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The Current Transcript for July 19, 2018

Host: Duncan McCue

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

'Blood on their hands': Critics decry U.S. decision to allow 3D-printed gun blueprints online

Guests: Cody Wilson, Maggie Thompson, Matt Ratto

SOUNDCLIP

[Gun Firing]

It's untraceable. I didn't have to go through a background check or any sort of waiting period to get it. The government has no knowledge of its existence.

DUNCAN MCCUE: That's the sound of a ghost gun. An assault rifle made mostly of plastic. This week an American gun rights activist won his legal battle to publish 3D firearm designs online. Which means soon, anyone with access to a 3D printer can manufacture handguns at home. First up we'll meet the man behind the downloadable gun and find out what Wiki Weapons may mean for Canada. Then...

SOUNDCLIP

When the government says something there's only one thing you need to ask. Is it true? And that is as valid today as it was then.

DM: At a time when the U.S. president regularly dismisses journalism as fake news, director Rob Reiner is rolling out his film Shock and Awe. The story of two Knight Ridder reporters who exposed gaps in the Bush administration's case to invade Iraq after 9/11. We'll speak with the real life journalists who ask questions that major news outlets didn't and the director bringing their story to the silver screen, in half an hour. Plus...

SOUNDCLIP

There's about 24,000 metres of climbing throughout the race. So that's the equivalent of going from sea level to the top of Everest and back down two and a half times. It's a pretty hearty race.

DM: She calls herself Ultra Runner Girl, a human rights lawyer and ultra marathon runner, who's determined to give women and girls access to outdoor sports. In some of the most dangerous war zones in the world. Free to run, in an hour. I'm Duncan McCue and this is the summer edition of The Current.

[Music]

DM: 3D printing has been heralded as a technology with the power to change the world. From toys to prototypes to human organs, the promise of 3D printing is that you'll be able to print whatever you want. But that includes guns, and 3D printers have already been used to create them. Now many more 3D guns could soon be on their way. After a four year legal battle, the U.S. Justice Department has ruled that blueprints for 3D printed guns can be posted and shared online, giving anyone with the technology, the ability to create one at home. A non-profit called Defense Distributed first posted blueprints for its gun the Liberator in 2013. They were downloaded 100,000 times in a matter of days before the government ordered them taken down. In light of the new ruling, the group is now planning to post blueprints to a whole arsenal of guns online, come August 1st. And that has gun control advocates spooked. Cody Wilson created the first 3D printed gun. He's the founder and director of Defense Distributed and he joins me from Austin, Texas. Hello.

CODY WILSON: Hello.

DM: How surprised were you that you won this case?

CODY WILSON: I was as shocked as anyone else. At some point it seemed the government just walked away from their position, which is not to be expected after this many years in.

DM: How did you come up with the idea to 3D print a gun?

CODY WILSON: I suppose we were inspired by WikiLeaks. When we began we didn't have the vocabulary for it, but you know we knew what they were doing. As mediated through the internet was so politically significant and so outside of traditional process and party politics, that perhaps what Julian Assange was doing would apply to all kinds of other things and we were informed by our background in American gun culture.

DM: And so printing a gun wasn't important to you?

CODY WILSON: Yes it was. In my imagination and my friend's imagination. If we could 3D print a gun, this was the easiest way of demonstrating that one, other people could, and two that basically there was untrammeled access to the firearm in an essential sense that didn't involve the state at any point in the chain. And this is something that we could affect you know.

DM: Why did you want to have untrammeled access to a firearm?

CODY WILSON: It gets to a political philosophical question you know. What is the ability to graduate the individual's power [inaudible] in this Internet age? If guns are downloadable has this somehow change the equation of the individual versus his state?

DM: You faced a lot of backlash when you first published those blueprints. How did you feel about that?

CODY WILSON: Yeah you know, worldwide and so probably yeah because it was, I don't know unexpected or something. But at the same time remember there was already a large American gun culture here. So from my point of view, it was equal parts outrage and equal parts kind of interest and even delight.

DM: The first blueprints that you made were for a pistol. But I understand that you're planning for more guns like the AR-15. And the AR-15 has been used in many of the recent mass shootings in the United States. How do you justify spreading that kind of technology that would make guns easier to get, rather than harder to get?

CODY WILSON: It comes down to the fact that you know the AR is now the most popular of the sporting rifles in the United States. But you know one of the outcomes of the settlement that I just made with the government was the State Department admitted, that they did not consider the AR-15 to be a military weapon. So that means you know by definition it's exclusively in the purview of commercial and popular owned firearms.

DM: The AR-15 was the gun that was used in Las Vegas, 58 dead. It was used in Newtown, 20 children dead. It was used in Parkland, 17 high school kids dead. How would you feel if someone uses one of these 3D printed guns to harm other people?

CODY WILSON: I'd regret it. I'd regret it immensely. But at the same time I should point out that what we are doing extents to guns beyond just 3D printed guns. There's no way currently to 3D print an AR-15 for example. But the settlement allows me to share let's say like the intellectual property related to guns like the AR-15, which I consider to be important. I just consider it to be important for you to know how to make this gun or to at least have accurate engineer drawings that represent the gun. That may not mean that you can immediately reproduce in your home. But it's a step toward doing something like that.

DM: Okay you say that the right to access to the technology is important. Is it more important than preventing people from dying?

CODY WILSON: I wonder if it's so stark, but at the same time you know we don't make this argument when it comes to you know other types with access to scientific knowledge. You know anyone can go to the public library in Canada and check out books on fertilizer bombs or you know how to you know make ammonia or any kind of other thing that we might otherwise find disconcerting, that people can use information.

DM: There is concern that 3D weapons could evade metal detectors. Could they?

CODY WILSON: I think for the most part this has been somewhat overplayed, but in the main yes I've seen 3D guns that you know like are substantially plastic and do evade metal detection. At the same time these are bizarre, unusual, bulky guns that can be detected in other ways. Visual. X-ray. Other methods.

DM: And finally I mean you're also the founder of a crowdfunding website that was designed to give a platform to people who had been banned from other sites for hate speech, people like white nationalist Richard Spencer. Do you understand why people might be concerned with your association there?

CODY WILSON: Oh sure yeah. Nobody likes old Spencer right. He's a very bad boy. And I suppose I am as well. But you know at the same time all I've ever done is look back at things like the intro to The Age of Reason and J.S. Mill and all the English tradition of the radical right to free speech.

DM: Thank you very much for joining us Cody Wilson.

CODY WILSON: Pleasure indeed. Thank you for having me.

DM: Cody Wilson, is the director of Defense Distributed. We reached him in Austin, Texas. For reaction to Cody Wilson's legal victory, I'm joined by someone who works to advocate for gun control on behalf of the generation that's most affected by gun violence in the United States. That's people under the age of 30. Maggie Thompson, is the executive director of Generation Progress, the youth arm for the Center for American Progress. We've reached her in Washington D.C. Hello.

MAGGIE THOMPSON: Morning, thanks for having me Duncan.

DM: What were you thinking as you listened to my conversation with Cody Wilson?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: I mean you know Cody's views really exist on the extreme fringe of our generation and are absolutely not keeping with sort of the vision for safety in our communities that our generation wants to see.

DM: Cody Wilson fought this case in the belief that the First and Second Amendment rights of individuals should be protected above everything else, no matter the cost. How do you respond to that?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: I mean the right to live trumps the right to print a gun at home. And I think any reasonable person understands that allowing people to print AR-15's on demand will make us less safe. And you know the Trump administration really caved on this case. He said so himself they abandoned their position in pursuit of this extremist gun agenda that is being pushed by the National Rifle Association. You know more guns mean more deaths. America is already awash in guns. If you're a gun person in the United States right now, you're more likely to die from a gun than die in a car accident. This is the new normal and you know like I said Cody's views are in the extreme of our generation who overwhelmingly want common-sense regulation on guns because previous generations have really failed to make us safe.

DM: Well there really has been a groundswell of support for stricter gun control in the United States in the wake of the Parkland School Shooting. And then comes this decision by the Justice Department, so what does that tell you about what can be achieved around gun control under the Trump administration?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: I think that you know for young activists, especially those newly engaged on this we know that this is going to be a long fight. But you know we're anticipating that this fall, there's going to be a groundswell of young people voting especially young people who are newly 18 and voting for the first time. And this is a defining issue for our generation. And you know I don't think anyone anticipates that this is going to be fixed overnight. But you know this decision is really in keeping with the overall policies of this administration and pushing forward an extreme agenda when it comes to guns. And you know it's the opinion of the majority of the young people that are working on this issue or who have lost friends or family members, that you know Cody just like NRA purchased politicians of the United States really are going to have blood on their hands if policies like this allow even more unfettered access to firearms in the U.S.

DM: Realistically though, it's a pretty difficult proposition to control and regulate what people make with their 3D printers in their own homes isn't it?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: You know I don't think that it being difficult means that it's not something that we should do. You know we regulate other types of dangerous materials. Dangerous weaponry. This is something that the government can and should do. And you know this is something that is the new frontier of technology and we can control access to some of these sort of downloadable files that would allow you to print an AR-15 or print something like a bump stock or other accessories to modify your semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. So I really don't believe that the difficulties in potentially implementing this should stop us from putting our best effort forward and making a reasonable attempt to keep people safe.

DM: What proposals would you have to regulate the printing of 3D guns?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: You know I think controlling access to where these files can live. Making sure that they are posted they are taken down. You know I think that this is something that is a new frontier of the law but it's something that we're going to have to figure out and maybe most importantly on this issue but I'm sure in other areas as well.

DM: As a gun control advocate, where do we go from here on this issue?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: You know I can't stress enough that this fall is going to be incredibly important. And really people understanding the extremist agenda of the National Rifle Association and people like Cody and making that a priority when they're considering their votes this fall. That's the most important thing. Not just this year, but moving forward for us as a generation to really take back the reins of power from previous generations that have really cave to the NRA and failed to make us safe. I mean if we're going to die more frequently from guns than car accidents that's not a society we want to live in. And it's really our responsibility to take the reins of power and create a society that we do want to live in.

DM: Cody Wilson said he was surprised by the decision, it was a four year legal battle. Were you?

MAGGIE THOMPSON: You know. No not really. The Trump administration, this is just one of many efforts that they have made to roll back common-sense gun regulations so I wasn't surprised. It is very transparent. Like he said. They had a good case. They were defending their right to regulate these 3D printers. But you know the sort of political will of the administration was that this type of extremist activity should be allowed regardless of whether you've been convicted of hate crimes or if you're a terrorist or a domestic abuser. And so they really pushed us forward. So I'm not surprised but you know they really just walked away from a good case that they had.

DM: Thank you for joining us.

MAGGIE THOMPSON: Thank you.

DM: Maggie Thompson is the executive director of Generation Progress. We reached her in Washington D.C. Our next guest studies the social implications of emerging digital technologies. And he's actually used Cody Wilson's blueprints to create a 3D printed gun. Matt Ratto, is an associate professor at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and he's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

MATT RATTO: Hello.

DM: So what do you think the implications are of this ruling for people here in Canada?

MATT RATTO: Well I think that it provides as Cody stated a relatively untrammelled access to that information. That information has been more difficult to access since that ruling went into effect. And what we have seen over the intervening years is kind of a pushing to the fringes of those kinds of models. They've still been accessible. They've still been out and up, but they certainly haven't been as mainstream or as accessible as they have been in the past.

DM: What do the rules say in Canada about 3D printed guns?

MATT RATTO: Well in Canada, unlike in the United States, it is not legal to make your own or fabricate your own gun in any format or using any fabrication technique 3D printing or otherwise. In the States it is legal to do so. So we already have a regulatory framework in Canada that does not allow one to 3D print their own gun. And in fact when we 3D printed the gun in my laboratory at University of Toronto, which I should say was not for the same purposes that Cody Wilson or for gun advocates are doing so, when we did so we actually modified the model to make sure we were staying within that regulatory framework.

DM: Why did you do that? Why did you print a 3D gun?

MATT RATTO: Well in my academic work. So I'm kind of a hybrid person between kind of an engineering and a social science disciplinary context. And I believe that as social researchers which is what I am to truly understand where these technologies are going, we have to have a deep knowledge of how they actually work. So in the lab we engage in that process of 3D printing, so that I felt that I could speak relatively authoritatively about what was involved to what it took to do it.

DM: Cody Wilson first came out with that design five years ago. How is the technology in 3D printing improved since then?

MATT RATTO: Well I often say 3D printing is like cell phone technology. Every year it gets twice as powerful and half as expensive. So it's an exponential growth in the capacity of 3D printing. It hasn't reached or it hasn't developed into a more mainstream technology I think as some people expected. Maybe five years ago people felt that everybody would have a 3D printer in their home. But certainly the technology is more capable than it used to be.

DM: How realistic is it that a Canadian could download the thing and then print a gun at home?

MATT RATTO: I mean again depending on the 3D model that is being used you know, Cody's was originally this Liberator model and there are others now out there. It is actually not that difficult to do so. The issue though is that the guns that are being produced in that format which Cody actually just mentioned in your interview, are not very capable. They're bulky and many of them have a tendency to blow up in your hand. So there's a big safety issue with those, not just in terms of what they might do to somebody else, but what they might do to the producer.

DM: Well how much knowledge do you need to be able to put the design together once you print it out in the printer?

MATT RATTO: Not very much.

DM: How expensive is it?

MATT RATTO: Again depending on the type of 3D printer that you're using and the type of materials that you're using to print it. It could be you know four hundred dollars for a cheap home kit 3D printer, and 25 bucks for a reel of filament. The thing is that the gun that would be produced through that format would be actually extremely dangerous.

DM: Because it's a plastic barrel.

MATT RATTO: Right. It's a plastic barrel. What I find interesting about all of this is and why I think 3D printing of guns is actually a really interesting case for thinking about regulation or framework's, is the way in which people have attempted to overcome those technical limitations that the plastic barrel through say things like custom ammunition or other formats. I actually see that as a potentially regulatory slash technical solution to some of these kinds of problems. Which is to not just try to ban or reduce access altogether but to try to figure out ways to re-embed these kinds of guns back into a regulatory framework say through things like regulating ammunition.

DM: How much attention have law enforcement officials here in Canada paid to 3D guns?

MATT RATTO: Well I don't think they've paid a whole lot. Primarily because what they're seeing in the field, what they're seeing at crime scenes are not 3D printed guns. They have a much broader and more difficult job of dealing with say just unregulated weapons that are crossing the border. And actually increasingly it's not 3D printed guns that we're seeing as problematic across in a global context. It's actually the kit guns. Guns that are being made out of what is called 80 percent receivers. So these are guns that are kind of almost put all together, that you can buy online. And you can have delivered to your house and carry out just a little bit of additional work. And you've produced an actual metal fully functional gun. And what we've seen in the recent mass shootings in California in particular, are the use of those ghost guns, these unregulated kit guns being used particularly again around that AR-15 rifle.

DM: I guess what has people concerned if it's undetectable. If it's a ghost gun. I mean you mentioned the ammunition may be a way to ensure that these weapons aren't misused or they don't end up in the wrong hands. How could regulating the ammunition work?

MATT RATTO: Well what's interesting about regulating ammunition is there has been a number of calls to do so in the past as part of gun control laws. So there's already a bit of a policy will, I guess I'd say to think through those kinds of issues. I mean there have even been laws attempted to be put in place about say you know, you can't just buy ammunition you know like you'd buy a Big Gulp at the 7-Eleven in that kind of context statement. But that would be another side you know, because typically ammunition is produced in an industrial context. There are companies involved in it. It is big money. And so we could kind of figure out that side as a place of intervention rather than the side of the actual gun itself, because truthfully in a sense those guns are available whether you're using a 3D printer, whether you're buying stuff at the Home Depot and putting it together you know out of pipe and things, or whether you're buying one of these 80 percent guns available online. Guns can be purchased, unregulated ghost guns can be accessed both in Canada and the United States.

DM: Thanks for joining us.

MATT RATTO: Thank you.

DM: Matt Ratto, is an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information where he specializes in the social implications of emerging digital technologies. He joined me in our Toronto studio. The CBC News is next. Then Rob Reiner joins me. The longtime Hollywood director and actor is looking back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq for his new film Shock and Awe. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Journalists today face a 'brick wall of nationalism,' says director Rob Reiner

Guests: Rob Reiner, John Walcott, Jonathan Landay

DM: Hi I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. Still to come Stephanie Case is passionate about human rights and running. She works protecting civilians and children for the U.N. in Afghanistan and she has run more than 35 ultramarathons, and now she has found a way to combine those passions. She has created a non-profit called Free To Run, that allows women in conflict zones to take part in outdoor sports. We'll revisit Anna Maria Tremonti's inspirational interview with Stephanie Case in half an hour. But first, Shock and Awe.

SOUNDCLIP

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: My fellow citizens. At this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq. To free its people. And to defend the world from grave danger. On my orders coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.

DM: March 19th, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush informs the American public of a military campaign against Iraq. That reasons had been all laid out by his administration, months earlier. But we've since learned that not everything in the run up to that war was as it was presented to be. And that's the subject of a new Hollywood film.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Simply stated there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

VOICE 2: They're dialing up the rhetoric on Iraq. Let's see if we can nail him down, okay? Let's get to work.

VOICE 3: Working on a theory the administration has already decided to go to war and is now focused on how to justify it.

VOICE 4: It's not a theory.

VOICE 5: A secret war planning group has been set up in the building where I work.

VOICE 6: And which building is that?

VOICE 7: The one with five sides.

DM: That was part of a trailer for Shock and Awe. A new film that charts the story of a group of journalists from the Knight Ridder news service who tried to get at the truth of what was happening at that time. And the new film's director is a veteran Hollywood name with his own history of championing the truth and progressive causes. It's the latest project for Rob Reiner: the actor, writer, and director whose work has included films from Spinal Tap to Stand By Me, and who portrayed the antiwar hippie Michael Stivic in the 1970s sitcom All In The Family. Rob Reiner is joining me from Los Angeles. And we're also joined by two former Knight Ridder journalists in our Washington studio. Both are portrayed by actors in Shock and Awe. They are Jonathan Landay who is now a national security correspondent for Reuters, and John Walcott who's now a foreign policy national security editor for Reuters. Washington D.C. bureau. Hello to you all.

ROB REINER: Hi there.

JONATHAN LANDAY: Hello.

DM: Rob Reiner let me start with you. Why did you want to tell this story?

ROB REINER: Well initially I wanted to tell the story because I couldn't believe that we were going to war twice in my lifetime based on a lie. I was of draft age during the Vietnam War. And as it progressed I first I tried it as a satire like a Dr. Strangelove. I couldn't get a script I liked. I tried it again as a drama. And then I saw this documentary by Bill Moyers. You know who was a press secretary to Lyndon Johnson. And he focused on these four journalists who I didn't know about. They had gotten it all right. And they had arrived at basically the same conclusions that I had arrived at in the run up to the war in Iraq but they couldn't break through. And I was amazed that there was anybody in the mainstream journalism who was trying to get at the truth. And so I thought this is the way into the story. To talk about the importance of journalists getting at the truth, pushing it out, and getting the public to understand that there's a line in the film that John Walcott who is the character I play in the film who actually said to his reporters when they started to doubt their reporting he said you know, when the government says something there's only one thing you need to ask. Is it true?

DM: And I want to play that clip a little later in this interview. But first let me ask John Walcott. Rob Reiner plays you in the film. How does it feel to have that chapter of your life and career made into a movie?

JOHN WALCOTT: It's a little bit surreal. But I have to say Rob was so determined to make this movie accurate that it really feels good. We were afraid. I was afraid at least when we first signed up to do this, that someone might exaggerate it whatever. But Rob's comments about sticking to the truth are as accurate about this movie as they are about the reporting we did.

DM: Did he get you right?

JOHN WALCOTT: Pretty much. You know I should let him tell this story actually. Rob why don't you talk about the direction that Michele gave you.

ROB REINER: Okay well first of all it was Alec Baldwin that was supposed to play the part, and he dropped out two days before he was supposed to start shooting. And we had already been shooting for a week with Woody Harrelson and Tommy Lee Jones. And so I didn't know what to do. And so my wife Michele, who is one of the producers said, well why don't you play the part? And I got nervous about it and I said, well I guess I'm available and cheap. And then she gave me one bit of direction. You know I am playing John Walcott and she said to me, try to be less Jewish. And I don't know if I pulled that off. But I tried.

DM: Jonathan Landay lets go back to the beginning of the war in Iraq. President Bush said it was motivated by weapons of mass destruction. You're a reporter, what was your initial reaction to the launch of that war?

JONATHAN LANDAY: Well I mean a lot of our reporting obviously took place in the months leading up to the war, beginning with 9/11. But you know the contention that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was hiding a nuclear weapons program, didn't make any sense given the fact that Iraq had been subject to the most intense international weapons inspection regime that had been concocted up to that time that these guys had scoured the country. Which was under enormous surveillance by the United States and other powers to ensure that the inspectors found what they were looking for. And don't forget you know this all took place after Saddam was defeated in the first Gulf War. So it made no sense that somehow Saddam Hussein was able to hide a nuclear weapons program from this intense scrutiny.

DM: I want to play a scene from the movie Shock and Awe. We'll talk about it after.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities, to find those responsible. And to bring them to justice.

VOICE 2: It has been 33 hours since the terrible and unprecedented attack on the United States. There is as we've said an enormous search and rescue operation. An enormous and intense criminal investigation. And we're just beginning to understand the extent of the catastrophe.

VOICE 3: What do you know about the preliminary plans to go after Bin Laden?

VOICE 4: I don't have anything to give you on that yet.

VOICE 3: Okay well how long before we're on the ground in Afghanistan? And how long do they project we will be there?

VOICE 4: Look I'm trying to get answers to the same questions you are. What I can say is, most of the talk this morning hasn't been about Afghanistan.

VOICE 3: Well what has it been about?

VOICE 5: Iraq.

VOICE 6: I got it from a source that say that got it from the Pentagon.

VOICE 7: In connection with the attacks, crackpot theories from people who don't know what the hell are talking about.

VOICE 8: It was Rumsfeld.

VOICE 9: Really?

DM: Rob Reiner what's going on in that scene?

ROB REINER: Well I mean that's when they first realize that the main target is not Afghanistan. That they had intentions to go to Iraq all along.

DM: John Walcott that was the day after 9/11. Why did that idea that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. Why did it seem, like it said in the movie there, like a crackpot idea to you?

JOHN WALCOTT: It was pretty clear from the very start that Bin Laden was one of very few terrorist leaders capable of pulling together an attack on that scale. But the idea that somehow a secular dictator, who was an enemy of Bin Laden, was in on it made absolutely no sense. And so literally that's why the flags went up on the 12th of September. And that's when the digging started. And as we dug, some of the things that were lobbed at us in defense of that theory were ludicrous. I mean my favorite one was that Saddam had hidden weapons labs in milk and yogurt trucks. That was my favorite of all.

DM: Jonathan Landay when you were starting to report on the buildup of the war with Iraq and most media weren't. What was that like for you?

JONATHAN LANDAY: Well I mean the movie portrays that pretty well. You know we were determined to follow where our journalism was taking us. And yet we were the only ones who were going there. And of course, when we don't see anyone else reporting what we were reporting, when some of our known newspapers were not publishing our stories because they hadn't seen it in The New York Times or The Washington Post. And when one of those newspapers and it will remain nameless, actually an editor at that paper actually commissioned two of his reporters to investigate us and what we were reporting. You know it was incredibly lonely. And you know I had sleepless nights. You know my fellow journalists did not. But I would go home after we published one of our stories and wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning going, are we right?

DM: You kept working lower level sources. Even though there were top officials who were leaking information. Why did you keep working those lower level military sources?

JONATHAN LANDAY: Well I'm going to have to quote Joe Galloway who you know the fourth member of our merry band, because he had a rule that I followed. We were both war correspondents. Joe covered Vietnam and other conflicts. I covered a host of conflicts from Iraq to Sri Lanka and Kashmir and spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. And when you're doing that kind of reporting, you talk to the generals of course but to really get the ground truth you've got to talk to the sergeants and the corporals and the privates who are in the trenches and taking fire. And they're the ones who can tell you what the ground truth is. So of course you want to go to the people in the mid levels and the lower levels of government agencies to find out what the ground truth really is because the people above them are political appointees and they have political agendas.

DM: John Walcott, Knight Ridder is a wire service. How were the papers that you were serving reacting to your reporting about raising questions about weapons of mass destruction?

JOHN WALCOTT: Well reactions were variable. And I have to say in the movie The Philadelphia Inquirer takes the hit for the team. They were by no means the only paper that resisted what we were doing. There was one incident at an editors meeting in San Jose, which is where Knight Ridder was headquartered, in which I was arguing for using our reporting and an editor of another paper, not The Philadelphia Inquirer, stood up and said it's The New York Times it's Judith Miller we have to run that. So it was incredibly frustrating but you pushed through that. You know you can't let your frustrations get in the way of trying to do good journalism.

DM: Well I mean as the Washington bureau chief you had a lead role in setting the agenda for your wire service. I want to play one more scene from the movie. This is Rob Reiner playing you.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Clearly we'd have to stay for a long time.

VOICE 2: Everybody listen up. We're not NBC. We're not ABC. We're not CBS. We're not FOX. We're not CNN. We're not the New York Times. We're not the Washington Post. We are Knigh Ridder. We have readers who live in towns with military bases. Fort Benning. Fort Bragg. Fort Jackson. And over 40 other military bases throughout this country. If every other news organization wants to be stenographers for the Bush administration, let them. We don't write for people who send other people's kids to war. We write for people whose kids get sent to war. So when the government says something you only have one question to ask. Is it true?

DM: Okay Rob Reiner you successfully made the hair on the back of this journalist neck standup. It's a nice moment, but it wasn't originally supposed to be in the script is that right?

ROB REINER: Well I think we had a little piece of it in the script. I don't think we had that whole speech. And I got to say that it was Jonathan Landay who when we were shooting, I mean the journalists were with us on the set. You know to keep it as as real as we possibly could, and Jonathan came up and said you know John gave this amazing speech to us when we were starting to doubt ourselves. And then John Walcott came in and basically recited that speech which you hear and we wrote it all down. And I tried to memorize it as best I could and then we shot it. So these are John Walcott's words. I mean we didn't make any of those words up.

DM: John Walcott what made you want to have that talk with your news staff at that particular time?

JOHN WALCOTT: Well a couple of things. One is as Jonathan said he and Warren in particular, were questioning whether they were right or not. Which is a good thing for journalists to do. But second, throughout my career I have made the distinction between stenography and journalism. It is not our job you know to simply record what people in power say, whether it's economic power or political power or military power. But finally in my mind our greatest obligation is to hold those in power accountable. And there is nothing that demands that more than a decision to send people to war. And as Joe Galloway says in the movie I'm going to clean this up a little bit from Joe is an original Texan. You know when the government screws up, it's the soldiers who pay the price. And that's something going back to what John said about covering people in the trenches downrange. That was always uppermost in my mind. You know it was the belief that no one should be sent in harms way, without ample evidence. And I'm reminded of that every time I go across the Potomac River to Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery. And anytime you go over there, you see widows, children who never knew their parents, kneeling at these graves. And they're the ones who pay the price and they're the people that we were serving.

DM: Yet at the same time John Walcott, I mean there was a fierce backlash toward media who were reporting critically on the Iraq war, why was that?

JOHN WALCOTT: Oh I think that's understandable. There was a great wave of patriotism that swept the country after 9/11. I think that's perfectly understandable. America in particular had not experienced that kind of attack since Pearl Harbor. We like Canada, had been safe behind two oceans. So it was an enormous shock that a nonstate actor, a relatively small terrorist group, could cause carnage on that scale. And so it was perfectly natural for people to rally around the flag. But you know that really had nothing to do with what we were doing. Following the herd is usually not a good journalistic practice.

DM: Jonathan Landay though I mean you said yourself there were times you were laying awake at night. And it is difficult. I mean it may be a righteous path, but it's often a lonely one. Were there times that you doubted the story you were trying to tell?

JONATHAN LANDAY: No I don't. I never doubted our journalism. I would worry, why isn't anyone else doing this? Why isn't anyone else reporting what we're reporting? The sources are out there. Why isn't anyone else doing this?

DM: Rob Reiner almost two decades have gone by since the start of the Iraq war. How difficult was it for you to bring this story to the screen? I mean I understand there were problems in trying to get a distributor.

ROB REINER: Well yes, I mean anytime you're making a political film, particularly one that criticized the administration even 15 years later, it's very very difficult. There was this nationalism that was out there. This super patriotism and we're seeing the same thing now. I mean we're seeing nationalism being thrust in our faces. And I think journalists now have essentially even a more difficult time of breaking through the truth, because you have two sets of narratives going on, you have one section of mainstream journalism that is fighting very hard to get to the truth and they're coming up against a brick wall of nationalism that is stoked by this other chunk of mainstream journalism which is essentially state run media.

DM: Well it does make me wonder Jonathan Landay. I mean following Iraq, The Washington Post, The New York Times, they both wrote editorials that admitted that they hadn't been skeptical enough when it came to the U.S. intelligence reports. Has journalism learned lessons from its weapons of mass destruction reporting with its reporting today?

JONATHAN LANDAY: Yes and no. Let me talk about the no part. During the 2016 presidential election, and I think you've heard senior executives from at least one cable news channel, talk about how great Donald Trump was for their ratings. And that every time he spoke they were just there allowing him to speak and not digging into his background sufficiently, to present some serious questions about his background to the American people. Since then however I think what I call the responsible mainstream media has I think done a pretty good job at holding this administration accountable or at least trying its best it can to hold this administration accountable, to question the assertions that we've heard from the president and his senior lieutenants, to question the policies and actions of his senior lieutenants. We've seen an extraordinary I believe unprecedented number of senior administration officials including cabinet members, who were forced to resign because of alleged malfeasance and alleged corruption that were uncovered by the responsible mainstream media.

DM: In this movie John Walcott, you and your journalists are being heralded as the journalists that got it right and it seems like with movies like Spotlight, and The Post. We're seeing you know some reflection about journalism digging for the truth and it has become kind of a subgenre at the same time that newspapers right across America and North America around the world are shutting down. Is that ironic to you?

JOHN WALCOTT: No it's a function of the change in our economy. It's a function of technology. I think the question is what will succeed traditional journalism? Journalism has been through these upheavals before caused by technology: the advent of radio, the advent of television, and now the Internet. So how will journalism adapt and continue to hold people in power accountable? What will hold together a free and independent media? We don't know that yet. And you know I teach a class at Georgetown University and I end every class, every semester, by telling the students, graduate students that it is up to them to fashion a new kind of media that still holds the feet of people in power to the fire.

DM: Rob Reiner the film will be opening in Canada soon and opened in the United States last weekend in 100 theaters. And it only grossed forty one thousand dollars.

ROB REINER: Yeah because the thing is, it also opened on iTunes and we were high up on iTunes. It was like of the thousands of films that they present we were, I think 16 or something like that. So people are seeing it. I mean the problem with a film like this, is they don't really promote it in the theaters. It's too expensive and so they put it in theaters as almost like an afterthought.

DM: Do you think the American public is ready for this now?

ROB REINER: Yes I do. Because every place that we've played it you know and in screenings, people love it. They go crazy for it. So we're getting a good response on like I say on iTunes. And I think people, if they're not ready for it, they have to be because it's more critical now that the public get the truth and understand the truth than ever before.

DM: And John Walcott last word to you, why do you think it's more critical now?

JOHN WALCOTT: Because I think as Rob has said, the notion of truth itself is under attack. Because it's more important than ever to hold people accountable for what they say and do. We're seeing that in the moment literally. We saw it in Brussels. We saw it in Helsinki. So the duty of reporters to challenge what is said, to ask that question that Rob keeps coming back to when the government says something, is it true? It's more important now probably than it's ever been. But I'll close by telling you a little anecdote about something that meant a lot to me. My family and I went to see the movie in one of the two theaters where it's available in Washington. And my youngest daughter stood up and announced to the audience that this is a movie about my dad. Which I frankly did not appreciate. But when it was over a fellow in his 30s came up to me with tears in his eyes and said he had served six tours in Iraq, and he walked up and he said simply with tears in his eyes. I want to thank you for that. You know that means more to me than what any of the critics have said. What anyone else has said, because that's who we were writing for. And I think that's part of what, guys like that are what this movie is about.

DM: Jonathan Landay. John Walcott. Thank you for your journalism and gentlemen thank you for joining us.

JOHN WALCOTT: It's been a pleasure.

ROB REINER: Thanks for having us.

DM: Rob Reiner is the director of the new film Shock and Awe. He was in Los Angeles. Reuters journalist Jonathan Landay, and John Walcott joined us from Washington D.C. Shock and Awe opens in Canadian theaters on Friday of next week. Coming up, she's a champion of human rights and a champion of ultramarathons. Anna Maria has interviewed Stephanie Case in our next half hour. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Meet the lawyer and marathon runner who creates safe spaces for others to compete

Guest: Stephanie Case

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

STEPHANIE CASE: Night three. Here we go. Small boat on the ocean, sailing big waves, it's motion.

DM: That's Stephanie Case singing to herself in the darkness. She is about 200 kilometres into a 330 kilometre trail race through Italy's Aosta Valley. And that's not unusual for her. She's a 36 year old Canadian, she has completed more than 35 ultramarathons and she has finished among the top five runners in 20 of those. But she credits that race in Italy as one of her proudest achievements and says that singing helped her get through to the finish.

SOUNDCLIP

STEPHANIE CASE: This is my fight song. Take back my life song. This is my tour song.

DM: Stephanie Case posted that video on her blog Ultra Runner Girl, where she writes about running war zones and everything in between. Because Stephanie Case is also a human rights lawyer, working for the United Nations in some of the world's most dangerous spots. She's combined those two passions in a charity she has founded. It's called Free To Run. And it aims to give women and girls living in conflict zones access to outdoor sports. Stephanie Case is stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan. But Anna Maria Tremonti caught up with her in Kingston, Ontario. In May of this year. She was fresh from competing for Team Canada at the trail world championships in Spain. Here again is their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

AMT: Stephanie Case. Hello.

STEPHANIE CASE: Hello. It's great to be able to speak with you today.

AMT: Listening to that you're a little out of breath but you are 200 Ks in, you’re no more out of breath than some people climbing stairs.

STEPHANIE CASE: I was having a really hard time not laughing through that whole thing.

AMT: Well, take us back to how you were feeling in those moments when you were singing.

STEPHANIE CASE: You know, when you get to that stage, I've been running for a couple of days, and you're really just trying to do anything you can to stay upright and keep your eyes open, especially when you're climbing up a hill, it's when you get into a bit of a a death march and your brain kind of shuts off. And so what I was trying to do was listen to that song and learn the lyrics because if you just listen to music it's not enough to keep you awake and you can hear I'm not a very good singer. But it was functional, there's no one around to me, anyway.

AMT: So talk about endurance. Tell us a little bit more about this race because it's 330 kilometres and up and down serious altitude?

STEPHANIE CASE: Yeah, there's about 24,000 metres of climbing throughout the race. So that's the equivalent of going from sea level to the top of Everest and back down two-and-a-half times. It's a pretty hardy race. It's just one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. I mean, you can go through so many highs and lows and it's a full body and mind challenge, really.

AMT: How many days are we talking about?

STEPHANIE CASE: You have 150 hours to finish, but I was racing pretty hard that year and I managed to finish that year and in 98 hours, so it was just over four days. And through that period I only got about two-and-a-half hours of sleep in total.

AMT: Wow. What does that do to you? How do you actually go forward? How do you stay lucid?

STEPHANIE CASE: Yeah. You know, being an forward motion just becomes your new normal and you just have to get used to doing everything while your legs are moving — thinking, eating, breathing, talking — but you can go through some pretty deep lows, especially, you know, in the middle of the night when you're climbing over a 3,000 metre pass and you're all by yourself and it's snowing or raining and you're just exhausted to the point that you just don't even believe that you can actually take another step.

AMT: But you are even hallucinating at one point in that race, weren't you?

STEPHANIE CASE: Yeah, I think it was sleep running, actually. I was coming down one of the mountain passes and it was in the middle of the night and it was quite foggy and I remember thinking, ‘I'm so glad my friend Michael is here running with me, otherwise I'd be too scared to do this on my own.’ And all of a sudden I just woke up falling into a ditch. And I wasn't sure really what was happening, but I looked around and Michael wasn't there and I was pretty annoyed that he had just left me, especially when I had fallen. And then I realised he was never there and I was having that whole interaction with him in some kind of a dreamlike state. My whole experience in ultra-marathons has been trying to find out what my limitations are. And that was one of those moments where I thought, ‘Finally after all these years of training and racing, I've found out what my limit is and I'm at it.’

AMT: Well you have talked about seeking the void, is that related to that? What is that?

STEPHANIE CASE: It's about — you know, modern life we're so busy and we kind of get into a bit of a routine where we just go to work, we come home, we've got family life, we've got friends and everything is quite hectic. And it's very hard for me, as I'm sure it is for a lot of other people, to take that time to just stop and to let my brain breathe and to just think and reflect on all of these things that are happening around me. And when I'm running that's when my brain can really stand still and I can really only get that through running.

AMT: You talk about how you keep going but just physically what are you eating? How do you keep going? How do you get the calories to keep moving forward?

STEPHANIE CASE: It's tough to get enough calories in because your body can really only digest between two and three hundred calories an hour if it's really working at its best. And in an ultra-marathon you could be burning 700,000 calories or more, depending on the altitude and the conditions. But for me, I end up relying a lot on potato chips because of the fat and the salt. And then and whatever my body craves — sometimes it's avocados. In Tor des Geants, for at least a day, I wasn't able to eat solid food without getting nauseous and so I just started thinking of anything that I could just swallow quite easily without having to chew and so I ended up getting my family, who were crewing for me, they went and got me a tub of ice cream and a can of aerosol whipped cream. And so I ate half-a-gallon of ice cream

and then when I was climbing up one of the hills I think about what I was trying to have my singing moment there, I had a candidate cream in my backpack and just kind of squirted some into my mouth whenever I needed a bit of energy. I even drank two cups of olive oil on that on that race just because I could tell that my body was starting to eat away at my muscles. And when I saw olive oil at one of the checkpoints I just thought it would be the quickest way to get a couple of thousand calories in.

AMT: Well that must take real training. So how do you train when you're living in conflict zones? What do you do when you're living in Afghanistan?

STEPHANIE CASE: It's pretty difficult. And this is my second time living in Afghanistan. I spent about four or five years living in areas of conflict in Afghanistan, South Sudan and Gaza. And I'm under quite strict security rules with the United Nations. So currently I'm not allowed to go outside of my compound except by armoured vehicles. So I live in an armed compound, the longest stretch of road is just over 500 metres. So I am able to run inside the compound but it's a pretty limited space. It’s lot of loops and treadmill. I also try to pull a tire around. That's one way to train for hills without having actual access to the hills. So I have a tire from one of the armoured vehicles, which is quite heavy because it's laced with steel, and I attach a bungee rope to it and then it attaches to a harness that I wear and I can drive that around the compound.

AMT: How many times would you go around with a tire?

STEPHANIE CASE: Well, you move very slowly, so I can go for maybe an hour or two.

AMT: An hour or two around and around with the tire? You’re a machine.

[LAUGHTER]

STEPHANIE CASE: Well, you know, when I first moved to Afghanistan the first time in 2012 people told me “You're going to have to give up your running.” And to me that just wasn't an option because my work, my human rights work, is just as big of a passion for me as my as my running. And I wanted to have both. And I just wasn't willing to accept that I'd only be able to do one. And so I learned back then how to make things interesting. You know, even though I've only got a small space to run in I can run at different times a day so it makes it seem like the areas different. When I run at night it looks different than during the day and I can use my imagination to think that I'm running around Central Park or running through the mountains or, you know, there's some areas of the compound that have a lot of garbage and debris and I pretend that that's my trail section because it requires a little bit more technical footwork.

AMT: And when you were working in Gaza were you in a compound as well? Where would you run?

STEPHANIE CASE: In Gaza it was a bit different. I was in an apartment building so I actually didn't have the luxury, really, of living inside a compound. I had to take an armoured vehicle to a nearby compound where there was even less space than what I have access to now in Afghanistan. And sometimes I couldn't get an armoured vehicle so I would have to run up and down the stairs in my apartment building. And with electricity only being on a few hours a day sometimes I'd have to put on my head

torch and my hydration pack and I would just run up and down the stairs and do circles around the around the rooftop.

AMT: Now you had a tire in Gaza too, it had a name, didn’t it? You named your tire?

STEPHANIE CASE: Yeah, the tire in Gaza was Tyrone. And I've just named my tire in Afghanistan — it's called Tyrell, which apparently means stubborn. So I thought that it was quite a good name. My mom came up with it for me.

AMT: I don't know if the tire’s the stubborn one.

[LAUGHTER]

STEPHANIE CASE: We’re a good match.

AMT: Or at least disciplined and determined, though. So what are you doing in Afghanistan? What is your work?

STEPHANIE CASE: So I work in human rights. Right now I'm the head of protection of civilians and child protection. So it's really looking at the different human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law committed by the different parties to the conflict and then trying to use that to better protect lives, particularly children as well.

AMT: And right now, you know, that we've seen a real wave of insurgent attacks heading into elections that are still in October. But how is that affecting the work that you do?

STEPHANIE CASE: It's it's been a very difficult time. It's been quite stressful. And, you know, the Afghans bear —they just bear a terrible toll. So it's very emotional work but it's something that I feel quite strongly about and quite privileged to be able to do. And you've worked with some Afghan women, notably two women one named Nelofar and one named Zainab. What can you tell us about them?

STEPHANIE CASE: Sure. They were our first ultra-marathon team through my charity Free to Run. So when I started Free to Run I really just wanted Afghan women to be able to have the same opportunities that we all experience, you know — the freedom to be able to step outdoors and to experience the power of sport. And when I started I really had quite modest goals. And it was just trying to find some safe space and opportunities for them to be able to move freely outside. But the first group of women that we worked with, they heard about my ultra-running and the races and they asked me lots of questions and I said” Someday I would really love to see an ultra-marathon team from Afghanistan.” And they said “Stephanie, why someday? Why can't we do it now?” And so it was from there that we formed the first ultra-marathon team from Afghanistan and it was of women. And that was Nelofar and Zainab. And so they went from being not runners at all to running a 250 kilometre self-supported foot race that you do over six days. And they finished. You know, it was just such an incredibly inspiring thing to witness because so many people didn't believe that they would be able to do that. It's something that grown men and women who have access to the best training and the best gear just aren't able to accomplish.

AMT: What’s that race called?

STEPHANIE CASE: It was the Gobi March. It's part of the Four Deserts series. And these women faced harassment, they had people throw stones at them when they were running on the street, calling them prostitutes for running. And no matter what they faced they didn't let it become anything that could hold them back from letting them achieve their goal.

AMT: So how many countries is your charity Free to Run actually working in now?

STEPHANIE CASE: We started in 2014 in Afghanistan and then we had a short project in South Sudan in a camp for internally displaced people where I used to work. Now we've actually started a project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And if we can get the funding we're hoping to open up a program in northern Iraq later this year.

AMT: And in between all of that you're still running these ultra-marathons as well? You went back to Tors Des Geants, did you not?

STEPHANIE CASE: I did. I had quite a big racing year last year. I had six pretty serious mountain ultra-marathons, which was significant for me because I'd had a near death accident in the mountains at the beginning of the year and was told that I might not be able to race or that I wouldn't be able to race all year.

AMT: What happened?

STEPHANIE CASE: I was training out in the Alps on January 1st on a trail that I knew very well. But I got a bit off the trail in the snow and I fell and I just couldn't stop myself and ended up hitting a tree and broke six ribs, lacerated my liver and punctured my lung — and I was by myself. So it was quite a serious accident and I almost didn't make it out. And the doctors told me ‘Don't don't even think about running this year.’ And of course when I hear that I just immediately try to find ways to make it work. And I was out running again after three-and-a-half weeks after the accident — after being in intensive care and in the hospital for about ten days.

AMT: That's incredible. And not only were you running you were training again for that giant marathon?

STEPHANIE CASE: I was, I was. I had had my accident in the same area where Tor Des Geants takes place. And so it was really meaningful for me to be able to come back and overcome my fears of being in the mountains and to prove that that actually my body and my mind had recovered, and just celebrating what my body could do. And one of the nurses who had been in the hospital after my accident, who had actually cut off my clothes when I first came in, she was a volunteer at one of the mountain huts one of the refuges when I when I came in. And she recognized me and she passed me a bowl of soup and she told me who she was. And it was really emotional for me to have that experience.

AMT: And so you have called that race — you said it almost broke you.

STEPHANIE CASE: It did. You know, I think before I did the race last year my performance in 2016, because it was second place and I was 14th overall, which just exceeded any expectation that I had ever had, that to me was my best performance. But now I'm looking at last year as my most favourite race, even though I did worse. But because I struggled so much more and I wanted to drop out at every checkpoint, because I was able to push through that and I did keep going, it now means a lot more to me.

AMT: And just in March you ran the Barkley Marathon, and it's known for being one of the strangest and most grueling ultras. Give us a snapshot of the Barkley?

STEPHANIE CASE: The Barkley Marathon is one of a kind. This race does not have an official race website, it's a secret on how to actually apply. People say that it's around 100 miles in distance but I think all of us know that it's got to be more. And it takes place in Tennessee and only 40 people are able to compete every year from around the world. It's been going on for decades I think still only about 15 people have finished and no women have ever been able to finish. It's a loop course. And what makes it so tough is that there are no trail markers, there's no actual trail that you're following. There is a course, but it's through the forest, through the bush. And you have to be able to decipher you know six pages of written instructions. Translate that onto a map and then follow that map with a compass. And you're going through the dark, through the rain. We had snow this year in the days leading up to the race. So it really is an adventure.

AMT: Well what you call an adventure, I don't know. Did you finish?

STEPHANIE CASE: I didn't. No one finished. There was one other Canadian, Gary Robbins, he was very close to finishing last year and this year he only made three loops out of five. I felt lucky I was able to do two loops. But outside of the allotted time period, but there were only three women who were able to get that far. So it was a good fail.

AMT: What is it you said, you’re a loser not a quitter?

STEPHANIE CASE: Loser, not a quitter. It was really important to me and my friend Gab, who I was running with, that if we were going to get pulled off the course it was because we would timeout and we weren't going to quit before we got to the end. In order to prove that you've made it along what the course should be, there are books buried in the forest under rocks, behind trees, along streams and you have to tear out a page of the book that corresponds to your bib number. And so we said we are not coming back until we find every book.

AMT: So what is it that you think or what is it that you have, what is it with you that you don't quit, that you just keep going?

STEPHANIE CASE: I think when we challenge ourselves and put ourselves outside of our comfort zone, when we face things that are difficult and uncomfortable, that's when you really learn the most about ourselves. You know, when you're out in the forest in the middle of the night and completely lost, you're

just stripped down to your basics and your true personality and your vulnerabilities. Everything just comes out and I think when we quit we're really doing ourselves a disservice.

AMT: And what's the connection for you between your running and your human rights work for?

STEPHANIE CASE: For me, it's really the same motivation. I think both are true passions and they're not easy. But my human rights work, it's a real calling for me. I wish some days that I would have been able to stay in my job as a corporate lawyer in New York because that would be a lot more comfortable at times. But I feel like it's my role and it's a way that I can I can give back. But like ultra-running, it's uncomfortable, it's messy, it's challenging and sometimes I really I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to continue. But what I've learned from ultra-running is that those times are temporary and any time that I'm scared to do something or I don't think I can do something and I I keep pushing through, I'm always thankful for it at the end no matter how it turns out.

AMT: And how have you seen it change those women in the conflict zones who have been running and who have embraced this kind of goal?

STEPHANIE CASE: If you can remember the first time when you learned how to ride a bike or the first time you laced up shoes and went for a run as a kid, that feeling of just being free and being able to experience your surroundings without fear, which isn't something we think about. You know, when you see women and girls getting to experience that for the first time at the age of 15 or 20 or 25 it has a profound impact on their entire lives, their mental state, their goals in life. Something as simple as having a training plan to work up to a 5k a 10k or a marathon, some of the women who have gone through this they said “Before I didn't have plans for my future. I didn't think about what I was doing next week or next month.” They were just focusing on getting through the day and now having this chance to experience sports has changed our whole approach to life.

AMT: Stephanie Case it's really good to talk to you, thank you.

STEPHANIE CASE: Thank you so much.

DM: Canadian Stephanie Case speaking with Anna Maria Tremonti in May. Stephanie Case is a top ranking competitive ultra runner and a human rights lawyer working for the United Nations in Afghanistan. And she tells us that she has just returned to Kabul after a two week break of R & R. During which she climbed Mont Blanc. From the Italian side ran a 120 kilometres from Italy to France in two and a half days, and continued training for a tour. She says it was and I quote, "Brilliant I bet the olive oil was outstanding too." If you'd like to read more about Stephanie Case's adventures and see photos or find out more about Free To Run, check out our website for links that's at cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. Actor Jeff Daniels is on the show to share some of his new music. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app, it lets you browse through past episodes of our show and start listening in just a few seconds. You can search for stories you missed or you want to hear again or listen live to your local CBC station right from your smartphone or your tablet. Hear the day's top stories, even make your own playlist of your favorite stuff to listen to later. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. What a deal. Finally I spoke with Rob Reiner earlier in today's show about Shock and Awe. His new film about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His latest project harkens back to his breakout role as Michael "The Meathead" Stivic on All In The Family. Here he is criticizing the Vietnam War. This is from an earlier episode of the series featuring one of his first encounters with Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor. I'm Duncan McCue and thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Anything interesting in the paper?

VOICE 2: Yeah, 200 arrested in Vietnam Day peace demonstration. 200 they should have thrown a whole bunch of them in the can. Look at that picture there. There they are throwing all kinds of junk at officers of the law. [inaudible]

VOICE 1: Well I think they just don't like the idea of America fighting an illegal and immoral war.

VOICE 2: Well if they don't like it they can dump it. Take it down the road and dump it.

VOICE 1: Well that would include me too Mr. Bunker.

VOICE 2: Then toodly you to you too.

VOICE 1: What would our leaving solve? I mean with or without protestors this country would still have the same problems.

VOICE 2: What problems?

VOICE 1: Well the war. The racial problem. The economic problem. The pollution problem.

VOICE 2: Oh come on. If you want to knitpick.

VOICE 1: Knitpick? Let me tell you something Mr. Bunker.

VOICE 2: No, let me tell you something Mr. Stivic. You are a meathead.

VOICE 1: What did you call me?

VOICE 2: A meathead. Dead from the neck up. Meathead.

VOICE 1: Oh yeah now I see what your idea of a free country is. You're free to say anything you want, but if anyone disagrees with you they are either thrown into jail or called a meathead. Right?

VOICE 2: That's right. This is America. Land that I love.

Thursday July 19, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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