Laura Burke on CBC Radio's The Current

From the CBC Radio 1 program, The Current:

From the Heart

The story of a poet who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and her struggle to separate her medical condition from her muse.

To listen to the segment, please click here.

Tasers - Update

From the January 30th broadcast of CBC Radio's The Current:

Back in 1993, as the story goes, two high school athletes had been shot to death in a road rage incident in Scottsdale, Arizona. One of their team-mates -- a man named Rick Smith -- decided there ought to be something other than a gun that people could use to defend themselves. So he and his brother Tom developed a stun gun that would send a jolt of electricity through the target. It was called the Air Taser 34,000. And it was the beginning of what would become the Taser Corporation.

Today, 25,000 American police officers use a Taser stun gun. Canadian police began using them in 2000; there are nearly 7,000 Tasers in use in Canada. And the company says it has sold Tasers to more than 60 countries.

But despite all that, there are still questions about the safety of Tasers, leading the House of Commons Public Safety Committee to undertake a review of Taser use in Canada.

CBC Reporter Sandra Bartlett looked into some of the questions surrounding Tasers as part of a CBC News and Radio Canada investigation, Sandra Bartlett joined us in Toronto to talk about what she found.

To listen to the program (21 minutes, 57 seconds), click here (RealPlayer).

Photograph of Anna Maria Tremonti courtesy of CBC.ca.

Thanks go to Dachia Joudrey for bring this program to my attention.