MF GALAXY

6 pm Mountain Time FM 88.5 Edmonton cjsr.com worldwide Download or stream The prevailing imagery in Western corporate media about the 54 countries of Africa is predictable and simplistic. Jungles and deserts, swollen bellies and child soldiers, dictators and decay. Yet the realities are far more diverse for the planet’s second largest continent, and often, they are remarkably inspiring. Take mobile telephones. It’s true that the Congo War has claimed 5 million lives, and it’s true that the war is fought to rob the Democratic Republic of Congo of its unparalleled resources. Those resources include the planet’s greatest supply of coltan , the indispensable ingredient in all modern computerised technology including mobile phones, without which the world would fall silent. But the untold and unknown story is that because it’s easier to construct cellular telephone towers than land lines, Africa has become a leader in mobile phone use and innovation. People in various African countries us...

6 pm Mountain Time FM 88.5 Edmonton cjsr.com worldwide Download or stream In the midst of the horrifying tragedy of Haiti’s earthquake and the hundreds of thousands of people it killed, it’s critical to understand how the Haitian people have survived not just natural disasters, but more than 200 years of Euro-American oppression, occupation and economic enslavement. Traditionally, artists collect people’s experiences and reflect them back. For people living under tyranny, the artist’s role is indispensable: distilling and harnessing those aspects of our lives which give us meaning, hope, joy and dignity. Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat rose to fame through the quality of her prose, and because she so carefully animated the experiences of Haitians surviving the Empire. She’s the author of eight books, including 2008’s Brother, I’m Dying , 2005’s The Dew Breaker , 1999’s The Farming of Bones , and her most well-known novels, Breath, Eyes, Memory published in 1998, which be...