Category Archives: Arts

Arts

Doug McCaffry’s Heaven: Coffee and Films

 The first time many Cortes Island residents heard of Doug McCaffry was when he and his wife, Melanie, took over Becca’s beans. Prior to that they were living in central Saanich.

“We came  for a vacation. It was a beautiful August, and I’d always wanted to come to Cortes.  I thought, ‘hey, just for fun, let’s look at some real estate.’ The place we’re at now had just come up for sale and came with  the optional coffee roastery.  I thought, ‘well, I love coffee, let’s learn coffee roasting.’  It all happened so fast. Two of the things I love most in life, coffee and film, and I’m in heaven,” he explained.

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Arts

The Awakeneers New Single: December In The North

The Awakeneers are still living in Willow Point and have just released a new single. Cortes Currents interviewed them over ZOOM and we had our cameras turned off to preserve bandwidth.

Isa McKenty explained how he came to write ‘December in the North’: 

“It was the day before one of our concerts in the Acoustic Matinee Series. I was supposed to be practicing for that, but it started snowing and I looked out my window. It was so pretty that I wrote ‘December in the North’ instead of practicing. It was actually a year to the day between when I started writing the song and when we recorded most of the tracks that you’ll hear on the recording.”

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Arts, Environment

Award Winning Environmental Documentary Showing At Quadra Community Centre

Emmanuel Cappellin’s award winning documentary “Once You Know” is showing at the Quadra Community Centre on Saturday December 16 at  7 pm. 

This film is the winner of at least seven awards including Earth’s Choice Award from the Earth Day Film Festival, Best Documentary from the Festival International du film d’éducation, and Grand Prize from the International Festival of Science Documentary Films at Prague.

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Arts, Environment

A UBC Professor Explains What To Look For At COP 28 & Why He Does Not Believe In Overshoot

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With the COP 28 only a little more than a week away, the University of British Columbia held a press conference about key issues. In the breakout session, Cortes Currents asked Dr Simon Donner a former COP delegate and professor from the Department of Geography and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, two questions.

  1. Many people on Cortes and Quadra Islands believe in the Overshoot theory. What do you say to people who believe that Climate Change is a symptom of a much larger problem: there are too many of us living on a planet with rapidly diminishing resources?
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Arts, Communications

Manipulating the message: Public relations consultants outnumber journalists 14 – 1 in Canada

Editor’s note: This story is of interest because of the light it shines on the modern media.

Emmanuel Nwaneri,  New Canadian Media, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

If you’ve noticed a shift in the news over the last two decades, it’s likely caused by two things: A massive drop in the number of Canadian reporters and a correspondingly huge surge in the number of spin doctors.

According to journalist-author Cecil Rosner, the number of active reporters in Canada by 2021 has shrunk to about 11,000 from about 13,000 in 1991. In this 20-year period, the number of public relations consultants has increased from about 24,000, to about 160,000 – a ratio of 14 – 1 vis-à-vis publicists and reporters, Rosner says.

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