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The AIH Transcript for September 11, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

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JD: Tonight.

CO: Powerless to stop it, powerless since it hit. As Irma makes its way across the southern United States, I'll speak with the editor of a newspaper on St. Maarten, an island which hasn't had power since the storm made landfall last Wednesday.

JD: Trouble in paradise. Parts of the Florida Keys are in ruins after Irma and a local meteorologist tells us what the storm did and how residents are pitching in to help with relief efforts.

CO: Confession is bad for the soul. After a group of Brazilian gold miners brag that they killed 10 members of an uncontacted tribe and threw their victims body parts in a river, prosecutors begin an investigation.

JD: Arms and the woman. It took more than a century but a new study proves that a Viking buried with a sword, arrows and a couple of horses was not a man as originally assumed

CO: As T.S. Eliot wrote it: you took the words right out of my mouth. A British poetry detective says he's discovered something odd about a book by a former Canadian Poet Laureate. It's full of translations of work by other writers.

JD: And…the problems were in vain, her efforts were not. While watching a speech our guest noticed the speaker had the telltale symptoms of potentially life threatening blood clots because she spoke to the speaker, the speaker is still speaking today. As It Happens the Monday edition. Radio that is glad that story and the speaker are still in circulation.

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Part 1: Irma: St. Maarten, Amazon tribe deaths, Viking warrior

Irma: St. Maarten

Guest: Gordon Snow

JD: From Florida to a chain of islands in the Caribbean, Hurricane Irma left a trail of destruction. At least 27 people are confirmed dead across the Caribbean since the storm made landfall last Wednesday. Many islands like St. Maarten are still in disarray with little food, water and telecommunications service. Gordon Snow is the Managing Editor of The Daily Herald newspaper in St. Maarten. He and his reporters have been working through the storm and its aftermath. We reached Mr. Snow in Philipsburg St. Maarten.

CO: Gordon what are the conditions in St. Maarten right now?

GORDON SNOW: The conditions compared with, even with yesterday, are a bit better. The roads have been cleaned up considerably over the last 24 hours. I've just been out driving to my home from one side of the island to the next and you really get the feeling that, you know, some of the worst debris and damage that's out there has been cleaned up already, and that, that gets you already feeling like hey, “We’re making a step forward,” after the terrible days that we've had over the last couple of days since Irma’s passing.

CO: Instead of asking you what has been destroyed, what actually didn't get destroyed? Because I understand about 90 per cent of the infrastructure was taken.

GS: That is an absolutely fair assessment. I myself, am a veteran of hurricane Louis in 1995, and compare it to hurricane Louis it's about double the damage. But what specifically the actual damage that we have suffered, especially to some of our biggest hotel projects. Our airport has suffered substantial damage, so has a cargo pier of our harbour. So yeah, economy-wise that's going to lead to some extra damage on top of the actual 90 per cent structural damage that you have out there. Aside from that of course, a lot of, a lot of people have lost part of their home or even their entire homes. Add to that still, the damage that wasn't immediately done by the hurricane was later also done by looters to some of the businesses, so they emptied all those businesses, so those businesses have to recover themselves.

CO: So this must be so disturbing for people that you survived this storm and yet have your, have your business or our home broken into?

GS: Absolutely, that was also an issue because of course no electricity and no water for the last four days and especially the electricity parts — of course it's dark all over the place. I must say that the security situation has improved over the last 48 hours with the arrival of extra police personnel from sister islands like Curacao and Aruba, as well as from Holland, as well as the arrival of Dutch, Dutch Marines that have substantially increased security.

CO: It has been reports that because there are shortages of supplies that people have been quite desperate — what are they doing?

GS: Yeah, the trouble with supplies is some people may have an estimated of the effects that the Hurricane was going was going to have on the islands, because they have never been through a hurricane before. Other people, because they lost their roofs, they're whole house and inventory went, so they lost all the food that they stocked up. So yes, some people have been getting desperate. I’ve talked to a few people out there who were really worried about feeding themselves and their families. But the Marines — the food supplies have arrived — specifically meals ready to eat, MREs, I think the military call those. And the question is now to distribute it to the people that really need it. So yeah there is some sense of desperation but the food is here. So the question is how to reassure the people that they're going to get the food.

CO: And, and they were kind of desperate enough that I guess some of the food distribution points people who had it got swarmed by those who didn't know how it was going to be distributed — or to whom.

GS: Yeah, well yeah, that's a question of communication. We have had a lot of communication issues. Most of our regular communication systems are down — things like e-mail, WhatsApp, and video were all not possible — and we are one of the few areas where part of the communication system’s still up and running. We only have one radio station up at the moment — who are by the way doing a superb job. But we are making headway, I want to stress that. So hopefully just like with the cleaning up the streets over the next 24 hours, hopefully some of that desperation is taken away from everybody.

CO: I know you have a lot to do and so I just want to ask you just finally how are you doing?

GS: I'm, I'm OK. I've been through this before, so for me I've been able to quite quickly turn the knob into survival mode, so to speak. I've pretty quickly told myself listen, “Yep we've been dealt a very, very harsh hand.” but yeah it doesn't make sense to just go and sit down and you know feel miserable. The thing is to go out there and be focused and start doing things to help improve things. And for me that means, you know, making sure that the people out there get their news. I have I have no damage to my apartments, maybe from that point of view it was easier for me to make it to take that step. Some of my family members did lose their roofs, so they did did lose a lot of their possessions. So emotionally that's that's yeah, it is very hard to take. But I try, you know, the first couple of days I had problems thinking about where this is going to lead, because you know we were responsible for about 100 people that work for us. That's mentally that's a hard thing to deal with. But I'm hanging in there, so I'm hanging in there. So I try to keep focused by working and trying to help out people.

CO: Gordon I'm glad you're OK and I I really appreciate you found some time to talk to us. Thank you so much.

GS: OK good talking to you Carol. Take care.

CO: Bye, bye.

GS: Bye bye.

JD: Gordon snow is the Managing Editor of The Daily Herald. We reached him in Philipsburg St. Maarten. Later on in the program we will hear from a meteorologist who weathered the storm in Key West.

[Music: Ambient Keys & Bass]

Amazon tribe deaths

Guest: Jonathan Mazower

JD: Late last month a group of uncontacted Indigenous tribe members in Brazil were searching for food near a riverbank. They had the misfortune to bump into a group of gold miners, and what happened next is now the subject of a federal investigation in Brazil. According to Funai, the Brazilian agency that protects uncontacted tribes, the miners killed several tribe members and stole their belongings. The investigation was first publicized by the NGO, Survival. Jonathan Mazower is the group's Media Director. We reached Mr. Mazower in Oxford, England.

CO: This time is our what were these gold miners doing in this area in the first place.

JONATHAN MAZOWER: Well, they've been prospecting along the main river in this area — the Jandiatuba River — actually for many years. So their presence has been known there for a long time. The price of gold is so high it really makes it worth their while to get to these remote areas. And of course that brings them into contact and conflict with the Indigenous people who live there.

CO: And what's the — as far as we know — what's the understanding as to what happened when these gold miners came into contact with these Indigenous tribe members?

JM: Well, the news that something had happened only emerged when some of these miners got drunk in a bar in the nearest town, and started boasting about what they had done, and showing off some of the things that they had taken from the Indigenous community that they'd attacked. And someone recorded what they said and passed it to the local office of the Indigenous Affairs Agency. So it appears that a significant number of the Indians were killed by the miners and there has been talk of up to 10 of the Indians being killed — including women and children — and their bodies thrown into the river. But those are the bare details that we have. What is known also, is that not that far away, in the same part of the Amazon, a few months ago, some burnt communal houses or Indigenous houses of another uncontacted group was seen, and there was speculation that that village also could have been attacked and the community’s houses burned.

CO: And now there are 10 possibly — as many as 10 — of these members, these indigenous tribe members thrown in the river, and I understand that they may have been cut out before they were thrown into the river.

JM: There are various, pretty grisly, details that has been reported of the bodies being mutilated and so on, but it's just really impossible to confirm those kinds of details, but it does appear that there has been some kind of pretty horrible attack. And it's something that Survival and other organizations had been warning about for quite a long time because the government in Brazil has been really cutting the budget of the Indigenous Affairs Agency and especially the government teams who are supposed to protect the territories of uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, and these territories have been left unprotected. And, you know, there are literally thousands, upon thousands of gold prospectors, and loggers, and other people who are pouring into these areas.

CO: And now as you say that without the fact that these miners were actually bragging about what they had done it may not have even been known that day that these tribe members had been killed.

JM: That's right, I mean another uncontacted group which has Survival is campaigning on behalf of, called the Kawahiba, who live in the neighbouring parts of the Amazon, there are thought now to be a very small number of them surviving because so many of them have been killed by invaders in recent decades. But the precise details of when and who carried out those attacks, of course, is simply not known.

CO: What did the miners claim that they had stolen or taken from the people they killed?

JM: The only detail I’ve seen in the reports that have come out from Brazil is that they were showing a paddle, you know, that would be used to paddle their canoe. But I think there were other things too. They were talks about showing off trophies.

CO: Well given that they had taken these trophies — there's some some evidence of where the actual event probably took place. Any possibility that they're able to find the evidence of what happened — are the police looking for that?

JM: I think that there is a reasonable chance — because this case unusually has heaved a great deal of publicity — and so I think the authorities will feel under quite a lot of pressure now to actually take this seriously and investigate it properly. In other similar cases that Survival and others have reported, you know, which haven't had this level of publicity, no one's been brought to justice. Usually no one is brought to justice — that's the usual state of affairs. But we're hopeful that in this particular case those responsible can be brought to justice.

CO: As I understand this tribe is one of the tribes that is what they call uncontacted tribes that are supposed to be protected from any kind of contact with the outside world because they haven't had that before and the exposure could be quite devastating to them. What else do we know about this particular type?

JM: Very little actually, although, the a general way of life is known because it's similar to the other uncontacted tribes in that area. This area is known as the “uncontacted frontier” because it actually contains, in that part of the Amazon, more uncontacted tribes than any other place on earth. And many of these other tribes have been photographed from the air where it seems that they have gardens around their villages which are full of crops. They clearly hunt and gather too, and they live generally in one or two communal houses, which between them house all the members of the tribe, but they generally have no peaceful contact with outside society. And given that when they do have contact it's very often this kind of thing. In other words, very violent, and very dangerous for them, then it's not surprising that they're simply trying to live in peace as far away from the non-Indigenous people as possible.

CO: Very disturbing story. Mr. Mazower I appreciate you speaking with us. Thank you.

JM: Thank you.

CO: Good night.

JM: Goodnight.

JD: Jonathan Mazower is the Media Director of the NGO Survival International. We reached him in Oxford, England.

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Viking warrior

Guest: Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson

JD: A researcher in Sweden believes she has found evidence of what could be a female Viking warrior. More than a century ago, archaeologists discovered remains in a grave in the Viking Age town of Birka in Sweden. The body, which was buried alongside weapons and horses, was believed to be that of a man. But according to new study that belief was wrong. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson is the lead author of that study. We reached her in Stockholm.

CO: Ms. Hedenstierna-Jonson, why do you believe it's possible that these remains are that of a woman?

CHARLOTTE HEDENSTIERNA-JONSON: Well, we have done DNA tests — from the nuclear DNA , so it's core DNA — and it clearly shows that it is a female.

CO: And what was — the grave that these remains are found in — can you describe what that looked like and what was there?

CHJ: It's actually one of the more famous graves from the time period it's a mid 10^th-century grave and it's of a type called a chamber grave, so they made a chamber underneath the ground. And this particular grave is extensively furnished with weaponry, and stands out as one of the most complete warrior graves that has been excavated in this site. And, I guess, that's why we have always thought it was a man because nobody actually took the care to look at the skeleton — it was just so obvious that this was a warrior.

CO: What is a kind of a typical Viking warrior grave? How is that laid out, how is that different from other graves — maybe give few more details about that?

CHJ: Well, it's a very good question because, I mean, if you're an archaeologist you would always question if the grave goods found in a grave also reflect the role of the people or the person who is interred in the grave. So that's a separate question, but what we would call a warrior grave, is of course, a grave with weapons, and weapons from this time period — the sword, the axe, could be battle knives, spears, arrows, and shields — and all of these types of weapons have been found within this particular grave. So it's a very complete set of weapons. But then, again as I said, we know what's in the grave and we know that the person but in the grave is female. But if she was actually a warrior, or why the weapons are there? — That's a separate question, and it's very important, I think, to discuss.

CO: So you're not drawing the conclusion that she was a warrior — she's in a Viking warrior grave but perhaps not necessarily a warrior?

CHJ: It sounds a bit strange but there is always a discussion on how the grave goods reflect the dead person, because it's, of course, the people that made the grave, and made the funeral arrangements that decided what to put in the grave. Often we generally think that the objects do reflect the person within the grave. But if it's a direct link — if they were actively using it's their own objects, or if it's more symbols for a family, or a role — that could be an issue. That's something that needs to be discussed in this particular case. I would rather say that it is her personal equipment, and that it is arranged by the people living after her that, in a way, to display her role as a warrior, and her role as a person within the military structure that has a quite high rank, and is also responsible for planning and performing in battle.

CO: And you mentioned it's a chamber grave, so the remains are kind of arranged in a way, so anything about that that gives you any more clues about her role or how she was thought of at the time?

CHJ: She was placed not flat on her back but probably sitting, or at least leaning. And when she has decomposed or when the body has decomposed she's fallen to one side. When she's surrounded by her weapons, and she also has the complete dress. We can see that the dress accessories are not those of a female, but rather of one who would have worn a male dress. Why this is interesting is because we do have burials with women and weapons. But then the women have their female dress accessories so it's quite easy to argue logically that it's a woman. In this case there are no indications archeologically that this would be a female. And outside this chamber, but still within the grave pit, there are two horses buried —they’d been sacrificed particularly for the burial. These two horses also give an indication that there's something special, because of course not everybody got horses within their burial. But when we do find them they are generally stallions. But in this particular case one is a stallion but the other is a mare. So they've made a choice to have one female and one male horse, so to say, within this burial and that may also strengthen this argument that it's, it's to show her special role and special position in a very marshall society.

CO: Does this change the perception of the Vikings as being a kind of very, very male oriented, patriarchal kind of organization — the military part at least — or is this just an anomaly?

CHJ: Well, I do think that it's it opens our eyes to the complexity of prehistoric societies, that just as our society today, is complex and filled with people that do different things. So what society is doing pre-history of course. Viking Age society was quite different from modern day society and there were probably differences between men and women but they were not really the same differences that we have. And I think that she was quite unique we know of a couple of other graves that do contain women buried with weapons, but without female dress accessories. So there are possibly a handful of these warrior ladies but I don't think that they, they were common and I don't think that the marshall sphere was all that open to women in general, but in particular cases of particular persons was another, another question.

CO: Well it's just fascinating. Ms. Hedenstierna-Jonson I appreciate you telling us this story. Thank you.

CHJ: Thank you.

CO: Bye, bye.

CHJ: Bye

JD: That was Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the lead author of a study that was published this month in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. For photographs of the grave, do visit our website: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Jazz]

12 Years A Slave wine

JD: When TIFF — the Toronto International Film Festival — hits this city every year, everyone goes a little bit nuts. The cinephiles who line up for hours to ensure that they will see the Bulgarian doc about one woman's courageous struggle to master juggling, the celebrity watchers who line King Street for an opportunity to see the back of Shia LaBeouf head, and the local papers, which produce dozens of festival related stories, no matter how tenuous the link. Well on Friday the Toronto Star ran an article in which a wine writer suggested pairing certain wines with certain films that had played at TIFF in the past. It was a stretch to begin with, and pretty much instantly it snapped, because the second recommended pairing was a 2016 Ogier Ventoux Rosé with the film 12 Years a Slave. And the writer writes quote, “based on a horrific but true story, 12 years a slave tells a tale of slavery in the United States in the 1800s. Of course the cruelty violence and accuracy of the events pictured makes it a difficult film to watch but at the same time important .So offset the searing cinematic discomfort with this smooth, dry, understated rosé,” unquote. So at this point most readers were pairing this article with straight vodka. And that was before they read the recommendation for the movie Still Alice. Quote, “This heart wrenching story of a 50-year-old woman's struggle with early onset Alzheimer's disease calls for something intense but elegant, so pour this wine with its rich tapestry of sweet plum, warm wood-smoked meat, spicy tobacco iodine, and slate,” unquote. Well today, Kathy English, the Star’ Public Editor tweeted quote, “ All involved agree this was in bad taste. Newsroom taking steps now to remedy.” Those two pairings have now been cut from the article. But that is what happens when you let a film festival blur vision you end up looking at the world through rosé colored glasses.

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Part 2: Irma: Key West, blood clot lecture

Irma: Key West

Guest: Bill Self

JD: With Irma approaching Florida on Friday local Key West D.J. by the name of Louie C. Rock told us that he was going to stay put to ride it out. Now as it happened, with the hurricane bearing down on him, he had a change of heart —he sped north. Some on the keys however, did stick around, and they are now helping with relief efforts after Irma battered the islands. Bill Self is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service on Key West and that is where we reached him.

CO: Mr. Self, what's life like in Key West today?

BILL SELF: Well, life is really about the community today. It's about getting out there — one person helping the other. I was really working today, but I asked my boss if I was able to get out into Key West today and help some people out during the recovery process. So I got out, walking around and saw a bunch of tree damage — there are a lot of trees down — very large trees blocking entire roads. There are trees that fell into people's roofs. Roof damage, there's also roof damage from wind. I saw a whose roof was peeled back by the force of the wind of the hurricane, and pushed probably into another person's yard.So we were out there trying to clear the primary and secondary roadways to try to get this little island of ours back on its feet again.

CO: Now people were expecting much worse, or where braced for it — was it a relief to see the city largely still standing today?

BS: Yeah, it definitely was. The eye wall of Hurricane Irma really impacted the islands between Big Coppitt Key, which is about 15 miles away from Key West, to Marathon, which is 15 miles from Key West is Big Coppitt, and 50 miles away from Key West is Marathon. So that general area actually took a big, bigger hit than Key West itself. And we said a team of about three or four people up there to try to assess the damage in that area. They got as far as Big Pine Key they didn’t get to Marathon. But there was complete roof failures on Big Pine Key. I don't know how many in particular, but the damage seems to be a lot worse on Big Pine Key compared to Key West.

CO: And there was just that one major highway that connects the keys — so is it possible to get from Key West to Miami?

BS: Not at this time, Monroe County is closed. I'd like to emphasize that for all the evacuees, if you decide to come back now, you're not going to get past Florida City and into the Keys — there's a roadblock.

CO: Now what about power? What about all kinds of infrastructure? What's there — what isn't?

BS: Right now there is no, no power. I believe no power from about Islamorada to Key West. There's no commercial power, no cell phone services, And that water pressure is very, very low. So those are the three things that need to be addressed, outside of the bridges being cleared, also before people can come back in. Just establishing the infrastructure again. Today really was the first step. There were a lot of aerial flights over the keys today to assess the damage, and then we just got to keep working on the water pressure and to get the power restored.

CO: And what about in Marathon — how much worse are they at this point?

BS: They, they had probably had a little more damage than Key West, but probably not as much as Big Pine Key. They're working on that now. We're working on getting the airports open. Some of the secondary roads are still flooded. But the primary roads U.S. one is open. So we have to kind of wait before we can get back into the secondary roads to see before we can come up with any type of damage assessment whatsoever.

CO: All these places that you're mentioning are — anyone who has driven through the Keys or been there, they're all very familiar — and I'm sure images coming to mind of what it looks like and also knowing that these people mostly in the Keys are pretty self-sufficient they take, they take things in stride don't they. So how are people doing — are they getting getting back to normal?

BS: I was, I was actually surprised, when I went out today, by the amount of positivity the people had. A lot of their attitude was like, “We will rebuild, you know, we're still here. We haven't lost our lives, that's the most important thing, we can always rebuild.” And, you know, for some of these people who suffered some damage that they did, it's an incredible attitude to have. Instead of a woe-is-me attitude, they had a positive attitude, that we will rebuild and, you know, at least we didn't lose what's most important — and that’s their lives.

CO: Now I know you have — you’ve been working professionally as a meteorologist for days, and now you're out being a citizen and trying to do what you can to help. So when was the last time you had a good night's sleep?

[LAUGHTER]

BS: You know, I haven't had one good night's sleep probably since, I don't know, Tuesday. What is today Monday? That’s Six days? Yeah. Probably about six days. Ever since the storm became a thread I really started gearing up for it on Labour Day. And from that point forward it was just, you know, pedal-to-the-metal, you know, got to get things done — had to prepare personally, had to prepare professionally, had to prepare my family, had to get them out of here, send them to Orlando, which is emotionally hard to do as well. So it’s been a long six days.

CO: And when can they come back. Well they can come back as soon as we're able to make sure that they're able to safely drive through the Keys. And it's hard to say when that will be right now. Like I said, today was a real first day of recovery. I'm just hoping and praying that all the bridges are safe. And if that's the case then it will be a lot sooner than later.

CO: Mr. Self I just hope you get a break soon. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BS: Thank you very much.

JD: Bill Self is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service on Key West, Florida.

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Rohingya UN

JD: Last week on the program we covered the violence in Myanmar. And at that time the number of Rohingya Muslims that had fled that country for Bangladesh since late August, was in the tens of thousands. Today according to a statement by the UN that number is estimated to be over 300 000 people. Myanmar and its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, are facing international criticism for their handling of the situation. And today the UN's top human rights official spoke about his concerns. Here is part of what Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein had to say earlier today to the UN Human Rights Council.

SOUNDCLIP

ZEID RA’AD Al-HUSSEIN: Last year I warned that the pattern of gross violations of the human rights of the Rohingya suggested a widespread or systematic attack against the community, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity, if so established by a court of law. Because Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators the current situation cannot yet sorry cannot yet be fully assessed. But the situation remains, or seems is a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. The Myanmar government should stop pretending that the Rohingyas are setting fire to their own homes and laying waste to their own villages. This complete denial of reality is doing great damage to the international standing of a government which, until recently, benefited from immense goodwill. I call on the government to end its current cruel military operation, with accountability for all violations that have occurred, and to reverse the pattern of severe and widespread discrimination against the Rohingya population. I strongly urge the authorities to allow my office unfettered access to the country.

JD: That was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein speaking earlier today in Geneva.

[Music: Ambient Guitar Plucks]

Blood clot lecture

Guest: Dr. Iris Jaffe

JD: If you see something, say something. That is a lesson that doctors are taught in med school. And that lesson may have saved the life of Joe Brown. Professor Brown was giving an ethics lecture this summer at Bentley University in Boston, and while she was speaking a doctor in the audience noticed some symptoms that alarmed her — so much so that she felt she had to speak up. Dr. Iris Jaffe is that doctor. She is a cardiologist at Tufts Medical Center. We reached her at her office in Boston.

CO: Dr. Jaffe, take us back to when you were watching this lecture and you began to see something that disturbed you about Professor Brown — describe what you what you noticed?

DOCTOR IRIS JAFFE: So I was listening to a long lecture and I noticed that when Dr. Brown would have extremely long sentences she would sometimes have to take a deep breath in the middle of the sentence before she could finish. And that is not something that's normal and usually is a sign of shortness of breath. She had already mentioned that she had, had foot surgery and that made me look down at her feet and I noticed that her leg was swollen to about the knee on the side where she had had the surgery — and so that was another unusual thing that I noticed about the professor. And as a physician the combination of a swollen leg and shortness of breath really makes you think immediately about a blood clot to the lungs.

CO: And you also noticed something about her neck — Can you describe that?

IJ: Yes, and that's when I really got worried, in fact. So I continue to sort of observe from the lecture room, and I was sitting about three rows up, and I noticed that I could see her neck veins pulsating in her neck ,which is quite unusual to be able to see from far away. And that's a sign usually of strain on the heart. And again could be a sign of a blood clot to the lungs. In fact, a blood clot to the lungs that is already causing the heart some stress and that's what made me very worried.

CO: Did you know that the professor who was giving the lecture?

IJ: No, not at all. So I had met her for the first time ever that morning as part of a leadership training course, and I was not there as a physician, I was there as a student in the class. So I had never met her before, and I knew nothing about her except her credentials for teaching, and she had mentioned that the beginning of the lecture that she had had foot surgery a few weeks ago.

CO: So you didn't know her, you're not her doctor, obviously — how difficult was it for you to approach her about your concerns?

IJ: So, on the one hand I was quite worried about her. I felt pretty confident that she had a blood clot in her lungs. And I also know as a physician, that many people survive the first blood clot but sometimes the second one can kill you instantly. So on the one hand I felt a lot of hesitation about approaching her because I'm not her physician. She had not shared this information with me willingly or asked for my opinion — I had just noticed. But on the other hand I was worried for her survival. And that's what made me say something.

Co: And what did you do?

IJ: So, luckily at the next break, I found her by herself in the room where we were getting ready to have lunch. So I approached her, and actually I approached her and maybe it was a rather amusing way, we were having a class on ethics. And here I was having an ethical dilemma about whether or not to approach her or not. So I went up to her and I said, “Professor I have an ethical dilemma, can I run it by you?” And she said, “Sure,” she was kind of excited about it. And that's when I said well I'm not your physician and I don't know anything about you, but I think you might have a blood clot in your lungs. And I think you really need to seek medical care right away.

Co: How did she respond?

IJ: I think she was very surprised at first, because I don't think that's the ethical dilemma she thought I was going to share — maybe something related to business because that's what the course was about — but she had a lot of questions about, you know, why did I think this, and what were my concerns? She was very grateful immediately, so that made me feel better about the decision I made to talk to her about it. So she thanked me for telling her and that was rewarding.

CO: And what advice did you give her?

IJ: So I told her that she should go to the emergency room immediately because pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot to the lung, can be lethal, and it can be lethal rapidly. And my real concern was that now that I had noticed this I didn't want anything to happen to her before she could get it taken care of. So that's what I told her to do. I was a little bit worried because she had plans to fly, that evening, after the lecture — and another risk factor for blood clots of flying. And I also worry that if she was on an airplane and something happened it could be devastating.

CO: And what did she say to you? Was she going to change her plans?

IJ: I was a little bit worried that she was going to fly home anyway, and in fact, that's what she did. She flew home and then went to the emergency room.

CO: Yikes. And how did you do — I mean this must have plagued you for the weekend — how did you hear from her again? How did you reconnect with this story?

IJ: Yeah so, I was really worried about what would happen, particularly because I thought she might get on an airplane that afternoon. So I worried about it for the weekend and I decided I was going to try to reach out to her on Monday if I didn't hear from her. But then on Sunday, the day before that, I got an e-mail that was entitled, “Thank you for saving my life. Really.” And of course as soon as I read the e-mail and who it was from, I knew she was still alive. And so, I was totally relieved just by that statement. But then I read her description and she explained to me that she had flown, home gone to the emergency room, and been diagnosed with a blood clot in her leg — and in both lungs.

CO: And so what did what did they say at the hospital about how timely it was for her to appear?

IJ: Yeah, so she had written to me in the e-mail, that the emergency room doctor, as well as her primary care physician, and the lung doctor she had followed up with, all had said it was really lucky that she had been told to come to the emergency room, and they said to her, “This woman probably saved your life.” And that's what she had relayed to me in this e-mail, and was very thankful and grateful that I had done that.

CO: And how do you feel about that?

IJ: You know it's funny, my original feeling was mostly relief that she was still alive. I didn't even really think about, you know, that's great but I made the diagnosis, or how lucky it was that I happened to be in the class. There were no other physicians in the class, so it was just sort of, one of those unbelievable coincidences of two people being in the same place. But really I felt mostly just relieved to know that she had gotten medical care and that that's were going to be OK.

CO: Well that's quite the ethical dilemma.

IJ: Yes, but I think in the end, you know, I'm happy that I made the decision that I made, and I feel like when you put it in terms of a potential life threatening event, versus the potential to be wrong and maybe embarrass both of us a little bit, it seemed like an obvious decision in the end.

CO: Dr. Jaffe, I'm so glad you were there and I appreciate you telling us this story.

IJ: Well thank you. Thank you for your time.

CO: Bye, bye.

IJ: bye.

JD: Dr. Iris Jaffe is a Cardiologist from Tufts Medical Center. We reached her in Boston.

[Music: Upbeat Banjo]

From Our Archives: Nancy Dupree obit

JD: She was known as the “Grandmother of Afghanistan,” even though it was only her adopted home. American historian Nancy Dupree died on Sunday in Kabul. She was 90 years old. Ms. Dupree first moved to Afghanistan in 1962, and almost immediately began collecting and archiving historical artifacts and documents. After the Soviet invasion in 1979 when Ms. Dupree was forced to leave the country. She moved to a refugee camp just across the border in Pakistan in order to help Afghan refugees. Last year Nancy Dupree took part in a debate at NATO headquarters in Brussels, on the importance of history in resolving the conflict in Afghanistan. Here's part of what she said.

SOUNDCLIP

NANCY DUPREE: It became very obvious in Afghanistan, at a certain point, that there's so many of the young generation who are coming back from exile — being refugees. And they didn't know beans about their history. So we have this present phenomenon, which is terrible — thousands of people, almost every day, standing in the visa office trying to get passports to get out of Afghanistan. And yet, Afghanistan needs these educated young people — but they've given up — the future looks too bleak. So for many valid reasons they want out. But a nation keeps its integrity only when its members hold fast to values from their history and their heritage. They have no interest in history. They are only concentrating on surviving for the moment, and what they're going to give their children for their future. They want out and this is disastrous. So, my dedication to collecting and disseminating simple, basic information, and knowledge. And I was lucky enough I had people who were supporting me in Afghanistan. It's usually who you know, not what you know. So I'm more motivated to keep on with all this because I think I would like to persuade some of the young people to stay and identify. But we've got to give them a sense of belonging by knowing their history.

JD: Nancy Dupree speaking during a debate at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Ms. Dupree an American historian who spent most of her life in Afghanistan, died on Sunday in Kabul. She was 90 years old.

[Music: Somber Guitar]

Quote/Unquote: cubed ham

JD: Now Quote/Unquote.

[Music: Quirky Hip-Hop]

JD: Strolling through the downtown core of any major city you can be confronted with some challenging realities. I mean, sometimes a walk in the park, really is no walk in the park. And sometimes, although extremely rarely, a walk near the park, is a walk near some pork. On Friday, Michael Evetts was walking up Charles Street in Baltimore when he saw a chilling sight. Well more likely a sight that had once been chilled, but was slowly warming in the morning sun. He tweeted a photo of it, in his capacity as the vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. The tweet read quote, “You'll see a lot of things just walking around today apropos of nothing, we found a pile of ham,” unquote. For indeed he had, a fairly large pile of cubed ham at that just dumped on the border between the sidewalk and some grass. This became a minor sensation locally. And while some others might have been badly shaken by the random ham, Mr. Evetts maintained an admirable sense of pork-spective as he mused to the Baltimore Sun quote, “We do a lot of serious work and we have men and women on the streets every day, and I think that they have seen weirder things like this. But it's a rare moment when you come across a pile of ham,” unquote.

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Part 3: Irma: manatee rescue, poet laureate

Steve Bannon on 60 minutes

JD: When Steve Bannon left the White House last month that was big news in the world of American politics. Mr. Bannon was, of course, President Donald Trump's Chief Strategist in the White House. And depending on what you read he was either a sinister master of puppets trying to impose his nationalist agenda on the White House, or a master political operator trying to impose his nationalist agenda on the White House. But in all the time that he spent as the centre of attention, both during the election campaign, and in the White House, we heard very little from the man himself. That changed last night when CBS's 60 Minutes broadcast Mr. Bannon’s first ever TV interview. Mr. Bannon of course has made no secret of his distaste for the mainstream media. And things between Mr. Bannon and the interviewer, Charlie Rose, got a bit heated at times — like in this exchange about the President's use of Twitter.

SOUNDCLIP

STEVE BANNON: He uses Twitter and they call me oh you're the enabler of the Twitter. I think what he does on Twitter is extraordinary — he dis-intermediates the media. He goes above their head and talks directly to the American people.

CHARLIE ROSE: It's not a question of going over the head of the media — it's what he says.

SB: No, it's what he says that you deem —that the mainstream media — the pearl-clutching mainstream media. Now the pearl clutching mainstream media — what they deem is not correct, what they deem as not right.

CR: No it's not a question of being right or not right. It's not a question of appropriateness, it’s a question of whether it's in his interest. That's the point.

SB: I don't think he needs, I don't think he needs the Washington Post, and The New York Times, and CBS News, and I don't believe he thinks that they're looking out for what's in his best interest. OK. He's not going to believe that, I don't believe that, and you don't believe that.

JD: And then in another exchange Mr. Rose asked Mr. Bannon about the firing of FBI Director James Comey back in May.

SB: I don't think there's any, I don't think, I don't think there's any doubt that if James Comey had not been fired we would not have a special counsel.

CR: Yes. So it would not have the Mueller investigation?

SB: Would not have the investigation in the breadth that clearly. Mr. Mueller is going.

CR: Do you believe.

SB: I think it's a very directional I think directionally is a very clear.

CR: Do you believe Mr. Mueller should be fired?

SB: No I do not.

CR: Has there been discussions in the White House about firing him?

SB: I would not tell you about discussions in the White House, but I would tell you nothing I ever heard like.

CR: Someone said to me that you described the firing of James Comey — you you're a student of history — as the biggest mistake in political history.

SB: That would be probably be too bombastic even for me — but maybe modern political history.

CR: So, The firing of James Comey was the biggest mistake in modern political history?

CR: If you're saying that, that assumption is made then I'll leave it at that.

JD: Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, speaking to Charlie Rose last night on 60 Minutes.

[Music: Upbeat]

Irma: manatee rescue

Guest: Tony Campos

JD: Most places hurricane Irma brought torrential rain and catastrophic flooding. In Sarasota, Florida yesterday, it was the lack of water that was the problem. See, the eye of the storm had sucked the water from Sarasota Bay leaving nearly 300 metres of sea bed exposed — and two manatees trapped. Tony Campos is one of the people who found the manatees and posted a cry for help on Facebook. We reached Mr. Campos at his home in Sarasota.

CO: Tony, what was it like to look out over Sarasota Bay yesterday? Just describe it for us if you would?

TONY CAMPOS: It was shocking, you know, more than anything. I've never seen anything like this, you, know my 16 years I lived here. And I know people I talked to this morning that have been here all their lives and this has never happened before. It is a bit terrifying, you know, — like the world was coming to an end.

CO: How far would you have to go out in order to actually have a seashore — to actually reach the water?

TC: I would say about 300 yards. It was, you know, it was pretty big — about three football fields.

CO: So lots of sea creatures who are stranded — but how did you learn about these manatees?

TC: I have a friend, and she said she was going for a walk and she posted pictures of these blobs like out there, and when I saw that I was like, “Oh my god. I think those are manatee. So I took her pictures and I shared them on social media and I went out there to check it out. And it took me about 10 to 15 minutes. You know, is there's wind blowing, and you know, I was trying to be careful getting there, and by the time I got there, like I saw that the post that I shared had over 2000 shared shares, and, you know, everyone was just talking about it and sharing the story — so the story got out really really quiet.

CO: So when you got when you got to the manatees — were they alive, were they in good shape?

TC: They were definitely alive. They just they just looked — they were miserable, you know. You can just tell by looking at them that they were in distress.

CO: So what did you do?

TC: Well, there wasn't much I could do unfortunately, I was, you know, manatees or 500 pounds. So I just, you know, I tried calling Mote Marine, which is the submarine Laboratory in Sarasota, and they didn't pick up, you know, everyone was on lockdown — like all the businesses were closed. So then I called the authorities and FWC, and they said, you know like, you tried to do something about it. And you know they told me to just to get out the bay, because of my safety. They didn't know you know how the water was going to come. One of things — when I was out there in the flats — I just had a really, really bad feeling about being out there. I didn’t know if the tide was going to come back in smooth or it was going to come crashing hard. It was just really just you know fell out of place.

CO: Because of all the social media you were generating about this — you did manage to get the word out to wildlife authorities and when did they finally arrive to rescue the manatees?

TC: It was about I’d say less than one hour. It was really, really was fast and it just shows how powerful social media is. You know, you can make and press a button and then you know, your story or you pictures can reach out to hundreds of people all at once.

CO: And what did the wildlife people do?

TC: They have really ingenious ideas. Instead of just dragging the manatees — because they can get four wheelers or ATVs out there because it was down the bay — so they got these tarps and they slid the manatees onto the tarps, and once the manatee he was on the tarp they pulled the manatee towards the water. Kind of like they use the TARP as a luge just to slide them there. And it still took about, I’d say, about 100 yards for them to reach the deeper water.

CO: And did you take part in that?

TC: No I was told just to stay put and not go out there.

CO: So they advised you to not be out there in case the tide came back in?

TC: Correct, For my safety.

CO:And when the tide did come in — what was it like?

TC: I have no idea. I was, I was long gone back into my house with my family when this happened. When I found the manatees it was already blowing pretty hard, we had say about like, you know, 50 to 60 gusts. The hurricane was about Ft. Myers, which was I don't know maybe like an hour or an hour-and-a-half south of where we're at. But this hurricane was 400 miles wide so it pretty much hit us when it hit the Florida Keys — you can definitely feel the winds and some rain.

CO: We can only assume the manatees were able at least to get back into the water with that help and and hopefully survived.

TC: Yes, I mean like I know they're OK. They went back in the bay and I know they're still alive.

CO: And you're still alive and has everyone in your family safe and in your house? And what happened to you?

TC: We were safe. We got really, really lucky. We were expecting for this thing to directly hit us but somehow at the last minute it kind of veered east and by the time it got to us it was only a Category 1. So around Sarasota they say there's a force field — there's some kind of energy here — because every time we had a tropical depression, or even a hurricane the last minute, or you know something happened that deviated its path. So we just had minor damage, some trees are down, some shingles are missing, but you know no big property damage. Yeah everyone’s in good spirits the sun's coming out. Neighbours are helping each other. It's really amazing. I wish that there was no need for events like this — we can just come together like this all the time.

CO: Tony, I'm glad you're OK and I appreciate you telling us this story.

TC: Thank you for having me. I Appreciate it.

CO: Take care of yourself.

TC: Bye, Bye

JD: Tony Campos was one of the residents who found two beached manatees in Sarasota, Florida. And you can see some photographs of the rescue efforts by visiting our website: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Guitar Plucks]

From Our Archives: Gretta Chambers obit

JD: She was the first woman to be Chancellor of McGill University. And today Gretta Chambers is also being remembered for her long and prolific journalistic career. Ms. Chambers died on Saturday in Montreal. She was 90 years old. She was born in Quebec to a French speaking mother and an English speaking father, and she would remain defined by her dual identity in the midst of the ongoing political and linguistic conflict in that province. In March of 1978 Gretta Chambers, a freelancer at the time, spoke with As It Happens. At the time journalists were on strike in Quebec, just as a government appointed task force on press ownership concentration was recommending newspapers come under some form of government regulation. From our archives This is Gretta Chambers in conversation with Barbara Frum.

SOUNDCLIP

GRETTA CHAMBERS: They would like, quite a lot, I think of the recommendations because it's part of a big debate. I mean, the debate began well before these strikes, and the big debate, you know, is, is the press a public service or a private enterprise? And this goes on and on, and so you have this whole idea of who should control the press. I mean, should a government agency? Would it be less restrictive than controlled by management. And that's what these strikes are about, but it's much deeper, you know. So they might like the public services board to have some control over the papers because they would feel they would be more in tune with the government agencies, than they are sometimes with the more commercial attitude of newspaper management.

BARBARA FRUM: So you think it's got more to do with regulating ownership than regulating content.

GC: You see, yes, it's much easier to spell out regulating ownership. It is mentioned that the concentration isn't only in ownership, it's also the means of production, and on the professional side — the Union side. But that is much more difficult to spell out, and so it is — the preamble of the report says that there should be a further examination.

BF: What's the stance of the commission and the report? Can you get any sense of that? It sounds as though they would like to control who owns the press but they aren't prepared to really intervene on present ownership either.

GC: No, the whole impression is that the press is out of control and the government has no way of ensuring that the public has access to the information. Now that is said so many times that you really feel that in the hands of chance almost, that we ever get any news at all, you see.

BF: If people are being deprived of the good news — is that what they're suggesting and getting only the bad?

GC: Well no, this is where you come to the — there should be criteria other than purely commercial ones. Now one of the big complaints is that in the concentration that has happened in Quebec, which of course, is much more obvious than it is anywhere else in Canada. I mean, Canadian newspaper chains you know, have the disparities of regional views and interest to cover, and you know, frankly they change their news and views. Whereas here, you know, it's much more felt. And there is a feeling that news content — views opinion etc. — shouldn't be geared to what is saleable, it should be geared to the reality. Now nobody can agree about what the reality is.

JD: From our archives that was the late Gretta Chambers in conversation with late As It Happens host Barbara Frum, in March of 1978. Ms. Chambers was a journalist with the CBC and the Montreal Gazette, and McGill University's first woman Chancellor. She died Saturday in Montreal. She was 90 years old.

[Music: Somber Guitar & Bass]

Poet Laureate

Guest: Ira Lightman

JD: Pierre DesRuisseaux was one of French Canada's great poets. In 2009 he was named Parliament's Poet Laureate. In a press release at the time, Senate speaker Noël Kinsella wrote quote, “His career long fascination with Canada’s literary traditions and history make him an excellent choice to engage us, as Canadians, in dialogue about the importance of verse in our national culture,” unquote. Now though, a British poetry detective is suggesting the poet had fascinations far beyond Canada's literary traditions. Ira Lightman says DesRuisseaux’s collection Tranches De Vie, is packed with unattributed translations of the work of English language authors including Maya Angelou. We reached Ira Leitman in Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

CO: Mr. Lightman, what tipped you off to the possibility that one of Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate’s might have borrowed from other people's work?

IRA LIGHTMAN: At that time I was on a Facebook group called “Plagiarism Alert” and a writer in in Ontario, Kathy Figueroa, posted that on the Canadian Parliamentary website a poem had being published under the name of Pierre DesRuisseaux called J’avance — and that, that looks very similar to my Angelou's poem Still I Rise. And so she put the link there, I looked through it, checked it out, and then began to investigate further.

CO: And what did you find out about it when you compared the poems of Pierre DesRuisseaux and those of Maya Angelou?

IL: I mean, he uses two or three of her poems in the book that J’avance appears in — Tranches De Vie. But the one that was on the website, J’avance, is pretty much identical — moods and the same sort of rhythm, has the same shape, and follows as it were, the same argument — same sort of images in the same sort of order. The one distinctive difference is that Angelou’s poem refers to blackness and slavery near the end, and those things are removed from his translation, so it becomes a more existential anthem and less of a specific story of the struggle of a black writer, or a black person, that the original poem was.

CO: So, if I've got it right, the opening lines of the poem — one poem from DesRuisseaux —he writes, “You can wipe me from the pages of history with your twisted falsehoods. You can drag me through the mud, but like the wind I rise.” And Maya Angelou, “You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies. You may trot me in the very dirt, but still like dust I'll rise,”

IL: Sure but, the important rider on that is to say that it was the French poem, it was a French version of Still I Rise that was presented on the website, with an English translation made by the website provided, by the Parliament, I suppose. And I'm not even sure that that could be the newspaper article is quoting the Parliament, the Parliament website translation. But what was presented was primarily a French poem called J’avance, which Kathy Figueroa notice was very similar to Maya Angelou’s. So it's not as simple as the cases I normally investigate, of an English speaking poet taking 90 per cent of another poet’s English speaking poem, and trying to brazen that out. It's more subtle when it's a translation with this concealing that it has an English source.

CO: But is it possible that it's just it's a translation that has created the similarity and it wasn't in the original?

IL: No, there is a perfectly legitimate poetic tradition of overwriting, of taking somebody's original poem and kind of using it and taking it taking it in another direction — provided that you actually acknowledge what you've done. So a Scottish poet called Alan Riach has a marvelous interpretation of Ashbery’s They Dream Only of America but he calls it They Dream Only of Scotland. It follows, in every way, the twist, the turns, even the line breaks, of the Ashbery, but is clearly saying in its title and I think it even says after that it is an over write. Nothing on this poem would indicate that. So it was. It was a translation but not saying it.

CO: Did you find other examples like this within DesRuisseaux’s — where he seems to have taken something from another poem?

IL: That is exactly what I would do — especially with a man in four or five months in his grave. I'm not going to take one poem on the Parliamentary website and then announce that this is willful plagiarism. What I then do, is try and look as thoroughly as possible, at everything by that author. What I certainly did in this case was there was a free sample of Tranches De Vie the first ten poems in it, Édition De Nouvelles website, so I downloaded that, and every single one of the first ten poems checked out as having, as being a kind of version, a kind of translation of another English poem — one by Dylan Thomas one by [inaudible] a couple of by Charles Bukowski. So, I then wrote to the publisher and asked them please to provide the whole 60-page manuscript so that I could check everything in that book and that book is full of borrowings — full of things that are English poems translated, so that’s what’s going on.

CO: And what do you think the publisher should do about this now?

IL: Now my feeling is very simple about it, and I asked them in May last year, I thought that they should make a public statement of some sort, at some point — and the tact of that is up to them — to say very clearly the following number of poems, which in this case I think was 30 from about 50 poems in the book have unacknowledged sources — and to explain that. So, the very word publish, and publication is to make public. Having done that without that necessary debt being paid — without those necessary acknowledgments, they then are in my opinion, obliged to make public too all of the things that are missing from the book. All of the people like Tupac Shakur and Bokowski and so on, who were these poems were used, and sometimes change, chopped about, and altered, and acknowledge them.

CO: We like to see what happens. Mr. Leitman Thank you.

IL: It's a pleasure.

JD: Ira Leitman is a poet and literary detective. We reached him in Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

[Music: Whimsical Old Timey]

Shashi Tharoor Promo

JD: Stay tuned to the As It Happens radio program later on this week for Carol's conversation with Shashi Tharoor the Indian author, and the member of India's Parliament, has reignited controversy with his take on the legacy of the British Empire and the place of Sir Winston Churchill. Recently Mr. Tharoor publicly compared the legendary wartime Prime Minister to some of the worst genocidal dictators of the 20th century. And here's part of that conversation with Mr. Tharoor which airs in full later on this week.

SOUNDCLIP

SHASHI THAROOR: Well, I mean, as you know Churchill has been retrospectively deified in many ways, principally, because of his heroic speeches during the Second World War. But he was a racist and an imperialist throughout his life, as was expressed in numerous statements.

CO: These are things that have been known in the past — matter of record — So why now? Why do you think it's important to bring this part of Churchill's more controversial history — why are you bringing it forward now?

ST: I don't have any particular desire to single out Churchill, other than that he is part of a rather long and inglorious record of the British Empire in India.

CO: There are many defenders of the British Empire and they point to all the things that they claim they brought to India, including political unity, democracy, the rule of law, railroads, the English language. What do you say to those — because there's a fair bit of pushback that you're getting right now — what do you say to that?

ST: I point out that every single one of the items on that list is something that the British brought to India, either to enhance and perpetuate their control, or to serve their interests. Not one of those things was brought in into India to benefit Indians. The railways for example, were brought in to extract resources from the Indian interior, ship them to the ports to be taken to England, or to send troops into the interior to quell any unrest.

CO: There is a yearning for empire, for return to empire in great Britain, and in the poll you mentioned the YouGov polls, which have found there’s a growing number of people who say that the British Empire is something to be proud of. It's now about 60 per cent — Do you think you can get this history into the schools in Great Britain?

ST: I think a lot of British people — I'm not one — to actually take this up and say that it's in their own interest, and they should face up to the fact of the plunder, looting the despoliation that led to 200 years of impoverishment of other countries for the profits and prosperity of Britain.

JD: That is a taste of Carol's conversation with Shashi Tharoor. Full interview with the Indian author and a member of India's Parliament will be broadcast later this week on As It Happens.

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September 11, 2017 episode transcript

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