Broadcast on KSCO AM 1080, KSCO 104.1 FM, KOMY AM 1340, and KSCO.com Live Stream.

It’s A Question Of Balance ^® radio show balances the intellectual with the creative, exploring whether we have more in common than divides us through thought-provoking conversations – out and about with people on the street on different topics, and in the studio with inspiring guests from the arts. Balance is not a compromise. Balance is truth distilled from many places creating cohesive understanding.

Topic: Out And About – Conversations on the Street about Questions That Matter: Do We Still Need Physical Community?

This week We consider ‘Do we still need physical community?’ With the rise of technology we are increasingly becoming more individualised and physically isolated. Do we still need physical community or can internet community suffice?
Community can be defined as a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. One participant in a survey described community as ‘about belonging. It is a place that supports me in many ways – friends, neighbours, jobs, resources, play time. It is home’. Can virtual community provide these things? Our online friendships can be relatively shallow with quantity trumping quality. How real/genuine is virtual support? When it is so easy to ‘like’ something or enter a quick comment is the support’s worth diluted? Are virtual and physical community just different but equally valuable? What does community mean to you and where do you look for it? What do you think? Ruth Copland gets the views of people on the street for our Out and About feature.

In Out And About we consider topics with local relevance and global significance. The idea is to get us thinking about the questions that affect us all – to stimulate new thinking, or clarify what we already feel. To hear how other people’s opinions may differ from or be similar to our own.

Arts Interview: In-Depth Conversation with Bob Fitch

This week as my special guest from the arts I’m pleased to be interviewing iconic photographer and photo-journalist Bob Fitch. Bob’s photo archives are a principal source for the iconic images of the peace, social justice and cultural movements of the last 60 years including intimate photo documentary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Civil Rights Movement; Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers; Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers; Joan Baez and David Harris and the Draft Resistance; Fathers Phillip and Daniel Berrigan; Congressman Ronald V. Dellums and other participants in this vibrant period of history. Such is the quality and significance of Bob’s work that in October 2013 Bob’s images were acquired by Stanford University to establish the Bob Fitch Photographic Archive at the Stanford University Libraries. Bob’s photographs have also been featured in two Smithsonian traveling exhibits. Bob moved to Watsonville, CA in 2008 where he manages his photo archives and, although affected by Parkinson’s disease, remains active in community empowerment programs.

For more info visit http://www.bobfitchphoto.com/Bio.html?id=C9HZS9C

Martin Luther King.
Bob Fitch Photography Archive.
© Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collection

Septima Clark helps a prospective voter learn to read and write.
Bob Fitch Photography Archive.
© Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collection

SC Raging Grannies & counter recruitment demonstrators confront Capitola army recruiters.
Bob Fitch Photography Archive.
© Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections

Bob Fitch with CHP in Coachella, CA 1973.
Bob Fitch Photography Archive.
© Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections