Pt 1: Out of Bounds - The idea of gliding effortlessly down a steep cliff, carving a path through fresh, untouched snow has captured the imaginations of more than a few skiers. It's why so many of them put their safety on the line to experience the highs of skiing beyond the safety wire. But those back country adventures can easily take a turn for the worse.



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Pt 2: Replicating Milgram - Forty-seven years ago, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram conducted what would become one of the most famous experiments in the history of human behaviour studies. With the atrocities of the Nazis still fresh in people's minds, he wanted to know if ordinary people would obey orders that went against their moral beliefs if they thought the person giving the orders had the authority to do so.



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Pt 3: The Wasted Vigil - Even though Afghanistan is in the news most days, it's not often that we get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the people caught up in the country's many conflicts ... the ordinary citizens affected by decisions made far away. In his critically acclaimed novel, The Wasted Vigil, Nadeem Aslam has tried to change that.



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Today's guest host was Tom Harrington.

It's Friday January 9th.

Huslter magazine publisher Larry Flynt will be asking the US congress for a $5 billion dollar bailout because of slumping pornography sales.

Currently, or, as Flynt prefers to call it, "package stimulus".

This is The Current.

Out of Bounds - Skier

The idea of gliding effortlessly down a steep cliff, carving a path through fresh, untouched snow has captured the imaginations of more than a few skiers. It's why so many of them put their safety on the line to experience the highs of skiing beyond the safety wire. But those back country adventures can easily take a turn for the worse.

Last month two men died in avalanches while skiing out-of-bounds at Whistler. More have had to be rescued ... putting other people's safety at risk and often costing all of us money. So if skiers assume the risk of back country skiing, should they expect to be rescued?

James Hillier thinks so. He is a 25 year-old back country skier who was caught skiing out-of-bounds at Grouse Mountain Resort in North Vancouver last week. He and three friends were banned indefinitely from the hill after the RCMP and a rescue team were called in. James Hillier was in Vancouver.

Out of Bounds: Critic

Not all back country skiers and snowboarders share his view. Jonathan Miller is an extreme sport filmmaker and a back country skier. We aired a clip with his take on the issue.

Of course there are plenty of other high risk activities ... bungee jumping, street car racing, sky surfing. Peter Carr-Locke has given a lot of thought to the rights and responsibilities of people who engage in thrilling, but high-risk activity. He's a wilderness traveler and a trekker and he was in our Toronto studio.

 

Replicating Milgram: Professor

Forty-seven years ago, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram conducted what would become one of the most famous experiments in the history of human behaviour studies. With the atrocities of the Nazis still fresh in people's minds, he wanted to know if ordinary people would obey orders that went against their moral beliefs if they thought the person giving the orders had the authority to do so.

The obedience to authority experiment -- in which participants believed they were administering painful electric shocks as part of a learning experiment -- continues to intrigue psychologists and social scientists to this day.

In fact it intrigued Jerry Burger so much, he decided to repeat it. He's a Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University. His research paper, "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today" was published in this month's issue of American Psychologist. And he was in Santa Clara, California.

Milgram Biographer

Thomas Blass has spent a lot of time studying Stanley Milgram -- the man who did the original experiments 47 years ago. He's a Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the author of "The Man Who Shocked The World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram." He was in Waterbury, Connecticut.

 

The Wasted Vigil

Even though Afghanistan is in the news most days, it's not often that we get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the people caught up in the country's many conflicts ... the ordinary citizens affected by decisions made far away. In his critically acclaimed novel, The Wasted Vigil, Nadeem Aslam has tried to change that.

One reviewer describes the book as "a poetic meditation on the destructive urges that bind us together, and a literary quest to find humanity in the most unlikely of places."

In the novel, war is apparent everywhere -- from swooping airplanes and scattered land mines to the single shoe for sale in a storefront or the missile cap used in place of a sugar bowl. The Wasted Vigil is Nadeem Aslam's third novel and he was in London, England.

Last Word

We ended the program this week with a final word from Nadeem Aslam. He has a special connection to Canada, and in particular to Toronto. This is his explanation of how a Pakistani-born British citizen could fall in love with a distant city through words.