Saturday Morning for Saturday 8 August 2020

8:10 TikTok: is time up for the app in the US?

TikTok is an app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos. It has over 500 million monthly active users, and is wildly popular in the US where it has reached over 80 million downloads.

President Donald Trump has demanded that ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok sell its US operations before 15 September or face being banned in his country. He cites serious concerns around privacy and security.

Microsoft says it's working on a deal to buy the business in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand .

So are concerns about privacy and security valid? Or are Trump's actions politically motivated? And what will ownership changes mean for the app's many, mostly young, fans?

We're joined by Adi Robertson, a Senior Reporter at the American technology news website The Verge.

8:30 Concern for merchant sailors stranded in NZ waters

An estimated 300,000 merchant sailors are currently stranded at sea, far from home, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The shipping industry is calling it a 'humanitarian crisis', and maritime unions are concerned about the deteriorating treatment, mental health, and employment conditions of their members.

The Mission to Seafarers Wellington chaplain, Reverend Lance Lukin, joins us to talk about the situation here in New Zealand.

9:05 Paint-maker David Coles: the colourful history of pigments

Throughout history, pigments have been made from a surprising array of materials, including deadly metals, poisonous minerals, urine, cow dung, and even crushed insects.

Melbourne-based David Coles is one of very few master paint-makers in the world.

In his book Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Colour he blends art, science and history in tracing some of the extraordinary stories of more than 50 of the colours and pigments that artists use.

 

10:05 Tim Saunders: This Farming Life

'An unsentimental yet lyrical love letter to the land' is how reviewer Linda Burgess describes Tim Saunders new book This Farming Life.

Tim's family has farmed the same piece of land near Feilding for five generations.

His book explores the joys and the harsh realities of farm life, through the seasons.

As well as being a sheep and beef farmer, Tim performs poetry and won the 2018 Mindfood Short Story Competition.

10:40 Ross and Janette Campbell: escape from Owlcatraz

Ross and Janette Campbell have run "Owlcatraz", an iconic owl and animal sanctuary from their property in Shannon for the past 23 years.

A haven for a menagerie of creatures including morepork, cockatiels, weka, eels and ducks, over their time the couple estimate they have welcomed around a million visitors.

But after battling storms and beating cancer, they've decided it's time to close down, sell up, and move on.

11:05 Dixon Chibanda on his revolutionary mental health intervention

Dixon Chibanda is one of only 12 psychiatrists in Zimbabwe serving a population of more than 16 million and over 90 per cent of people in his country don’t have access to evidence-based talking therapies or modern antidepressants.

So how can you help those in need if conventional medical care is not available?

By utilising a large natural resource: grandmothers!

Professor Chibanda has recruited and trained hundreds of them to talk to people about their problems on 'friendship benches'.

They have helped about 70,000 people already and scientific studies suggest the technique works.

11:40 Portraits of pregnancy: Mary Kisler

Art historian and curator Mary Kisler is back to discuss a major exhibition in London that explores portraits of the pregnant body over 500 years.

Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media is on at the Foundling Museum for the next few weeks.

It recognises the fact that until the twentieth century, women spent many of their adult years pregnant, although these pregnancies rarely feature in art.

The exhibition contains works by artists including Hans Holbein, William Hogarth, and Lucian Freud.
 

Books mentioned in this show:

Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Colour
David Coles
ISBN: 9781760760618
Published by Thames and Hudson

This Farming Life
Tim Saunders
ISBN     9781988547466
Allen & Unwin