April 26, 2021 Episode Transcript
The AIH Transcript For April 26, 2021
[host]Nil Köksal and Chris Howden[/host]
NIL KOKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal, sitting in for Carol Off.
CH: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is "As It Happens."
[music: theme]
Prologue:
CH: Tonight:
NK: Gripped by grief. Brampton, Ontario has been hit hard by COVID -- now, the death of a 13-year-old girl from the disease has sent another shockwave of pain through the community.
CH: Take a stand and deliver. As the COVID crisis in India deepens, the U.S. sits on several million doses of ready-to-go vaccines that one Democratic Congressman says must be sent where they are needed most.
NK: Off the radar. After an agonizing wait, Indonesian officials have confirmed a missing submarine has been lost, killing all 53 crew members aboard.
CH: Ship to shore -- for good, this time. After nearly four years stuck on board an abandoned cargo ship in Egypt alone, a Syrian man has finally been allowed to disembark and return home.
NK: Gills just want to have fun. But last week, a middle-aged muskellunge got snagged by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for the first time in 20 years -- after dodging almost 2,000 prior attempts to catch her.
CH: And …name dropping. Dozens of Joshuas gathered in a Nebraska field this weekend with pool noodles, to battle for the right to be named "Josh". We'll hear from the Josh who started it all.
CH: "As It Happens", the Monday edition. Radio that assumes someone snatched victory from the Josh of defeat.
[music: theme]
Part 1: Young COVID Death, Ship Abandonment, Josh Battle
Young COVID Death
Guest: Victor Pinto
CH: COVID-19 has hit Brampton, Ontario hard. But now, the community is experiencing a new level of heartbreak. Emily Viegas became one of the youngest victims of the virus in Canada when she died last week. She was just 13 years old. Her father, Carlos Viegas, is the family's sole breadwinner -- an essential worker at a warehouse. He didn't test positive for the virus -- but his wife did, and was admitted to hospital. His young son tested positive, too. And when Emily got COVID, the family wasn't worried. But then things took a turn -- and last Thursday, Emily died. Victor Pinto is a friend of Emily's father. We reached him in Toronto.
NK: Well, Victor, first of all, I'm so sorry for your loss.
VICTOR PINTO: Carlos is a close friend, so he's almost like a brother. So, yes, I appreciate that on his behalf. Thank you.
NK: What did you think when... when you heard the news?
VP: I was devastated. You know, there's no way that a son or daughter should go, should pass before their parents -- just shouldn't be that way. I was devastated.
NK: I know you've been speaking with Carlos Viegas. What is he telling you? How is he doing?
VP: He's still in shock. But when I spoke to him last a couple of hours ago, he was actually holding up very well, considering.
NK: What did he tell you?
VP: Well, he's telling me, first of all, his wife coming back home today from the hospital. She's been there, I think, at least a week. So that's a little bit of good news.
NK: Does she know the news? Has she been told?
VP: She knows. She... she knew, I believe, the same day. Carlos did tell her on the same day.
NK: That's a lot to process for, you know, the return, as you said, it is good news. She's in better shape so she can come home. But the home she's coming to doesn't have her 13-year-old daughter.
VP: That's right. There's going to be that empty space. And, yes, even though it's been three, four days, it's still everybody's in shock. But we still have each other to comfort as opposed to her being in the hospital. Carlos and the younger sibling, Nicholas, at home. At least they'll be together.
NK: What's your understanding of how this virus hit this family?
VP: From what I understand, his wife contracted COVID, I believe about a week or so ago. She was admitted to the hospital. But Emily herself, she passed away on Thursday morning around 9:30 in the morning. So the night before... or the day before, she started showing flu-like symptoms. From what I understand from Carlos, he was giving her Tylenol and making sure she was eating and drinking fluids. He suggested to Emily that he would take her to the hospital, and she really didn't want to go. The following morning, She was getting worse. So Carlos insisted. She asked her father, you know, just let me sleep for about half an hour to an hour, and then, you know, I'll go to a hospital. You can take me to hospital. So Carlos, you know, checked up on her and let her go to rest again at 9:00 in the morning. And about half an hour later is when her brother, Nicolas, who's 11 years old, they share the same room, and he came out to the living room or wherever Carlos was and said, Emily is not moving. And Carlos went to check on her. And that's when he found out that she was hardly breathing. And while he was calling 9-1-1, it was suggested by the paramedics that he try and give her CPR. And he did. And when the paramedics arrived, they revived her a couple of times. But when she passed, she passed that morning at her condo, at their condo. And that's basically what happened.
NK: We've heard from health care professionals, doctors saying that this sort of thing is happening, that people are staying at home because they're concerned about what is unfolding at hospitals. And I've read that Mr. Viegas was concerned that she might be transferred elsewhere because ICUs were at capacity here, and he didn't want her to be away from her parents.
VP: Yes. And he did try and found out somehow that the hospital in Brampton didn't have room for her. So that's why they were going to Oakville; I believe it was Oakville Trafalgar he was planning to take her to.
NK: What was Emily like?
VP From what I understand, she was a modern girl. You know, she liked the Internet. She liked social media. She liked chatting with friends. [chuckling] She thought anybody over 30 years old was old, and the young people should be left alone, just everyday, normal teenage things she did.
NK: I heard she loved the movie "Frozen"?
VP: Yes, yes!
NK: So she was a teenager, but she still had that tie to her --
VP: Childhood, yes, she did. I heard the same thing. She had "Frozen" posters all over her room and stuff.
NK: How is Nicholas?
VP: Nicholas is fine. He's holding up, considering. And so, again, is Carlos. But this is all about the Viegas family. And that's why I'm doing this interview. And I called Carlos to get his permission to speak to you because, again, it's important that people out there are not only aware of the COVID obviously, but they need help. He's not going to like me saying this, but obviously, they need help because Carlos was the only breadwinner in the family. And, you know, unfortunately, funeral expenses can be expensive. And that's why I'm so glad that... so one of the fellows started a go-me fund.
NK: Well, I was going to ask you about that because clearly, people care about the Viegas family, and perhaps even strangers are contributing as well.
VP: Correct.
NK: We're at, I believe, 80-thousand dollars at this moment for that GoFundMe campaign.
VP: Well, isn't that surprising? That is awesome!
NK: What do you hope people take away from the Viegas family story?
VP: Two things, first and foremost, I don't like wearing masks, but we have to. This is the only way we're going to control this. I don't like wearing masks. It hurts your ears, whatever. But you have to think of not only yourself but other people. The virus is easily transmitted, as you know, or people know. So I really don't understand people now wearing masks in public, for whatever reason. I mean, I respect their opinions, but I don't understand it. And social distancing, I mean, yeah, six feet apart, you don't know. I have my first shot. I'm waiting for the second one. Who knows? I could still give it to somebody. And unfortunately, it takes something like this to educate people, the 13-year-old otherwise healthy girl passing away from this terrible pandemic. So hopefully, we'll open up some people's eyes. And the second part of it is, again, don't take anything for granted. We complain. We always think about the things we don't have as opposed to what we do have. And I'm guilty of that, too. I'm thankful for my wife, who's my best friend and my two pain-in-the-butt kids [chuckling] who are in their 20s. But I'm thankful for that. And we tend to forget that. We get so involved with life that we forget the, the bare essentials. But we have good going on for us as opposed to what we don't have.
NK: Victor, thank you so much for this.
VP: You're very welcome.
NK: Stay healthy.
VP: You as well. You as well. Thank you very much.
CH: Victor Pinto is a friend of Carlos Viegas. Last week, Mr. Viegas' daughter, 13-year-old Emily, died of COVID-19, becoming one of Canada's youngest victims of the virus.
[music: Sombre instrumental]
Ship Abandonment
Guest: Mohammad Aisha
CH: He spent four years living on what he calls a "floating prison" in the Gulf of Suez. Mohammad Aisha was detained on board the MV Aman -- just about 100 kilometres from where the infamous Ever Given now sits. In 2017, the MV Aman faced financial troubles. Mr. Aisha was not allowed to leave -- and was eventually marooned on board alone. With no power and no running water, he had to swim ashore to get food and water. Then, last week, a long-awaited about-face: Egyptian authorities allowed Mr. Aisha to fly home to Syria. We reached Mohammad Aisha at his home in Tartus, Syria.
NK: Mohammad, how does it feel to be home?
MOHAMMAD AISHA: It feels great to be home. Like I said many times, I was in a solitary prison. And now, I'm free.
NK: I can imagine, you know, you were alone for so long. What is it like to be around other people again?
MA: To be around people again is comforting. It's the normal way to be. Being alone like that on board the ship was slowly but certainly driving me crazy. I think that time alone on board the ship had caused me permanent psychological and mental damage that I don't think it will ever be repaired.
NK: I know you probably want to just keep looking forward, and I can't blame you for that. But just to bring people up to speed on how this all started. How did you get stuck on the ship, to begin with?
MA: Well, I was stuck on the ship when we arrived to Egypt, and there was some unpaid bills by the owner's company. This is the same that happened to the infamous Ever Given now that blocked the Suez Canal, the same kind of detention. You have to pay the due bills before you were allowed to leave.
NK: And you were held responsible for those bills? I received the order. And without my understanding at that time, and without my consent, it made me become the ship legal guardian.
NK: It's maddening just to think about. But you lived it. What was it like every day onboard?
MA: You see, after I signed that order, we continued with our regular routine works. So it was routine works day after day. But a lot of things changed over a few months. Living onboard the ship started to worsen, mostly because the owner started to neglect, and eventually, he abandoned the ship. When we asked for sign-off, OK, we can't do this anymore. This is horrible condition, and we have to go home. They finally informed me about this. You remember the court order you signed four or five months ago? Yeah, by signing that order, you became now the ship legal guardian, and you cannot leave.
NK: That moment, what was that like?
MA: Confusion. Only confusion, because I didn't know what legal guardian is, you know? In my kind of training, we study something about maritime international law. But I don't know about the Egyptian civil law. I don't know about any of that.
NK: Once the reality set in those four years of being alone, what was it like day to day at that time? How are you getting food? How are you, you know, how are you surviving by yourself?
MA: I wasn't all alone for four years. After the living started standards on board, the ship started to worsen. My colleagues started to sign off, one by one or two by two. Eventually, I was finally completely alone in August of 2019.
NK: I've heard that even after all of this, you want to go back to sea?
MA: Yes, this is my job.
NK: How can you, how can you even think about going back to sea? I think people might wonder, given how deep the psychological impact was for you?
MA: The psychological impact wasn't because of the maritime transport industry. This was a legal problem. I love my job, and I'm good at it. And I've been doing this since I was 19 years old.
NK: I can understand. I can, I can hear your passion for it. And I think it's, it's very powerful that you can separate, you know, the difficulty of the experience with what your dream is to still do. In the time that you were alone, though, just give our listeners a sense if you could paint us a picture, what it was like day to day, what were your lowest points?
MA: My lowest points were when I've been alone for quite a few days, and I realized that no one is coming back. And like I said, your have mental health will start to deteriorate day by day from staying alone. Basically, that's no longer a ship. That's a steel cage.
NK: Well, how did you keep up hope? How did you hang on?
MA One of the best things that were happening in that horrible situation that I had an Internet connection. I had problem with electricity. I couldn't always charge my phone. But when I did, I was able to keep contact with my family, with a few friends. The area where the ship was detained on anchorage, so I was surrounded by sea. I wasn't inside a port. There are some boats that sometimes sail around you. That's, that helped a little bit. But, of course, the worst of the worst is at night when you're surrounded by complete darkness and complete silence. And even if you, let's say, tripped and fell, if you had some incident, no one would know. You will die all alone, and maybe it will take them months to realize that are dead or injured there.
NK: Wow! You know, it really strikes me listening to you tell your story of what the last several years have been like. You know, in the last year for people around the world being in isolation, you know, the pandemic restrictions, as difficult as it is for many people, it seems like not that difficult compared to what you've been through.
MA: I don't wish for anyone to go, to go through what I've been through. It's mandatory loneliness combined with desperation. So nothing good is going to happen tomorrow or the day after that. It will make you suicidal.
NK: I'm glad you're doing better now, and I hope you're going to get the help that you need as the days continue. But I have to ask you, I understand your brother was on one of those ships that you mentioned was passing you, but you couldn't see or talk to him, is that right?
MA: Yes, the anchorage area where I was detained was very close to the passage of the Suez Canal. So my brother did pass twice, actually, about maybe two or three nautical miles from where I was being detained.
NK: Was it more heartbreaking or comforting even just to know he was there, I wonder?
MA: No, no. It was heartbreaking because he was two or three miles away. I know that's him. And I couldn't see him.
Speaker 1 Mohammad, I'm so glad you're back home now. I'm sorry you've gone through all of this. But, but as I said, I hope you can get help to help ease you back into life and get you back at sea when you're ready. Thank you for your time.
MA: Thank you very much for talking to me. Thank you.
CH: Mohammad Aisha was stranded on board a cargo ship in the Gulf of Suez for four years. Today, we reached him at home in Tartus, Syria. And you can find more on this story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.
[music: Sad piano]
Josh Battle
Guest: Josh Swain
CH: As a Chris I know what it's like to get lost in a crowd of Chrises. Heck, there are between two and three Chrises working on this program at any given time! [sigh] It's fine. Marias, Mohameds, and Michaels can relate. And so can Josh Swain. Mr. Swain is an Arizona Josh, who was fed up of being just one Josh among many. So he proposed the Joshes fight it out for the right to be named Josh. And while he may have been joshing, a lot of Joshes were apparently ready for the battle royale -- and they all gathered this weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the inaugural Battle of the Joshes. We reached Josh Swain back in Phoenix, Arizona.
NK: So, Josh, paint me a picture of what this weekend's Battle of the Joshes looked like? If we were there, what would we have seen?
JOSH SWAIN: If you were me and you showed up about 90 minutes early, you would have seen already about 30 people there that I had, just complete strangers. And just every time you turned around, you would see more people coming and coming. And until there was like about a thousand people, I believe. And I think in total we had 50 Joshes. The energy was incredible. Just the atmosphere was something else that I don't even know if I could describe.
NK: It sounds exciting, but there's also a pandemic right now. So without being a downer, I have to ask, how did you do this safely?
JS: No, yeah. I really appreciate you asking that. The curious thing about this event was that whether I was there or not like the thing was going to happen regardless. And one thing that I really wanted to emphasize was the use of masks. I bought about 200 masks before I arrived, and I was passing them out during the entire event. And thankfully, the majority of people there were wearing a mask,
NK: You said this would have happened whether or not you were there. It's because you, you posted this originally online just on a lark, right?
JS: Yeah, just as a joke. So, I mean, I make, I make jokes on Twitter all the time for friends just to get like 20 or 30 likes or something like that. I have always, like, tried to register my name as my username for social media sites like Just: @JoshSwain. But, unfortunately, that's always been taken. And I was wondering like, hey, like they're apparently so many people that I can never get this username taken that are just named Josh Swain. And so like as a joke, I thought of that like, we need to figure this out, just figure who is deserving of this title. And so that's where kind of the idea spawned is when I added them all to the group chat. And then that eventually evolved through the game of telephone that is the Internet, that it just became a Josh event, you know, not just a Josh Swain event. But luckily, we had one other Josh Swain there and then about 50 other Joshes.
NK: Yeah. So you ultimately had two fights, right? A pool noodle showdown among all Joshes, and then a "Rock, Paper, Scissors" battle for Josh Swains specifically. [chuckling] So, how did each of those battles end?
JS: Yeah, so the Josh Swain "Rock, Paper, Scissors" battle was a, it was a one-of-one game. We had three times in a row. And then on the final one, I threw rock, the other Josh Swain threw scissors, and I was crowned the victor and they Josh Swain. So that was awesome. But as my first decree as the Josh Swain, I think the other Josh Swain doesn't have to change his name because, you know, he was... he was cool enough to show up, and he was actually a really awesome guy.
NK: [chuckling] Very magnanimous of you. [ the Josh Swain chuckles] With great power comes great responsibility, as they say.
JS: That's correct.
NK: And not to leave people in suspense. But how did the pool noodle all-Josh showdown go down?
JS: It was, it was a glorious fight. Everybody slowly took their out as they were hit by a wave of pool noodles. However, there was a four-year-old named Josh Jr., who kept slashing at people's ankles and eventually bested everybody. And we crowned him the victor. And we made this event, and we also use it to support the Children's Hospital and Medical Center Foundation, which provides health care to children across the state of Nebraska. And this, Josh, actually happened to have received treatment when he was two years old from this hospital that we supported. And so that was just an incredible, like, bow on top of this whole event.
NK: Well, this idea of reconnecting, we're all longing for, obviously. But this is connecting on such a huge level. That must have felt very special?
JS: No, yeah, I mean, you know, we've had, everybody's had a hard year. And like to finally just kind of win one for once was, was really something.
NK: But before you made the trek up to Lincoln, what was going through your mind, like this was actually happening?
JS: Um, anything and everything was going through my mind, like every possible thought you could have. When I first sent out the tweet, you know, I thought zero people would come. I didn't think it was going to actually be an event. Then three months leading to the event, like people said they were coming. I thought it was just going to be like ten people. And I was just going to show up like just as a joke. And then the week of, I thought they. Maybe 20 to 50 people are going to show up. And then, like the night before, I was scared and had no idea or any gauge of how many people would show up. So I was so worried, just like if people were going to show up and, like, try to actually fight. Again, like the mask thing, that was also on my mind. Like, no, just like how many people would, you know, be courteous to the other, the other people at the event? But it's incredible how it turned out.
NK: Were there any officials from the town around or police? Like [laughing] did anyone ask what the heck is going on?
JS: No, yeah. Like I called the Lincoln Police Department. I was like, hey, like we have a charity event. There might be a few people. I don't really know. But we just want to let you know. And then the guy was just like, yeah, OK. [NK chuckles] And I took that permission, I guess, so.
NK: Wow! It's a very different state of affairs in Nebraska than much of Canada, certainly, and many other parts of the world. But if we can step away from the event itself for a second, you know, as someone with a unique name, even where I'm from in Turkey, it's a very different experience for you, I can imagine. What is it like to be among so many Joshes?
JS: You know, before I used to take it as a burden, like kind of, like, oh, like, you know, people have my name. Like, you have to refer to me as my last name or, or, you know, some other aspect of me. But now I take it kind of like a badge of honour. Like I am a josh amongst all these other Joshes. Like we are, we are, we are this community now. And so that's been really cool.
NK: Well, listen, I'm glad it all went safely. Stay healthy. And thanks for your time, Josh.
JS: No, thank you so much.
NK: The Josh Swain, I should say. [the Josh Swain laughs] Just for legal reasons. Thanks, Josh.
JS: All right, take care. Thanks so much.
NK: You too.
CH: Josh Swain is the Josh behind this weekend's Battle of the Joshes in Lincoln, Nebraska. We reached him in Phoenix, Arizona. And we've got more on this story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.
[music: classic rock]
Old Muskellunge
CH: You can't be careful all the time. You can avoid that crack on your front sidewalk for years, but one day you'll trip on it and spill your take-out shrimp, and your neighbour's dog will eat it, and the dog is allergic to shellfish, so your neighbour will bill you for the veterinary costs, even though the dog is totally fine, it just got a little itchy. Just for example. So I hope an elderly fish in Iowa isn't feeling too bad about herself today. For 20 years, she did an amazing job, but she's probably focusing on her one failure. Because of course that's when they took the photo. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources posted that photo online last week. The caption reads: "Say hello and happy 25th birthday to the oldest known female muskie in Iowa!" And there she is, a 46-inch muskellunge, looking majestic and embarrassed. This muskie was first released in an Iowa lake in 1996. Scientists routinely put out "net sets" to catch, tag fish and breed them. But after this one fish was caught in 2001, she got wise. Over the years, she somehow eluded 2,000 net sets. Until the humans finally snagged her -- 20 years to the day since they'd last seen her. Now, she's free in the lake once again, and probably kicking herself. Or flapping at herself. But let's hope she can proudly reflect on her impressive track record of eluding capture. And to reflect on what that's done for her net worth.
[music: elevator music]
Part 2: U.S. Vaccine Surplus, Indonesia Submarine Found
U.S. Vaccine Surplus
Guest: Ro Khanna
CH: India is completely overwhelmed by COVID-19. For the fifth day in a row, the country had a record number of COVID-19 cases -- 350-thousand. More than 25-hundred deaths a day. Across India's largest cities, medical infrastructure is collapsing, and crematoriums are working non-stop, at full capacity. The catastrophic surge has prompted countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States to pledge support. This weekend, the U.S. offered medical supplies and raw materials for vaccine production. And today, the White House confirmed it will share its supply of AstraZeneca vaccines with other countries. But that could take months -- and there are no guarantees where those shots will end up. Ro Khanna is a Democratic congressman who has been urging his government to send vaccines to India. We reached him in Washington, D.C.
NK: Well, Congressman Khanna, you were part of this push to make this happen. How did it feel to hear that announcement from the White House?
RO KHANNA: I really applaud the president for taking this action. I'm glad that we will be sending AstraZeneca to India for the safety checks. I also appreciate that we are taking every action to get oxygen and critical PPE to India. The one thing I still hope is that we have Pfizer and Moderna licence their technology so that other countries can develop vaccines, including India. That is critical.
NK: The White House says they don't actually have any available AstraZeneca vaccines right now because they are awaiting approval from the FDA. What do you make of that?
RK: I believe the president is taking the prudent step. I mean, we can't be sending vaccines that medical experts would tell us it has potentially harmful side effects. And so the president wants to make sure that whatever we send is safe.
NK: What guarantees are there that these vaccines will actually end up in India and get there relatively quickly?
RK: There is no guarantee, but I am confident that the president now wants to do it. He is committed to doing it. And it's really a scientific question. And I think as long as the scientists and the experts tell him that there is not a significant risk, they will get to India.
NK: They are in wide use here in Canada, the AstraZeneca vaccine, we should mention. Over the weekend, the White House also confirmed that they're going to be sending other kinds of help. Again, you hinted at this, medical supplies, raw materials for vaccine production. Did it go far enough for you, though, or is that second piece, the Pfizer and Moderna piece that you mentioned a moment ago, is that the difficulty that's still left?
RK: Well, I think the president deserves credit for his expeditious response. I mean, within a couple of days, you had Secretary Blinken get on the issue. You had Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, say America is going to send military support for critical equipment, for oxygen. And you had the president reach out to Prime Minister Modi today. So I believe they're committed to doing whatever they can to help. But there is a broader issue, which is that billions of people in this world do not have access to the vaccine. And it may be till 2024 or 25 until that happens, absent intervention. And that intervention is Moderna and Pfizer; Johnson & Johnson should licence their intellectual property so that other countries can start manufacturing those vaccines. And that seems to me critical if we're going to get the world vaccinated.
NK: How much of how slow the process has been, at least to this point, has to do with the past and the Trump administration in your country, that the contracts that that administration signed with vaccine manufacturers?
RK: Well, I think that one of the challenges is that there were no conditions to the contracts. We had almost two billion dollars that we committed to buy vaccines from Pfizer, which was the right call. We had Moderna get licencing from NIH, which was the right call. But we should have demanded something in return. What we should have demanded is the right to at least licence that technology when it meant helping the world get vaccinated. And the fact that those contracts were written without any check on pharma was a mistake, though they did great work in getting a vaccine as fast as they did. We now need to make sure that vaccine is distributed.
NK: As you watch what is unfolding in India, what strikes you the most?
RK: The sheer suffering. I mean, the reports of seeing people cremated on sidewalks. The sense that people are going to hospitals and dying in beds because there is no oxygen. I mean, it is out of the medieval ages what is happening in some parts of India, and just horrific. And it's affecting not just the poor. It's affecting the middle-class, the upper-middle-class. So it's a real humanitarian crisis.
NK: What message do you think it sends to the world, though, sir, that wealthy countries like the U.S. and Canada get AstraZeneca doses from India directly when they're dealing with what they're dealing with?
RK: Well, I think that we have to increase the supply in India. And the way to do that is to have the TRIPS waiver and to fund domestic manufacturing. That is the critical step for a global equity that is necessary.
NK: Do you think the U.S. should have stepped in sooner?
RK: Well, there were those of us in Congress calling for about a week ago, as soon as the crisis was, was there. But I think a week is fairly swift in the administration's response. Do I wish it was a week earlier? Yes, but it's always hard when you have such a large nation with, with the president being pulled in so many directions. So on balance, I think he devoted his attention quite quickly.
NK: We've been covering India quite a bit as well since the case numbers exploded, exploded again, as they have. What do you think Americans should take away from the situation in India? You're in a better situation now, but India thought it was in a great position, too?
RK: just the way to not to be complacent. Two lessons. One, that you could have outbreaks here in the United States as well. I mean, obviously, we're in a better situation because of the vaccination, but there's still a large part of our population that is not vaccinated, and we should not be complacent about the deadliness of COVID. The second lesson is that we're, none of us are safe until we can get the world in a better place because all it takes is one of these outbreaks of mutations that some variant comes along that defeats the vaccine. And then we're back to square one. And that's a big challenge.
NK: Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you so much for your time.
RK: Thank you.
CH: Ro Khanna is a Democratic congressman. He's in Washington D.C.
[music: jazz]
Oscars Black Speeches
CH: Last night at the Academy Awards, politics and social justice took to centre stage. As one director accepted his award, he pleaded for people to not be indifferent to the killings of Black Americans at the hands of police. Another recipient dedicated his film to victims of gun violence. Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry took the stage to accept the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
[sc]
TYLER PERRY: I think it was about 17 years ago, I rented this building, and we were using it for production. And I was walking to my car one day, and I see this woman coming up out of the corner of my eye. And I say she's homeless. Let me give her some money. Judgement, I wish I had time to talk about judgement. Anyway, I reach in my pocket, and I'm about to give her the money. She says, excuse me, sir, do you have any shoes? It stopped me cold because I remember being homeless and having one pair of shoes, and they were bent over at the heel. So I said, yeah, so I took her into, into the studio. She was hesitant to go in, but we went in, we go to wardrobe, and there are all these boxes and everything around the walls and fabrics and racks of clothes. So we ended up having to stand in the middle of the floor. So as we're standing there, wardrobe, we find some shoes. We help her put them on. I stand up. I'm waiting for her to look up. And all this time, she's looking down. She finally looks up. She's got tears in her eyes. She said, thank you, Jesus. My feet are off the ground. In that moment, I just, I recall her saying to me, I thought you would hate me for asking. I'm like, how can I hate you when I used to be you? How can I hate you when I had a mother who grew up in the Jim Crow South in Louisiana, rural Louisiana, right across the border from Mississippi, who at nine or the years old, was grieving the death of Emmett Till? As she got a little bit older, she was grieving the death of the civil rights boys and the little girls who were in the bombing in Alabama. She grieved all this, all these years. And I remember being a little boy and coming home. And she was at home like, what are you doing home? You're supposed to be at work. She was in tears that day. She said there was a bomb threat, and she couldn't believe that someone wanted to blow up this place where she worked, where she took care of all these toddlers. It was the Jewish community centre. My mother taught me to refuse hate. She taught me to refuse blanket judgement. And in this time, and with all of the Internet, and social media, and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way, the 24-hour news cycle, it is my hope that all of us would teach our kids and not only to remember, just refuse hate, don't hate anybody. I refuse to hate someone because they are Mexican or because they are Black or white, [clapping] or LBGTQ. 'Cuz I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we would refuse hate. And I want to take this Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and dedicate it to anyone who wants to stand in the middle, no matter what's around the walls, stand in the middle because that's where healing happens. That's where conversation happens. That's where change happens. It happens in the middle.
[/sc]
CH: That was Tyler Perry speaking at the Oscars. Daniel Kaluuya took home the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance in "Judas and the Black Messiah". He thanked Fred Hampton, the Black Panther leader he played in the movie -- who was killed by law enforcement in 1969.
[sc]
DANIEL KALUUYA: Man, what a man, what a man. How blessed we are that we lived in a lifetime where he existed. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, thank you for your life. He was on this earth for 21 years, 21 years, and he found a way to feed kids breakfast, educate kids, give free medical care, against all the odds. He showed, he showed me. He taught me. Him, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party. They showed me how to love myself. And with that love, they overflowed into the Black community and onto other communities. And they showed us that the power of union, power of unity. That when they play, divide and conquer, we say unite in the centre. Thank you so much for showing me myself. And yeah, man, there's so much work to do, guys. And that's on everyone in this room. It's no single-man job. That's a rule. And I look to everyone, every single one of you, you got work to do. Do you know what I am saying? And I'm going to get back to work Tuesday morning because tonight I'm going up. [laughing]
[/sc]
CH: That was actor Daniel Kaluuya last night. He's the first non-white British actor to win an Oscar.
[music: ambient]
Indonesia Submarine Found
Guest: Bryan Clark
CH: Yesterday, the Indonesian navy confirmed the worst case scenario: a submarine that had been lost for days was found on the ocean floor, broken into pieces. Family members had been holding out hope that the fifty-three crew members might somehow have survived the sinking. Bryan Clark is a former U.S. Navy submarine officer. He's now a defense expert at the Hudson Institute. We reached him in Middleburg, Virginia.
NK: Mr. Clark, 53 lives. What does this disaster mean for Indonesia's Navy?
BRYAN CLARK: It's a terrible blow to the Indonesian navy. It's a relatively small navy. They only have five submarines, of which this is one. And then beyond just the loss of life and then the ship, there's also the problem of trust and confidence that the, the nation has in its navy. And these, these kinds of incidents are always difficult to get back from in terms of regaining the trust of the country. So it's, it's damaging on a couple of levels.
NK: And how does what happened with this submarine compare to other submarine disasters?
BC: As it turns out, several years ago, we lost a similar submarine, another Type 209 submarine that was in the Argentinean navy. That loss was a similar situation where they had a catastrophic failure of some kind, and then it went to the bottom and would be below crush depth. Previous disasters have tended to be due to exogenous circumstances. So the Kursk, which was a Russian, a Russian submarine that was lost up in the Barents Sea. It happened due to a weapons malfunction that, that blew up and damaged the submarine. Ming submarine or a recent loss of a Chinese submarine was due to a propulsion quality and fire. And so, in this case, it sounds like some combination of material failures on the ship were probably at the source of it.
NK: Just give us a sense of where this sub was operating and what specifically it was doing.
BC: So it was operating in the Bali Strait, doing a military exercise. They were using it to go do some scout operations as part of this exercise. And the Bali Strait is between Bali and Java, and the water there is about 2,500 feet deep. So it's pretty deep water in, in the big scheme of things. But in terms of the Pacific, that's about the medium depth of the Pacific. So it's, it's about the normal depth of if you just pick a point in the Pacific Ocean, that's about how deep it is. For this exercise, they had extra people on board as observers, and they were executing some preplanned operations. So still unclear, obviously, what led to the disaster.
NK: A German-built submarine, more than 40 years old, but it had, had undergone a refit back in 2012. Is that common? That seems very old.
BC: Yeah. So the, the Type 209 submarine is kind of like the F150 of submarines [chuckle]. There's, I think, it's about the most common submarine that's out in the world today. There's more than 60 of them still in operation. They all date from the 80s and 90s. So they're all about of this vintage. So it's a surprisingly long-lived and reliable submarine. And it's in service in dozens of countries. So the fact that it was 40 years old was not particularly surprising. And it's not unusual for them to go eight or ten years between overhauls. So, so this submarine was in its normal periodicity for maintenance and overhauls. But it is an older submarine, which means the technologies on it are older generally. But it's still a pretty reliable submarine.
NK: You've obviously been on board a lot of submarines in your career. What do you imagine it must have been like for the crew during an emergency like this one?
BC: Well, very frantic, I'm sure because the kind of casualty that resulted in the loss of this submarine would have been probably pretty catastrophic. So it would have had to have been flooding, fire, you know, or one of those compounded with the loss of electrical power, which it sounds like they had a loss of power shortly before the submarine was lost. So it was probably a combination of losing power as well as having fire or flooding. So very frantic, trying to respond to the casualty, then trying to keep the submarine afloat. So you're for immediate actions or to try to deal with the casualty at hand. And then you have to start dealing with the fact that you may if you don't get a handle on the casualty, suffer catastrophic loss. So it becomes more and more frenetic as the casualty progresses and you realize that you're losing control of the situation. But people will be very focused on their jobs and getting that done. You tend to not think about the repercussions. You don't, you don't think about the worst-case scenario. You tend to get very narrowly focused on your immediate tasks in that type of situation.
NK: Have you been in an emergency?
BC: Yes. So we've, I've been on submarines where we had emergencies like this, not obviously a catastrophic loss of a submarine, but fires and flooding and those kinds of events. So you tend to kind of go back to your training, and your muscle memory kicks in.
NK: What is realistic, do you think, in terms of the recovery operation, given that we're talking about a depth of about 838 metres in terms of the wreckage itself, but also the victims here?
BC: So recoveries have been done at those kinds of depths because this is like I said, it's about the median depth of the Pacific. It's not a particularly, you know, it's not a deep trench or something. Depends on the orientation of the submarine wherever it lies down at the bottom. And also, you know, how many pieces it's broken up into and the condition that they're in. Some recovery is possible. Most of the time, you know, we don't try to recover the, the ship or the victims. And we, we consider them to be lost at sea and entombed there because of the difficulty in bringing them up. But certainly, remotely-operated vehicles and unmanned undersea vehicles can be used to go and recover parts of the submarine to do the damage analysis, do the assessment of what happened and when and how.
NK: This is obviously about the Indonesian navy. But when something like this happens, what happens around the world, in navies around the world?
BC: it definitely makes you rethink, you know, how you're operating. And it's a... it's a good wake-up call to re-examine your safety protocols, and you know how you're managing things like this, you know? Where there usually is, there's a degree of, you know, a lot more activity going on when you're doing these exercises. You've got extra people on board. So it definitely makes you rethink the procedures that you have in place for when you're doing exercises and unusual events like this.
NK: Bryan Clark, thank you for your time.
BC: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.
CH: Bryan Clark is a former U.S. Navy submarine officer. He's in Middleburg, Virginia. Today, the Indonesian Navy released a video filmed a few weeks ago showing the crew of the submarine gathered together singing together.
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[music: a group singing a song in Indonesian]
[/sc]
CH: The sound of a video made by the crew of the Indonesian submarine that went down, killing all aboard. The crew singing a song while at sea earlier this month.
[music: Ambient]
FOA: Wrong Community Group Woman
CH: Two Wakefields have crossed paths -- and the result is a long-distance gift exchange. In March we told you about Sue Perry from Wakefield, England, who accidentally joined an online group --- for Wakefield, Quebec. Her friends on this side of the Atlantic sent her a big care package. And when we spoke with her last, she was planning to return the gesture. Well, that package has arrived in Quebec. In a message to "As It Happens", Scott-Milton Grace said the package includes, among other things, 20 CDs of Yorkshire musicians. He says they plan to hold a silent auction for some of the items, to raise money for charity. From March, here is Sue Perry talking about what first tipped her off that she was in the wrong group.
[sc]
SUE PERRY: The skis and the ski boots and the warm clothes, that sort of give it away? And also the place names I didn't recognise Edelweiss, I think were one of them.
PA: So, I mean, we've all clicked on things that we realise all that's not the right group and you just unsubscribe and move on. You decided to post something. Have I got that right?
SP: I did, yes. I just thought, one little post, if I just said, well, oops, I'm sorry if I seem to have joined the wrong Wakefield buy and sell, I'm in Wakefield, UK. Everybody stay safe across the pond.
PA: And you probably thought that would be the end of it.
SP: I certainly did. Yes. And I was certainly wrong.
PA: So tell me, what were the responses?
SP: Well, there were lots of people dropping in and chatting and asking how things were. And it was a lovely distraction at the time. And my daughter is a nurse. My son in law was a nurse, and my own son is an outreach worker. And they had all caught covid through the job. So things were a little dark at that time, let's say. So. It was a lovely, lovely distraction.
PA: Just to be clear. Are they OK now?
SP: Yes. They are.
PA: Well, thank goodness, yeah.
PA: One of the people that you ended up that was on this group, a guy named Scott Milton Grace. What happened with him and what did he end up organizing?
SP: It started off with a post saying, I think we should send Sue a care package, which I thought was a little joke.
PA: what's in the box. What did you end up getting?
SP: Oh gosh, it's a local to Wakefield and the area, which is lovely. There's about 7 CD's of singer songwriters, six or seven T-shirts, maple syrup, lots of honey, lots of books written by local people, and the little ceramic cup that someone has made, a dollar,a Canadian dollar, some leatherwork and the local nude calendar.
PA: The nude calendar?
SP: The Wakefield nude calendar. [Laughter]
PA: So will you send the Wakefield, Quebec group a Wakefield, England basket or box of your own?
SP: Yeah, well, our mayor the mayor of Wakefield, Yorkshire, I believe he wants to put a box together. So, yes, I will be putting stuff in the box.
[/sc]
CH: Sue Perry from Wakefield, England and "As It Happens" guest host Peter Armstrong in March. You can see photos of the care packages sent between Wakefields on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.
[music: folk]
Part 3: NL Healthcare Workers, Internet Slander
COVID Olympian
CH: He was fast, fit, and powerful when he won a gold medal for Canada at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang three years ago. But now Alex Kopacz is sick with COVID -- and struggling to breathe. The Olympian was admitted to London's University Hospital last week. He has since returned home with oxygen support. But the 31-year-old spoke with the CBC this weekend, from his hospital bed in the COVID ward.
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ALEX KOPACZ: Yes, this is my ninth day, [coughing] sorry, dealing with COVID. And since really bad symptom day, which is Wednesday, 'till two days ago, it was just a relentless super-high fever with uncontrollable coughing. And every day was the same. It wasn't getting better. It was either getting worse or just the same. It was a waking, waking nightmare. I wasn't sleeping, and I didn't realize how much oxygen I was losing because it explains why I was getting so loopy. But I don't know, it got scary enough that around day six went to the hospital the first time. And as soon as they saw scans, and we saw how much stuff I had in my lungs, you know, no matter what they gave, it didn't help. So then the next day, I went back in again to use a little O2 sat gadget, and my oxygen was at 82 per cent, which is dangerously low. So then I came back, and I've been here for, it will be a full two days. I see a lot of really good nursing staff and doctors that are still in excellent spirits. Even if they're faking it, they can see how much other people are suffering. And so they're trying to put on a brave face. I can see that there's a challenge between juggling resource ability and what can be offered right this second, and when should it be offered, I guess? Prior to needing oxygen, I was, I was really scared. And I didn't think I was, [chuckling] I don't know, I think it was the closest I've ever felt like death. It's really hard to explain. I've been through so much in my life, and the last thing I would have thought was that I would get such bad symptoms, you know what I mean? It's not a joke. When I see people with the mask half off their nose now, just even like this conspiracy rhetoric, I don't know if I'm going to contain my rage anymore.
[/sc]
CH: That was Alex Kopacz speaking with CBC reporter Katie Nicholson from hospital. Mr. Kopacz won an Olympic gold medal for Canada in the two-man bobsleigh event in 2018. He is now recovering from COVID-19 at home in London, Ontario.
[music: folk]
NL Healthcare Workers
Guest: Andrew Furey
CH: Ontario has reported 3,500 new COVID-19 cases today. Thousands of patients are in hospital -- more than 800 of them in ICUs. The province needs help. Today, Ontario's solicitor general said that the federal government had approved its request for assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces. And Newfoundland and Labrador is also offering a hand. That province's premier, Andrew Furey, says a contingent of health-care workers is heading west tomorrow. We reached Premier Furey in St. John's.
NK: Premier, are the bags packed for these health care workers? When do they set out for Ontario?
ANDREW FUREY: Well, they're home packing bags now, I would suspect. They set out tomorrow morning for Ontario.
NK: What kind of contingent are we looking at here? How many people, and what specifically are they trained to do?
AF: 3 So the first contingent will be nine people in total. There'll be three physicians, a nurse, and five RNs. And they'll be a combination of skill sets from emergency room doctors, critical care doctors to critical care nurses.
NK: And you said first contingent. Do you expect there'll be more? And if so, when?
AF: Well, we're going to use this as a trial and see how well it works. But there have been more who have offered to help. I got to tell you, I'm quite proud of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians for answering this Canadian call.
NK: How long will they be staying, this first contingent?
AF: Well, it'll be different for different people. Anywhere from two weeks to the better part of a month, actually. So it's different depending on the individual who's stepped up to go and the requirements here to maintain services in our regional health authorities at home.
NK: It is a sacrifice certainly for, for you and the hospitals there and other health care providers to, to let these folks come over. But as a doctor yourself, what do you think nine health care workers can do? Can, can they help with the severity of what Ontario is facing right now?
AF: Absolutely. I've seen in my previous life, in doing relief work around the world, that small teams can have a big impact. We know here in Newfoundland and Labrador how hard the health care professionals are working, you know, well beyond their collective agreements. And I'm sure they're all stressed and anxious. And even if we can provide some relief for them in providing care for patients, I know that that will go a long way in refuelling the tanks as they go back into battle COVID-19 for Ontarians.
NK: I understand you spoke with Ontario's premier, Doug Ford. What did he say to you about what his province needs right now, what its going through?
AF: He was incredibly gracious in respecting our offer to help. He expressed his gratitude to all Newfoundland and Labrador, but in particular to the people who have stepped up. He recognizes that we're a small province and we're going to send a small contingency, but that every little bit helps,
NK: I think, for a lot of Canadians listening right across the country, it's kind of staggering to think that Ontario is in this position and getting help from smaller provinces. What do you make of that?
AF: The only thing that's certain with COVID-19 is the uncertainty. So, you know, different provinces can find themselves in different positions along the way as we battle this pandemic. And this is a Canadian effort. And we think we all have to rally as Canadians to help fight COVID-19. And I am quite confident that if we were in this situation, other Canadians would be coming to our assistance. So this is part of being a federation. It's part of helping our Canadian brothers and sisters. And we're quite honoured and happy to be able to provide even this small amount of help.
NK: Welcomed help certainly in Ontario. But you're offering this help as the registered nurses union says you need to address staffing shortages in Newfoundland and Labrador. So is it not more important to make sure your province has the staffing it needs before it can help Ontario?
AF: You know, it's kind of a false equivalence argument in this case. We recognize that there are nursing issues across the province, and we're working with the nurses union to help address that. That's a medium and long-term fix and one that's been quite chronic here for some period of time. I can tell you from my last life, and having ORs cancelled because of the lack of nurses. But right now, we're dealing with this acute crisis in Ontario. And I think this is the Canadian way to help. But, you know, it's a bit of a false equivalent argument. They're equally important, but not the same. And the nurses union has been quite supportive with respect to sending their members to Ontario. But we collectively recognize that there is hard work to do on the ground here in Newfoundland and Labrador to ensure that our community's health needs are met.
NK: You mentioned how unpredictable this, this virus can be. Are you not concerned, though, that things may shift in your province, and then you're without these, these nine workers at this point, and you said every everybody counts, right?
AF: Absolutely. And that's been the proviso from day one in my discussions with the prime minister and the premier. And we've been quite clear that should the situation in Newfoundland and Labrador change that these individuals would return to our province immediately.
NK: One of the members of this initial group is Dr. Allison Furey. She also happens to be your wife. What is it going to be like personally, I wanted to ask, for you both to be apart right now?
AF: It'll be difficult. I think, you know, my, my children are finding it a bit tough right now, recognizing that their mother is going to help somewhere else. But this is something that's been a part of our life for quite some time. We've both done volunteer medical relief work around the globe, so we'll get through it. They recognize that this is a greater calling and that she's going to help people in need right now. And I think that that's important to convey to our children and, frankly, to the province in general. She's certainly going to work hard, and I'm very proud of her, as are my kids.
NK: We should talk to her when she gets to Ontario, too. [AF chuckles] If she has time. Obviously, she and the whole team will be, will be very busy. What, Premier, has what is unfolding in Ontario and what you heard from Premier Ford taught you about the virus and what you want and don't want to do in your own province?
AF: Yeah, I mean, as I said, you know, the only thing certain is uncertainty when it comes to COVID-19. So, you know, everybody needs to be able to be adaptable and be able to pivot quickly when, when the situation changes. You know, we have recognized the value of definitive and quick public health measures here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I mean, we went from zero cases to 500 cases in a week. And we took decisive, immediate action to help flatten that curve and get it to a manageable level. And we're, and we're through the other side of that now. But we also recognize that that can occur again, which is why we're continuing to preach tough public health measures to maintain the level that we're at in Newfoundland and Labrador right now. You know, it's, it's tough as leaders and politicians because no one wants to be in this situation. Everyone, leaders included, are suffering from COVID-19 fatigue. Everyone is anxious to get back to life as normal. But I think if we all continue to follow the public health guidelines, continue to follow the evidence as it becomes available, and it changes, and that can be frustrating as well for all Canadians and all your listeners. But as long as you let science drive the decision-making, I think you're in good stead.
NK: Premier Furey, I thank you for your time.
AF: Well, thank you so much.
NK: Take care.
AF: Bye now.
CH: Andrew Furey is the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. We reached him in St. John's.
[music: horns!!!]
FOA: Apostrophe Protection Man Obit
CH: He was a man who awarded top marks to anyone who properly used top marks. John Richards was a retired copy editor when he founded the Apostrophe Protection Society back in 2001. At which point he channeled his journalistic powers, to put people who put apostrophes in the wrong place in their place. Mr. Richards died last month in Lincolnshire, England. He was 97 years old. For almost two full decades, John Richards fought for proper usage of the apostrophe. Until 2019, when he decided to close the Society down. In his last appearance on this show, he told Carol that was due to old age -- but also to what he called "the ignorance and laziness present in modern times." That was not the John Richards who so vigorously took up the cause just after the turn of the century. The John Richards who first spoke with "As It Happens" in May of 2001 about his then-new Apostrophe Protection Society.
[sc]
JOHN RICHARDS: Not so much endangered. It's being used in a random sort of way. People just put apostrophes where they think they ought to go.
MARY LOU FINLAY: Well, it's running all over the place.
JR: I asked Liz about where they should be there.
MLF: Where are they putting it?
JR: Well, they're putting it in all sorts of, usually in plurals, things like menus. They're possibly CDs, compact discs, CDs they have with apostrophe. I saw iced buns, now, they are buns covered in icing.
MLF: Yes.
JR: It's ice'd buns. The cat's whiskers.
MLF: uh-huh.
JR:They put it between the "R" and the "S" of "whiskers".
MLF: Right.
JR: You see?
MLF: What is it about "S" that people want to put apostrophes before them or sometimes after all the time?
JR: Yes. When they see an "S", they do, they do seem to want to put apostrophe. But they often leave it out when it should be there.
MLF: Yes.
JR: So I just got a bit irritated by it and started to form this little society. It's on myself and my son at the moment.
MLF: Uh-huh.
JR: But I've had a lot of interest today.
MLF: What are you doing?
JR: Well, what we do, what I do, is to I've prepared a letter, a courteous letter, which I put through the door of any shops that have offended, and suggest that they might like to change it and then say what it should be.
MLF: What does the letter say apart from that? How do you address this problem?
JR: I say, because there seems to be some uncertainty about the use of apostrophes. We give below a simple rule. And I say that it's used for possessive. For when there's a letter committed like don't or can't.
MLF: Yes.
JR: And, but it is never, ever used for plurals.
MLF: And what response have you had?
JR: So far, not a great deal. Although today, I've had a lot of phone calls of support from people. The only person who seems upset by it is someone I left a letter with.
MLF: Yeah?
JR: And he said, why doesn't he get a job?
MLF: [laughing] Get a life!
JR: Yeah. So that's the only one.
MLF: So do you think you'll be able to stem the tide here all by yourself?
JR: It would depend entirely on how many people back me. And it does look, I have had to say a lot of phone calls that have support. And if I can get some letters out to them, it can spread out a little bit from yesterday, just spread out gradually to other towns. And we might see a change. It won't happen overnight. But I think I was, I was fed up with not doing anything about it.
MLF: Do you think while you're at it that you could address the "its" problem? "It's it", the possessive and the contraction here?
JR: I used to work on newspapers. And I would often have to correct, correct it. So, yes, it's pretty widely --
MLF: Yeah.
JR: It's a very careless, a slapdash way of going about things. I don't think they care really where apostrophes go.
[/sc]
CH: That was John Richards speaking with Mary Lou Finlay on this program in 2001, when he first founded the Apostrophe Protection Society. Mr. Richards died last month. He was 97.
[music: hip-hop]
Internet Slander
Guest: Aaron Krolik
CH: Aaron Krolik is an unqualified loser. He said so himself. On more than a dozen websites. Mr. Krolik is a journalist who recently took his reporting on internet rumours to another level -- by starting one about himself, and watching it spread. Now that rumour -- and the accompanying reporting -- are on the front page of today's New York Times. We reached Aaron Krolik in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
NK: So, Aaron, how does it feel to see the words Aaron Krolik is an unqualified loser on the front page of The New York Times?
AARON KROLIK: It is pretty surreal. You know, when we started out on this story, I did not expect it to go quite this far. But, yeah, it's pretty surreal to see that on the front of the page of the paper.
NK: Yeah, you kind of did it to yourself?
AK: Yeah, I, it is a situation of my making,
NK: but with a, with a good reason behind it. Well, let's, let's start at the beginning, though. What kind of sites did you initially publish this on?
AK: So, we initially published on five sites. And we published basically variations on Aaron is a loser. Each post had a little bit different text. Each watermark was different. There was different metadata embedded in the image. And then, we just sort of sat back and watched as these posts sort of spread around this corner of the Internet that, you know, has lots of slander and profanity and vitriol.
NK: they're called gripe sites?
AK: Yeah, gripe sites.
NK: So how quickly did you see this mushrooming?
AK: So, within two hours, the first post was copied onto a site called Foul Speakers, and it was copied verbatim. The site owner just went and copied and pasted onto his site. It definitely felt like I'd put something in motion that we couldn't control. Posts were just spreading, and we were just sitting back seeing these new sites pop up at my posts.
NK: So then step two is trying to erase all of that, getting it off the web. So what happens when someone in your position or perhaps someone in far less of a stable position, what happens when they try to get rid of it?
AK: I'm very fortunate that I have a job and, you know, have other claims to credibility on the Internet. So it would be really scary if you really didn't have an Internet footprint, and this started popping up. And conveniently next to your face on these gripe sites, there are ads that take you to reputation management firms that say they'll take down these gripe site posts within a couple of hours or within a day. And so we filled out a form and submitted a URL to a site called Rep Z, which is one of these reputation management sites. And then I got a phone call from somebody who worked at the site saying that she could help me take the post down.
NK: Very kind of them to want to help you. How much does that kindness cost?
AK: So, for one post, it was 1,000 dollars. And she said it was a good deal at a thousand dollars. So the price seems pretty high. And as I'm watching these posts spread, you know, the dollar signs are ticking up, and pretty quickly, you're in tens of thousands of dollars to remove these posts.
NK: What more did you learn as you, as you dug into that part of your research?
AK: So, there was a lot of clues that were sort of embedded in these websites. And we were actually able to link the reputation firms to many of the sites that posted the slander in the first place. And we contacted them and spoke to them. And, you know, they basically lied every step of the way. And until they were, we produced irrefutable evidence, they basically denied everything. So it's a very shady industry, and the people working at it are very shady themselves.
NK: Diplomatic, diplomatic words. So how is this legal, is what people, I'm sure, [chuckling] are wondering as they scream at their radios?
AK: Well, these sites are protected in the U.S. by Section 230, which lets them post content that they're not really responsible for moderating. It's the same laws that protect Google, protect these sites as well.
Speaker 1 Ultimately, you did turn to Google, though, trying to get this post scrubbed from search results. Where does that leave you?
AK: Exactly. So you can fill out a Google form and Google will take down sites that have exploitative removal policies. And so you have to go URL by URL and submit a form with screenshots and, you know, evidence. And then, you know, one to three business days later, the post will get taken down. But it's very time-consuming. And, you know, if somebody is trying to defame you, and they continuously post your name on these sites, then you can be in an endless cycle of monitoring your Google results, submitting a form to take it down. Over the course of the reporting, we actually scraped, you know, as many of these posts as we could. And we found that, you know, on just a dozen of the top sites, there were 150-thousand posts. And we found about 47-thousand individuals that were victims here. And then we found that for a good number of them, it showed up on their first page of Google results. So these people that are the victims here really don't have a lot of options unless you have a lot of money to hand over to these reputation management firms.
NK: In terms of the gripe sites, is it just a money making operation? Is there more there? Are there some perhaps that argue, you know, this is a place where you could legitimately call out bad behaviour?
AK: That's a great question. It's hard to say. I think a lot of it is money making. I think that it does make significant money for the site owners. But some of these people do think that this is a public service, you know, one of the characters in our story started a website called STD Carriers after, you know, a personal experience with a partner that didn't tell him that she had an STD. And, you know, he thought the site should exist so people can warn others, but then it quickly turns exploitative and slanderous.
NK: So on paper, there's nothing illegal about what these gripe sites and reputation management services are doing. But given all of that, what would you like to see happen as a result of your reporting?
AK: You know, that's a hard question. I think that the platforms that surface this may need to take more responsibility for curating the links that they're surfacing. And I think that it's a conversation, you know, around whether we want to have these sites with the sort of protection to publish whatever they want?
NK: Is your name cleared now?
AK: At the moment, it's pretty clear, but you know that, that can always change. There were editors that were worried that this could have long-term reputational damage, but we really wanted to get a controlled experiment for seeing how these sites, you know, whether they copied each other and how they spread and how they were linked. And, you know, within our, The New York Times' ethical guidelines, this is really the only option.
NK: Aaron, thank you so much for your time.
AK: Thank you.
CH: Aaron Krolik is a journalist with the New York Times, reporting on internet slander and the reputation management industry, alongside the Times' Kashmir Hill. We reached Mr. Krolik in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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Ideas Promo: Zone Of Absolute Exclusion
CH: On this day in 1986, the top of Reactor Number Four at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine blew off, and a great stream of radioactive debris shot up into the night sky. In time, this spread all over Europe. We'll never know how many people's lives were shortened, how many got sick, or how many eventually died as a result. Coming up next on "Ideas", Zone of Absolute Exclusion, a documentary about those terrible days. Here's producer Philip Coulter in conversation with one of the cleanup crew, a soldier named Vladimir Usatenko.
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PHILIP COULTER: When the bus first drove past the reactor, and you saw the roof gone, you saw that there had been a major explosion, what were your feelings?
VLADIMIR USATENKO: [speaking in an alternative language]
TRANSLATOR: At that moment, we, I mean, everyone who was on the bus with me, believed that we could fix this. Not overnight, of course. Everyone realized it would take a while, but nobody could have imagined the real scale of the problem. It was a small town. Everybody knew everybody else, and life went on as usual. Parents tried to keep kids at home, but everything else was pretty much the same. People visited each other, shared their experience and opinions. Then, helicopters with radiation control crews showed up and started to circle the town, checking the radiation levels. Frankly speaking, I didn't really know the scale of the accident. We didn't know that the reactor was, in fact, completely destroyed. And those who did know, the management and a very small circle of specialists, didn't say anything.
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CH: An excerpt from "Zone of Absolute Exclusion", coming up next on "Ideas", right after "As It Happens".
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Bandwidth Chewing Beavers
CH: There comes a time in a person's life when they must face some home truths. About home tooths. That time is now for about 900 citizens of Tumbler Ridge, BC, who were left without internet service this weekend when a buried cable was set upon by a brazen gang of beavers. Their mission was stealthy -- conducted in the wee hours of Saturday morning. According to Telus, the beavers, quote, "dug underground alongside [a] creek to reach our cable, which is buried about three feet underground and protected by a four-point-five-inch thick conduit." Also, the mission wasn't at all stealthy. The repair crew was alerted to the culprits when they noticed fluorescent marking tape bearing the words "CAUTION CABLE" brazenly woven into a dam. It took most of the weekend to replace the cable and restore service. But it's still not clear what action the company will, or can, take to prevent a repeat offence. Especially now that the beavers have held a little bit of the World Wide Web in their small webbed feet. They've tasted its power. They're not just going to paddle on back to their old lives as gnaw-abiding citizens. The war has begun. They've chosen their weapon -- and their weapon is chews.