CBC Maritimes

Terry Punch provided an introduction to the meaning of common names from the Arabic world

When Containment Booms Go Bust: The worst fears surrounding offshore oil extraction have been realized. Following the explosion which killed 11 workers in April, the rig Deepwater Horizon sank and ever since, oil has been gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. Desperate efforts to contain or burn the oil seem to have fallen far short of the task.

David Prior has been frustrated at what he's seen unfolding. He's the Halifax-based CEO and head of research & product development with Extreme Spill Technology, which is incorporated in New Brunswick. He's been trying to bring a vessel to market which he believes would have been perfect for the kind of catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It would be constructed largely of fibreglass and aluminum,and vacuum oil from the surface.

 

What Not To Eat: Friday on the phone-in, we spoke to Chefs Craig Flinn and Lars Willum about ways to perk up your meals. A few of you mentioned things which demanded a follow-up.

The first was how to cook fiddleheads properly, which inspired some emails reiterating how important it was to boil or steam them long enough. We also had some discussion of the toxic difference between "true" and "false" Solomon's Seal.

To get the definitive answer, we invited Marian Munro to join us. She's the curator of botany at the Nova Scotia Museum.

 

Credit Where Credit's Due: Maritime Noon picked up a significant award at the Radio and Television News Directors Association ceremony on the weekend. Our former New Brunswick correspondent, Melissa Friedman, won the Dan McArthur In-depth/Investigative award for radio in this region, for her piece called "Down the Garden Path". Her story was about the Aboriginal Healing Garden in Eel River Bar in Northern New Brunswick. Melissa spent weeks investigating the project's troubled financial history and its uncertain future. Along the way, she dug up stories of mismanagement, misplaced trust, and suspect planning.

At the same ceremony, the CBC's Myfanwy Davies and Christina Harnett won the Dave Rogers award for long feature, for a piece they did for Maritime Magazine called A Light in Dark Places about the life and death of Fredericton university professor John MacKendy.

CBC Cape Breton's Wendy Martin won the award for creative use of sound for her piece Flight of the Silver Dart. And Don Connolly received a lifetime achievement award for his 34 years as host of CBC Halifax's Information Morning. Congratulations to all !

 

Names and Culture: Unless your name is "Hope" or "Faith", you might not have much of an idea about what it means. And if your family is descended from people who came from Europe, you might have no idea about names that originated in other continents.

Genealogist Terry Punch is here with a Beginner's Guide to names from the Arabic-speaking world. He's the author of 3 volumes of Erin's Sons: Irish Arrivals in Atlantic Canada 1761-1853.

He also answered questions to help you trace your family tree.