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The AIH Transcript for October 31, 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.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

CO: From Russia with likes. According to Facebook 126 million people may have seen posts written by Russian agents before the U.S. election. Our guest says it’s time the social network took some responsibility.

JD: “Little” Doug’s enormous legacy. Armed with Naloxone kits, Doug Nickerson saved nearly 150 people from dying of overdoses on the streets of Surrey, British Columbia. Now the city's guardian angel is gone.

CO: Equal to the task. The Trudeau government may have rejected a plan from Indigenous senators to enshrine equal rights for women in the so-called Indian Act. But one of those senators says the upper chamber won't give up.

JD: Pretty steep, even for pretty steeping. A company that offered a $1,000 tea brewer abruptly runs out of steam, largely because when it comes to making a cuppa, most of us think we've got it in the bag.

CO: Make a left without our own devices. We have common sense rules about watching where going, but one Ontario politician is taking things to the text level. He wants to make it illegal to cross the street while looking at your phone.

JD: And…Dress code. An artificial intelligence program comes up with some creative new Halloween costumes, ranging from punk tree to disco monster, and reveals a strange fixation with sharks. As It Happens, the Tuesday edition. Radio that is in fin form.

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Part 1: Facebook & Russia, senators on the Indian Act, A.I. costumes

Facebook & Russia

Guest: Philip Howard

JD: Today representatives from Facebook appeared before a congressional hearing to explain a very large figure — 126 million. That is the number of its users who may have been exposed to Facebook posts published by Russian operatives. The goal of those operatives, Facebook says, was to sow discord among American voters before the U.S. election. Here's part of what Colin Stretch, Facebook's general counsel told senators today.

SOUNDCLIP

COLIN STRETCH: The foreign interference we saw is reprehensible. Our goal is to bring people closer together. These foreign actors sought to drive people apart. We have found that foreign actors used fake accounts to place ads on Facebook and Instagram that reached millions of Americans over a two year period, and that those ads were used to promote pages which in turn posted more content. People shared these posts, spreading them still further. Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory. Some are downright offensive and much of it will be particularly painful to communities that engaged with this content believing it to be authentic.

JD: That testimony is part of a series of congressional hearings on how Russia may have used social media networks to influence American voters last year. Philip Howard is a professor at Oxford University who helps lead the computational propaganda project. We reached Mr. Howard in Washington D.C..

CO: Professor Howard, we've just heard Facebook's top lawyer describe how Russian operatives were able to spread content to as many as 126 million users, which sounds like a very large number. What does that say to you?

PROFESSOR PHILIP HOWARD: Well, given that there were about 120 million voters in last year's election, I'd say that that's a pretty comprehensive ad campaign that the Russians ran and U.S. voters.

CO: Does that actually mean that 126 million people saw that content?

PH: Well, no. Many of us have tricks for ignoring ads and moving past content that seems like junk. So it would be a much smaller portion that actually read the content and believed what was being pitched to them.

CO: So let's talk a bit about what the content would be. I mean, would it appear to be an ad coming out of Russia? Would it appear to be an ad coming out of Michigan? Would it look like an ad at all?

PH: It would probably look like what we call a fake news story. It would look like something with the CBC colours, the New York Times font with a scandalous headline with some inside secret conspiracy. These kinds of posts are really good at negative campaigning — so spreading misinformation or hatred or misogyny. Unfortunately some of the best examples involve playing up racial hatred in the south in the United States. The issue of Confederate statues, a lot of these posts are targeted at prominent female politicians, feminists, female journalists.

CO: So button pushing but also with false information and these fake news stories?

PH: Right, with false information and in the U.S. context that false information often is about immigration, about how Mexicans are overrunning the borders. And we need to build a wall or they're taking your jobs.

CO: A lot about Muslims as well.

PH: A lot about Muslims, and this content, I should point out, plays out well in Europe and the U.K., in Australia and Canada.

CO: Then there are the actual posts that are not ads but that appear to be from real Americans, just ordinary people. What do those look like?

PH: Those are posts that make it look like there's somebody in your extended network of family and friends who's privy to some inside secrets or has discovered some conspiracy. It's sometimes tough for us to tell who really is part of our friend network. Many of us have accepted trolls or highly automated accounts.

CO: You've looked at this all through the States and Europe but lets just look at the stuff that happened that Facebook was talking about today, which is targeted at us viewers. Does it appear to be aimed at defeating Hillary Clinton and having Donald Trump elected?

PH: Yes, we think that they were used early on in the primaries to make Trump seem like a more popular candidate than he really was. And then, we think these fake accounts and this content was used to promote misinformation about Hillary Clinton being involved with the pedophilia ring, or being involved in the murder of some FBI officers, things that were ostensibly made up.

CO: And you mentioned that Washington story that got tremendous traction. This idea that somehow there was this pedophilia ring that was was being run out of the basements and cellars of a restaurant — it was called Pizzagate — and it actually led to somebody going in there with a gun. And so it had a tremendous effect on large numbers of people. That was run out of Russia was it?

PH: We don't know that the campaign was run out of Russia but we know that Russian trolls pushed the content. And what's really tough to understand is that sometimes a campaign like that is pushed both by Russians and Trump supporters and the far-right in the United States. And what counts as success particularly for the Russians, is when there's an off line protest, when the shooter actually comes to the restaurant or the story jumps into the mainstream media.

CO: Now that Facebook has done this evaluation, has actually looked and found this, I mean, this astonishing number of Facebook users who had received information that came from Russia one way or another. What could it contribute to Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians?

CO: That's a good question. If there were families of accounts managed from St. Petersburg and families of accounts managed from San Antonio, where Trump's headquarters were, if these two families of fake users released exactly the same messaging, at exactly the same second, then that would be some evidence of campaign coordination. We don't know if Facebook has looked for that but they would have that data.

CO: Nobody outside of Facebook could produce that document, that data, right? So if they could show this would that be a smoking gun as far as Robert Mueller is concerned?

PH: I would think so, that's fairly strong evidence. You're right, Facebook employs some of the best data scientists in the world and they do that kind of forensic analysis for their other advertising. They're good at studying networks and how networks disseminate information. If Facebook reported to us what they could find in those networks, yes, that would be the smoking gun.

CO: I mean, aside from what this might contribute to this investigation, what this is revealing is something very disturbing, that the idea that we call social media, when the Facebook Council says that this meant to drive people apart what sounds like anti-social media, right? So whether that could this have on our love of this so-called social media when it can be manipulated in this way?

PH: I think this kind of news is going to wear down public trust in social media. We've trusted that our friends and family are going to pass us good jokes, truthful news, real stories. It turns out that some small fraction of that stuff is fake. It also turns out that the fake news comes on pretty thick in the days before an election, when voters need good quality information. So the larger impact is on wearing down trust in democracy, in democratic institutions. And that's what really worries me here.

CO: All right that's another discussion, a very important one we'll have another time. But right now I appreciate you speaking with us Professor Howard, thank you.

PH: Thank you.

JD: Philip Howard is a professor at Oxford University where he leads the computational propaganda project. We reached him in Washington D.C..

[Music: Ambient Bass Tones]

Senators on the Indian Act

Guest: Lillian Dyck

JD: Lillian Dyck is an Indigenous senator from Saskatchewan. She believes the Indian Act should recognize that she and other Indigenous women have the same rights as men. And in June, Senator Dyck, and her colleagues in the upper chamber, voted overwhelmingly to amend the Indian Act. But when the bill went to the House of Commons the Trudeau government rejected their proposal, and now the Senate is being asked to OK the status quo. We reached Senator Lillian Dyck in Ottawa.

CO: Senator Dyck, the Trudeau government wants you to pass this bill as it is. What are you going to do?

SENATOR LILLIAN DYCK: Well, I don't believe the Senate will accept a message from the House of Commons because we amended the bill last June. No one voted against our amendment and the Senate stands for equality rights, especially for minorities. So I think that we will be insisting that an Equality Amendment be part of the bill.

CO: And so tell us what's at stake here for Indigenous women?

LD: What's at stake really is just imagine yourself as a citizen of a nation without the right to vote on the affairs of your nation, without being able to live with your family. Normally you would be living on a reserve with the rest of your family. If you don't have status you can't live on a reserve, you can't vote for the Chief and Council, you're not eligible for non-insured health benefits, you're not eligible for any post-secondary funding if you're a younger adult who wants to go get a postsecondary education.

CO: And I guess you can't pass your status on to children in the way that men do.

LD: That's right. The ability for you to pass your status on to your children is less than what it is for your male counterpart.

CO: Now this has been part of what's called the Indian Act since 1876, since it was first introduced. But there have been so many efforts over the decades to change this. Why are we now in 2017 and you still can't get this changed?

LD: That's what’s so hard to believe. It's shocking to think that it's here it is 2017 and Indian women don't have the same rights as Indian men. It's just — people I think can't believe it’s so. I mean, it sort of that it's maybe goes off their radar because they think, well this can't be true. But what has happened is that for some reason when it comes up in Parliament, people, just very casually, push it inside. Well we’ll fix it next time. That's happened twice already — in 1985 and in 2010 they said, “Well we haven't removed it all. We'll fix it next time but we have to we have to do more consultation more study.” And this time we're saying, “No. You've done enough consultation. We know this isn’t right. It should be fixed now. We can't delay it any longer.”

CO: What else have you heard from the Liberals as to why they're rejecting this proposed amendment?

LD: Well, because we don't sit with the Liberal caucus anymore — I'm an independent liberal — we don't really know what they’re thinking, right. All we know is that when they appeared before the Aboriginal Peoples Committee we heard from the bureaucrats and from the minister that at that time what they were saying was they wanted to study it more because they were concerned about the impact on, for instance, finances. Because there is a financial commitment to be made, but you can't use cost as a way of saying, “We won't give you your equality because it's going to cost us money.” That's not a valid argument.

CO: Now we know that Prime Minister Trudeau is an avowed feminist. He's championing women's rights around the world. The Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett committed to pursuing gender equity. So, I mean, is there a way of, I guess, shaming the House of Commons into supporting this amendment?

LD: Yes. Well, if you're a feminist and you believe in equality rights for women, and especially with the prime minister saying that he was urging the Mexico to ensure that women in Mexico had equal rights. But what about the Indigenous women in Canada? We deserve to have our rights as equal to those of Indigenous men. So, I guess when you're talking about shaming I think part of it is, part of the reason why Senator Sandra Lovelace and I partnered with FAFIA, the Feminist Alliance For International Action, was to alert the feminist community across the country that here's something really wrong and we need their help to help us tell the government we can't we can't just keep saying, “We're going to give rights to one part of your group but not to the whole group.” That just doesn't make sense, does not make sense, it’s just not right. And so FAFIA then has the has a website that people can log on to, they can get the history of the bill. There's a good explanation of what it's all about and then they can sign on to a letter to the prime minister saying we want Indigenous women to have their rights recognized as much as any other woman — as much as any other Canadian woman.

CO: And when you're as successful at being able to get Indigenous women's rights into the Indian Act, at what point will you try and get a name Indian Act changed?

LD: Well, that's a very good question. It's a much more complicated question because the Indian Act covers virtually everything. Partly what's happening is that this government has pledged to undertake a nation-to-nation relationship. Ministerr Bennett is in charge of the Crown/First Nation relationship so she will be consulting with Indigenous people about how that's going to transpire, what we're going to do about the Indian Act. Our aim here is to make sure that Indigenous women and their descendants are at those tables when we the decisions are made as to what to do about getting rid of the Indian Act, what to do about instituting self-government.

CO: All right, we will be watching and following this story and covering it. Senator Dyck, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

LD: Thank you for your interest. Bye bye.

JD: Lillian Dyck is an Indigenous senator from Saskatchewan. We reached her in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

A.I. costumes

Guest: Janelle Shane

JD: If you have not figured out your Halloween costume yet I have bad news — it's Halloween. But if you are freaking out right now, Janelle Shane might be able to help you. She has created an AI program that generates Halloween costume ideas. It's all detailed on her blog, which is dedicated to neural networks, which I do hope she will explain. We reached Janelle Shane in Lafayette, Colorado.

CO: Janelle, just first off give us some of your favourites that the neural network came up with — the best costume ideas?

JANELLE SHANE: Oh there's so many favourites. I just kept generating them because I couldn't stop. I would say my most recent favorite is the “dancing boar of the river.” I think “Ms. Frizzle’s robot” was right up there and so was “steampunk chicken.”

CO: So far out of ones you’ve posted, I love “punk tree” and “shark cow.” “Professor panda,” that's great.

JS: Oh yeah, somebody messaged me today saying that they had taught their class this morning dressed as Professor Panda.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: So it's already working.

JS: Yeah.

CO: So we have to get a bit scientific here. Maybe you can just describe how you generated this, what a neural network is and what it did to make up these Halloween costumes?

JS: There are a type of machine learning, which is a type of AI you can think of it, and what neural networks do is rather than in normal programming when there's programmers who sit at the computer and writes down rules that the computer has to follow, with neural networks they just look at your data and generate their own rules. They try and figure out for themselves what's going on. And so when I wanted to train it to generate Halloween costumes all I have to do is give it a decently large set of existing Halloween costumes and let it look at them. It figures out for itself how to generate more Halloween costumes that it thinks are like the ones that it sees in it’s list.

CO: And where did you get the original Halloween costumes that you submitted to the neural network?

JS: Well, I was looking at first for a list of Halloween costumes online or something like that and I couldn't find anything that was big enough, because you really need, ideally, thousands of Halloween costumes. So I ended up saying, “Well I’ll just ask people.” And I set up a form and asked people, “Hey why don't you enter some Halloween costumes?” Turns out people were very generous, they entered over 4,500 of them. Now it’s up to almost six thousand.

CO: And was that mostly witches and goblins and ghosts?

JS: There were a lot of witches. There were a lot of ghosts but people also got creative. So there were a few sexy potatoes, for example. There was a toaster oven. There was almost anything you can think of.

CO: Now sexy came up a lot, right? A lot of sexy costumes, or sexy is the description.

JS: Out of about 4500 costumes that I trained with, there were 300 that had the word sexy in their name. So it's definitely a theme, and in fact, that's the first word that the neural network learned as it went through its training.

CO: It’s actually very amusing in the early training, your early examples when it was spitting costume ideas lots of sexy. Sexy sexy, sexy zombie, sexy cat was one that you’re got.

[LAUGHTER]

JS: Yes. The only word that it did seen very, very often was the word sexy. That was, as far as it was concerned, the most important word in this dataset, so it learned it first.

CO: But eventually it evolved, it got better at being able to identify real words.

JS: Yeah, it began to figure out some other words that appeared a few times. So you did start to see witch showing up, you did start to see Batman showing up and Gandalf showing up. They both were pretty common in the original data set. And then I saw learn how to mix together words too. And, in fact, it learned how to do that surprisingly well. I guess I hadn't expected it to actually produce any Halloween costumes that made sense. I'm not sure you can consider these as making sense, but at least you can sort of guess what they would be. So it figured out the word zombie often goes with other words. So it would do things like I think zombie killerina was one of them. Just mashing together words it was good at it.

CO: But it still had still struggled didn’t it? I mean, some of these like statue of pizza, that doesn't — count drunk doll of princess.

JS: You know, it doesn't know what these words mean. That’s part of the problem. So it just knows that there are certain sounds and certain combinations of letters that tend to go with each other. So it, you know, for example if it's generating a shark princess it knows that often you have some other word before the word princess and it knows the word shark is a word, so therefore why not a shark princess? That make sense, ok on to the next one.

CO: Now you have done this before with this neural network. You've done it, I believe, for paint colour names.

JS: That's correct. Yeah, that was a pretty fun experiment too.

CO: Do you remember any of those?

JS: Well, the one that people tended to really like was the paint colour named stinky bean.

CO: Yeah I can see that. I can see myself painting a room stinky bean. That makes sense.

JS: People would send me pictures of, “Hey I think my dorm room is painted and stinky bean.”

[LAUGHTER]

CO: Now besides Professor Panda are you expecting any of these others to turn — Martian devil or panda clam. Do you think people will dress up as any of these other costumes?

JS: I've already seen a shark princess and it was pretty well done. I've seen somebody dressed up as the dragon of liberty, that was pretty good.

CO: I think I may go as a petty fairy, seems just perfect. Janelle it's great fun to talk to you. Thanks.

JS: Oh thanks so much.

CO: Bye, bye.

JS: Bye.

CO: Janelle Shane is an engineer who runs a blog about neural networks and we reached her in Lafayette, Colorado. And if you'd like to see some photographs of some of the people who tried out her artificial intelligence program’s suggestions visit our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Sexy Manitoba Halloween Costumes

JD: And as Ms. Shane mentioned in their sexy costumes are a pretty common fall back on Halloween. Although some themes do tend to lend themselves to sexiness more than others, as Carol discovered when she spoke with Kirsten Neil from Manitoba's tourism agency back in 2015. That organization had come up with a bunch of Manitoba-themed Halloween costume ideas — some of them thrillingly erotic. Here are a few of those ideas from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

KIRSTEN NEIL: So we created a sexy and we have the golden boy you can dress as.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: Stop, stop, stop. Let’s get back to the sexy pierogi, a sexy kielbasa here. I mean, what does a sexy pierogi Halloween costume look like?

KN: Well the sexy pierogi Halloween costume is really just a white body suit and getting them like nice white fabric and like pinching around the sides in the shape of a pierogi, with some bacon earrings and an onion hat, and heels.

CO: Oh heels, is that's the sexy part?

KN: Yeah, the heels is the sexy part.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: And what about the sexy kielbasa — a big sausage. How does that work?

KN: Yeah, it's really just a piece of cardboard tube with a sausage thing on it. It's kind of the couple's costume maybe.

CO: And high heels.

KN: Yeah, high heels of course.

CO: Now OK, so a couple of ones that may surprise people first of all “Nutty Club” mascot. Now anyone who is not from Manitoba may not know the Nutty Club mascot is. So tell us what that is?

KN: Well, the Nutty Club is one of the candy factories in Winnipeg. It's been around for ages and it has a little character on it and it looks like a little peppermint candy, and he’s got little peppermint arms. And one of the buildings in our historic Exchange District in Winnipeg, is the Nutty Club building, and it's quite known because it's painted white and it has the Candyman all over it. And it's kind of an iconic building, so people always — any Winnipegger knows who the Candyman is.

CO: I'm surprised that isn't already a popular costume in Winnipeg.

KN: I think it's a lot of cardboard to deal with

[LAUGHTER]

CO: And paint. You got to get all those colours right too.

KN: Yeah. You've got to get all the colours right.

CO: OK, here's one that people are not going to get. Why James Bond?

KN: Yeah that's an interesting one. Well, I think Ian Fleming, who wrote James Bond, said James Bond was inspired by a World War II spymaster, Sir William Stevenson. And Sir William Stevenson, his code name or he's better known as, Intrepid, was born and raised in Winnipeg. So that's the kind of the connection we have there. It's just kind of a little known fact that the inspiration of James Bond was born and raised in Winnipeg.

CO: OK so another couple of costumes so we one go is a Nutty Club mascot and the other couple can go as James Bond.

KN: Yeah well yeah you did have the sultry James Bond person — maybe the sexy pierogi goes with James Bond.

[LAUGHTER]

JD: From our archives, that was Travel Manitoba's Kirsten Neil telling us about their Manitoba-themed Halloween costume ideas. That was from October of 2015.

[Music: Ambient Hip-Hip]

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Part 2: Little" Doug Nickerson obit, New York City attack, distracted walking

“Little” Doug Nickerson obit

Guest: Ron Moloughney

JD: He was known as “Little Doug.” He was also known as the guardian angel of Surrey, B.C.’s 135A street strip. Doug Nickerson died Saturday after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. His age is unknown. Little Doug always carried naloxone kits to stop drug overdoses in an area notorious for substance abuse. And with the help of those kits, Mr. Nickerson saved the lives of at least 148 people. Just last week he told the CBC's Jesse Johnston about the first time he used one to reverse an overdose.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG NICKERSON: So I was on 135A Street down at a different mall, This is down at the MCC parking lot where the food truck goes down. A guy who was laying on his back and he had overdosed, and a girl came riding on her bike yelling for me, because she knew I had it. I think I dropped every tool in my pocket on that run.

JD: That was Doug Nickerson speaking with the CBC's Jessie Johnston in Surrey, B.C. about the first time he saved someone with naloxone on B.C.’s 135A street strip. Ron Moloughney is the president of the Surrey Area Network of Substance Users. He was also a friend of Mr. Nickerson. We reached Mr. Moloughney in Surrey.

CO: Ron first of all, I'm sorry for your loss.

RON MOLOUGHNEY: Thank you.

CO: And so this Little Doug as he's called Doug Nickerson. How are people in the community reacting since they learned of his death?

RM: Well, a lot of people are shaken up. You know, we've lost an integral part of our community. He saved at least 150 lives, and that's going to put a big burden back on to the front line staff where, he saved a lot of lives.

CO: But this is work he did, this is himself doing this, right? This wasn’t his job necessarily, he took this on himself.

RM: He didn’t get paid for it. He did it voluntarily.

CO: Can you tell us how he went about saving all those lives?

RM: We have Narcan kits, which we hand out to clients. And Doug was one of the people that was getting Narcan kits to help people that were dying — OD’ing on the strip. He was a constant face there for that. Everybody knew that if you had a problem with the drugs you were going that he'd be there for you.

CO: How was he able to get there when others weren't? Because we're dealing with so many deaths…

RM: He stayed down there, he lived down there. He had his own residence and everything, he had his own place. But he’d stay down on the strip on welfare week, and he stayed there for a week at a time and make sure people knew that he had kits all the time with him, that he was there to help them.

CO: This is notorious 135A street strip in Surrey?

RM: That's correct.

CO: And so he was he went about on his bicycle didn't he — so he could get there quickly?

RM: Yeah. Yeah he’d travel all over Surrey and find people that needed help and he’dhelp them.

CO: Any stories you can recall of how he was able to find and help people?

RM: He mostly stayed in The Front Room and he had his little tent there and he Narcan kits there. And there's also the Needlepoint, which is a place where drug users go to use jobs, but a lot of drug users don't trust it there, so they use on the strip, right — openly. And Doug would be their to watch people, see how their reaction was to the drugs that they were doing. And he’d know, he had the sense for it, he knew that this person is in trouble, and he'd be right there and he'd be injecting them in the leg or in the hip or in the stomach with the Narcan kit, whatever needed to be done to save a life.

CO: You say The Front Room, what's that?

RM: It's like a drop-in centre.

CO: So Doug would mostly be down there during welfare week when people got money and he would actually live there keeping an eye on them. Is what he would do?

RM: Basically, yes. But he wasn't just there for one week a month he was there a lot. He’d stay there for the week of welfare and after that he'd go back every two or three days and check up on people make sure they're OK, talk to people, counsel them and he knew that we were there supporting him the whole way.

CO: Why did he do that. Did you ever ask him what why he dedicated so much of his time to helping others?

RM: Because nobody else was. Nobody else cared about these street and trench people. You know, they were just an obstacle to walk over and he didn't see it that way. He saw them as human beings. You know, whether they were drug addicts or not. The rent in Vancouver, you know, it's very difficult to get a place on social assistance. A lot of them end up on the street and he cared about people in general. He didn't care about what they did, where they were, who their family was, he cared, he brought them into his life too. He tried to show them a better way.

CO: When he found out he had pancreatic cancer did that slow him down?

RM: No, no. He was good right up to two days before he passed away.

CO: And he didn't have chemotherapy did he?

RM: No, he refused it he was way past that, it wouldn't have helped, he knew it. The doctors apparently gave him six months to live and fortunately he lived a little longer than that.

CO: And so he saved 150 lives.

RM: Or more.

CO: And then he, himself now has passed.

RM: Yeah.

CO: People are calling him a hero would he see himself that way?

RM: No, no. He was a very humble man. He was just doing what he thought was right. He was doing what the government should have done five years ago.

CO: Did he ever have a chance to tell the Government that?

RM: Well, he told me and I told the government, and I told the newspapers five years ago and they didn't do anything about it. You know, nobody listened to it when he told them that this fentanyl thing is going to get out of hand and it's going to explode. And you guys are going to lose control over it, so you’d better get a hold of it. And they didn't do anything until the last year.

CO: He got the Heart of the City award from the mayor, from Linda Hepner, just last week. So the city acknowledged that he was doing this.

RM: Yeah, because it was publicized, well publicized what he was doing. He was doing it long before the city decided to do it.

CO: How do you think things are going to change on the strip since he's died?

RM: Well, there’s going to be more phone calls for the fire, ambulance and police. And there's going to be a lot more stressed out workers because Doug isn’t there — a lot of chaos, a lot of overworked staff. It's traumatizing to do what Doug did, watching somebody die in front of you — I can imagine that would be very traumatizing. And he did it for like three or four years.

CO: Ron, I really appreciate you telling us about your friend.

RM: OK, thank you very much.

CO: And again, I'm sorry for your loss.

RM: OK. Thank you.

CO: Bye.

RM: Bye.

JD: Ron Moloughney was a friend of the late Doug Nickerson. Mr. Moloughney me is the president of the Surrey Area Network of Substance Users. We reached him in Surrey, British Columbia. And if you would like to read more about “Little” Doug Nickerson who died Saturday go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient Bass]

New York City attack

Guest: Dmitry Metlitsky

JD: As we go to air with the program tonight we do not have the whole story about what happened today in lower Manhattan — but here is what we do know. Police report several people are dead, at least eight. Many more were injured after a vehicle drove into cyclists on a bike path. Late this afternoon. Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at a news conference.

SOUNDCLIP

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: It's a very painful day in our city — horrible tragedy on the west side. Let me be clear that based on the information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror. And a particularly cowardly act of terror, aimed at innocent civilians, aimed at people going about their lives, who had no idea what was about to hit them. We know that this action was intended to break our spirit. But we also know New Yorkers are strong, New Yorkers are resilient and our spirit will never be moved by an act of violence and an act meant to intimidate us. We have been tested before as a city, very near the site of today's tragedy. And New Yorkers do not give in in the face of these kinds of actions. We’ll respond as we always do. We will be undeterred. And I want to thank everyone at the NYPD, all our first responders for their extraordinary efforts in the midst of this tragedy. Starting with the officer who stopped this tragedy from continuing. All of the first responders who came to the aid of those who were injured. Investigation is underway. We know we'll get down to the bottom of what happened.

JD: Bill de Blasio is the mayor of New York City. The attack happened late this afternoon near the World Trade Center memorial site as Mayor de Blasio mentioned. Police have taken one man into custody, beyond that a lot is still unknown. Dmitry Metlitsky was a passenger in an Uber vehicle near the scene. We reached Mr. Metlitsky in Brooklyn.

CO: Dmitry, when did you first realize something was going on?

DMITRY METLITSKY: So I was driving — being a passenger actually in an Uber — driving down West Side Highway when suddenly my Uber driver started yelling that, “Look the car is mowing people on the bike path.

CO: Mowing people, like running them down?

DM: Yes. And then when I looked up I didn't see the car, but I saw three or four people’s badly garbled bikes lying, all covered in blood. And at first I thought that some sort of a Halloween show being performed. But we stopped by the light and then the police car came and the police started running forward. And then I heard seven, eight, nine shots, I don't know exactly. And then tried to hunker down in the Sienna van.

CO: Were you close enough that you felt that the shooting was something you needed to try to avoid, that you had to duck down because of the shooting?

DM: Yes.

CO: And who were the police shooting at you?

DM: I didn't see that. I cannot speculate on what I have not seen.

CO: The vehicle that was running people down, what did it look like?

DM: You know the small truck you rent when you move.

CO: How fast was it moving?

DM: I personally didn't see it because remember I told you that my driver started yelling, “Look,” so when I looked it already passed. I only saw the people.

CO: At what point did you see where the van stopped — how it finally came to a stop?

DM: After the shots they started waving us to sort of go, go, go. And when we came to the intersection I saw that the rental truck collided with a very large delivery truck and a small school bus. And then I saw two people on the West Side Highway. One it appears that he was sort of shot, but I cannot, I haven't seen because the police were kneeling over with him. And then there was another gentleman standing on his knees with his hands in the air. They kept waving us to pass by this is what I kept seeing. So there was some inaccurate reporting in the media. So they said about road rage, I highly doubt it, because there were barely any traffic on the West Side highway at the time and the driver told me that he deliberately drove on the bike path, so it's not that car accidentally skipped the roadway.

CO: OK. I think the preliminary reports were that all possibilities were there, but now we have heard that the FBI is involved and it's being investigated as terrorism. The New York Times cites law officials who say the attacker yelled Allahu Akbar.

DM: I didn't see it so I don't want to speculate on stuff that I didn’t see.

CO: How many people did you actually see had been hurt along the way?

DM: I have seen three or four people mowed down on bike path, on the pedestrian path. And then this gentleman who has been shot — that's it.

CO: How quickly was it before the police were there?

DM: Very quickly — in a minute probably. It's right across from the World Trade Center site, so I presume it's a lot of police in the area.

CO: Are you a bit shaken by all of this?

DM: To tell you the truth I'm not that shaken. I feel like very, very guilty because probably I should have jumped out of the Uber and probably ran to these people that were mowed about down. But at first I thought that this was some sort of a Halloween performance till I heard the shots being fired. And when I heard the shots I hunkered down in that vehicle. Right. And then they started waving us, so I sort froze, but I probably should have ran towards them and did something. So this is what’s bugging me.

CO: I don't think you should feel guilty. It sounds like the first responders were there pretty quickly.

DM: Good, good to hear that.

CO: Dmitry, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

DM: Bye.

JD: Dmitry Metlitsky was in a car near where a truck plowed into cyclists on a bike path in New York City. We reached him earlier today.

[Music: Sombre Ambient Pulses]

Distracted walking

Guest: Yvan Baker

JD: If you do not look both ways before crossing the road you are probably disobeying the rules your Mom and Dad drilled into you. But if one Ontario MPP gets his way, you will also soon be breaking the law in that province. Liberal MPP Yvan Baker has introduced a private members bill that would make it illegal to look at your smartphone while crossing the street. He is calling it Distracted Walking. We reached Yvan Baker in Toronto.

CO: Mr. Baker, why do we need a law targeting distracted walkers?

YB: Well, experts tell us that if you are distracted that you are more likely to get hurt or killed when you're on the roadway, when you're crossing the street. And specifically, the chief coroner of Ontario has looked at this matter, and in 2010 found that of all pedestrians killed on Ontario's roads, seven per cent of them were killed while being distracted by a smartphone or MP3 player. So I'm enacting this legislation, or I'm bringing forward this legislation, first of all, just to raise awareness Carol, about the risks of walking across the street and being distracted, but also to make sure that that going forward Police have a tool that allows them to remind people and continue to raise awareness about these risks. And ultimately I believe that this will prevent injuries and save lives.

CO: But I mean, that's your, data your evidence, but in the United States they've done a study of this, very broad one called, Fatality Analysis Reporting System, and says 0.1 per cent of pedestrian fatalities are caused by people looking at their screens. So how confident are you that this is actually something that's happening?

YB: I’m very confident. I know that there's a range of studies out there. Toronto Public Health, for example, did a study in 2015 and they found that if you're distracted by your smartphone while crossing that you're 40 per cent more likely to be injured or killed. You know, my bill was supported by a number of organizations that are committed to public safety, the Ontario Safety League, the Ontario Catholic School Trustee’s Association, the Ontario Public School Boards Association. So I think that there's enough evidence and there's enough people in organizations that know a lot about public safety, who supported this initiative. We can be confident that this would help prevent injuries.

CO: I guess some are saying including NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, that there is not enough done about the poor driving habits that are the principal cause of this, right? That people are distracted driving, careless driving, and not looking out for the pedestrians. Yes, they tend to cross suddenly in the street or run across when a light’s about to change, but how much of it is because of the drivers and how much of it is because of pedestrians?

YB: There's a lot of evidence to suggest that a lot of pedestrians are hurt or killed because of driver error or inattention or because of distracted driving, certainly. And some of it's because of road conditions or something that happens that are beyond the control of the pedestrian or the or the drivers, and certainly the issue of distracted driving, from the data that I've seen, leads to more fatalities than the issue of distracted pedestrians. So there's no question that the issue of the driver error or driver fault has to be addressed. But I do think, Carol, that the Ministry of Transportation and police forces are doing a lot to address that. Actually in fact, recently the principal government brought in some of the strictest fines and penalties for drivers who are distracted, who are multiple offenders of distraction, who are driving under the influence. So a lot of it being done to try to address that, there's certainly a lot more we need to be working on that to address that problem, but I don't think that takes away from the fact that there are a certain number of pedestrians that are hurt or killed every year, in part, because they're distracted.

CO: But again, people say, “OK, save one life a year,” but that seems to be that you're going after the pedestrians and we saw very recently in Hawaii, there was a similar law passed and pedestrians around the world lashed out at that at that law saying that you're blaming the pedestrians for what is really the fault of the drivers.

YB: You know it's interesting because when I went out — over the last few days I've been out talking to pedestrians on the streets — I just stopped pedestrians who were walking across the street with their phones, and when they came across the street I told them about my bill and I asked them what they thought. And to a person, every single one of them unanimously thought that it was a good idea, notwithstanding, the fact that they had just done it themselves. I do think that there's actually a lot of support for this type of legislation, even amongst those people who are who are going even with people who are regularly pedestrians.

CO: And with the people you spoke with, pedestrians, would they say “Yes please fine me,” because that’s what's included in this, isn't there?

YB: Yes, I was very transparent with them. They'd say yes they think is a good idea because they realize it's risky behavior and they realize that fines act as a deterrent.

CO: They want to be fined?

YB: They don't want to be fined. Nobody seeks to be fined. Nobody seeks to be fined but everybody agrees — I think everybody that I've spoken to certainly over the last few weeks on this who are pedestrians, who were crossing the street on their phones — agreed that it's a good idea to have a law that forbids them from using the phones crossing the street and that fines make good sense to be attached to them.

CO: How much do you want the police to be actually working on this? Given all the other things they've got to be doing out there, and all the other ways they're trying to protect people from being run over. How much do you want them to look after enforcing this law should it pass?

YB: I think that's something that I would leave to the police. What I would say is that this gives them a tool to be able to approach pedestrians and remind them of the risks of what they're doing. It's up to the police whether they actually issue a ticket or not.

CO: Well it also gives police an option to stop people and that's something that a lot of a lot of the public is wary of. So there is some worry there is there not?

YB: Carol, I would argue that there are already enough laws on the books that allow police to stop, right? Even the ones that I mentioned that are related to road safety. I think that this is really about, again, going back to road safety and give police the tools they can to save lives. And if we can save lives through this, why wouldn't we do it?

CO: All right, we’ll leave it there. Mr. Baker, thank you.

YB: Thank you very much for your time.

JD: Yvan Baker is an Ontario Liberal member of the provincial parliament. We reached him in Toronto.

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Part 3: Gerrymander run, dog walker rules

Teforia/From Our Archives: Yumstation

JD: This just in. When humans are presented with perfection we reject it, therefore we deserve only what we embrace — utter mediocrity. I'm sorry if I sound a little down it's just this whole tea-phoria thing. About a year ago some visionaries offered us a brilliant new gizmo intended to solve the serious problem of slightly suboptimal tea. Tea-phoria was a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled tea brewing device that incorporated machine learning algorithms to deliver you the cuppa you'd always dreameda. All for a mere thousand bucks U.S.. But now the company has announced it is ceasing all business operations, which, yes I said $1,000 US, and yes that is almost $1,300 Canadian, but now I've lost my train of thought. Now some of you may feel that you can make tea with that Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or algorithm's. I applaud your audacity, but some of us yearn for an expensive machine that produces tea that one reviewer described as quote “basically fine.” Well now the company says quote, “The reality of our business is that it would take a lot more financing and time to educate the market.” unquote. See, we the market, were not adequately educated. I don't deserve tea-phoria — none of us do. I haven't been this upset since we spoke with Rhik Samadder last October. He's the kitchen gadget reviewer for The Guardian newspaper who told us about a gadget I felt was just what we all needed. The Banana Surprise Yumstation. Sadly however, as Carol discovered, Mr. Samadder was yet another representative of our insufficiently educated market.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Rhik, what rating out of five did you give the Banana Surprise Yumstation.

RHIK SAMADDER: I gave the banana surprise the station a hearty zero marks out of five.

CO: And why is that?

RS: Well, it was either five or nothing. There's nothing in between about this gadget. It's one of the most striking things I've ever seen, but it is also one of the most abominable and traumatizing things I’ve ever tried.

CO: Can you just describe the device for us?

RS: OK. so this is a banana-filling-machine. The purpose of this gadget is to let people fill bananas with their own kind of filling, whatever they want to fill a banana with. And what it is, is a sort of long, tubular, curved cradle that you insert a banana into, which has got a hole at the end. And then there's a selection of curved straws, coring straws, that you then insert down the banana and they’re curved so they follow the trajectory of the banana and they create this well through the middle of the banana running all the way through it. And then you can use a teeted bottle, which is intended to pump in any filling you like. So you can use toffee or cream or other fruit. On the box they’ve pictured, I think it’s jam, it looks a lot like blood. Just a child holding up a very blood-filled banana, which is just one of the reasons this such a traumatizing instrument.

CO: So it didn't strike you immediately after this, where has this been all my life? This is this is something that I’ve wanted and someone has invented this for me?

RS: Well, maybe half of that. I thought where has this been all my life, and how can I extend that period where I didn’t have to encounter this thing. It’s strange knowing I live in a world with this Banana Surprise Yumstation in it. It's a very upsetting thing.

JD: Naysayers. From our archives, Carol in conversation with Guardian newspaper kitchen gadget critic Rhik Samadder, last October. So I guess it's back to our stupid regular bananas and our dumb tea.

[Music: Whimsical Strings]

Gerrymander run

Guest: J.P. Kennedy

JD: There's going to be a foot race this weekend in Asheville, North Carolina. But a warning to would-be runners, you might want to pick up a map. And that is because the Gerrymander 5k follows the same strange path as the community's electoral boundaries. The man behind the race is a local artist and distance runner J.P. Kennedy. We reached Mr. Kennedy just outside Asheville.

CO: Mr. Kennedy, just how much does the root of this race meander?

J.P. KENNEDY: So if you look at it kind of on a state-wide level and see the route, you can kind of see it juts between these two congressional districts 10, 11 out of one, and then through the centre of Asheville, which is kind of a very progressive city.

CO: I think juts is an understatement. It's quite bizarre when you see it.

JK: I think it's the quintessential example not of gerrymandering by race but gerrymandering by politics, that whoever drew the maps, whatever they used was done specifically to split progressive Asheville votes in two. We used to have a Democratic congressman as our representative Heath Shuler, and then in 2010 they split our votes directly down the middle, down the middle of West Asheville, which is kind of the progressive centre of Asheville, down the middle of UNCA, which is University of North Carolina Asheville, to split their college votes. It's very deliberate splitting of progressive votes.

CO: These are districts right? These are voting congressional districts for voting purposes. And this line is the demarcation line. What has been the effect of that? What are the consequences of having that bizarre borderline?

JK: So I follow politics, and this is how I followed this line. And so if there are issues which affect me and I want to talk to my congressman, and unfortunately I do like to do these things, so HB2 was the transgender bathroom law, which made transgender the people unable to go to the bathroom of where they were aligned. It was very, kind of nasty and petty, and then I thought who can I speak to, who's my representative? And when we had the Muslim ban at the start of the Trump presidency, I was like “I'm going to walk into my congressional office and say this doesn't represent me,” which I did. But then because these are safe districts for a conservative congressman you can't change the needle. Your voice or your ability to walk into an office or to send an e-mail or make a phone call is not going to change political views or votes or influence. And, like I said, we're in we're in Asheville, Black Mountain. This is the heart of progressive West North Carolina, this is where the progressive votes are, it's an extremely liberal community. The Muslim ban does not represent me and to have a letter back from the congressman two weeks later saying some vanilla language that this is how we're keeping America safe. You just didn't feel as if it was representing, not only me, but representing the opinions of my neighbours, or my coworkers, of the parents I meet at school with my kids. And this wasn't representing our vision of what we think America is.

CO: So let's get back to this five day run because this is what we're talking about here. This is called the Gerrymander 5k. And it will actually take the course of that boundary, of that border. And what do you think people will notice as they make that run?

JK: Well, I think people hopefully will notice the general idea that they've split West Asheville in two. But then there are also some specific turns in streets and in blocks, and at one point you know it is like maybe two houses that they take this kind of puzzle shape around two houses, and so to actually walk the line you also get the feeling that there's been some kind of implementation, some algorithm, some computer programming which has been very specific of this house but not this house, this block but not not this house, which also is a very kind of visceral feeling of disempowerment, that larger power’s in play more than the voter.

CO: Have you had a trial run yet of the Gerrymander 5k?

JK: Last year I had been looking at this after HP2 and been looking at the gerrymandered line. And so me and my wife would talk about how to draw attention to it. I had the idea of just chalking the line to visually show it. My wife had the smarter idea of why don’t you have a 5k so that people can experience it too. And it was just me and her, and so we tried to get this last year before the election and couldn’t organize, couldn’t fund it. And so we had like two dozen of our friends show up at a bar in West Asheville, which is on the line, and we had kid chalk and we went out and we chalked the line, and then stopped at another bar and had another drink, chalk some more of the line, and then stopped at another bar and came back and had another beer. And so we had a low-key, low-influence, art-activism afternoon of drinking beer and walking the linea year ago.

CO: Well, given how much this this line meanders you're going to need a lot of chalk, I think, if you’re going to draw it out for the race.

[LAUGHTER]

JK: Well, last year it started with a lot of enthusiasm for drawing and marking and creating the line and then I think after the second bar there was less enthusiasm to continue to do this, and more enthusiasm for getting to the nextbar. But this year we have with the League of Women Voters’ support, today we have 187 people signed up. I went and bought a whole bunch more sidewalk chalk. And so that's going to be part of the 5k, actually drawing the line and decorating the line. I don't know how it will work but we'll see what happens.

CO: How many people do you expect to know this weekend?

JK: I wouldn't be surprised if we had 250 people, maybe even more, involved on Saturday marking this line and walking this line.

CO: I hope you don't lose people, it looks like you could.

[LAUGHTER]

JK: Hopefully we don't lose people, either to the the weird shaped line or to the bars along the line. We’ll see what happens.

[LAUGHTER]

CO: Mr. Kennedy, thank you.

JK: Thank you so much for your time.

JD: J.B. Kennedy is the organizer of the Gerrymander 5k, which is set to go this Saturday in Asheville, North Carolina. We reached Mr. Kennedy in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

[Music: Industrial Hip-Hop]

Murdered & Missing Indigenous Women & Girls Inquiry (MMIW) hearings

JD: Candice Paul held back tears today as she described her aunt and the pain that came from her death. Ms. Paul was testifying in Membertou, Nova Scotia at the inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Her aunt Victoria was left lying on a cement floor in a police lock up after she was arrested for public intoxication in 2009. When police checked on her, almost five hours later, she had suffered a stroke and was incoherent. She died days later in hospital. An investigation ordered by Halifax's justice minister found that the police failed to provide medical attention to Victoria and to show her adequate respect. Candice Paul questioned why her aunt was left alone with no help to begin with. Here's part of her testimony.

SOUNDCLIP

CANDICE PAUL: She loved us all a lot. She was always very giggly and bubbly and over the years she would talk to us all like we were little kids. Whenever I sew her she would put me on her lap and squeeze me and talk to me like a baby.

[LONG SIGH]

CP: And she was always joking around and really there for all of us. We're all human beings and we're all meant to be treated equal, and checked on, and it just feels like my aunty Victoria's life meant nothing. It's like who cares she's drunk. Don't go help her because she’s is drunk. Well, people overdose and everything like that, and you go to hospital and they pump their stomach and they help them. If someone comes in with an overdose, what do you say? They're too high or they did that to themselves so we won't help them? That's what it feels like. And after that time aunty Victoria was laying in her urine with her pants down there was a woman guard that went in and dressed her up. But then one of the guards said that it would be best for her to lay on the floor so she wouldn't fall off the bed and hurt herself again. But they didn't give her a mattress or a blanket or nothing. They just left her there on the cold cement floor.

JD: Candice Paul is the niece of Victoria Paul, who died in 2009 after a stroke she suffered while in police custody. Ms. Paul was testifying today before the inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Membertou, Nova Scotia.

[Music: Ambient Bass]

The Great British Bake Off

JD: As you know they have announced the winner of the latest edition of The Great British Bake Off and we are all delighted or disappointed. And the winner is…Just wait a second, the guys in the studio are signaling I should not tell you that, in case you don't already know that. That's fine, but how would you miss it? Even if you didn't see the final episode there was a big thing on Twitter today when it was revealed that the…ok more signals from the studios. OK here is a version of this story with absolutely no spoilers, OK. Today a person with firsthand knowledge of a show accidently did a thing that made people have emotions. See that's a little too vague. So spoiler alert — the next sentence contains a proper name and the name of a show and a social media site. Today Prue Leith, one of the judges on The Great British Bake Off, went on Twitter to congratulate the winner — by name, about 12 hours before the final episode actually aired. She tweeted quote, “No one told me judging a Great British Bake Off final would be so emotional. I wanted them all to win. Bravo — winning person's name. Well on social media people did the absolute opposite of congratulating Prue Leith by name and they also were not too pleased with a reporter for The Sun tabloid who tweeted, “OMG Prue. No, baby no.” And then retweeted her tweet complete with the winner's name. Reached for comment afterwards Ms. Leith explained, “I'm in Bhutan. The time difference is massive. I thought that they got it six hours ago. I'm in too much of a state to talk about it. I flambed up. She used a different F-word.

[Music: Industrial Pop]

Dog walker rules

Guest: Annabel Cookson

JD: Annabel Cookson is a dog walker in England, and now she feels like she's being hounded. Recently members of the local government voted to impose new limits on the number of dogs in certain areas. And like a disobedient puppy that decision is not sitting well. We reached Annabel Cookson in Penwortham, that's in Lancashire, England.

CO: Annabel, there's a headline in your local paper, in the Lancashire Evening Post, and it says “Showdown Set for Dog Walking Drama.” What's the drama?

ANNABEL COOKSON: Well, we walk however many dogs we want. We have as many dogs off lead as possible, sensible. They've decided as a council they're going to ban people from walking more than four dogs at a time, which has been decided very last minute.

CO: How many dogs do you walk at a single time usually?

AC: Normally I walk five, six at a maximum if someone has more than one dog in their own home.

CO: So it's not that much of a change — the reduction to four dogs. What's the problem?

AC: So when we do our walks we generally, because people walk work during the day, they want the middle of the day for their walks, as adult professional themselves. So from our point of view if we can only walk for dog we will then either have to shorten the amount of time we walk them or charge more to make up for the loss in the money that we lose. When we've looked into it, if we lose two dogs in every hour that we walk, we could lose a thousand pounds a month.

CO: Wow.

AC: So why it stated to become an issue. For me, that's my rent for the month, that’s money that I can spend on my daughter or on my own dogs.

CO: The reasons for it, I mean, what we've heard from your community, from the council, they said that they are doing it because if someone has more than four dogs they're more likely to lose control of the animals and that someone might be hurt — that this is a safety issue. What do you say to them?

AC: Yeah, see I completely disagree with it, because I mean, I walk four, five, six dogs. I have a university degree in animal behavior. I assess all my dogs, all the other dog walkers in the area that I know, and I know quite a few of them, we have a Facebook group, they all assess their dogs. We meet up and we walk with multiple dogs together. They all get along really well. We're extra careful, we're insured to walk up to six dogs so our insurance covers that. Our insurance trusts that’s a sensible amount of dogs to walk. As I've been out walking, we meet loads of people and people that have multiple dogs tend to have better trained dogs, because they have to be better trained, because you have to control more. Whereas, I walk the long, and I'll be walking my pack of dogs and generally in a quiet place, a person will come along and they've got one dog and they're on the phone, they're not paying attention, their dog’s running by you, terrorizing my dogs, poohing everywhere — it quickly descends into chaos.

CO: But are you possibly, not an exception, but do you think that if you're walking dogs that much you see how other dog owners are and you just mentioned some of the behavior. And so, I mean, do you think that maybe there should be some restrictions? I mean, you obviously know what you're doing, you’re conscientious, but people who have used parks and found the dogs just running around that no one seems to care that they're sniffing and bothering children or whatever, poohing everywhere. Don't you think that there should be some control?

AC: I agree that there should be restrictions in place. Restrictions like having a pooh bag on you, which is another thing that they wanted to bring in. Absolutely fine, because a responsible person will have one on them. And then the people that are irresponsible and aren’t going to pick up after their dogs will be punished for that. The same with having a dog on lead around children. I completely agree with that. All my dogs go and lead if I see a child. My problem is I feel like that's common sense, that people should do that anyway. That's why I feel that punishing the majority of people that I see that are so sensible and know how to look after the dogs and look after the other people around them.

CO: And that's what rules and laws are for aren't they? I mean, most people are conscientious, they know how to behave properly, but you have to have rules for people who don't. And so yeah it does become a collective effect because of that. I mean, I guess this what they're saying, especially with the pooh bags and the dog fouling, that the council is saying that's a huge problem. So how do you make people stoop and scoop, as they call it here?

AC: Yeah, well that's the thing. In my area I've walked here for four years, I walk four or five hours a day, and I have never, ever seen anyone of authority in the area. We have dog wardens, but there is no way of policing it in the first place, to keep an eye on people who are irresponsible. So I feel that they should maybe look into that more than just a blanket ban on something.

CO: There's a petition signed by nearly 2,000 people supporting your position. So what do you think is going to happen? Will the council go through this?

AC: I'm hoping that they overturn it. We've had an awful lot of media attention. We've got a protest happening on the Thursday — a peaceful one. We're going to bring our dogs. So I'm hoping that they overturn it and it goes back to the original plan of six.

CO: I hope it all works out for you Annabel, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

AB: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye, bye.

AC: Bye.

JD: Annabel Cookson is a dog walker in Lancashire, England. And that is where we reached her. What do you think of this idea of these new dog limits? Check out our web post on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Island Shuffle]

Artificial intelligence Mary Shelley

JD: You may have read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at some point, either with a flashlight under your chin by campfire or with a deadline over your head at university. Well, now Ms. Shelly — in name anyway — is responsible for a new kind of Frankenstein's monster — short stories stitched together by artificial intelligence. The AI horror writer named Shelley, which is @shelley_ai Twitter, is the ungodly creation of MIT researchers. With the poetic economy of Poe and the unpredictability of a clown in a sewer, Shelley uses knowledge gleaned from analyzing online horror stories to write and tweet its own. Among them this chilling tale quote, “It smiles. It is smiling now. I cannot see its mouth. It has no eyes at all. It has no mouth and no nose. It is smiling.” Terrifying. And here's another AI horror story, quote “She fell to the floor from her cries and muttered a soft “Come to meeeee.” In total there are eighty ‘e’s — terrifying. Shelley tweets a new fragment every hour and its creators encourage you to collaborate with it. You tweet the start of a story hashtag it is “your turn” and the bot will add its own eerie segment. I’m not sure what prompted this response but it really stands on its own. Quote “I turn around to see a shadow moving towards the door. I get up and walk towards it. I know what happens when something is watching me. “What is it?”I ask. “I don't know what you are. What is it that it's doing to me?” “No no no no no no.” In total there are fifty-three ‘no’s. Terrifying.

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October 31, 2017 episode transcript

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