact between players.
“I think there is a lot of physical contact, not just all out body checking,” she said.
“There are a lot of players that would like to have body checking and there is a lot of players and fans that think there is no place for it in our game.”
Whether for or against body checking, many sides agree that the sport needs to create more awareness for it to grow. The amount of publicity for women’s hockey usually stems from the Olympics while they are in session.
“In women’s hockey we feel any publicity is good publicity,” she said. “A lot of people watch the Olympics, but besides that there is not a whole lot of awareness out there for our sport.”
Some female players however, have attracted the attention of the National Hockey League. Just last year two-time Olympic gold medalist Kim St-Pierre tended goal at a Montreal Canadiens practice.
Sunohara knows all about playing with the boys as she played with and against them as a kid.
“Growing up till high school I don’t think I had a friend that was a girl, it was all ‘cause I was playing sports with all the guys,” she said.
But Sunohara thinks that as they get older, it’s better for girls to play in their own leagues.
“I think at a certain age that physiological differences just come in to play and its tough.”
Sunohara went to hockey schools for boys when she was younger, but now runs her own, strictly for girls. Vicky Sunohara’s Summer Hockey Camp is now in its 10th year.
Sunohara is also a player/coach with the Brampton Thunder of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. In this past season, she has found herself on the bench coaching as well as taking an advanced role in creating a name for women’s hockey.
“Now that I’m not playing I’m going to try to get on the side of doing more to promote it professionally,” she said
“Its getting better, but it has a long way to go.”
by Jason Wong
Zombies, despite their apparent frailty, are much more resilient than the Titanic. For this reason, Toronto optometrist Dr. Martin Osler believes his business can sail around the looming recession.
Having supplied cosmetic contact lenses for films such as “Dawn of the Dead”, “Resident Evil”, “Ginger Snaps”
and many more, Osler feels confident that production companies will continue to employ his services, especially with the changing economic climate.
“It’s much cheaper to produce a coloured cosmetic lens than to use computer graphics. Once the lens gets made, we can use it over and over,” he told students February 25 at Centennial College’s journalism program in Toronto.
As for the movie industry itself, according to Osler, there is a good chance Toronto’s film businesses will continue to operate despite budget concerns.
“Here in Toronto we have soundstages which are as large as anywhere else in the world. We can handle any production. Also, the dollar is more favourable now, it’ll bring in production,” he said.
Osler admits the movie business is ever changing, and he may not maintain his current monopoly on price. A set of lenses costs him about $800 to make.
“It helps to a certain degree, but only until they bring the cost (of computer graphics) down.”
He is confident, however, that he will continue to be a big part of the film industry, citing another card up his sleeve.
“Contact lenses look better than computer graphics because of the way the light reflects off them, and they just look more natural,” he explained.
Even if the movie side of his business eventually does fold, there will be no shortage of people who simply need an optometrist.
By Brittany Prince
‘Why me?’ is a question that Charles Karstadt asked himself for years.
On June 15, 1994 Karstadt, a husband and a father from Richmond Hill, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease.
After finding a lump on the side of his neck, he saw a doctor who assumed it was a swollen gland and put him on antibiotics. After a couple of weeks on the medication, Karstadt realized that the lump wasn’t going away, had a biopsy done and waited for the results.
“A couple weeks later, a doctor whose name I don’t remember…opened the file in front of me and said ‘You’ve got Hodgkin’s disease, it’s a form of cancer, I don’t know much about it,’” Karstadt said.
After the shock wore off he saw another doctor for a second opinion. She sent him to the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH).
He became more aware of what the disease he had, was.
Hodgkin’s disease, according to WebMD.com, is a type of lymphoma, which is a cancer of the lymphatic system. Lymph nodes in your body help fight off bacteria and infection but when the lymphatic cells multiply ‘uncontrollably’ cancer happens.
The cancer can spread throughout the body if it is not caught and treated at an early stage.
Karstadt was diagnosed with stage 2A of the disease, which means it was localized just in his neck. The cancer was treatable and so came the radiation therapy.
This is when, he says, the odyssey started.
“I don’t remember much,” he said. “It’s a blur, I look back and don’t remember chunks of time.”
Karstadt does however remember how he felt when he was given the news.
“I knew I was confused and I knew I wasn’t afraid for me,” he said. “I had a one year old child and I was more afraid for her…I didn’t want her to have to grow up without me.”
And she didn’t.
Now, after a short battle, Karstadt is in good health and has the PMH to thank.
He wanted to give back to the PMH, so in June 2008 he participated in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a fundraising event put on by the hospital. Cyclists, including Karstadt, raised money and rode from Toronto to Niagara Falls, Ont.
Last year Karstadt rode by himself to prove he could. And by this time last year he has raised about $5,000.
He enjoyed the experience and will be riding again June 13, but this time with team Hammerhead. Their combined goal is $80,000, between 24 people.
Unfortunately in these harsh economic times, he has only raised a quarter of what he did last year. His original goal was to raise $3,600, but now he says he’ll be happy if he raises $2,500.
He isn’t training as much as he did last year and says an ideal way of finishing the ride would be upright.
He’ll be happy to ride under the banner that says finish, and to see his family waiting for him.
His 15-year-old daughter wanted to ride this year but missed the age requirement. In order to ride you must be 16, so she’ll be volunteering as a crewmember.
She wants to ride next June, but will be doing it without her dad.
Karstadt says he probably will not be riding a third time.
“I want to make room for somebody else,” he said.
He said he will most likely volunteer and will be there to proudly support his daughter like any dad would.
And, like any dad would be, he’s concerned about his kids. He worries his cancer will come back and maybe they’ll get it too.
“I always worry about everything with them, one of the things that this has taught me is there are things that are in my control and there are things that are out of my control,” he said, “and I can do only so much to protect them.”
If it happens to his kids, he says, instead of ‘Why me?’ it will just be ‘Why them?’
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